by Henry Owings
68 If you’re hospitable enough to have a band stay at your house, don’t do so thinking it will just be one big booze-soaked, drug-addled party. You’re only saving the band the expense of a hotel room. Let them sleep.
69 A hot meal will win the hearts of a band on tour more than almost anything. Additionally, if you want said band to listen to your demo, consider baking it into something.
70 Fans that dress like the band are just asking to be pummeled. If you want to be in the band that badly, you might as well bring your gear to the show and play along from the audience.
71 No waiting to get an autograph for more than half an hour (although even that seems a bit too long). The band is either getting high or already back at the hotel.
72 If you ask a crew member for a guitar pick or set list, it’s best to listen to the first answer you get. Any subsequent requests will be met with an increasing insult and chance of removal from the venue.
73 Showing up at a show three hours early to get a primo space in front of the stage is reaffirming to all those around you that you don’t have a life.
74 Only bands that are older than the average record store employee are allowed to be discussed as having “seminal work.”
75 Carrying an amplifier does not grant you “with the band” status.
76 If you can name your favorite band with one answer, you’re not a fan. You’re in a cult.
77 Don’t attempt to reveal how much of a guitar nerd you are by showing how interested you are in the guitar player’s pedals.
78 Don’t assume you’re a friend to the band. Unless you set proper boundaries, the band will eventually turn against you.
79 It’s not just creepy if you love a band enough to camp out alongside their bus for an entire afternoon. It’s really creepy.
80 Shut up about the fact that you used to be in a band.
81 Colored vinyl never sounds better. In fact, white vinyl is so poor that the record might as well be pressed into cotton candy.
82 When asked what kind of music you enjoy, it’s not acceptable to reply that you like all kinds of music.
83 You found that copy of [insert band name here] CD in the bargain bin for a reason. Don’t use nostalgia to cover up the fact that you have lousy taste in music.
84 Never ask how many records somebody owns.
85 Never refer to the amount of music you own in “bytes” or “gigs.”
86 Don’t impress people with how obscure or enormous your record collection is. Ultimately, it isn’t either.
87 Don’t just tell friends about your favorite band’s album; give them your copy. Now you have an excuse to buy another good album.
88 Someone who collects “white label” advance-copy records is always a white kid who listens exclusively to black music who should also be forced to drink multiple bottles of Wite-Out.
89 Stop filming the band with your cell phone while they’re on stage. The fidelity and picture will be utterly substandard. Try enjoying the moment for once.
90 Just because your phone has a camera doesn’t mean you need to use it repeatedly during the show. Nobody needs to reminisce immediately. Taking dozens of low-quality snapshots only serves to draw attention to the fact that you’re into being a low-budget journalist instead of someone who paid to enjoy a performance.
91 Every artist lacking artistic talent is a photographer. They’re trendy and the easiest to find in a crowd.
92 When interviewing a band, let the musician talk. Don’t let it be a platform for you to impress them or, worse yet, impress those for whom the interview is intended.
93 Don’t ever use the adjectives “swirling” or “effervescent” unless talking about a toilet and a soda drink, respectively.
94 If, as a writer, the best you’ve got is “it sounds like band X crossed with band Y,” you’re not a writer. You’re a cliché.
95 Just because you wrote a review for a local publication doesn’t mean you automatically get into the band’s show for free.
96 Critics who say that a band sounds like “[another band] on [a drug]” must have done the drug in question. It’s a simple question of credibility.
97 The term “seminal” for the purposes of rock criticism is completely obsolete.
98 If you write a music review like it’s a recipe, you’re not a writer. You’re a chef.
99 Your “great” work will always be forgotten once the next issue is out.
100 Music editors are not frustrated musicians; they are fans who have cleverly figured out how to get free records.
101 Music writers aren’t just failed musicians; they’re also failed writers.
102 Music journalists who identify themselves as being from any publication must immediately follow it up by saying, “and you don’t owe me anything.”
