Dave Grohl Is Killing Rock n' Roll

[linkous]

Isn't it the people who are buying his records and going to his shows that are killing rock'n'roll? Without them he is flipping burgers or working 9-5 in insurance.

[beantownbubba]

The only question is how seriously to take the author's rant, or precursor to a rant or whatever he's calling it. If it's basically a joke, so be it, there's no point in wasting time discussing it. If it's even semi-serious, it strikes me as somewhere between silly and absurd for all the reasons dean, iowan, shakespeare and others have enumerated. Whatever his credits and demerits, Dave Grohl is most certainly not killing rock n roll. On the assumption that the article is mostly serious, it seems to me that the author embarrasses only himself and adds nothing to the debate about any subject remotely relating to rock n roll past, present or future.

[Rocky]

With all the Maroon 5's & Nickelback's in the world do we really need to hate on Grohl who seems to truly love Rock & Roll?

Yeah if I was going to start taking pot shots at people I don't think I'd start with Dave Grohl.

[tinnitus photography]

Stones should have packed it in after Their Satanic Majesties Request

because the Stones were not a one man band...

are you waiting for Pat Smear's or Courtney Hawkin's next records?


and if you think Grohl's discography even begins to approach the Stones...well, have another one.

unless you're clairvoyant, you're last statement is irrelevant.

no one needs a crystal ball for that sort of prognostication. unless Mark E Smith is gonna start fronting the band, i think i'm pretty safe.

[tinnitus photography]

The only question is how seriously to take the author's rant, or precursor to a rant or whatever he's calling it. If it's basically a joke, so be it, there's no point in wasting time discussing it. If it's even semi-serious, it strikes me as somewhere between silly and absurd for all the reasons dean, iowan, shakespeare and others have enumerated. Whatever his credits and demerits, Dave Grohl is most certainly not killing rock n roll. On the assumption that the article is mostly serious, it seems to me that the author embarrasses only himself and adds nothing to the debate about any subject remotely relating to rock n roll past, present or future.

this song is nail #5

[Shakespeare]

so you dont like his songs. care to expand upon how that makes him so much worse than other songwriters you dont like?

its an overused argument but in his case its totally valid: how many people discover bands theyd otherwise never come across cuz of dave grohl alone? i could name a dozen off the top of my head. i fail to see how thats a bad thing

[tinnitus photography]

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for the most part, i'm just playing around, so don't take my jabs too seriously. i'm sure dave's a nice guy. but aside from a semi-decent debut record, Foo Fighters is pretty bland arena rock that shares way more DNA sequences with Creed and Nickelback than Black Flag or Sonic Youth or even Nirvana. his stage antics are embarrassing (maybe the sole time I saw them, I caught them on an off-date, but i'm sure it's choreographed down to the millisecond), he's got an egregious rights-grab release for photographers, and for that recent documentary, a friend of mine had some vintage DC-era photos of Grohl w/ Ian MacKaye that Dave wanted to use but refused to negotiate on price, stating a flat (and insultingly low) fee and that was that.

[Shakespeare]

the obsessed
voivod
death
corrosion of conformity
trouble
cathedral
venom (noticing a trend here?)
melvins
scream
qotsa (admittedly i would have dicovered them eventually anyway, but it was through dave that i did)
the germs
goatsnake
bad brains
black flag
sunny day real estate
killing joke
and if id paid a bit closer attention to the s/t's liner notes, i could add afghan whigs to this list

not all of them stuck but a good portion of those are bands i discovered many years before falling down the internet message board rabbit hole, just cuz a big name musician i loved wouldnt shut up about them. music could use more guys like that. hes not pretending hes something he isnt, and hes not an overnight success story. with all thats wrong with the music industry, hating on a guy like dave just seems terribly misguided to me

[Tequila Cowboy]

