The Rock Bible

by Henry Owings

  68 If the top of your bass is shaped like the Loch Ness Monster, buy a less stupid-looking bass.

  69 The SVT is a completely inarguable piece of equipment.

  70 You can have either an active bass or a tube head—never both.

  71 Getting plectrums made with your own name on them is a must.

  72 Aim to be a good bassist and not a talented one.

  73 If you play bass in a rock band, you are not a musician. If you want to be a musician and play bass solos, go play jazz.

  74 Bass solos have never been a valid form of expression.

  75 Never refer to yourself as a “bassist.” That implies you are smart enough to handle the two extra strings and have had sex with people without diseases. Five words: You. Are. The. Bass. Player.

  76 If you’re going to play an upright bass during a show, you must play it through the entire show.

  77 A bass player can change a string during a show only if a string actually breaks. Even then, it’s debatable.

  78 No high-slung, goofy bass playing. There is a better way to cover your man boobs. Try a bra. If the body of your bass is rubbing against your collarbone, you accidentally took your little brother’s guitar strap.

  79 You’re probably the most musically educated person in the band. However, unless you’re also singing or your bass-playing style has you jumping across the stage, shut up and go stand by the drummer.

  80 Never wear a crooked baseball cap unless you’re compensating for a crooked head.

  1 AFTERSHOW: Reserved for ladies or acquaintances whom the band doesn’t want to see unless there’s a million other LIGs (Least Important Guests) around to deflect your inane questions about the recent tour, new album, last time the band played in town, set list, equipment, or online gossip.

  2 VIP: The band is obligated to give you a pass but doesn’t want to be trapped talking to you before the show.

  3 ALL ACCESS: You’re more than likely a drug dealer.

  4 WORKING PASS: You’re either a local slave who’s actually working, or your friend in the band forgot about you until the last minute. If you’re in Los Angeles or New York, this pass probably means that you’re really a band’s guest and they actually want to see you.

  N the third day, God said, “Let the drums, guitars, and bass guitars be gathered together in meaning, and let words appear.” And it was so. The words amalgamated with the melody to produce “vocals.” And there were vocals and there was a lead singer. And God saw that it was good, even though his new creation refused to carry any equipment. But vocals allowed bad poets to immortalize their insufferable rantings and gave an outlet to those too untalented to play an instrument. God saw that this was good because the more bad poets who had rock vocalizing as an outlet meant that fewer people would be driven to horrifying mediums like poetry jams and spoken word.

  1 If you sing in a band (even just back-up vocals), bring your own microphone on tour.

  2 Few singers are allowed to drape scarves on microphone stands. You are not one of them.

  3 No “custom-designed” mic stands made with coyote skulls or lamb femurs.

  4 Always use a round base for the mic stand, never a three-legged one. It may be heavier to pick up, but it’s much better to roll around with when drunk, and it’s a much better weapon for those more unappreciative audience members.

  5 Mic stands hold microphones and nothing else. Never bring your own road case. A microphone or harmonica can be carried in your pocket.

  6 The only excuse for using a megaphone on stage is if you’re a fire marshal.

  7 The number of times the mic cable is wrapped around one’s fist is directly proportionate to that person’s level of meatheadedness.

  8 Although your vocal coach showed you how to look cool onstage by grabbing the mic with both hands, reconsider that image.

  9 If you break the mic stand, you’ve bought the mic stand.

  10 Vocalists with British accents should be from Britain.

  11 Vocalists with southern accents should be from the South.

  12 Unless you had hot lava destroy your vocal cords as a child, your affected vocal stylings are completely intolerable.

  13 If you rely on a computer to make your vocals sound somewhat tolerable, you should give up singing. Now.

  14 Remember that your lyrics might be important to you, but they don’t mean anything to anybody else. All that matters is that they sound all right and that you look really good singing them.

  15 Unless you’ve won an actual Pulitzer, you can’t write your way out of a dog food commercial.

  16 Never have your lyrics ready before you go into the studio. Spend extra money on studio time trying to come up with clever rhymes.

  17 If you’re the sensitive singer/songwriter type, don’t throw in token curse words to prove how edgy you can be. Stick to the things you know, such as how you’re the most important person in the coffee shop because you’re holding the acoustic guitar.

  18 Unless the song ends with “deep in the heart of Texas,” don’t engage the audience in a clap-along.

  19 The word “indigo” has no place in rock lyrics.

  20 Any pop song with the word “fuck” in it is a worse song. Any punk song with the same word is a better song.

  21 Never rhyme “whiskey” with “miss me.”

  22 Never rhyme “sorrow” with “tomorrow.”

  23 Never rhyme “baby” with “maybe.”

  24 Never rhyme “fire” with “desire.”

  25 If you mention the specific year/model/make of an automobile in a song, the song must have either three chords or four-part harmonies.

  26 Do not refer to “going down,” “flying,” or “getting farther away” in your lyrics.

  27 References to “road,” “crossroad,” or just traveling in general should also be well reflected on before being committed to paper.