103 Under no circumstances should you ever do a record cover (or any work) for a hippie band. No self-respecting musicians will ever hire you after that. (Actually, no one with any self-respect, not just musicians).
104 No design gets better with some old 1950s picture of some unexplained person on it. This is a cop-out and an admission that you just couldn’t think of anything else to do. Leave it blank or, better yet, hire a professional.
105 Never let somebody in the band design the band’s artwork.
106 The amount you’ll get paid for a project is inversely proportional to how rewarding the project actually is.
107 Just because you’re working for a cool label doesn’t mean you won’t be ripped off. As is often the case, their swank offices are paid for through the art of ripping people off.
108 If your clever band T-shirt concept is to steal the logo of a famous band, pick a great logo from a great band.
109 It’s never wise to presume that a band and their label will agree on the simple concept that you’ll get paid for your work.
110 It’s best to assume that you’ll never get paid, never get thanked, and never get credited.
111 Don’t put anything other than the band’s name on their stickers. It’s all useless information that nobody cares about.
112 Don’t let bands talk you into being their design slave. If they already have the record designed in their heads, you’ll end up with something you won’t want to put in your portfolio. It won’t reflect your style or sensibility, and in the long run it’ll hurt your career.
113 You should always be open to band’s ideas and suggestions. After all, they are artists and creative people, too. Just be sure not to let them take control of what should be your own design.
114 If you don’t want to design posters, don’t put posters in your portfolio.
115 If you’re a promoter, don’t give the band some full-color copies of a poster you designed like it’s some big deal. You’re a failed designer and everybody knows it.
116 Promoting shows can be done by any shallow, money-grubbing clown with a passing knowledge of contemporary music. It’s why most choose this vapid profession in the first place.
117 Behind publicists, promoters are the most loathed and least thanked or trusted people in the music industry.
118 Do not assume that the “girl with the band” asking about drink tickets or the guarantee is “just a band member’s girlfriend.” She may be in the band, and may even be the one who actually started the band and booked the show.
119 If the posters weren’t screen-printed, they’re worthless.
And lo, there came upon the land a music critic, who so loved and protected the new, and the unsung, that for them to be sung, even by the lowest pressgangs and whisperers on the Earth, would cause him to scorn and loathe that which he once elevated.
And yea his sickness grew in him till he could no longer bear even the dimmest light of recognition of praise to warm the brows of those who toiled in the darkness. And see him now—a gibbering, stubble-chinned half-a-man, communicating to the three subscribers of his podcast, shouting to the ether his credo, “And it is at the moment a band constr
ucts the bare skeleton of a memorable melody that I am OVER THEM.”
And he is forever in love with disgust.
ND so the great rock prophet did set out to glimpse the yielding of his precious countenance through many a wise oracle of forgotten rock recordings and failed attempts at stardom and saw maddening disinterest in his plight to save the world of rock from utter folly. Neither the meat-headed banger nor the methodical noodler saw fit to heed the admissions of those gone before them and many a false prophet and warner-monger did usher in the very end of rock. And, yea, the prophet beheld the ten heralds of the Arockalypse and with narrow vision did name these beasts and foretold their wrath:
Originally designed as a random sentence generator, the SXCMJ3000 eventually found use by certain evil forces and false prophets as a device for randomly generating rock lyrics, rock songs, and rock band names. Through a series of free downloadable updates, the computer began to “learn” how to book bands on a national tour, sign bands and make money off them, and, in the end, magically discover how to invent them wholly and charge them with an amazing energy called “buzz” in a fashion identical to the humans it replaced. This would confuse the masses of rock bands who believed that anyone could be a rock star because the creations of the machine seemed to come out of nowhere and, although they were no different than all the other bands, they seemed to get more attention than a juggling vagina act from YouTuberius.
Thought at one time to be an oracle of great wonder and promise, the false idol did quickly show his true nature to the rock prophet when his music video of the week with fourteen million hits was a SXCMJ computation misusing a running machine as a gay Busby Berkeley jungle gym.
