Why There Needs to Be a Real (Grad) School of Rock

The Atlantic ^ | October 1, 2012 | Benjamin Nugent

[C19fan]

There is nothing quite like being a young rock musician walking into a good recording studio for the first time, with a record contract in your backpack, surveying the machinery. The towers of digital and analog sound-effect consoles, with their glowing gauges and blinking lights, they're here for you—paid for by the label, available to you because you cut a basement demo that made people see dollar signs. Over the hum of the amplifiers you can almost hear the whir of the industry, the interns flirting, the promotion person on the phone with the terrestrial radio person, the booking agent negotiating with club managers in far-flung college towns. It's an apparatus built to make money but also to bring your songs to teenagers and twentysomethings who are like you, who scour the Internet and the Staff Picks rack for new music that will illuminate the sublime in desperate crushes and everyday despair.

.....................................................

What my band needed was an Iowa Writers' Workshops for rock musicians, a Master of Fine Arts program at a university where respected veterans helped us learn to write good songs and perform them well. Such programs would establish a much-needed period of germination beyond the reach of commerce, in which young rock musicians could meet, form bands, and build a repertoire slowly, receiving feedback from seasoned rock musicians who don't have a pecuniary stake in their work. Such programs would cultivate good popular music by placing young musicians in an environment where aesthetic integrity is valued and financial strife held at bay.

[21twelve]

Thanks for the link.

“with a record contract in your backpack”

I pretty much stopped reading right there - do they do that anymore?

RUSH came out with a new album this year and it is GREAT rock and roll. They adapted too to the new technology and way of doing things. Released a couple of songs for download a year or more ago while on another tour, finished the album, released another song for download, and then came out with the final album.

[Neidermeyer]

He’s coming to Tampa! Nov 11th ...

[Neidermeyer]

Autotune? If you need autotune to sing well, take up the drums.
***********************************************
Drummers die too soon! I’m with you on the autotune ,, but it IS everywhere now ... my kids watch Disney and every “star” they’re grooming is auto-tuned half to death because Disney can’t take a chance on a 7 year old being able to sing at 14 .. they have to be SURE...

[discostu]

There’s lots of great music being made. The difference between then and now is that the forms have been solidified. Back in the Beatles days the whole field was experimental, so all music, including popular music, was experimental. Now the popular forms are structured, so you don’t hear experimental music much in the “popular” areas. You need to go find experimental/ original music. But it’s still there, plenty of it. Start your search with Nick Cave, A3, Young Dubs, and Foo Fighters; all these guys are making music better than the Beatles with every album.

[Fiji Hill]

The School of Rock and Roll--Gene Summers, 1958

[a fool in paradise]

First thing anyone proclaiming to play rock and roll should do is to identify their influences. If none of them are older than 1995 then they might want to dig a little deeper into RESEARCH of their influences' influences before they become even more derivative of the industry/label sounds without an understanding of what made it work as a song in the first place.

Next use the money you'd spend on a "rock" degree to buy a van and tour independent bars playing with different bands in each city. Trade gigs with some of them when they come to your town. You'll learn more about music (and the life) that way than you would in any classroom.

[Fiji Hill]

Want to learn to appreciate rock and roll? The Bay Bops tell you how to Follow the Rock. The lyrics contain references to at least 21 popular songs.

Follow the Rock--The Bay Bops (1958)

[Fiji Hill]

All you need is HEART and talent ... Janis Joplin had HEART ,,, Patty Smith has HEART ,, Iggy Pop has HEART ,,, Jim Morrison had HEART...

...and the Four Aces had HEART.

[Revolting cat!]

I’d bet the perfessors in a Rock school would be like the perfessors in a Writer school, failed artistes who never made a record but know everything about how to go about it. Keep in mind that Keith Richard made it in the first band he joined and in something like 6 months, while others took years and lots of road work.

[a fool in paradise]

I went to rock and roll college.