  28 A song about being on tour/being on the road/traveling is to a band what a joke about airplanes is to a comedian. It’s cheap, it’s lazy, and no one cares. If that’s the best you can do, maybe you should stay at home more.

  29 Writing littered with non-sequitur sentences in parentheses does not make you a literary genius. It just means you got a “B” in creative writing.

  30 Nobody is impressed with Charles Bukowski references in your lyrics. You, like every literate person, should have stopped reading Bukowski by age 20 … along with Burroughs, Kerouac, and, if you happen to be female, Sylvia Plath.

  31 Whatever your front-man aesthetic, someone did it better already. Probably in the ’70s.

  32 Remember, you are not these people: Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Brian Ferry, or Jim Morrison.

  33 Being a great vocalist with loads of stage charisma is incredibly hard to pull off. Chances are, you aren’t the person to do it.

  34 If you imitate another lead singer, then you’re most likely in a cover band.

  35 Not even the most outrageous front man should be allowed to play air guitar while the guitar player is playing a solo. Granted, that makes a lot more sense than playing air guitar during a drum solo.

  36 Never put anything thrown onstage in your mouth.

  37 Your willingness to climb on things does not make you a “good front man.” It makes you a “climber.”

  38 When you feel like stage-diving, first make sure the people in the front like your music enough to catch you.

  39 Everybody will know that when you shake up your freebie longneck beer and spray it on the crowd, it is a thinly veiled homosexual act.

  40 When you’re breaking into a slower song in the middle of your set, always sit on a stool. You’ll need something to hold up all that emotion.

  41 Don’t think about getting naked onstage unless you’re either totally in shape or totally obese.

  42 Never take off your shirt.

  43 You can spit into the crowd if the crowd spits first or if you’re feeling particularly misanthropic.

  44 If you absolutely want to sh
ow how predictable and not “out there” you really are, jump onto a table at your own risk.

  45 No fake blood unless you’re an old-school glam rocker turned golfer, or if it’s Halloween.

  46 Only lead singers can handle snakes.

  47 Unless you have an above-average stage presence, utilize props, or have a wacky haircut, don’t stride onto the stage like you’re doing the audience a big favor.

  48 Witty on-stage banter is intended only for witty people. If you’re a boring, unfunny mushmouth in your personal life, you’re not suddenly going to become a comedian when you walk on stage. Just shut up and sing.

  49 Don’t tell the audience how drunk you are. They’ll think you’re a prick.

  50 If you put your finger in your ear when you sing, it makes the audience think that even you don’t want to hear your music.

  51 Never go out into the audience to sing a song with an audience member unless you’re so annoyingly pompous that you feel the need to insincerely “connect.”

  52 There’s no way to overdo pointing. Practice in front of a mirror. Your confidence will skyrocket once you see how cool you look.

  53 No written lyrics on stage, by any means, but especially by teleprompter. If you’re too old to read or remember your own lyrics, book your next gig at a retirement home.

  54 Don’t encourage the audience to clap along to your music. Most of the audience members are probably other dudes in lousy bands and keep time like cheap wristwatches. Playing against such retarded, random hand slapping will destroy whatever song you’re trying to play. Plus, it just looks plain silly in a 200-capacity club.

  55 Don’t ever say “Hello, _______” to your hometown in the hopes that it will fool the crowd into thinking that you’re some cool band from a cool city. You might fool one person, but your friends know, and they already think you suck and are bitter that they were so bored they had to come pay $5 to watch you play the same stupid songs for the billionth time.

  56 Singers who tell the audience to “Give it up for yourselves!” should be attacked by hyenas.

  57 Never introduce your slow song as “one for the ladies out there.”

  58 Never introduce your slow song with “Right now, we’re gonna slow it down a little.”

  59 Using your time on stage to wax philosophical about politics, social justice, and how much better you are than your average audience member makes your live banter little more than a self-absorbed commercial. You should be ignored.

  60 Besides singing, saying “thank you,” and responding to heckles, you are by no means entitled to explain every forthcoming song to the audience as though they are autistic.

  61 There’s no need to say “thank you” after each and every song. Buck that trend.

  62 There’s no need to tell the audience the title of each and every song before you play it. Just hurry up and finish so that people can get back to talking.

  63 If you play an instrument and happen to be the lead singer, please, do us all a favor and play your instrument through the entire show. No song is so important that you need to put down the guitar. Trust me.

  64 Don’t waste your time during the big closer and introduce individual members of your band.

  65 Unless you have a stuttering problem, please refrain from saying your or the band’s name between every song.

  66 The “front man” of any given band should never complain about the soundman’s mix after the halfway-point of said band’s live set.

  67 Don’t ask the crowd if they’re “having a good time.”

  68 No patronizing thank-yous to all the bands on the bill just because they played. Inevitably, you’ll mispronounce one of the band’s names.