The prophet saw a teeming wasteland of bands alphabetized, numbered, and categorized by such meaningless tags as postcore, grindjazz, and Christian slamwave. The simple slaves were given to the constant invitation of friend and fellowship to the unknown and disinterested masses, paying exorbitant prices for the machinery with which to ask this easily self-answered question to as many as one thousand people in a single day and, yea, verily even to annoy those parties dumb enough to take council by postering their site with flyers for shows that may not even be in the same country and videos of the last dorm room they practiced in. This yawning chasm of useless information so clouded the vision of rocker near and far that their plight would end in them sending the same friend request to one thousand bands a day and having 240,000 friends and absolutely no fans whatsoever.
And verily as the prophet did stumble away from the Myspacebook of Oblivion did he find himself staring into the eyes of the great Pitchforkagon, a massive bloated animal with a seemingly nice head but a tongue of many forks that did battle with many a decent but not brilliant rock band, taking their money and spirit for advertising and free mp3s and leaving their dying corpse on a pile of names on the side of the page for three months before striking it from the record forever. Some rockers whose fight was bold were relegated to tales not longer than a paragraph on one of the links under the heading “Features.” The false prophets the Pitchforkagon confessed as brilliant were actually computations from the mighty SXCMJ3000.
In the great time of vinyl, a young lover of rock would go to market at the local record store, where each new discovery could mean certain wonder or a saddening waste of hard-earned cash. This trade, however, made the value of the good recording quite high, and those records known to be good were anticipated with much unrest and in high esteem. Making these recordings was laborious and costly and only those who were convinced they were worthy would bother to pony up without major label money or a trust fund. In later times, the information super highway led to a new market where recordings made on a whim might be bought and sold without leaving the dank of one’s own lair. What came from this new market of trinket sounds was a gaping maw of home-produced tool knock-offs that would ultimately make finding a gem almost as impossible as finding a drummer in L.A. without a coke habit who will practice for free.
Further down the path of this highway sat a new and more promising market where one might find the same joy that once was had in the presence of an unopened 7-inch. The prophet did settle into it and see its merits as a path of righteousness but was soon pissed at his friends’ very inability to properly label their stupid ripped mp3s properly just one time! I mean how fucking hard is it to simply put a disc in the drive and WRITE DOWN all the info if you’re gonna share the damned thing? What the hell is 01 Track 01 01 01_ _ .mp3? Some obscure Rush reference?
After his dismissal from the council of those stupid geeks and their clicky little P2P group on Planet Sensitive, the prophet did find himself at the steps of a blindingly lit edifice. Once inside, his eyes were treated to a feast of beautiful works of sonic majestry, and their prices were so reasonable as to mock their very makers, enslaved in far-off countries and fed little more than dirt and hair. He reached for one of these fine instruments to soothe his soul from the slough of despond he’d been figuratively cast into by those fucking nancies on that bitchy little bright-eyes forum. At once he was met with an intricately illustrated guitarist bejewelled by nostril, ear, and eyebrow. The guitarist had flames licking from the bottom of his flash robe and a pair of dice emblazoned on the breast. His nameplate read “Larry.” His beard was knit into a small strand of rope. “Shall I play for you?” he asked. “If you can beat me at solo-off, I’ll throw in a bag of picks and a PowerRammer 25 for only $10 on an already marked-down $675. This mama screams and creams, trust me.”
In the age of the arena-rock concert, many became disenchanted with the idea of seeing what might be a famous band but might also be a speck of dung on an unwashed toilet seat perform half of the band’s canon, badly and out of order. Lo, even the enormous TV screen projected what the specks of dung were doing on the distant stage was well nigh lame and not worth the $50 price of admission. Soon, acts of note began to play to fewer than five thousand people all sitting twenty-five seats away from one another and four hundred on the floor stoned and drunk and bored by the cheap light show. This unearthed the first great dragon, the Lollapaloot, and she was beheld as a beautiful creature, like her ancestor born of the summer of love, the Woodstach, as she held many possibilities and was cool and free and not nearly as big of a downer as her big sister, LiveAidathan. Several years did she live, roaming the country and parading her beauty for all to see at astonishing cost. She begat many offspring that would beckon the youthful with promises of visions, merriment, funnel cakes, and blonde bombshell lipstick lesbian hippie chicks that shave their pits, have group sex, and listen to radio alternarock instead of the doddering banjo witchcraft that actual hippies listen to. The Bonarroot and the Coachellavan were eventually plopped out of her vast pissflaps after getting pinned and mounted by the Horned Readingberry on a summer trip to England.
