When are they going to mention the music?
By MNJ
| Posted in Writer's Block
The BBC has been running a show during the last few weeks called I’m in a Rock ‘n’ Roll Band. Each program concentrates on the individual musicians – guitarist, vocalist, drummer and an episode dubbed ‘The Other One’, which was supposed to capture the experience of the bass and/or keyboard player.
The series attempted to explain through interviews and film footage what it’s like to occupy such a position in a band. Most of the film clips of the bands or soloists are stock footage and there’s very little anybody hasn’t seen before. On the drummer episode, one interviewee was the great Bill Bruford, drummer with King Crimson amongst other prog type bands, all studious and sober, talking about how it was for him. This was interpersed with grainy film clips of Keith Moon, draining one brandy glass after another and doing his damndest to destroy everything in sight, especially his drum kit. They were totally different drummers, but both totally relevant to the program.
These parts were fine – Bruford has been in some of the finest bands the UK has produced over the last four decades and is a superb and well-respected musician. Moon, despite his propensity for self-destruction, is always in the frame when people talk about ‘the greatest rock drummer of all time’. These guys have total credibility, alive or dead, and if they’re still around I want to hear all about it in these kinds of programs – from them.
And that’s the big issue I have with how these programs are put together. I don’t care that many deserving musicians are not mentioned, I don’t even mind watching all the Old Grey Whistle Test and TOTP clips again. What I object to is the cutaway interviews to some minor celebrity or wannabe comedian talking what has to be described as utter garbage, appearing to invent glib little anecdotes or untrue exaggerations to get themselves noticed. The cut is usually made just after a song starts, just at the bit you want to see and hear, and is then ruined by an utter nobody with nothing relevant to say. This technique permeates music programs and is utterly infuriating. These people know nothing, I repeat nothing, about what it’s like to be in a band, let alone a successful one.
The other problem for me is that these numpties never mention the music. They talk about the money, the fame, the drugs, the sex but never the songs or anything to do with their subject as a musician. There was another show recently where Piers Morgan interviewed Cliff Richard in his rather swish home in Barbados. Now I know Cliff is decidedly naff as far as most people are concerned, but Morgan never let up on the ‘nudge nudge’ ‘wink wink’ questions about the poor guy’s undetermined sexuality, which has been the subject of speculation for years and is nobody else’s business. Did we really need another hour of it? There wasn’t a single reference to his recording career or what he was working on or who he works with in his ongoing career. It seems these programs are made from with a sort of tabloid journalist’s viewpoint, where to get noticed everything has to be dumbed down as far as possible, otherwise the producers will be terrified that it won’t be ‘entertaining’. I’d love to know who they imagine their target audience is.
Unbelievably, there’s more screen time allotted to the sideline interviewees in these shows than the musicians, most of which have far funnier and more interesting anecdotes than any of the D-list comics and presenters. These producers should sit down and watch Martin Scorsese’s film about Bob Dylan, No Direction Home, if they want to know how to make music documentary.
I’d like to rename this latest piece of BBC flim flam, ‘I’ve Never Been in a Rock ‘n’ Roll Band and furthermore I Know Sod All About It’. Far more appropriate.
Tags: bass, drummer, Guitars, keyboard, rock n roll, vocalist
Cheap, lazy television for the celebrity generation. I prefer American Idol. At least that\’s got some singing in it.
MarkG