How To Save Rock and Roll

Author: 
Tim Brennan
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There are not enough good young bands these days. And I know the reason why. It’s this annoying campaign against bullying. This has to stop. We need bullies in order to create great musicians.

 

When a child lives in constant fear of being harassed at school, he or she retreats into their room at home, hacking through chords and scales on a $20 garage sale guitar. With enough years of constant torture, that child has a chance to emerge as an important artist in rock and roll.

 

Look around. Can you name a famous rocker who claims to have been happy, well-adjusted, and accepted in school? Hell, no. That’s why we have launched an after-school program for bullying.

 

Drop your children off at one of our locations, and from three to five each day, we will take their money, shove them into lockers, and erode their self-confidence. Pretty girls will roam our facility, constantly ignoring the boys and making catty comments to the girls.

 

Our services will not stop there. For advanced students, we will have actors play the role of insensitive parents, complete with the sounds of fighting in the other room, and threats of divorce. Once a week, they will berate the camper with claims of his or her worthlessness.

 

At the end of a successful semester, we expect the child to acquire one of several common nervous twitches and an uncontrollable desire to grow their hair and wear only black.

 

Such treatment is more important to the developing rock musician than lessons. Says noted sociologist Dr. Richard Van Greiken, “The number of well-adjusted children is inversely proportional the amount of awesome riffage in rock and roll.”

 

Our summer camp will feature enclosed spaces where the camper will only see the sun for 15 minutes a week, and be subjected to sub freezing temperatures—just the way kids live in the American rock capitals of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and New York. If your child is extremely happy, we will give him or her additional discouragement by playing Bauhaus in their bunk all night. Some may require shock treatment each time they hear Jack Johnson, reggae music, or jam bands. This is an extremely popular feature in our warm-weather coastal camps.

 

Says camp counselor and multi-album recording artist Dan McCoy, “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for the guys who took my lunch money if I didn’t sing ‘The Gambler’ at the bus stop each morning. I want the youth of today to suffer the same indignities for their art. (sniff) I miss those jocks.”

 

With these programs, we ask that all meds be turned in to the front office. Not only are they discouraged for campers, but when our counselors take those meds and go on their own drug-fueled rollercoasters, it helps the campers to see how real rockers are supposed to act. Any child found sneaking Hal Leonard music books into our programs will be disciplined.

 

Payment for this camp may come in the form of money or additional meds.

 

Together, we can put an end to the well-adjusted teen, and thereby save rock and roll. 

• The quote on the header picture has nothing to do with the artist (Dave Grohl). He didn't say that. But he could have.