In an earlier time, the scrolls were handed down from elder to younger for guidance and knowledge. Their passages were great in length, their coverage vast and various, and their “best of” lists were annual. As time went on, the scrolls became shorter and less varied, and their lists unnumbered such as to make an issue of the Chunkleteer appear to be straight prose. Indeed, not only did the scrolls begin to suck, but such was their place in rock history an institution and tantamount to rock law that ALL rock criticism was, by millennium’s end, reduced to the likes of eighteen full-color double-truck pictures and only three paragraphs spread across six pages.
And there the prophet sat at the very end of what could possibly be described as “Rock, bruh” and gazed into the abyss that was the Arockalpyse. The great podcast from SXCMJ3000’s very own streaming HDvideo site XMTVChannel of Reality Rock Gameshow Concerts. As the moronic offspring of all of the worst ideas to break a band and somehow give it “buzz,” a new “user-controlled” podcast-video contest that pits bands stupid enough to pay an arbitrary entry fee against videos uploaded from tivo dating no later than 1982 and no longer than 45 seconds.
DAG LUTHER GOOCH
For so God had man for fodder with which to screw around; however, this pathetic, mortal creation is the inevitable social failure know as “the band.” It is at such “bands” that this book is directed. Thus, we give thanks to the begotten who have forsaken our commandments and subsequently begat new ones. Here are some of the notable ill-gotten gains of our cosmic loins who have generously fed grist to our sanctified mill. May God have mercy on their souls.
The “5” Royales, The 101’ers, A Certain Ratio, Abba, AC/DC, Acid Mothers Temple, Bruce Adams, Hasil Adkins, Lou Adler, The Adolescents, The Adverts, Agent Orange, Steve Albini, GG Allin, Alternative TV, Angelic Upstarts, Angry Samoans, The Angry Samoans, Antiseen, The Apples (in Stereo), Archers of Loaf, Don Arden, Mark Arm, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Neil Aspinall, Chet Atkins, The Avengers, David Axelrod, Albert Ayler, The B-52’s, Burt Bacharach, Bad Brains, Badfinger, Ed Bahlman, Lester Bangs, Syd Barrett, Bathory, Bauhaus, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, The Beatles, Jorge Ben, Benjamin, Claude “Kickboy Face” Bessy, Jello Biafra, Big Boys, Big John, Big Star, Birthday Party, Black Flag, Black Randy and the Metrosquad, Black Sabbath, Art Blakey, Blowfly, Blue Cheer, Marc Bolan, John Bonham, Booker T. and the MG’s, Sonic Boom, Boredoms, Boris, Born Against, David Bowie (up until ’78), Joe Boyd, The Boys, John Brannon, Bread, James Brown, Lenny Bruce, Bill Bruford, Lindsey Buckingham, Jeff Buckley, Tim Buckley, R.L. Burnside, Buzzcocks, Cabaret Voltaire, John Cage, Cab Calloway, Can, Captain Beefheart, Captain Beyond, Carcass, Walter and Wendy Carlos, James Carr, Dylan Carson, Laura Carter, Mother Maybelle Carter, Neko Case, Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, Celtic Frost, James Chance, Art Chantry, Rhys Chatham, Cheap Trick, Leonard and Phil