Rock of Ages

Outgoing Boston Globe rock critic Steve Morse pens an engrossing retrospective here.

Engrossing, I suppose, to people like me who watched Almost Famous and said "Damn, if only I had grown up in 1970, I could've done that". Unfortunately, I grew up in the 80's and 90's, and my parents pushed me towards typical suburban activities like Little League, swim team, and Hebrew school. On a side note, when I told them I wanted to play golf, they both wondered where they had gone wrong raising me, so in some twisted way, playing golf turned into a mild act of rebellion. Or something like that.

Anyway, Steve Morse followed his dream and thousands of concerts later, Bono showed up at his retirement party. I always liked how Morse seemed to go to every concert that came to Boston. There wasn't a band out there that he wouldn't see. He saw bands like Coldplay on their first US tour play the Paradise, a venue of about 500 people. He saw U2 every single time they played Boston. He went to both Woodstock '94 and '99. And once or twice a month he'd throw a review out there for a band you'd never heard of and would never hear from again. In other words, if there was music being played, there was a good chance he was there.

I think his greatest strength was that while he wasn't necessarily a fan of all the music he covered, he was a music fan. That allowed him to look critically at bands like Phish -- bands that were typically panned by "mainstream" media -- and judge them with an unbiased eye. Did they put on a good show? Yes. Were people into it? Yes. Were they his favorite band? Didn't matter.

You hear all the time about people who love their jobs. I don't really believe it, for the most part. I really like my job, sure. But there are times it feels like work. You know what I'm talking about.

Does this sound like work though?

I also fell hard for reggae, going to Jamaica a couple of times and interviewing reggae patriarch Bob Marley at the Essex House hotel in Manhattan. That was a chaotic experience. I arrived at 11 a.m. and couldn't find his room. I asked a cleaning attendant, and she said with a smile, "Just follow your nose." The scent of marijuana led me to a room where several members of Marley's entourage were sharing two king-size joints while kicking a soccer ball and bumping into a picture window overlooking Central Park. Marley sat on a couch, reading aloud from the Bible's Book of Revelation (with its "lion of the tribe of Judah" reference so important to Marley's Rastafarian religion). He ignored me and kept reading for about 10 minutes, until I finally dared to say, "Bob, I appreciate the reading, but the Globe sent me down to talk about your music." Suddenly, the soccer playing stopped. Everyone looked at me as though I had interrupted God himself. But after a moment, Marley said, "You're right, mon. Come over and let's talk." He closed the Bible and gave me his attention as we discussed his theme of world brotherhood. As soon as the interview was finished, the soccer playing resumed, the Bible was reopened, and I was ushered out the door.