Rock is periodically pronounced dead by clear rock critics - killed by world music, or by hip-hop, or electronica, or the Backstreet Boys. But if you wait a year, it comes back to life.

It's easy enough to foist your music collection on your kids. Lectures are not required; you just play the stuff while they are prisoner in the back seat on a long drive, or softly in the background while eating dinner.

I guess, for me, what started me getting real excited about music was the New York punk and new-wave scene. All those bands looked back to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers as well. But that was back when Television were punk, and the Talking Heads were punk.

Once you hit 40, being in a band - a committee voting constantly on what you're going to be doing next month - it's more of a challenge. And when you have a kid as well.