dumb songs, dumber people

David Kamp and Steven Daly wrote this book that I picked up at Book Soup yesterday. It's called The Rock Snob's Dictionary.

It's really fucking funny. It perfectly encapsulates the entire music geek phenomenon in 150 pages. Much like Ambrose Bierce's legendary Devil's Dictionary, it's completely satirical and yet spot-on with its targets.

Here's a sample definition from Kamp and Daly's book:


Crowley, Aleister. Suave gentleman Satanist (1975-1947) who stands second only to Charles Manson as the mascot of choice for danger-craving bad-boy rockers. From the early twentieth century until his death, Crowley quilled messianic tracts about "magick", a crepuscular practice that, though it held little entertainment value, proved seductive to impressionable rockers like The Beatles, who included Crowley's face on the cover of Sgt. Pepper, and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, who purchased Crowley's old estate in Scotland and is the world's premier [sic] collector of Crowley memorabilia. Crowley's rock acolytes haven't been deterred, and may indeed be encouraged, by scholarly suggestions that his dabbling in the black arts were really a clever front for a libertine kink 'n' coke lifestyle.


Funny stuff. And like any self-respecting/alternately self-loathing rock nerd out there, I am familiar with at least 75% of the definitions listed; the remaining 25% is all stuff that I've heard of but haven't actually listened to...

But then again, while I may be a rock nerd, I have discovered that I'm not a rock snob. Reading this book made me realize that I embrace too many embarrassing genres and mainstream acts to technically qualify as a bona fide Rock Snob.

Sure, I can hang with the Snob Literati and hold conversations with them and possibly even revel in a few snobbish tangents, but I'm not snobby about rock music. How can ANYONE be snobby about rock music?

It's rock music. There is no measure of taste. You can split hairs and show the contrast between a group like The Stooges and a group like Boston, but at the end of the day both bands are rock groups, and that's that. So the singer of one of those groups has a huge set of balls and a penchant for self-mutilation: big whup. Iggy Pop, as great as he is, would probably even tell you himself that it's only rock and roll.

I have the mental trivia reservoir and acerbic point-of-view of a Rock Snob, I suppose, but I am more welcoming of middle-of-the-road acts and time-tested oldies than my peers. Not everything has to be avant-garde cutting-edge with me; sometimes I like dumb songs sung by even dumber people.

I mean, have you actually listened to some of the bands I've played bass for in the past three years? If you have, then that's all the proof I need to demonstrate how un-snobbish I am regarding music. A true Rock Snob could never join the kinds of groups I've joined; I would go so far to wager that the majority of Rock Snobs either cannot play an instrument or sing, or would be too afraid of derision should they actually have the guts to commit to a band.

Musicians have these needless phobias about the bands they are in: Are we cool enough? Do we have what it takes to make it?

My buddy The Wolf Man was like that. He didn't want to be in this group I asked him to play in because he thought it was mediocre and bland. Fair enough-- he had a point, the songs aren't Bacharach or even Cobain for that matter... but did Wolfie have anything that was better?

No, of course not. SO now he is working on it, which is good. At least he is doing something about it, instead of crowing about how un-hip the world is.

People can say what they want about me and my bands, the things I do and the hobbies I keep. I don't give three and a half shits. I do what I want, and what I want is clearly defined at all times.

I want to be creative, above all.

It's no surprise that I use my overwhelming facility for liner notes recall and band line-up indexing less to impress and more to smite the snobs when they are talking loudly about what is cool and why this is cooler and why that is the coolest. I know they are full of shit. I have nothing to prove to them.

Therefore, taking the piss out of them seems like a public service to all those who dance the Macarena and think that Natalie Imbruglia wrote that hit song "Torn".

Seriously, though: is dressing up like Roz from Christian Death any less lame than buying Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart" single? In my book, no. In my book, they are equally lame and not for snobby reasons but simply because they are both examples of people shutting their minds off, and not in the name of good old fashioned fun but in the pursuit of hipper-than-thou sainthood.

But then again, this is not my book. It's Kamp and Daly's book. And it's downright hysterical.