I'm pretty indifferent to the guy personally. I own a few of their records and like two of them, I saw them play once many, many years ago and truth be told I can understand why he can rub people the wrong way. The thing is he's an enthusiastic promoter of Rock & Roll and one of the few of those people left that anyone under the age of thirty might actually pay attention to. This isn't 1974, 1984, 1994 or even 2004 it's 2014 and while Rock isn't dead like the jackass Gene Simmons pontificated on (yes I understand the irony) it's public face is pretty well hidden from view. Grohl isn't though. He can extol the virtues of the heyday of SST and Kiss with equal aplomb and people listen. Sure he probably romanticizes the overblown elements of Rock way too much, his songs certainly don't set the world on fire and I think he's got an oversized ego to beat the band but he's all we've got and, most importantly, dude loves Rock & Roll. Loves it. I don't think that's shtick or bullshit in any way. I think it's genuine and quite frankly needed. Hell when I was growing up I had great Rock all around me and plenty of "ambassadors" to choose from to take my cues, now those guys are old and few and far between. Grohl isn't young but he acts like a big kid and his enthusiasm is infectious. This music we love needs that. Younger folk aren't just going decide one day to dive into young bands that cruise the country in econoline vans without first being hooked by something hokier and they could far worse than be introduced to this worlds by Dave Grohl. I'm just sayin'.

[tinnitus photography]

Shakespeare that's a list of good bands but i gotta ask how old are you? it seems weird that Grohl would be the gateway drug to punk icons like Bad Brains and Black Flag, and even Melvins via Grohl (or was it via Nirvana?) is strange.


i take it you saw the 'What's In My Bag' episode where Dave was talking about Guy? that was a funny story. saw the original lineup a few years ago.

[Shakespeare]

25, but when you consider i got i into nirvana/ff around 14 or 15, when i didnt really have much internet access and exposure to anything that wasnt played on the radio, grohl as a gateway to punk rock in general makes total sense. even if itd be a few years before i actually heard those bands, i knew of them through dave. ive always stored band names in my head after hearing/reading them mentioned by musicians i like so i dont think any of those bands are weird connections. hes been outspoken about all of them. whats strange about that?



melvins was specifically through grohl and not nirvana. i remember reading a post on the flaming lips board where kliph scurlock was hating on dave (full circle, huh?) for professing his love of crovers drumming. it would be a few years before id get into the mevlins, and some time after that before i realized their connection to nirvana beyond dave, but the melvins name was definitely in my head cuz of dave himself.

[tinnitus photography]

well the age makes a lot more sense now. i guess i found it strange that one person would be the source for all of those bands... in my experience, references to other bands was via word of mouth from friends, record store clerk recommendations, college radio and most importantly, fanzines. if i had to pick a musician who championed a lot of cool shit i'd not heard before, Thurston Moore is the clear standout.

[Shakespeare]

word of mouth from friends, record store clerk recommendations, college radio and most importantly, fanzines..

yup. none of these things were part of my high school life, but id read any dave grohl interview i could find. dc's modern rock station is awful, none of my friends had taste worth sponging off of, and zines obviously arent what they were in the 80s. i went to record stores but never met the type of clerk to give unsolicited recommendations.

thurston moore is definitely a similar kind of ambassador, and it should come as no surprise that nirvana lead me to sonic youth. these are the kinds of things i think people forget when they throw tags like overrated or overplayed at bands like nirvana or foo fighters

[tinnitus photography]

thurston moore is definitely a similar kind of ambassador, and it should come as no surprise that nirvana lead me to sonic youth.

i'm still kinda pissed that Thurston was unsuccessful in lobbying Neil Young (or Warner, or the booking agent) in getting Nirvana to open for the Don't Spook The Horse tour, and instead we got shitty Social D.

[straightshot]

And let me know when Grohl even begins to approach the heights of "Shake Your Blood"

Lemmy was on that...how could it not kick ass?

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Posted here before but pertinent to the conversation.

Melvins’ King Buzzo is Not a Fan of Dave Grohl

[Rocky]

For what it's worth I think Buzz Osborne is straight up jealous of Dave Grohl.

