Last Wave is what I call the coming emergence of the Baby Boomer generation, the greatest generation of Rock & Roll fans ever, back into the pop culture. New Wave in the early 1980s was the first major surge of Baby Boomers into Rock as musicians. There were a few who started in the Seventies, but not many, we’re by and large, a generation of late bloomers.
I remember in the late Seventies reading about what a disappointing generation we Baby Boomers were; how we were destined to be the first generation in American history to have LESS than our parents. Well, Baby Boomers created the home computer and created the largest percentage of millionaires and billionaires in the history of the world. When we finally got around to getting married, having families and “real” jobs we made the 1990s the most peaceful, successful and economically sound period in our lifetimes. We’ll do it... when we’re good and ready.
These days feel an awful lot like the late 1970s and awful is the key word here. We don’t have the horrible inflation, yet, thank God, but unemployment is rampant and for Baby Boomers, the papers I’ve read, say it’s never going to get any better. If you’re over 50 you can’t expect to get get a good job again. Now let me just state right here that every single time I’ve read some statement like that (see above paragraph) IT’S BEEN WRONG! But what does happen is this negative vibe makes people either just give up or decide to do whatever they always wanted to do. If we weren’t all out of work in the late Seventies New Wave and Punk Rock never would have happened. Elvis Costello, The Police, The Pretenders, The Cars, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Knack, Rush and many other acts of the late 70s and early 80s are my age, give or take a couple years. If things were better and we were all happily employed we never would have risked it all for the long shot of Rock and Roll stardom, but really we had nothing to lose. It was either get the old band back together or learn how to golf. With forced retirement staring so many of us in the face it's going to become a matter of getting the old band back together or just give up and die.
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