  69 No hot, skinny backup singers whose sole purpose is to be on-stage eye candy. Everybody knows it’s the fat backup singers whose microphones are actually turned on.

  70 No having a two-singer lineup where one sings and the other one either screams or raps.

  71 Women should never refer to the rest of their band as “my guys.”

  72 If you really hate the current political climate as you feel you’re supposed to, keep whatever announcements you have to something refreshing and cryptic, or at least self-loathing and ironic.

  73 There is nothing more obnoxious than forcing an audience that paid to see you to sing along with your vapid song. Remember, that’s your job.

  74 Lead singers should pump their fists into the air only during upbeat songs.

  75 You’re the one everyone expects will acquire a drug problem. Please make sure that you are actually talented before you do so.

  76 Your voice is an instrument. Practice it and take care of it. You don’t see drummers pouring beer all over their drum heads or using the kick drum as a bong, so don’t do the same thing with your vocal cords.

  77 It is artistic felony to have a lead singer who is more than twice the age of anybody else in the band.

  78 Your bandmates expect you to live out various sexual escapades so they can experience the rock life vicariously.

  79 “Singers” can sing. “Vocalists” can’t.

  80 Singers and vocalists are not “writers.”

  81 No one cares what you have to say.

  82 Having a microphone doesn’t make you the singer. It makes you the guy who fills in before they find the real singer.

  83 When in doubt, it’s most likely your fault.

  84 Your band (consisting of those people who actually play the instruments) hates you.

  85 Remember that you are simply a pale copy of the idea of a street preacher. Act accordingly.

  86 Don’t show up four hours late to band practice only to storm out because the band started without you.

  87 Always have enough peripheral vision so that you don’t get in the way of the real musicians.

  88 Think long and hard before using the term “front man.” Take the word apart and see how that sounds.

  *

  1 Shut up and play.

  2 Never tell the audience how many songs you have left to play. Although it’s considerate of you to give the audience a countdown of how much longer they’ll have to endure your horrible music, the fact is that no one really cares. Plus, you always lie. There’s always more than one song left.

  3 Don’t preface a new song by telling the crowd that it’s a new song. It’s presumptuous to think that everyone is familiar with your material. The chances are pretty good that, for most people in attendance, every song you play is a new song. If you’ve been around for at least 20 years, your new material sucks anyway.

  4 Don’t make inside jokes that will be understood only by those on stage at that moment. It’s the surest way to make the audience think you are as big a bonehead as you look.

  5 Never preach. “Concert” isn’t code for “church.”

  6 Never make more than one reference to the fact that you have records and shirts for sale. More than once makes you look greedy or like you have no short-term memory.

  7 Don’t try to speak when another member of the band is tuning an instrument or has started a song. If you must say anything at all, wait until it’s completely quiet on stage; otherwise, you might as well be speaking Swahili.

  8 Thank the opening bands no more than once. Thank the band that’s letting you open for them no more than once. Don’t thank the nightclub or promoter from the stage at all. Don’t thank the audience more than twice. The reason is that, even if you’re the sincerest person ever to walk the face of the earth, it will still look like you’re sucking up.

  9 Never attempt to match wits with hecklers. If someone is heckling you, it’s probably because you’ve broken all these rules and have pissed everyone off. The best way to deal with hecklers is to drown them out with your music. That’s what the amps are for, slappy.

  10 Shut up and play.

  To make things easier for erstwhile activists, clowns, and businesspeople out there, photocopy and tape these commandments to the front of every monitor in the land. T
he penalty for a first offense will be no sound checks for a week. Second offense: All of your drink tickets will be donated to charity. Third and final offense: Your rock license will be permanently revoked and you will have to busk for change in subway stations for the rest of your days.

  * Shellac is exempt from these commandments, as they are the only band in the history of rock that’s more entertaining on stage when they’re not playing music.

  N the fourth day, God said, “Let the vocals, drums, and guitars produce a need for more layers of all variety according to various sounds and textures.” And it was so. The foundation created keyboards, strings, horns, and a cowbell, bearing even more variations according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good—possibly self-indulgent, but for the most part good. And there was the foundation and there were overdubs and then there was the obvious fact that God had made another mistake, since keyboards, 99 percent of the time, exponentially remove the “rock” aspect of rock and add a level to rock music that can only be described as “gay.”

  1 No keyboards without full-sized keys. Smaller keys are only for Christmas morning, when your parents think a mini keyboard will be your gateway to becoming an accomplished musician.

  2 Before you blow next semester’s textbook funds on that sweet keyboard you found online, understand the subtle difference between “filling out” and “ruining” a band’s sound.

  3 No spinning keyboard contraptions.

  4 The “keytar” is a waste of plastic utilized by vapid darkwave/’80s rehash bands to assign a nudge-nudge, hardy-har-har sense of irony.

  5 Getting “really into it” on a digital keyboard is akin to breaking a windshield with a wiffle ball bat. All your effort is wasted on a flimsy piece of plastic, and you look like a complete fool to the entire crowd.