How bad can things be? The Rolling Stones, the Who, the Stooges, the Vanilla Fudge, New York Dolls, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts are all alive and well and touring?or soon will be. And the Kinks are talking. And the new Yardbirds have a great show. And Paul and Ringo are still active, separately, of course. Is this a great country or what? All right, I might be flashing back a bit, but that's a pretty healthy percentage of the bands that actually matter.

So let's let our imagination run for a minute. All we need now, when the Stones are done, is Ronnie Wood finding Ali McKenzie, Tony Munroe and Pete McDaniel and doing a few gigs with the Birds, Wood's fantastic first band that never came over. And they should record the album they never made. What most people don't realize is that Wood was a great guitar player in 1964. We didn't discover him until he played bass in the first Jeff Beck Group, which I still say should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just for reasons of historical accuracy. They were the link between Cream and Led Zeppelin and Nicky Hopkins, Micky Waller and Tony Scott all deserve to be in. After that Ronnie, Rod, Mac and Kenny should do a new Faces album and a tour. How huge would that be?

What else can we fantasize about? We tried to get the Sonics back together?had them in the same room, but it didn't work out. J. Geils Band must be hopeless if the Godfather, Frank Barsalona, couldn't put it back together. How about the Left Banke? Tragically underrated. Ted Nugent back with the Amboy Dukes? Bob Dylan back with the remaining Band members, and they do "Blonde on Blonde" live? Note for note? Yeah, sure. See you on the radio.