Gene Simmons' "Rock School"

There should be a show where Gene Simmons is sedated so he doesn't get intimidated and defensive with intellectuals, where he just talks to Christo and Jeanne-Claude and lectures art school students about the importance of subjectivity in making art. Now THERE'S a moneymaker!

http://www.schoolofrock.com

This time, instead of having to create a band out of a bunch of obnxious stuck-up little tossers with plums in their mouths and pokers up their arses who attend some private classical music academy, who will ultimately open for Motorhead (like he did in the first series), Mr. Simmons is having to create a band out of a bunch of onbnoxious, undisciplined, educationally sub-normal losers with shit for brains from some dreary dead-end backwater (if there's anyone on here from Lowestoft I am truly, deeply, sorry!) comprehensive who will ultimately open for Judas Priest (iirc).

Most of the time I'm watching it I don't know whether to laugh or cry - which I suppose makes it good car-crash TV, although I'm not sure how well it would work for someone who's never been in a band.

Stew - the school in the first UK series was Christ's Hospital. It's not a classical music academy. It's a charitable foundation and boarding school which offers places regardless of ability to pay or social background. In fact, it preferentially takes pupils with a financial or social disadvantage, not posh kids. I know a bit about this as I had a tour of the school last year when my son's school played them at rugby. Btw - his school were offered rock school before Christ's Hospital, but turned it down!

I actually quite like the kids from Lowestoft, apart from little Charlie or whatever he's called. You know - the one who wants to be singer. The rest of them seem like decent kids, one or two have problems but what teenagers don't? Gene's refusal to decide on a line-up is the biggest problem.

"Gene's refusal to decide on a line-up is the biggest problem."

I reckon there's actually the potential for two different bands there but unofrtunately Mr. Simmons doesn't actually appear to be creating either of them.

The decision to take the band on tour with an alternative vocalist / guitarist and an alternative drummer is an act of such unmitigated stupidity borne out of desperation that it's worthy of Malcolm McLaren.

I reckon that Sammy, the drummer (the male one, who flies off the handle at the slightest provocation, has the attention span of an amnesic goldfish and doesn't appear to be capable of maintaining a consistent rythm / tempo for the duration of an entire song; as opposed to Lauren who looks as if she actually can play the drums, but unfortunately doesn't appear to have the stamina to do so for quite long enough to finish a whole song!) will probably end up playing for Splodgenessabounds.

On the first series I thought the only pompous little snot-bag was Dudders, the drummer. The singer was nuts, but not pompous, Bagpuss and the bassist (name?) were lovely. Actually Rodney, the manager was a bit of an arse, but he did at least try to get stuff done.

OTM. And particularly in the drummer's case, this is the absolute worst thing he could be doing.

Unfortunately this time Gene Simmons seems to be putting some absurd concept of how the outcome will reflect on his status as a rock legend above the welfare of his charges.

"On the first series I thought the only pompous little snot-bag was Dudders, the drummer. The singer was nuts, but not pompous, Bagpuss and the bassist (name?) were lovely. Actually Rodney, the manager was a bit of an arse, but he did at least try to get stuff done."

Personally I thought every single one of them would have benefitted from a good solid kicking, apart from the singer whom I would assume was probably already on the receiving end of quite enough regular kickings from his schoolmates.

Who's the picture of?

Little CHRIS - that's the name of the singer/guitarist from Lowestoft. Very manipulative that kid.

They aren't from backgrounds where they might be able to get away with the attitudes and mannerisms they've learned at that school so I figure reality's inevitably going to have to intervene eventually - and the longer they leave it the worse it's going to be.

If they carry on the way they are and live their entire childhood and adolescence in that safe, cosy little enclave, they're going to struggle to cope when they're finally confronted with the realities of the big bad world out there.

"Who's the picture of?"

I'd have thought you would have recognised Eater Doc.!

Picture taken at The Roxy in '77.

"Very manipulative that kid."

