Presenting…My First Band: Rock Town Hall’s Talent(less) Search

 Posted by
Jun 032010
 

My First Band: Rock Town Hall’s Talent(less) Search has hit The Main Stage! (Click song titles to play.)

With little, if any, prodding a dozen artists known within – and in some cases without – the Halls of Rock have submitted a total of 17 formative demo recordings as well as 1 painfully formative live track. The recordings were created from 1974 to as recently as 2008. Some are as tentative and misguided as could be expected. Some are downright impressive in their early articulation of their creator’s vision. Most are in that awkward space between, where perhaps many musicians of any stripe spend the majority of their musical lives, edging closer to daylight but rarely forgetting how wrong it can go. Although some spirited jibes are likely and expected, this is not about how wrong it went but where our young contributors were headed. Let’s hear it for our brave contributors!

With the assistance of RTH Labs, the demos have been loaded to stream from our customized RTH My First Demo Player™. To hear a track, click on the song title listed on the cassette case. A window will appear providing some details on the demo, but for the start of this event the artists’ identities will be kept anonymous. The RTH Artist Scrabble Key graphic, on the following page, includes the identities of the artists when they recorded their tracks. In some cases the recordings were made by bands containing Townspeople or Friends of the Hall, in which case those band names are listed. Feel free to pin the artist names to each track. Eventually a key will be provided to associate the contributing Townspeople by their RTH handles. Artists are free to step forward with additional details or responses to comments whenever they feel like doing so.

Those of you who did not contribute an early demo but have experience making one are more than welcome to add your tales to the record.

Some possible topics for assessment and discussion are provided on the following page, but feel free to take this where it needs to go. So enough of my yapping, it’s time to check out the nascent recordings of our dozen young artists and tell them how the music makes you feel, man!
Continue reading »

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COMING THURSDAY: My First Demo

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Jun 012010
 

This could be your first demo tape!

The long-awaited Rock Town Hall Talent(less) Search: My First Demo will launch this Thursday, June 3! Townspeople and Friends of the Hall (Martin Newell, Big Dipper’s Gary Waleik, and Ben Vaughn) have contributed a total of 17 demos (and 1 live track) from their young and innocent days of attempting to change the way we listen to music, or at least of attempting to justify their increasingly wandering attention in school and/or at their day job. Now, in as many as 36 years later, perhaps these artists will do just that!

With some suggested criteria, Townspeople will be invited to comment on these early works. It is likely that discussions will take unexpected turns. Prizes will be awarded, long-lost bandmates will be reconnected, we will all feel…something more deeply about the music-making experience. At the appropriate time the artists can choose to provide additional background on the making of their tracks.

A few days of shame, laughter, self-awareness, and (most importantly) healing are in store. If you’re as excited as we are, check back throughout the week. Notify your friends, especially friends in the music industry. Who knows, somebody just may get discovered!

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Rock Arcana: Speed Round Edition!

 Posted by
May 222010
 

I’d like to try something we’ve never done before, in a way we may have never attempted had we done so to this point.

I’m going to throw out a question concerning a piece of rock arcana or trivia. Once that question is answered, in the Comments, the person who answers that question can throw out a new question. Then the person who answers that new question can ask the next question. And so on.

If the answer to the question requires multiple responses, as my first question will, the answers can come in piecemeal with any Townsperson who has contributed to the final answer – only after the full answer has been provided – can pick up the next question.

Got me? Let’s go…after the jump! Continue reading »

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LAST CALL: Rock Town Hall Talent(less) Search: My First Demo

 Posted by
May 082010
 

This could be your first demo tape!

You may remember the call for submissions to what should be a remarkable Rock Town Hall experience of shame, laughter, self-awareness, and (yes) healing. Rock Town Hall’s My First Demo Talent(less) Search will provide Townspeople and Friends of the Hall an opportunity to reveal their one or two of their earliest demos or live recordings in an anonymous, streaming fashion. Townspeople will then be invited to comment on these early works, see if they can identify the young and innocent artists, and so forth. Prizes will be awarded, long-lost bandmates will be reconnected, we will all feel more deeply something about the music-making experience. At the appropriate time the artists can choose to reveal themselves and provide background on the making of their classic tracks.

In short, this should be a very meaningful activity, and it will only be more meaningful with your first demo in the mix! I know some of you have been digging through your archives for that elusive recording. I know some of you may be reading about this activity for the first time and are already thinking about what you might submit. I know some of you are chicken. [Mr. Mod makes juvenile, taunting chicken noise.] Don’t be chicken!

We’ve received 9 submissions to date. This will work best with a baker’s dozen (ie, 13 for our Townspeople on the metric system). The bravery of folks who have submitted to date will not go unrewarded, and those of you who submit a revealing, youthful recording by Monday, May 17, will also experience the spiritual rewards promised by this exercise.

If you’d like to submit an early demo or live recording for Rock Town Hall’s My First Demo Talent(less) Search, please write me at mrmoderator [at] rocktownhall [dot] com. Thanks!

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Fall-Back Plan

 Posted by
May 072010
 

Dr. Robert

What aspiring musician hasn’t been lectured by at least one parent to stay in school and make sure to have a “fall-back plan” if rock ‘n roll dreams don’t come true? I’m sure I’m not the only once-aspiring rocker among you who maintained the slightest connection to some, at best, some half-assed fall-back plan. Thank goodness, because I’d dug myself into enough of a financial and emotional rut during my years of chasing The Dream.

We know that some successful rock ‘n rollers had a full-blown fall-back plan, like London School of Economics student Mick Jagger. We can be certain that the founding members of Genesis likely were prepared to fall back on paths leading to eventual seats in the British Parliament. Chuck Berry and Ringo Starr were prepared to be hairdressers or something, right? Skunk Baxter could turn to designing weapons of mass destruction if the rock ‘n roll thing didn’t pan out.

What might the fall-back plans of any of the following dyed-in-the-wool musicians/rock icons have been? Perhaps you really know what alternate skills they had in their back pocket, or perhaps you’d like to speculate…after the jump! Continue reading »

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Rok Wird Gaym

 Posted by
Apr 192010
 

The Dours

Believe it or not, this one came to me in a dream last night: I noticed for some reason that by changing just one letter in the name “The Doors,” the band went from being a shirtless bunch of hedonists on a drug-fueled pleasure cruise to the center of the sun…

… to “The Dours” — a scowling, uptight Amish bible-study group.

I woke up thinking this might provide good RTH fodder — and an activity at which I know punny Townsmen like mockcarr would excel. I suppose the rules are clear enough from my example — just know that you get extra credit for producing a big change in meaning with a little change in letters.

I look forward to your responses.

HVB

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