[tinnitus photography]

what about Dale, who sat on the drum stool for Nirvana before Grohl joined?


btw, i don't think Buzz is jealous. but next i see him, i'll ask.

[Zip City]

I'm a fan of FF, but don't listen to their albums much since they are so ubiquitous on the radio.

That said, I think Everlong is one of the best rock songs of the past 20 years.

[Steve French]

have all you Grohl fans heard that Probot record?

he should have stopped on a high point.

I like that record too.

Dave seems like a good guy who you'd have a beer and a talk with. (his marketing department will shit themselves at how well theyve done but whatever). I liked that sound City thing.

[Rocky]

btw, i don't think Buzz is jealous. but next i see him, i'll ask.

I doubt he'll cop to it but how cool that this is an option.

[tinnitus photography]

check the Melvins facebook page today

https://www.facebook.com/melvinsarmy/ph ... =1&theater

[linkous]

Just heard the new Foo Fighters single on BBC6 Music just now. Oh dear!
To be fair the song had the misfortune of being followed by Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out by The Replacements, and this just made the FF song sound even more crap.

[Hud]

He can't be all bad, played with Tony Joe White on Letterman last night

[linkous]

Just heard on BBC6 Music that there is an 8 part Grohl/FF documentary airing on BBC4 TV starting Sunday night. I think they said it was an HBO production so all you non Brits can choose to either watch/ignore/sleep through/laugh at as appropriate when it airs on cable in the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n60j3

That new FF record just been played again on the radio - it is absolutely appalling - cock rock by any other name!

[Will]

I watched the first episode of the show. I liked it--the focus was on their recording in Chicago for "Something from Nothing." Lots of talk with Buddy Guy, Steve Albini, Rick Nielsen, Bonnie Raitt, etc. I don't know--if you don't like the Foos/Grohl it's not going to change your mind, but I think they're one of the better radio acts out there and Grohl seems like a solid dude. I like "Something from Nothing," too.

[Daddy_played_poker]

As I said before I was a big fan of FF before I got turned on the DBT. My fandom of DBT has become obsessive like some others around here, but I still love a lot of the music from DG and FF. The article was probably a bit tongue in cheek so as BTB said we probably don't need to spend too much more time on it. Regardless, DG has been a pretty big part of some great rock music that hit home with me so I guess I will make one last post in his defense.

I just found a video on YouTube with the Foo Fighters playing live last Friday, October 17 at "The Cubby Bear" in Chicago. It is a good show that features both old and new Foo so check it out if you question DG's rock and roll chops.

[PonyGirl]

That column was pretty nostalgic for me. I have several friends who were/are curmudgeonly music writers. I also have a ridiculous amount of music snob friends. I have been told on so many occasions, by so many people, "Your fave band sucks, your boyfriend's band sucks, your good friend's band sucks, your roommate's band sucks, that other band you like sucks, your lover's band sucks, that band you like was cool before, but now, guess what? They suck!! Blah blah blah... If you are of a certain age and you've hung out in indie/formerly college rock circles, you've heard/read this kind of thing like 800 times. It's pretty adorable, actually, that this guy can still make a living writing like that. Good for him. I only read like 2/3 of the piece because by that point, his argument was more than clear. So that's his schtick...

I've never really cared for the Foo Fighters. It's a little frat-boy-ish for me. And I don't know why Dave Grohl finds he has to be so omni-present, but whatever... I saw him play in Scream, he used to sleep on my couch, he knows music and he's a genuine fan. I realize this is incongruous when you consider what the Foo Fighters are putting out and I don't really know what to say to that...

I ran into him at a Cheap Trick show in Toronto many years ago and I will never forget the exchange I had with him... He's ridiculously kind and generous.

[beantownbubba]

I hereby volunteer to proofread your memoir whenever you get around to writing it, pony girl.

[tinnitus photography]

I realize this is incongruous when you consider what the Foo Fighters are putting out and I don't really know what to say to that...

it's simple.

Foo Fighters suck.