[Revolting cat!]

All you need, Johnny, is play the guitar like a-ringin’ the bell! Then, you can go, go, and be good...

Brent Mason, wrote a FReeper who knew him once, nearly gave up before he traveled to Nashville for one last chance. Today he is at the very top of the Nashville studio players.

[a fool in paradise]

Here was the crowd that turned out to see them speak when they were told by school officials they couldn't hold an indoor concert for students.

[a fool in paradise]

From there, things tend to get more complicated. In the case of the band I was in during my mid-20s, we quickly figured out that we didn't have anywhere near enough time to lay down a good debut album in the recording schedule afforded us, especially given the greenness of our line-up and material.

Record the single first and the album once you've connected with some audience.

Bill Haley and the Comets were already familiar with the studio (going back to Bill's Saddlemen days) but when they went into the studio to record their biggest hit, they were late to the studio and then handed the lyrics and music to the A-side they were to record first (13 Women) which someone (the producer or manager) owned publishing on.

They had just enough time to record 2 takes of Rock Around The Clock which were then married together and put out to market.

Learn your songs and THEN commit them to tape/DAT/etc.

Saw a documentary on fuzz pedals where some modern "star" was angry that his fuzz pedal blew out during a solo he'd spent 2 weeks recording. TWO WEEKS on the solo and then because the replacement pedal (same manufacturer) didn't sound the same it was all "wasted". You'll never play it that way again anyway, so why fret it? Save it for the live show and roll tape.

[a fool in paradise]

This documentary is worth the investment of time (and money if you buy it).

I've been informed to “skip” the first episode as all the material is covered in the subsequent episodes.

It's on DVD, sometimes the full episodes area also on youtube.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Need_Is_Love:_The_Story_of_Popular_Music

For the shortcut, watch the episodes on country/blues/rock&roll, but all are recommended even though it tends to ramble a bit more without course in the later episodes, missed out on punk, ended before the 1980s and has had no followup production. Also some of the talking heads are asses but there is no narration so that determination is left up to the viewers.

[Revolting cat!]

So I hafta post Charlie Gillett again? I'm gonna complain, where is my Obamaphone?

[a fool in paradise]

Robbie Robertson might choose to ride out the rest of his years on a tour bus, but I wonder if he might be persuaded to rest his cowboy boots on a seminar table and tell a circle of 24-year-olds how he wrote "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down may be fine song writing but it neither rocks nor rolls. It ain't rock and roll and that is part of the reason we are in the boat we are today musically.

Entrance quiz for the grad school of rock is to list 5 bands inducted in the rock and roll hall of fame that are not rock and roll bands.

[a fool in paradise]

Who would attempt to understand the culture of urban African-Americans in the 1990s without listening to hip-hop?

Not at all necessary for a "school of rock" and certainly not essential for understanding black culture in the 1990s. Study up on racist community organizers rather than what Hollywood and MTV were pushing on "the community".

The Rodney King riots. Victimhood as a badge of honor. Ebonics as a government of Clintoon recognized language...

[a fool in paradise]

Who would attempt to understand the culture of urban African-Americans in the 1990s without listening to hip-hop?

Not at all necessary for a "school of rock" and certainly not essential for understanding black culture in the 1990s. Study up on racist community organizers rather than what Hollywood and MTV were pushing on "the community".

The Rodney King riots. Victimhood as a badge of honor. Ebonics as a government of Clintoon recognized language...

[Revolting cat!]

King Mob, a great Brit rock’n’roll combo (vids on the Youtube) broke up after one album due to lack of success!

[Revolting cat!]

You’re right, pop is not rock and roll. Essentially, according to my theory of music there are three distinct branches of American popular music: country and folk, blues (really part of the above), and city - vaudeville, burlesque, operetta. The last category is essentially rootless, or rooted in salons and cabarets, nothing too deep. See Barbra’s, Robert Goulet’s repertoires.