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Rock & Roll Bands



I’m beginning to think that a rock & roll band isn’t a phenomenon of music, so much as it is the reverse. The music, the spirit of celebration comes out of people getting together. The rock band, in a certain sense, is the basic unit of social organization: the band is the mini-tribe of warrior-braves who go out into battle on behalf of everybody else who cheers them on and dances and rides in on the wave they open up into the frenzy of communion…

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5 Reader Responses

  1. Bret Says:

    Or those who have no interest in coforming to society and beguile themselves with their own mislabeled talent… more often than not it’s that… true talent in the music world is so rare it may as well be traded on the commodities exchange. But - - optimism is good…

  2. Big Elk Says:

    have no interest in coforming to society and beguile themselves with their own mislabeled talent…

    I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing!

  3. Michael Says:

    This sounds like it could be expanded into a Carnival Culture like thing - then you could do fans, groupies, managers, roadies - explain how they all fit into this metaphor… the thing about a rock band, in my opinion, is that it’s basically the same unit, whether it’s three fifteen-year-olds in a basement playing for their own amusement, or five forty-year-old guys playing for a million people at Madison Square Garden… it’s the same, amazing thing - “talent” is beside the point…

  4. alistair Says:

    hmmm. define talent…….

  5. Big Elk Says:

    That’s pretty much exactly where I was going with it, Michael. I kinda struck on this before with my photo collection back before i ever started writing the Carnival Culture series:

    http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007...ds-posses-roadies-groupies-deadheads/



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