Chess, Chic, Billy Childish, Alex Chilton, Cheetah Chrome, Gene Clark, The Clash, The Clean, Cockney Rejects, Nik Cohn, Ornette Coleman, Mick Collins, Conflict Magazine, Ry Cooder, Julian Cope, Stewart Copeland, Elvis Costello, Count Grishnackh, country music before and after ’55, Cows, The Cramps, Crass, Dave Crider, Crime, Aleister Crowley, The Crucifucks, Chuck D., D.O.A., The Damned, Dangerhouse Records, Glenn Danzig, Davey Jones with the King Bees, Dead Boys, Dead Kennedys, Claude Debussy, Deep Purple, Devo, Dickies, Didjits, Ronnie James Dio, Dion, DJ Kool Herc, D.O.A., Dog Faced Hermans, Don Caballero, Lee Dorsey, Dow Jones and the Industrials, Tom Dowd, Dr. John, Nick Drake, Tomata du Plenty, Marcel Duchamp, Ian Dury, Bob Dylan, E.L.O., Steve Earle, Earth Wind and Fire, Eater, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Electric Eels, Elf Power, Brian Eno, Brian Epstein, Roky Erickson, ESG, Esquivel, Mal Evans, Yatmatsuka Eye, The Faces, Jad Fair, Marianne Faithful, Farina, Richard and Mimi, Fear, Feederz, The Feelies, Danny Fields, Larry “Wildman” Fischer, Flatt & Scruggs, Flipper, Brigitte Fontaine, Richmond Fontaine, Kim Fowley, The Free Design, Robert Fripp, Bill Frisell, Fugazi, The Fugs, Serge Gainsbourg, Galaxie 500, Gang of Four, The Gap Band, Marvin Gaye, Generation X, Genesis, Germs, João Gilberto, Greg Ginn, Michael Gira, The Gizmos, Vic Goddard, Albert Goldman, Bill Graham, Rob Gretton, The Gun Club, Woody Guthrie, Lance Hahn, Hanatarash, Herbie Hancock, Kathleen Hanna, Hanoi Rocks, Grant Hart, Harvey Milk, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Hawkwind, Tom Hazelmyer, Lee Hazelwood, Richard Hell, Helmet, Jimi Hendrix, Pierre Henry, heroin (the drug, not the band), Paul Hewson, Hipgnosis, Robyn Hitchcock, Barry Hogan, Buddy Holly, Peter Holsapple, Josh Homme, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Son House, Mike Hudson, Humble Pie, Mississippi John Hurt, Hüsker Dü, Iggy and The Stooges, Il Duce, Iron Maiden, The Jam, Jandek, Joan Jett, Penn Jillette, Jobriath, Robert Johnson, Daniel Johnston, John Paul Jones, Louis Jordan, Journey, Joy Division, Judas Priest, John Kalodner, Andy Kaufman, Sonny Kay, Nick Kent, Tim Kerr, Killing Joke, Lemmy Kilmister, King Crimson (pre-Adrian Belew & Tony Levin), Don Kirshner, Klaatu, Allen Klein, Kraftwerk, Fela Kuti, Kit Lambert, Leadbelly, Led Zeppelin, John Lennon, Ted Leo, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jerry Lewis, Liquid Liquid, Little Richard, Von Lmo, Alan Lomax, Lord Buckley, The Louvin Brothers, Love, Lucifer (the entity, not the band), Lydia Lunch, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, John Lydon, Jeff Lyne, Loretta Lynn, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Shane MacGowan, Ian MacKaye, Uncle Dave Macon, Magazine, Jeff Mangum, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Johnny Marr, Sir George Martin, J Mascis, John Mayall, Curtis Mayfield, Mayhem, The MC5, Alan McGee, Blind Willie McTell, MDC, Meat Puppets, The Meatmen, Joe Meek, Mekons, Melvins, Metal Urbain, The Meters, Minor Threat, Minutemen, Miracle Legion, Mission