Pearls of Wisdom from Dave Grohl

Dave came out of the DC hardcore punk scene. What punk was back in the day before Nirvana and mainstream alternative music, was an anti-corporate arty original vibrant and energetic music. Bands like the Minutemen couldn't be classified as just punk or be classified at all. Dave's old band Scream combined metal and classic rock in to their punk rock mix. These bands were original and had their own sound. Idol to me is finding a good voice and "molding" them into a mainstream pop act. Even people like Crystal Bowersox and Bo Bice had bad power ballads on their post Idol albums, then got dropped, went indie and sounded like themselves again.

I think that is what he is talking about. Daughtry, David Cook and such. Band guys leaving their bands and going on Idol to make a name for themselves, and then doing mainstream rock. Music to me should be an open canvas. You paint your colors, not just what hues other tell you to be. "Britney is pink, so uh, be pink..." Or worse, you just copy what is already popular and reap the easy rewards.
 
Plus we all know what it was like to be young. We all had crappy beginner axes and drums and made one hell of a noise. But in that we got better, tighter and developed a unique sound. Our noise became music. Maybe a unique genre of music was formed. Imagine if Black Sabbath had remained a blues cover band? Rush decided to go "power pop"?
 
I think his keynote address at SXSW was more of what he's talking about here. Toward the end of that speech, after demonstrating that all you need to get started making your own songs is a a couple super cheap cassette recorders, a guitar and an IDEA, he explained that in the end, it's all about the inspired idea, developing it, recording it, and using it; and it's about "finding your own voice". He went on to rhetorically ask if he was the best drummer in the world ("not even close") or the best song-writer ("not even in this room"), and despite that he's not anywhere near the best at anything, he said that what worked for him was finding his voice in music; an identity of his own that was a reflection of his tastes and everything he held sacred about music.

I think he's pointing out that if you're getting wrapped around the 'Idol' axle, you're in a competition of chops in any number of bland and cliche forms that has absolutely nothing to do with chasing your muse and finding your own unique voice. It isn't even art.

That's a point I wholeheartedly agree with. I've known far too many players in my years of playing that were so consumed with getting "good" (in the technical sense) that they never took the time to develop their own tastes or follow their own musical instincts. Most of them don't even play anymore.

I'm a sucker for awesome technique and can stomach some pretty bad music for the sake of the good players playing it (I admit it: I love listening to Dave Weckl, but mostly just the stuff that sounds like one big Weather Report rip-off! The elevator stuff, not so much). Speaking only for myself, I've found this middle area where I still get wrapped around technique axles, but only insofar as I can use it in the music I'm playing. I don't learn technique for its own sake in the hopes that someday it'll come in handy (like at a drum competition, for example! ;-)

Nicely said Mike

When I first played with a band in a garage all those years ago, we didn't suck, we were the best band ever. Our first song "It's Clean And Fresh At Sainsburys" was the best song anyone had ever written. We were immense! We were so good I later went out and bought a snare drum to go with my bass drum and hi hat.

I think its easy to lose sight of the fact that making music is a journey, an adventure. I remember an interview with some young lad in a boy band (name escapes me as they all blend into one), he said that he wanted to make it big in the "music industry". Talk about missing the point!

I had the time of my life playing in bands and writing music, and that has never left me. I wonder which industry that boy band singer is hoping to make it big in now?
 
But it is clean and fresh at Sainsburys!

haha, unlike us members of Screaming Fish who were about as unclean a bunch of spotty teenagers you could ever wish to meet. We changed our name after the first gig and dropped "Its Cleand And Fresh At Sainsburys", on second thoughts we decided it was a rubbish song. But you should have heard the song that followed...!
 
If I start a band then that is going to be the name of the first song. Sorry but it's just too good to pass up.

Naturally, you will get no credit or kickbacks...

I knew we should have taped it and then sent it to ourselves via Royal Mail to stop unscrupulous music hijackers of the future stealing it once they realise it's true artistic value and potential. Still, there are plenty more where that came from, including "Uncle Wally's Dead".
 
I dunno, I don't think a budding young drummer or guitar player confuses a TV singing contest with being a musician. Today's youth is pretty cycnical about that stuff, and hopeful players don't have any illusions about TV being the path to a career. They know all about jamming and making recordings and posting them on Soundcloud and YouTube. A singer is a different matter, but they still need players, and/or someone with a computer, and the internet.

Bermuda

I would say that is fairly accurate; he has been on this mini crusade ever since he bought the old mixing board and then made a movie about it. He comes across as too hip for shoes but he is no slouch in the self promotion craft.
 
"Biggest band in the world", gee, doesn't think much of himself does he? The grunge movement, like rock and roll originally, found an audience with the disaffected. There were the big arena bands that were more about showmanship and very highly produced pop music (although now we revere the grooves that Gadd, Pocaro, Mason & company laid down), so if you wanted to be an "individual" with the other contrarian individuals, Nirvana was it. A lucky hodge-podge of folks with enough raw talent to overcome their backwards thinking and other foibles (well, some of them) to find an audience for their adolescent angst.

But hardly the biggest band in the world beyond a musical history nano-second amongst a fringe audience.

Concentrating on music is a great thing. There is more to music than just technique or theory. But neither is music the absence or repudiation of those things.
 
. How many people remember Idol winners, and how many actually have a career other than Kelly Clarkson though? Just my two cents.

Let's see... Wasnt there some cutie named Carrie something or other a few years back?

Chris Daughtry has done pretty well for himself and so has Constantine Maroulis. Jennifer Hudson, too.
 
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