ISSUE 5
MUSIC
Dad Rock:
By Dads, About Dads, For Dads By Reece Skelley (he/him)
Dad rock has always been a derogatory term. I’ve hurled it more than my fair share of times at artsy-fartsy, fluffy, and stuffy, crusty old guys playing the pentatonic scale for decades on end. And yet, behind cliché hides warmth; behind the flock of stereotypical white-haired Gibson crusaders lies an under-appreciated - and underutilised - level of artistic merit. So, I’m here to appropriate the term and push the boundaries of what dad rock can be by reviewing albums that I believe embrace different fundamental pillars of the term. It’s by dads, about dads, for dads, for sure - but that shouldn’t stop the music being for us as well. In fact, one day it has to be for us. We should at least get to choose what it is. Hopefully, these three albums give you a head start.
By Dads Aeon Station - Observatory When all that you know / or believe to be true / goes wrong / hold on Observatory feels like a lecture from my dad. Not a judging lecture like “cut your hair and get a job” (although I did hear that a lot), but a motivational lecture; the world will kick you down, and not all your plans will bear fruit, but giving up is not the answer. It’s all the more potent coming from a 50-ish-year-old Kevin Whelan who hadn’t released an album in almost 20 years - that album being one of my favourites of all time, 2003’s The Meadowlands. Observatory also took a decade in and of itself - no matter how long the music gestated and aged alongside Whelan, its sentiment still rings true. Observatory is also emotionally diverse in spite of how minimalist its structure is. ‘Hold On’ appropriately opens the album with a piano-led lullaby. On the other end of the spectrum, raucous rock anthems like ‘Fade’ and ‘Better Love’ soar to the stratosphere with nothing more than passionate power chords and Whelan belting notes as far as his vocal range can take him. Ultimately, Whelan’s story embodies the reality of being a modern musician - and personally, the kind of musician I expect to be. Not just in the superficial similarities, like playing righthanded guitars upside down. Aeon Station, like The Wrens before them, embraces perseverance; working the 9-5 day job and using the little time you have at the end of the day to nurture your artistic calling, bit by bit. Essential dad rock needs to be by dads. In the right hands, it allows them to impart their wisdom and experience towards a generation that struggles to be heard. We live in a wild-west cowboy frontier where video game companies own Bandcamp and local bands are lucky to hit double-digits at Whammy bar. Who wouldn’t want a guiding hand?
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