I'M A ROCKER

If you can believe it - kids in the 80s & early 90s still asked each other if they were Mods or Rockers - not that either were that popular in the states & there were a lot more relevant & current music cults to get into - but it was still a thing. As Americans I don't think anyone knew or cared about Mods & Rockers who wasn't some boot polishing Anglophile - but here we are today in 2017 & I'm A Rocker.

While we hopefully have enough sense & real stuff to do to avoid Mods VS. Rockers nonsense - I noticed how a certain saturation of Mods & Skinheads (Hard Mods) in a scene causes a shift towards a general bank teller & bank guard type mentality with plenty of water cooler gossip & concern over sock colors - whereas an overwhelming number of Rockers gives a scene a feeling of a Barbarian Horde sharing the spoils of war. As you might imagine, I never wanted to work at a bank & really don't like it when bars & clubs start to feel like that - so I start to feel some concern when there are too many scooters & hairstyles about.

As we move further & further away from the English subcultures & we restructure this thing called Rock&Roll - being a Rocker has changed - but in most ways it has stayed completely the same, the tent is just must larger now, especially as Rock&Roll isn't the dominant American music anymore, so we gotta get as many of us as we can into this thing. Because of the Big Tent nature of Rock&Roll today, we end up rubbing elbows with a lot of people with expectations that might not match up with the Let It All Hang Out nature of Rockers - they might think that they're going into something more approaching the bank teller's Sunday social, it is not the case.

We're okay with most anything - as long as it doesn't stop us from having fun! It's an attitude that is antithetical to today's control-freak, anti-social society - it's too warm - it's too human - but it's the way we are - in denim, leather, studs, chains, patches, boots, Iron Crosses & skulls.

- Sean Äaberg

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