The Rock Bible

by Henry Owings

  BRIAN TEASLEY

  N the first day, God created the drums and cymbals. Now the drums were without rhythm and tempo, beatlessness reigned, and the Spirit of Rock hovered over the stage. In the future (and God knew this), beatlessness would become a needless sub-sub-sub-genre of the needless genre of “free jazz.” Though God made very few mistakes in the creation of rock, allowing free jazz to slip through was one of them.

  And God said, “Let there be drums,” and there were drums. God saw that the drums were loud, and he separated the drums from the cymbals. God called the drums “rhythm,” and the cymbals he called “kind of annoying.” And there was a beat, and there was a solo, and solos would provide other members of the band the needed time to have sex with groupies, because God knew that no one would want to have sex with the drummer.

  1 The reason there are so many drummer jokes is because drummers really are certifiably crazy.

  2 There’s no such thing as a drummer/songwriter.

  3 Drummers can be overly sensitive, so treat them with kid drumming gloves.

  4 Generally speaking, girls should not play drums.

  5 Being a drummer means never having to say you like John Bonham. No kidding. You play the drums, dumbo.

  6 Never audition for a band as a drummer and then talk about how well you can sing lead when the band already has a lead singer.

  7 If you get a drumstick endorsement, don’t take one of those lame promo photos acting like you’re biting or breaking the sticks in half.

  8 Drummers should never touch the guitars.

  9 Having band logos on your kick drum only tells the audience that you overestimate your value and underestimate your chances of being replaced.

  10 Never put your band’s Web site address on the front of the kick drum.

  11 Unless you are having an on-tour emergency or just starting out, your drum set must match.

  12 If you know how to program a drum machine, you aren’t a drummer. You’re a computer dweeb.

  13 Your drum set should never have a piece of equipment that hasn’t been hit in more than a year.

  14 Enough with the clear drums already.

  15 Never have more toms than hands unless you’re insecure about having a tiny penis.

  16 Never play a full-sized drum kit while referring to yourself as a “percussionist.”

  17 No drum stools with chair backs.

  18 No plastic or graphite drumsticks.

  19 Never have more pieces to your drum kit than you have teeth.

  20 No drum key necklaces, especially those shaped like a cross or a Z. If you can’t keep up with a drum key, maybe it’s time to find a new hobby.

  21 Never let your floor tom ride shotgun. That seat is reserved for the kick drum.

  22 You can only play a double-bass if you have two kick drums. No cheater pedals on a single drum.

  23 Latin percussion should be played only by people fluent in Latin.

  24 Drummers should never have more cymbals than limbs.

  25 No cymbals that aren’t round. This isn’t geometry class.

  26 Hardware should be silver or chrome only. Gold or any sort of primary-color hardware is just lame.

  27 Wind chimes are never okay unless played on a back porch—and only when it’s windy.

  28 If you plan to have your hi-hat open and swishing around all the time, then be prepared not to hear any of the actual music and expect to go deaf.

  29 Splash cymbals are to be used only as ashtrays.

  30 Never use a china crash cymbal, piccolo snare, or vibraslap. A garden-variety cowbell communicates sufficiently to the crowd that you’re masking a general inability to play.

  31 Never talk about how your cymbals go “pish.”

  32 You should never “save up” for cymbals. If anything, look for ways to reduce the number you already have.

  33 A drummer that can play to a click is the drummer to have in the studio.

  34 Drummers should learn to play the drums before they learn to twirl the sticks.

  35 The grind-core beat is: da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. The thrash beat is: ta-da-ta-da-ta-da-ta-da. Get it straight.

  36 Never use the term “ghost stroking” when referring to your drum playing. It sounds like you’re beating off a ghost.

  37 No rolling drumsticks on the floor at a music store to check for their consistency.

  38 No drum gloves. If you can’t hold on to drumsticks, you may want to rethink the “playing” part of playing drums.

  39 All drummers wearing headset microphones should be required to take a food order.

  40 The drummer is the only person allowed to wear a bandanna on stage. Especially if he has a full beard and hits his snare like a Hell’s Angel hits a hippie with a pool cue.

  41 It is your drum kit. No one must help you carry it unless you pay him/her to do so. However, it is acceptable to befriend at least one unsuspecting sap/fan to carry your hardware bag to the van.

  42 No breaking down all the drums on stage and putting them into cases while another band (that people actually paid to see) is waiting to set up.

  43 A glossy black kick drum head only means that you’re probably gonna be twirling your sticks midsong.

  44 Don’t polish your cymbals thinking it has anything to do with sound check.

  45 Drummers are the only members in the band allowed to bring a rug to play on.

  46 This is the drummer’s routine during sound check: Play the kick drum now, snare drum now, rack tom now, floor tom now. Good job. You’re all done. Now go smoke.

