Rock Enroll!
First, a couple of academic annotations: Zanella (formerly Prunella) has an accent over the second “a” in the band’s name, something we can’t figure out how to do on this keyboard. It’s important to Zanell-ehh anyhow; after getting denied the rights to their previous name in a nearly legal throwdown with a band in Canada, they’re not taking any chances, and are also considering an umlaut over the “e.”
Shantung, along with Red Stammel, who oversees the Bullfinch BandFinder series, took offense with our astonishment that the band, which has been around for years, would be part of what has been advertised as a “New Band Nite.” You can find a detailed Letter to the Editor printed about this in another Note-able publication, but their argument essentially boils down to “they’re new to SOMEBODY.” Oh, and they have a new bassist. Who doesn’t? …
Perhaps you can tell it’s a slow news day. Time, then, to dig our teeth into one of those ongoing local-band stories that never ends: the “Rock Course of Study” at Occlusal Community College.
We have heard four of the supposedly umpteen bands which have emerged from this program: The Pathogens, Space Maintainer, TMJ and Midline. Of these, only The Pathogens seem destined for anything other than Thursday College Nite gigs at Hamilton’s. They have two songs already that would make for a great, timeless, seven-inch. But we suspect that the quality of these tunes—the monster ballad “Maxilla” and the exhilaratingly sickening screed “Cross Contamination”—has nothing to do with book learning or with the lectures of Prof. Caries and Crown, who oversee the program. Nah, it’s all about the studio. In case you’re wondering, completing the “Rock Course of Study” gets you no course credit, no degree, not even a certificate which might get you a job sweeping up a real studio. But it does—for a fee they can’t honestly call “tuition”—gets you access to a rehearsal room and equipment which, while not exactly state of the art, is at least as functional as any other affordable studio in town. Oh, plus you get to sit in class while Prof. Caries plays you old Diagnosis records, while Crown explains such terms as “debanding” (i.e. going solo) and Bruxism (the 1970s Franco-German electronic philosophy that governs the records of Mathieu Plier and his followers, which include Bite Stick and Eztraoral). Seriously, they’re on the quizzes.
We’re not opposed to modern music infecting college curricula, but this program seems antithetical to a business-minded community college program. Why even have the classes? Why not just pay for the studio time?
We ran our learning-by-doing theory by The Pathogens’ Arch Form, who says we might have a point. “I missed a lot of the classes—I know the history, and the tests are mostly multiple-choice facts. But I never missed a studio session. At night, they let you stay until the custodians [that is, the OCC janitorial staff, not the band) come to lock up.” Form (ne Farmaglia) tries to break the class payments down into an hourly figure for me, then laughs and says maybe he should’ve taken a math class at OCC instead. But he adds “Don’t diss Crown & Caries. They’re cool. A lot of that equipment is their personal stuff. This is how they want to do things, it’s fine by me. I learned a lot.”
More on this educational development later…
At the Bullfinch Wednesday, by coincidence, is another OCC-trained band, Acid Etch, with Scaler and Christian rockers Curing Light. … Hamilton’s is dark Tuesday due to bad taste. … This just in: The Consultations’ “Twirl On” got three spins in a row on a commercial radio station in Spain, and is getting college radio play throughout Europe. We’ll investigate, and report soon …