of Burma, Joni Mitchell, Mogwai, The Monks, Bill Monroe, Keith Moon, Slim Moon, Moondog, Ennio Morricone, Keith Morris, Morrissey, Mark Mothersbaugh, Mudhoney, Brendan Mullen, The Mummies, The Music Machine, My Bloody Valentine, Napalm Death, Nardwuar the Human Serviette, The Nation of Ulysses, Necros, Negative Approach, Fred Neil, Neon Boys, Michael Nesmith, Neu!, Neurosis, New Bomb Turks, New York Dolls, Nico, Harry Nilsson, Nirvana, Jack Nitzsche, Klaus Nomi, Laura Nyro, The O’Jays, The Obsessed, Phil Ochs, Andrew Loog Oldham, Pauline Oliveros, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Only Ones, Operation Ivy, Genesis P. Orridge, Os Mutantes, Ozzy Osbourne, Shuggie Otis, Wendy O’Williams, Ian Paice, Soo Young Park, Colonel Tom Parker, Gram Parsons, Charley Patton, Pavement, Neil Peart, David Peel, John Peel, Ralph Peer, Pere Ubu, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Oscar Peterson, P-Funk, John Phillips, Pink Floyd (pre-The Wall), The Pixies, Poison Idea, Robert Pollard, Peter Prescott, Billy Preston, Joe Preston, The Pretenders, Prince, Prince Paul, Richard Pryor, Punk Magazine, Pylon, Queen, Radio Birdman, Ramones, Ramrod, Otis Redding, Lou Reed, Steve Reich, Terry Reid, John Reis, The Replacements, Rezillos, Buddy Rich, The Rich Kids, Jonathan Richman, Terry Riley, Rites of Spring, Rocket From The Tombs, Jimmie Rodgers, Wayne Rogers, Pen Rollings, Henry Rollins, Dexter Romweber, The Ronnettes, Mick Ronson, Nino Rota, Roxy Music, Todd Rundgren, Rush, Corey Rusk, Jay Ryan, Greg Sage, Buffy Sainte-Marie, The Saints, Sky Saxon, Vin Scelsa, Lalo Schifrin, Bon Scott, Gil Scott-Heron, Sebadoh, Kevin Seconds, Tony Secunda, Pete Seeger, Sham 69, Greg Shaw, Kevin Shields, Shonen Knife, Gene Simmons, Nina Simone, Simply Saucer, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Slash Magazine, Slayer, Sleep, The Slits, The Small Faces, Bessie Smith, Fred “Sonic” Smith, Harry Smith, Jimmy Smith, Mark E. Smith, Patti Smith, Soft Boys, The Soft Machine, Sonic Youth, The Sonics, Spacemen 3, Otis Spann, Sparks, Phil Spector, Skip Spence, Jon Spencer, Bruce Springsteen, Owsley Stanley, Gertrude Stein, Bill Stevenson, Jim Stewart, Stiff Little Fingers, Sly Stone, Joe Strummer, Poly Styrene, Subway Sect, Suicide, Sun Ra, Superchunk, Stu Sutcliffe, Swans, Swell Maps, Tar, Cecil Taylor, Television, Joe Tex, Thin Lizzy, This Heat, Dave Thomas, Richard Thompson, Chris Thomson, Big Mamma Thornton, Keith Matthew Thornton, Tiny Tim, The Troggs, Ike Turner, Jeff Tweedy, UK Subs, Uriah Heep, Van Halen, Don Van Vliet, Townes Van Zandt, The Velvet Underground, The Ventures, Void, Jon Von, Klaus Voorman, Porter Wagoner, Tom Waits, Scott Walker, Wall of Voodoo, Bill Ward, Muddy Waters, Doc Watson, Jimmy Webb, Ween, The Weirdos, Jann Wenner, Bob Weston, Bukka White, The Who, Whodini, Hank Williams, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Jackie Wilson, Robert Wilson, Tony Wilson, Wire, Howlin’ Wolf, Stevie Wonder, Link Wray, Robert Wyatt, X, XTC, Yo La Tengo, Young Marble Giants, Neil Young, David Yow, Frank Zappa, Thalia Zedek, Zero Boys, Zombies and ZZ Top.