  47 No playing drums behind one of those clear fiberglass cages.

  48 No cage hardware unless you plan to be locked in said cage.

  49 No re-tuning drums during the middle of the performance.

  50 No bringing your own Oriental rug on which to play.

  51 If you’re one of those drummers who set up at the front of the stage, back the hell up. You are the goalies of rock; play your position.

  52 In no way, shape, or form will you lead a band from behind your drum set.

  53 No drumstick twirling between songs. If you must do that, incorporate it into your playing.

  54 No bongo solos unless a bludgeoning of the bongo player immediately follows.

  55 Drummers should not pester the sound guy for “more snare out front” during the show. The soundman will more than likely turn the snare mic off, and he’d be correct to do so.

  56 The drummer should never come out from behind the drum set unless it’s to leave the stage.

  57 No switching drummers during the performance. The crowd doesn’t need to see what your band is like with its second-best lineup. Multitasking is for ego-deprived babies.

  58 The drummer should always laugh boisterously (while secretly plotting revenge) when the guitarist or singer tells a drummer joke.

  59 No making lame “bop-doom-dat-at-at” mouthing while playing.

  60 No prearranged smashing of B-grade equipment.

  61 If you play with a gong, it should be on fire at all times. Also, you should do everything possible to obtain a flaming mallet with which to strike it. The band is going to kick you out at some point; you might as well go out in style.

  62 If you lose “the one,” find it before you keep rocking.

  63 Two drummers are never better than one.

  64 No more showing off blood on the head of your snare that, in reality, came from a tiny cut on your index finger.

  65 No complaining the day after a particularly hard show. Shut up and deal with your “bangover.”

  66 Drummers should never piss off their girlfriends. It’s the best way for them to end up homeless.

  67 Drummers are the only ones allowed to play wearing shorts (and that’s just barely okay).

  68 Never purchase a car because you think that the steering wheel makes for a great practice pad.

  69 While at your day job, lay off the desktop paradiddles. Your co-workers will thank you. Plus, they really couldn’t
care less that you’re a drummer.

  70 While driving, never use cruise control so you can work on your double-kick drum skills.

  71 Drummers can be considered gods if they can survive past the age of 35.

  72 While you’re sleeping with a groupie, remember that when her eyes are closed, she’s imagining that she’s with another band member.

  73 If you decide to keep a drum key on your wallet chain and nobody ever asks to borrow it, start randomly offering it to other drummers.

  74 Wash your feet and clip those claws you call toenails before you walk barefoot around the studio floors.

  N the second day, God said, “Let there be a melody to go between the drums and cymbals to separate drums from the rest of the universe.” So God made a six-string instrument and separated the bass sound under the expanse above it by using only four strings. And it was so. God called the expanse “guitar.” And there was a power chord, and it should have stayed at that, but God couldn’t leave a good thing alone, thus there was a solo, and the solo begat a culture of idiots who were not given enough attention in high school and, as such, loitered all day long in guitar shops testing lots of digital gear that sounded like sandpaper coming out of a dead man’s asshole.

  1 The Fender is rock. The Gibson is slightly louder rock. The Ibanez is ponytail rock.

  2 You can never play a Rickenbacker without having your sound described as “jangly.”

  3 No one cares about the “totally throaty tonality” of one guitar versus “the shimmering high end” of another.

  4 Flying V’s aren’t ironic if you style your hair.

  5 Your guitar should not be wood grain.

  6 No guitars with strings that aren’t in multiples of six.

  7 The Gibson SG is the most satanic-looking guitar. It comes with its own set of devil horns.

  8 No pointy headstock guitars, unless you plan on stabbing someone in the audience.

  9 Never play a double-necked guitar if you’re not going to play both necks.

  10 The more necks on your guitar, the more likely nobody wants to be in a band with you.

  11 Child guitar prodigies have never made good records, no matter what any blues magazine says.

  12 Your guitar strap should never be busier than your solos.

  13 No one’s looking at your guitar strap. Don’t ever spend more than the cost of an average meal on something that can be replaced by a particularly hearty piece of string.

  14 Boiling your strings may make them sound better, but it also makes you sound cheap.

  15 The only people who describe a guitar as an “axe” are dim-witted journalists and over-enthusiastic guitar teachers.

  16 The neck of your guitar can’t be wider than your upper arm. If it is, you do not play rock music.

  17 The more expensive your guitar, the more staggeringly inconsequential your music is destined to be.

  18 Play a guitar you’re not afraid to drop. No matter how careful you are, it will fall one day. Expensive guitars aren’t played by people in real bands; they’re played by bank executives at open-mic blues jams.

  19 You can’t truly rock if your guitar leaves your crotch exposed. Real musicians always hide their junk behind their guitars or basses.

