A recent issue of Rolling Stone featured "The 50 Greatest Artists of All Time." Looking through it, nowhere did I find contemporary stars. The concept of "All Time" must be reserved for rock's innovators‹from Elvis and the Beatles to Springsteen and Bowie. The youngest of the "50 Greatest" list was Kurt Cobain and he's been dead for 10 years Why do you think that is?

The truth is, in about ten years, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will become a museum because it will run out of candidates to induct into its prestigious club. (I doubt the Hall of Fame founders ever thought about the end of rock and roll.) And I'm curious--what will happen to the Led Zeppelin backing music on Cadillac commercials when the Millennium Generation is in line for that middle-age American status symbol? Will it be 50 Cent, "Get Rich or Die Tryin', so you can buy an Escalade"? The baby boomers have already started to shop for Hybrids so that possibility may be just around the corner!

Even in Rolling Stone, which has to be progressive and youth-oriented to remain commercial, the pioneers of rock and roll are portrayed as having left such an indelible mark on their era that contemporary pop music appears to be nothing more than a stylized form of filler until something again emerges that can blow the doors off with rock attitude.

We have arrived at a crossroads. Pop music still remains a channel of expression for youth culture, but technology has unleashed a diverse number of options, all of which lack the mass charisma of old-style rock. For example, the trend of sample tracks and repetition is imaginative and clever (even though I don't much care for it), but seldom has music attained groundbreaking status in the way that the early rock innovators did. And to digress further, the music business has become more financially stringent and politically correct, which has naturally narrowed the freedom train of expression. It was the music that shaped the business--now the business shapes the music.

With soul and substance as the fundamental ingredient of rock and roll attitude, it is essentially timeless! This attitude pervades, and is practiced by, scores of unsung hero cases out there, whose stories are overlooked for far more interesting subjects like, Kelly Osbourne being admitted into drug rehabilitation at age 19 or Jennifer Anniston's sadness over of the last episode of Friends. The press, which sometimes really sucks, feeds us this crap instead of the inspirational, human-interest stories it seems to have trouble finding. Does this commercialized media hurt the minds of youth? Many of them admire shallow celebrities so much that they assume an egocentric feeling of right-to-privilege‹wanting things without having to work for them or respecting people who do so.

Similarly, in our industry magazines, we read about designers who land the most contemporary or prestigious gigs and manufacturers/vendors with big advertising budgets that serve the largest projects. Let's change thatŠ

I recently met a couple who embody rock-and-roll attitude and it was refreshing. As children of the early touring days of Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, and David Bowie, they are the epitome of marital substance and a rare example of what a grounded relationship can achieve. I interviewed Jan Michael and Miriam "Muffie" Alejandro at a deli-restaurant in midtown Los Angeles, near their company, Jan-Al Cases, (www.janalcase.com), a custom case manufacturer.

It was a challenge to talk through their 30 years of experience in a lunch hour; on the other hand, it was amusing, because of the respectful spousal battle that went on. My head was like a bobble doll, trying to keep track, sometimes listening to two versions of the same story at once. The purpose of the interview, however, was not to capture their history, but to learn about the attitude that comes from two people who experienced one of the most creative eras in rock and roll first-hand, that same period vindicated by Rolling Stone's "Top 50" list. It was, furthermore, a chance to discover an atypical phenomenon of which I was previously aware but did not recognize as a valid driving force in the backstage business of early rock touring--the role of a road wife.

There are two types of women who "hang out" backstage--one who is present only to show that she is cool by association and one who understands the mindset of roadwork. Muffie is the latter. Often dismissed as "that chick hanging out backstage," Muffie conveys a different image, from a mature perspective, using past reflections with a precise comprehension of how years of road events shaped the path of her life together with Jan.

Muffie and Jan were married in December 1976; interestingly, touring schedules forced them into a realization of life's realities and kept them together, unlike many couples, who broke up because of the rigors of the road. "You either have to be strong and allow experience to shape your attitude or succumb to emotional reaction," says Muffie. "If Jan hadn't left [to go on tour] when he did (March '77 with Iggy Pop), we might not have developed such a strong connection. I had to be tough and become a problem-solver instead of relying on someone else to do it for me. Road wives use their resources; they don't whine or ask for help."

Those resources that have translated into profitability for Jan-Al Cases, which has clients ranging from the Rolling Stones to NASA. Recent tours supplied by Jan-Al include Prince, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Madonna, Shania Twain, and Paul McCartney, among many others. Also, Jan-Al has recently opened new offices in San Diego and New York. The company's success is combination of touring experience (with some of the greatest rock artists) plus the friendships they nurtured along the way. "We try to configure our lives and careers after people who broke down the barriers," adds Muffie. "We grew up and worked in a unique period of music history and it's been especially influential with how we react to situations now." At least, if the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame becomes a Museum, I take comfort in the knowledge that the DJ-Sample-Track-Hip-Hop-Rap-Crap-Hall of Fame won't replace it.