The Exclamation Mark Blog!

I'm sure many of you who even bother reading the Straits Times, especially the Life! section would be well aware by now about the School of Rock competition, whereby the winning band would win a $5000 cash prize and a management contract. The whole hoo-haa about the competition on the newspaper is getting to me because the column inches dedicated to it can easily match up to that of the TomKat affair.


I was reading an article by this blogger Ichoisarius, an SPH scholar, and I believe he was obligated to attend the event. He was obviously horrified by what he saw (and heard) and I quote him:

As for the SOR - good god. I was late for that, and thank whatever gods exist. I only sat through ten of the fifteen rock bands scheduled for the morning, but that was more than enough.

Some observations:

* Singaporean rock bands don't sing. They scream. Badly. Like Constantine Maroulis when he goes all skkkkkkreeeaaaaggghhhh. And sometimes they growl. Also badly.

* When they sing, you understand why they scream instead.

* They think that the louder their electric guitars / acoustic guitars / electric pianos, the better. Which is just wrong, really, because then it's just a deafening babble of noise, and because then the vocalist can only be of relevance when he/she shouts the lyrics. Then it's just bad.

* Saying that your trademark palm-to-audience gesture during a rock song is the result of a Spice Girls song ("Stop right there, thank you very much...") creates cognitive dissonance, laughter, and instant evaporation of all rock-credibility all at the same time.

* Fifteen minutes tuning an instrumental set-up is a really looooooooonnnnnnnngggggg time to take.

Hilarious eh?! Anyway allow me to elaborate on his post a little.


Rockers think it is cool to be rebellious. Ok, most rockers at least. And what is their definition of being rebellious? Wearing chains, spikes, dying their hair some awful colour and generally just not studying at all. I don't think those things necessarily epitomise the concept of being rebellious. Being rebellious for the right things is all fine and dandy, but when it comes to something as ludicrous as not studying, that gives me jitters. No wonder there are so many dumb people in Singapore nowadays.


Generally I don't think you have to be really rebellious to be a rocker, at least not according to the conventional stereotype of what it means to be rebellious. But anyway, they insist that rockers are rebellious, when every single one of them is dressed exactly the same way, made up exactly the same way, and with the exact same attitude to boot. Funny.

• When you're mixing with some of these self-professed rockers, you don't ever look at their face. Your eyes will always be fixated by their horrible t-shirts, piercings or tattoos. Which is good in a way, because generally these rockers put on some much hideous make up (to achieve a Goth look) that it simply looks repulsive and disgusting.

• Being in the same room as almost 50 other people dressed in black can be really depressing.

• No matter how many times the rockers scream "how ya doing people" or "Com'on People", you can't help but feel a lack of atmosphere. Sometime you snigger at their rather futile efforts to, in rocker's speak, "bring down the house". Yes, enthusiasm does not make up for a lack of talent. Sadly.

A management contract is not the same as a recording contract. THANK GOD.