Just when you start to think it’s really and truly dead, along comes something to renew your hope in the everlasting glory of ass-kicking epic balls-to-the-wall rock and roll. In this case, it ain’t some new fucking band out of England, Brooklyn or Montreal. It’s two cats who’ve been around for over a decade, two cats that most rock purists would never acknowledge as being rock and rollers. Well, fuck that. These performances by Eminem and Lil Wayne on tonight’s SNL are as punk and hardass as anything I’ve heard since The Clash, The Pistols and Bad Brains.

There’s a passion here that recalls the urgency, anger and intensity of ‘London Calling’ and ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’.  This is what Vernon Reid and The Black Rock Coalition had in mind 25 years ago.

Yeah, it’s a little slick. Yeah, they’re millionaires. I don’t give a shit. The ENERGY is there. As Lester Bangs said, “rock ‘n’ roll is an attitude, it’s not a musical form of a strict sort.”  Strictly speaking, this is rock and roll.