Everyone knows that once-hunks like David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen aren't looking so good these days, but they've had years and years of hard living and are, by my estimates, approaching 70 years of age. But just for the record, let's see how they're looking:
Diamond Dave before & after
Eddie before & after
Yikes! That after photo of Eddie is especially creepy. Not even Keith Richards looks that far gone. A friend compared him to Rafiki from The Lion King, some sort of wizened old shaman who has seen visions of the land beyond and has come back from the experience scarred and otherworldy.
Anyhow, I expect hard living rockers to look haggard in the present day but what about the indie rock kids?
I saw this picture of David Berman of the Silver Jews recently and wondered what happened to him. So all of a sudden he's wearing women's sunglasses from the 70's and not bathing properly? Maybe touring is what does it to you since Silver Jews never really toured prior to 2005 and up until then he looked relatively decent. A year or two on the road is all it takes to pummel the looks out of someone. Check out some more examples:
Gene Ween
John Darnielle
Peter Buck
Maybe it has nothing to do with touring. It's not like the young punks in Be Your Own Pet are looking grizzled and old beyond their years due to a few short years of playing tiny clubs, eating shitty food and living out of a van. It's most likely just due to the fact that these people are getting older, as we all are, and it can be pretty shocking to compare old photos to new. The aging process is so gradual that you don't even notice it as it's happening but putting photos taken a decade or more apart next to each other can provide surprising and none too flattering results for almost everyone, excluding of course indie rock's perennial golden boy:
6 comments:
For the record, love of Matlock is not inexplicable. Hot dogs, seersucker suits, the occasional car chase...
evan dando still looks great.
hasn't eddie van halen been sick?
dave berman was a crack addict for a bit a few years ago and tried to kill himself in 2005, i believe.
Yeah, yeah he was on crack and attempted suicide but Evan Dando also was addicted to crack but somehow passed through to the other side relatively unscathed. And yes, Eddie was also sick but I think some of it was alcohol or drug related. I'm not saying they don't all have their reasons for looking bad, I just wanted to point out how shocked I was at some of the recent photos I had seen.
And for those who don't think the John Darnielle photo is creepy, click on it so you can see it full size.
good point on dando. and yes, darnielle, kind of creeps me out these days.
Part of what creeps us out about rock types getting old is that rock has and will always be about the triumph of youth over old age. So much of music is about defining the generations, so much of it is about the now now now, "hope I die before I get old" and all that. So when we see the emblems of youth get old, it's disconcerting to say the least. Does this mean that we ourselves are getting old? Closer to death?
The only exceptions are artists for whom being an elder seems to be part of their appeal -- a la Tom Waits, Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Huey Lewis -- guys who seemed to be old even when they were young.
i would pay someone to remove that image of Peter Buck from my memory banks. also, i think Eddie and Diamond Dave look pretty similar in those "now" pics. kinda creepy.
it would be great to find a "now" photo of some schlubby guy like Franklin Bruno looking rugged and handsome.
also, can someone use some software to show us what Janis Joplin would look like today if she had lived?
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