Friday, July 25, 2008

THE FIRST REVIEW IS IN OF CHUNKLET PRESENTS: HENRY OWINGS' ROCK BIBLE

....and it's a hit! Vice Magazine sayeth:
"The Rock Bible: Unholy Scripture For Fans & Bands
Henry Owings
Quirk Books
This looks like it should be sharing shelfspace with the Stuff White People Like book and one of those “survival guides,” but I swear to you it’s good. Henry Owings is the editor of Chunklet, one of the the best and definitely the funniest music zine to ever come out of Georgia. He took a year or so off to put together this compendium of syntactically biblical advice for musicians with some of Chunklet’s regular contributors, and every single sentence in it is 100 percent dead-on.

Suggestions like “No playing two keyboards at the same time. Keep your hand on the wheel and shut up,” “Money spent on guitar lessons is better spent on an in-sink garbage disposal,” and “If you get a drumstick endorsement don’t take one of those lame promo photos acting like your biting or breaking the sticks in half” ring with the sort of gospel truth that can only come from someone who has thought really long and angrily about the subject. Sometimes they’re not even attempts at being funny, just really sound advice for touring bands, like “Always make a schematic of how your equipment best fits in the trailer once you figure it out for the first time.” Still, when they are attempts at humor, they are every bit as on the money—like the section of underused words in music journalism (beige, niggardly, MILF-damaged, etc.) If somebody followed every dictate in this book to the letter when forming their band or being a guy into music, odds are probably about 4 to 1 they might turn out pretty decent.

LEROY GUMPTION"

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