"When I first started playing in a band, before the Beatles, working bands played standards and they saved their rock material til the end of the night when they were really stretched out. It could be pretty lame"
About this Quote
Kramer is puncturing a nostalgic myth: that early rock was born fully formed, rebellious, and electrifying from the first downbeat. He remembers a working-band economy where survival meant pleasing a room, not changing the world. “Standards” aren’t just a repertoire choice; they’re a social contract with bartenders, wedding planners, and dancers. Rock, in that landscape, is the contraband you bring out only after you’ve earned enough goodwill - and enough whiskey.
The line “before the Beatles” is doing heavy cultural lifting. It marks a fault line where rock stops being a guilty encore and becomes the main event, a language with its own prestige and market power. Kramer’s point isn’t that standards were bad; it’s that the old format domesticated rock. Saving it “til the end of the night” turns what should feel urgent into a payoff, a release valve, a scheduled transgression.
“Really stretched out” reads like musician slang for loosened, tired, maybe a little sloppy - a reminder that rock’s early edge could arrive not as conviction but as fatigue. Then he lands the knife: “It could be pretty lame.” That casual bluntness rejects reverence and insists on the unglamorous truth of apprenticeship. The subtext is political in its own garage-band way: revolutions don’t always start with manifestos. Sometimes they start because the old gigging script was dull, and a new one finally made it possible to play loud without apologizing.
The line “before the Beatles” is doing heavy cultural lifting. It marks a fault line where rock stops being a guilty encore and becomes the main event, a language with its own prestige and market power. Kramer’s point isn’t that standards were bad; it’s that the old format domesticated rock. Saving it “til the end of the night” turns what should feel urgent into a payoff, a release valve, a scheduled transgression.
“Really stretched out” reads like musician slang for loosened, tired, maybe a little sloppy - a reminder that rock’s early edge could arrive not as conviction but as fatigue. Then he lands the knife: “It could be pretty lame.” That casual bluntness rejects reverence and insists on the unglamorous truth of apprenticeship. The subtext is political in its own garage-band way: revolutions don’t always start with manifestos. Sometimes they start because the old gigging script was dull, and a new one finally made it possible to play loud without apologizing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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