  20 Using a bow with a guitar doesn’t blow minds.

  21 No matter how much you idolize another musician, never put his initials on your guitar.

  22 Don’t list the make/model/year of your equipment in your record’s liner notes. It’s a record, not a gear-nerd contest. Save it for when your equipment gets stolen … because it will happen.

  23 Never use one of those walk-up-and-play-it guitar stands. They make you look like a bigger dope than anyone else playing music, including kids in suburban music shops murdering the classics.

  24 Three words for you new guitarists out there: guitar, cord, amp. Keep it simple, bub.

  25 Your guitar should never have more effects pedals than there are band members.

  26 If you bring along a light for your pedal board, you might have too many pedals.

  27 Volume pedals are for keyboards.

  28 Vintage and/or boutique pedals are fine if you want to talk to only dudes after the show. Girls are oblivious to the charms of your pedal board.

  29 If you have a wireless system on your guitar, you should test its distance reception by leaving the stage repeatedly during the show.

  30 At no time should Peavey amplifiers be used as anything but a place to put drinks or guitar picks.

  31 Your amps should never stack up to be taller than anybody in the band. If you can’t lift that tube head on your own, you don’t deserve it.

  32 If your amp has more than six knobs, you are one of them.

  33 You should only throw a guitar pick into a crowd if somebody actually wants it. Also, have the courtesy to point to the person once they get it.

  34 If you have custom picks with your band name on them, you’re most likely in a washed-up band that filled stadiums twenty years ago but is now playing car dealership parking lots and state fairs.

  35 Having those plectrum-holding strip things on your microphone stand just tells the world you can’t hold a small piece of plastic for 30 minutes.

  36 Guitar Hero is never a true measure of how “rock” you are.

  37 Please understand that every swinging dick that can make a sandwich is a guitar player. You better have the goods.

  38 Money spent on guitar lessons is better spent on an in-sink garbage disposal.

  39 The guys who win local “guitar god” contests are never in real bands.

  40 Dancing or hand gesturing while holding a guitar but not playing it is cause for automatic ejection from the club. Don’t get mad at security. You did it to yourself.

  41 Don’t ever use the term “scales” unless you’re referring to (a) a rash, (b) what your dealer uses to measure the ’caine, or (c) a pet snake that should also not be around your neck.

  42 Never use the word “chops” unless the word “pork” precedes it.

  43 Talking to non-players about playing guitar will solidify you as someone to avoid at parties.

  44 Only “double up” on a tune if there is a riot going on outside and the club is locked from the inside.

  45 It’s best not to try out “classics” while checking out equipment at the music store.

  46 Never work at a music store just so you can get “killer deals on gear.”

  47 Don’t ever think that anybody, including the salesperson who sold it to you, cares about your new “rig.”

  48 People who wear their guitars too high so they can play faster are always suspect—unless it is a woman who is pregnant.

  49 It is never permissible to smash an acoustic instrument unless you’ve grabbed it from some hippie busker on the street. Smashing an instrument is a reward for rocking out, and acoustic instruments do not rock that hard.

  50 Guitar playing requires no special stance.

  51 At the end of a show, when you hit the standby switch, that does not mean you do just that as someone else packs your gear.

  52 Hearing your guitar go from E flat to E sharp to E is not a song. Tune your gear at sound check.

  53 Either do nothing but jump, or do nothing but play guitar.

  54 In the midst of a fast solo, never stare at your fret board, bug your eyes, and mouth the word “Whoa!” The audience does not share your amazement at your mind-bending technique.

  55 Rhythm guitar players should always look like they want to be somewhere else.

  56 Spraying your fingerboard and hands with WD-40 before the first song will not greatly enhance your playing, but it will greatly impress the crowd.

  57 A guitar should never be used as a prop for the lead singer. That’s why he has a mic stand.

  58 There are only five guitar players in the world who need to change setups more than once per set. You are not one of them.

  59 If you decide to travel to another locale to soak up said locale’s h
istorical musical influence, the front door of your new, crappy apartment deserves to be kicked in by that locale’s armed drug addicts.

  60 Never give lessons as your “main gig” or even as your “side gig.”

  61 During an audition, never refer to yourself as having “pro gear, pro skills, pro attitude.” Musicians who have spouted this motto at auditions have none of the above, especially the skills.

  62 Never, under any circumstances, play a synth bass.

  63 Your bass should not, in any way, resemble a bottle of booze or a lightning bolt.

  64 A bass should never have more or fewer than four strings. In case you forget, a “six-string bass” is another name for a “guitar.” “Someone who plays a six-string bass” may be shortened to “overbearing windbag.”

  65 Those who figure they will play bass because it has two fewer strings than a guitar and is therefore easier to learn should probably just hold cases that hold guitars and bases.

  66 If your bass lacks frets, you lack taste. If your bass lacks a headstock, you’re a douchebag.

  67 Incorporating an upright bass into the context of a rock band is just so completely irritating that we can’t think of a proper joke for it.