Dave Grohl will always be a huge name in rock and roll, despite the fact that Foo Fighters have had middling success in the past few years. Being part of Nirvana is something that’s a little bit difficult to shake — for better or worse. But one luxury afforded Dave is that his opinion on all thing rock and roll matter more than the average new kid on the block — even if that new kid on the block might be selling a few more records than Grohl at the moment.
Nonetheless, Dave recently made some comments about the gentrification of America’s up-and-coming cool cities — Austin, Texas — in his travelogue for HBO called Sonic Highways . He included the city partially because many of its live music performances have influenced him.
“I was 7 or 8 the first time I saw it. I was just learning how to play guitar and there weren’t too many shows like Austin City Limits back in the day. Here was a show that you could watch an entire live performance of a band – not just one song after Johnny Carson walks off the couch – in front of an intimate audience. Those experiences translate. When I was young, I was like, “Wow, that’s music! That’s how it’s done! Now it’s in my living room and it makes me want to do that too.” You watch these brilliant musicians ripping on that stage week after week and it could only inspire young musicians. Maybe that’s what it was for.”
Grohl went further into depth about what he touched on about Austin’s rapid growth in an interview with Rolling Stone .
“I think the message in the Austin episode is that we have to be careful that we don’t overlook the reasons why people are drawn to these cities. There’s something about Austin and its alternative culture that’s an oasis in the middle of this country that attracted people to it in the first place. The personality and the fingerprint of this city is unlike anywhere else. The preservation of that needs to be a priority because if you’re not careful, that could be wiped away and you’re just left with a strip mall.”
As many residents of neighborhoods that the lived in them “before they were cool” and more importantly, “before they were expensive,” Dave worries that cities like Austin will be overrun by money that commercializes the city.
“That’s happening all over the country. It’s also New York. It’s also Washington, D.C. There are so many cities that communities have shaped. It’s important for the community to fight to retain what they’ve built and not just let the money come in and erase it like a chalkboard. But it’s also inevitable [ laughs ]. My little HBO series might not make a dent, but at least I got my two cents in.”
What do you think of Dave Grohl’s comments about Austin, Texas?
[Image via Flickr]
