The last Sunday in August found me at the home of one of my childhood friends to enjoy a BBQ with a small group of people whom I also had known for a long time. In total, there were seven of us sitting around the outside patio table the whole night, reminiscing, eating, and drinking through a total of over 200 years of personal friendship.
Even though there was light music playing in the background, our conversations didn’t become musical until several hours in.
The topic? What is everyone’s favourite Led Zeppelin album? It was the only time we talked about music. Considering their recent documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin, I understood how this question rose to the surface and after all, Zeppelin is one of the greatest bands of all time.
The conundrum that began to seep into me is that three of my friends, including my oldest friend, had all purchased a copy of my book Sonic Seducer.
I didn’t want them talking about the book, but I was hoping that this romantic mooring so many people have to the music of their youth could be, at least for one night, loosened up.
It didn’t.
It then hit me how near impossible it is for so many people around my age (61) to attach the joy of music to anything but the nostalgic warmth of their youth. It’s like they have cocooned themselves with their zenith of collecting and listening to music, unwilling–consciously or not–to not “tamper” with the memories of that time.
And, if you haven’t heard any new music in decades, which requires the investment of time, the doors to potentially experiencing the same discovery thrills of one’s youth must seem to be forever closed.
There seems to be some Shakespearean irony here. The idea that we are sold the idea that the magic of music pierces us the hardest when it intersects our high school years and, it just will never get better than that.
The Boomers definitely drank that Kool-Aid, and not far behind were the Gen Xers, who were spoiled rotten in the late ’80s/early ’90s with such a wide variety of dominant sounds: alternative, grunge, Metal, hip-hop, house, rave, drum and bass, and more.
George Strombolopolous, an influential media figure and a great storyteller, summed up the beautiful currency of the early 90’s like nobody else has.
However, early on, Strombopoulos laments about growing older through the lens of Coachella, a festival where he is having a harder time recognising artists. I bookmarked that comment. To use Coachella as a metric of music coolness was a bit of a foul ball, especially for someone who has such a great slugging percentage with having the pulse on the full impact of his generation.
But Strombolopolus is just a younger iteration of the Eddie Trunks, Rick Beatos, and others who proclaim the land of rock ‘n’ roll is basically all discovered and the “Mount Rushmore” of the greatest bands and artists draws from smugly from pop culture magazines like Rolling Stone or Revolver.
The sad truth of the matter is that all these personalities are driven by their own ego, not even caring if the musical world they are auditing daily is one massive echo chamber of musical opinions and stories that rarely go past their youth.
In my book Sonic Seducer, the quote below appears early in the book. “Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is.
And you must bend to its power or live a lie.”Miyamoto Musashi
So many people, especially music journalists, have unintentionally subscribed to this quote by this Japanese swordsman. As such, their musical credibility is in question.
They are not interested in bending. They need to protect their “expertise” at all costs. In 2025, they feel they are still the early adopters of all things rock ‘n’ roll, when in fact they are laggards.
They never kept up. And, in this day and age of information, there is no excuse for not seeing the global phenomenon that is the stoner rock/heavy psych/doom scene, which all came, ironically, from the same generation of bands that Led Zeppelin came out of.
This is the greatest era of rock ‘n’ roll since the dawning of the Age of Bowie (’68 to ’72).
Every great artist and album that came out of that period has been a critical source of inspiration for one band or another in this scene. The Allman Brothers Band, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Grand Funk Railroad, Blue Cheer, ZZ Top, Hawkwind, etc., are all points of influence and reverence.
And of course, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are two of the most important bands shaping the sound and culture of a scene that just seems to be ripping at the seams every year.
In the video for Monolord’s (Sweden) Empress Rising, which was the title of the last chapter of my book, obvious visual references are made to Led Zeppelin (and Blue Öyster Cult).
Every generation of stoner rock over the last 30 years has prominence in 2025.
Whether it’s Fu Manchu, Dozer, and The Hellacopters from the ’90s or Black Rainbows, Elder, and King Buffalo, the generation after, or the new wave of artists like High Desert Queen, Blue Heron, and Shadow of Jupiter, the scene is stocked to the teeth with killer bands.
As I read back that list, it feels so woefully incomplete, as there are over 100 bands I could have listed there.
Sweden alone has been a massive source of bands for the scene.
However, it’s not just the classic rock artists from the ’60s and ’70s that have been sources of musical inspiration for the global community of stoner/doom bands. As you would suspect, the following generations of hard rock/Metal that came after have come into play for some of these current bands.
The NWOBHM is a pillar. Judas Priest is revered. Lemmy and Motörhead are understandable prerequisites to be in a genre that embodies and celebrates musical freedom, anything from jazz/blues influences to straight-out Metal.
The ’90s alternative/Seattle scene is also a cornerstone of influence, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains especially.
And every band out there right now owes much to the ’90s spawning of Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu, and Sleep.
The bands from over 50 years ago were amazing, but they had only a tiny pool of musical influences, blues and The Beatles. Today, that tiny pool has become a robust river that flows with a creative velocity that is impossible to keep up with.
I wrote a whole book about the scene, and even I have thrown in the towel to try to listen to all the stellar stoner/psych/doom that is manifesting in this river of musical riches. Riches which reach back to every key generational moment in rock music.
However, I would much rather be “falling behind” than being ahead of something on life support.
Recently, I watched a short video on why time seems to move faster as we get older. Generally speaking, it was about how much “newness” was afforded in our childhood and how, as we get older, there becomes a certain predictability to our lives–a dreaded “sameness”.
I am definitely in the Fall years of my life. I am enjoying listening to music more now than at any other period in my life, including my youth.
To be eternally curious about something is a way to cheat ageing. And, for me, and for so many others, having that insatiable curiosity for the continuing history of rock ‘n’ roll in subterranean spaces is what makes life so fuckin’ beautiful.
True freedom comes from being emancipated from societal norms and falsehoods.
Rock ‘n’ roll isn’t dead. It never was. You died, and you wanted to take rock ‘n’ roll to the grave as well. It said “fuck off and fuck you”. And, just like the flood of great music, you chose not to listen.
Well, listen to this. This is Domkraft from Sweden. Easily one of my favourite bands from this century. They craft a rolling heaviness that is unnerving and unrelenting, yet beautifully soothing and life-affirming. “The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence; the past is a place of learning, not a place of living.”Roy T. Bennett
Sonic Seducer is out now. For more details, visit ripplemusic.bigcartel.com.
