Disparaged and battered, rock lives on

``Rock is dead, Rock is dead/
Long live rock.''

IT'S hard to believe that three decades after the Who's Pete Townshend wrote those words, they have turned out to be more prophecy than parody.

Despite numerous setbacks and more apparent deaths than a vampire, rock has limped on into middle age. ...

For a while it seemed as if the idea of a few guys (and admittedly too few gals) picking up guitars, raging at the sky and making what Bob Marley called ``rebel music'' -- music for the pure revolutionary joy of it -- was as dead as the vinyl record.

But then, every so often, something rears up, usually out of some club scene somewhere, and it sounds so pure, so fresh, so familiar.

I've heard it a few times recently, and it's fired me up: once from a working-class English club band, born in Southport, outside Liverpool; the other from two Silicon Valley bands that did a recent club show that was so good you couldn't help but think the whole world should be hearing this. ...

Brighter days

Is the new millennium ready for them? If it is, I see brighter days ahead.

The same goes for Your Precious You, an atmospheric, mature band that would be a great opening act for the Cure and has roots back in early English psychedelia.

``I was influenced by druggies, but I didn't do the drugs. I liked the music,'' says frontman Patrick Stull, 32. ``I love that psychedelic moment when you are playing guitar and you're flying around and you go, `I'm here!'''

Yes, they've already got a light and multimedia show. They show slides and films that came with a projector purchased on Ebay.

The trio (and sometimes quartet) includes Kevin Cole, 26, who has the melodic dynamism and improvisational range of Yes bassist Chris Squire, though he doesn't know who that is.

He prefers more avant-garde players, including Bill Laswell, and when he brings that into more traditional rock, it raises the music up a level.

This is a band that is intelligent in an era when dumb brings in the bucks. And they know it but won't compromise.

``This area's known for cover bands and dumb bands,'' says Stull. ``Even San Francisco is flooded with wannabes. Playing up there is no satisfaction, either. You have to go out of state to be recognized.''

I'm feeling more optimistic in this year of the zeros.

Not only have the Smashing Pumpkins and the Cure brought intense live jams back to clubs, but the fact that these new young bands are willing to rock tells me there may be some life left in the old beast yet.