Indeed. A shame he doesn't channel more of his (genuine) abilities into identifying and pursuing some ambitions of his own, rather than always wanting what someone else has got.

Did you see his parents 'though? Hardly surprising....

I think the Christ's kids were a mixture - Dudders and Bagpuss were prob from well-off backgds, Camilla (bass) educated, but not well-off, the others, incl singer : ordinary.

I happen to think the girl singer has potential, and I haven't seen the charisma the boy singer supposedly has.

That in itself was fair enough.

The fact that the encore that their manager had been proposing that the supposed "group" would otherwise have played would have featured a different vocalist to the one who'd sung throughout the set (and who had thereby - theoretically at least - "earned" that encore) is just so fucked up in so many respects that I'm at a loss to know which aspect of it to tear to pieces first!

Coming soon to a thread near you: "The Class" vs. "No Coment" (I have got those band names right, haven't I?)

Anyroad, I wondered why in "Rock School" series one, they had chosen a "manager" who didn't seem to have much to do, until I saw that the movie had a fairly major part as one kid as a manager.

I assumed that the program makers had to involve the whole of one particular class in one capacity or another so that they could fit the activity in with the rest of the school timetable (and thereby maybe legitimise it either as a curricular activity or maybe even as some sort of psychological / sociological study?) rather than just having auditions that anyone at the school could attend, simply in order to recruit the best musicians to make a band, which would clearly have been the most sensible thing to do (and of course is precisely what they've had to resort to in series two in an attempt to find a tolerable drummer!) if the manufacturing of a band was the only object of the exercise....

Of course by deciding in advance which individuals from the school were going to be involved, they could also ensure a sufficiently "interesting" mix of characters to help to ensure that the program made interesting viewing.

If they'd simply held open auditions and ended up picking four individuals all of whom actually gave a fuck about rock music to begoin with; already knew how to play their instruments to a reasonable degree of competence; had some idea of how to work as a team and of the dynamics of playing music in a group; and were prepared to take the exercise and the opportunity reasonably seriously; you'd almost certainly have ended up with: (a) a much better band, and; (b) a piss-boring TV program.

(x-post to the esteeemed Doc.

I thought we'd all seen that type of show plenty of times already?

In a strange way that reminded me of the way we were taught about religion when I was at school....

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/ACrop.jpg

You mean, like this?

"I thought we'd all seen that type of show plenty of times already?"

And we'll keep seeing it because it's a killer formula, like r&b chicks in rap ballad choruses.

:-D

I don't know what I find funnier, Jack Black's over-the-top
ham & cheese stuff in that movie or the whimsically
disturbing picture of the midget KISS band...

HA HA !

Cruelty to midgets ! Midget KISS should be banned !!!

(notice some of the crowd... lol... snickering while
the midgets churn out the powahchords.... OUCH... how
dare they show disrespect to Mini-Gene)

Somehow 'though I think any thoughts that Gene Simmons may have had about fucking the rockist orthodoxy would automatically involve a substantial number of extremely nubile young ladies in an advanced state of undress....

(x-post to the Doc agaon)

I think I'm starting to see why Mr. Simons is so concerned with promoting "Little Chris"....

Has a ring to it?

Heh heh... I'd feel really guilty booing Midget KISS.

What if one of them got depressed and committed suicide
by jumping off a Marshall stack ?

Kids had an argue, Gene told them off, the gig was played, the band had decent sound for the first time, everyone cried, etc.

3 months later, the girls have started their own band, better for not having to come up to Gene's preconcieved idea of what makes for "rock and roll".

Oh, and Chris is shown in a 'studio in london' while some bloke says "It's a really big chance for him" in a didn't convice me kind of way...

Both singer and guitarist seemed to give much better performances when Gene was dragging them out of their comfort zones.

Ten years and Little Chris'll be in a band as famous, as ooh, A or Joyrider.

He'd probably have got an award from the NME.

The song the played was good - i've been playing the riff all week.

Next question!

OMG u r psychic