MuchMusic | Media Education | BookTelevision | Rock 'n' Roll 'n' Reading III

Rock 'n' Roll 'n' Reading III

Program Length: 1 hour
Produced: 1996

Musical artists constantly amaze us with new ideas, images and issues in their songs. Their videos tantalize us with new ideas, styles and concepts. They question authority, rules, relationships. They challenge the status quo.

Where do they get their ideas?
How do they keep their music fresh and interesting?
What is the relationship between their art and their reading? What do they do on tour buses and airplanes?

This video presents us with a panorama of musicians, each explaining what they read, why they read, and how reading influences their art. It affirms the value of reading in people's lives and offers opportunities for listeners to better appreciate their favourite music.
Choose the most suitable activities from the following list. Some are better done before viewing, some after, some during. Do not do all the items, but select a few that best match your curricular outcomes and classroom climate.

1. "For musicians, reading is part of the creative process." As you watch, identify five musicians who describe how reading is essential to their creative processes. Choose one or two of the musicians you have identified. Listen to their music and watch the videos named in the video.
Read the book(s) they identified as their inspirations. Prepare and present a report that describes the relationship(s) you have discovered between the books and the music.

2. Below is the list of books identified by the musicians as their favourites, or current reading. Choose a book named by an artist you admire, read it, and explain how the book is as interesting and important to you as the music you listen to.

Basquiat, Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawings
Burroughs, William Naked Lunch
Fante, John Ask the Dust
Baldwin, James Beale St. Guitar
Salinger, JD Nine Stories
Lawrence, DH The Plumed Serpent
Okri, Ben Astonishing the Gods
Okri, Ben The Famished Road
McCaffrey & Scarborough Power Play
McCaffrey Freedom's Landing
Brewer, Gene K/PAX
Gibson, William Johnny Mnemonic
Redfield, James The Celestine Prophecy
Stein, Gertrude Three Lives
Ellroy, James The Black Dahlia
Allison, Dorothy Bastard Out Of Carolina
Copeland, Douglas Generation X
Metford, Nancy Love in a Cold Climate
Davis, Mike City of Quartz
Rollins, Henry Wit to Choke Hearts
Rand, Ayn The Fountainhead
Reed, Lou Between Thought and Expression
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia Love in a Time of Cholera
Orwell, George Animal Farm
Sacks, Oliver The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Lawrence, TE The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Hopkins, Jerry No One Here Gets Out Alive
Davies, Ray X Ray
White, Timothy Catch a Fire
Curtis, Deborah, Touching from a Distance
Hertsgaard, Mark A Day in the Life; the Music and Artistry of the Beatles
Lydon, John Rotten
Bangs, Lester Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
Savage, John England's Dreaming
Miller, Jim, editor, Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll
Cohen, Leonard Beautiful Losers
Vonnegut, Kurt Slapstick
Proulx, E. Annie The Shipping News
Homer The Odyssey
Welch, Irvine Trainspotting
Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

3. Why do people read? For information, pleasure, inspiration. Coolio says that reading fantasy relieves his stress. Identify some people in Rock 'n' Roll 'n' Reading III that fit into each reason people read.
Identify some things you read for information, pleasure, and inspiration. Choose one of the items you read for inspiration and create a song, drawing, sculpture, poem, or design based on the inspiration. Explain the connection between what you have created and the music that inspired it.
4. There are several quotations placed at intervals throughout the video. Choose two and discuss how reading relates to the quotations.

"There's more to life than increasing its speed." - Mahatma Gandhi
"Always stay in your own movie." - Ken Kesey
"The most effective education is that a child should play amongst lovely things." - Plato
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Einstein
"There's no genius free from a tincture of madness." - Seneca
"As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time." - La Rouchefoucald
"Talent is nurtured in solitude, character is formed in the stormy billows of the world." - Goethe
"You know you never know." - Carl Moulds
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." - Frank Zappa

5. Choose a favourite book. Create a T-shirt design that represents what that book means to you. Explain your design.

6. In the opening of his interview, Rob Bowman states: "Ultimately the liner notes should take one's engagement with the music further than one might otherwise be able to do by just purchasing the music in and of itself, so you're providing a context for the music." Rewrite this statement so it is easier to say and to understand.

7. Create a set of criteria for good liner notes. Choose a good set of liner notes from an album. Write/present a report that demonstrates that your choice is an example of what good liner notes should be.

8. Create a set of criteria for good liner notes. Choose an album that has weak liner notes. Research the music and the band and write a good set of liner notes. Explain why your liner notes are better than the originals.

9. "As long as you're processing and philosophizing and questioning I think that's the essence of reading itself." - kd lang
This statement suggests a very specific function for reading. What is that function?
What books have you read that best served that function for you?
How do kd lang's albums fulfil the function of reading she has described?
What other music do you listen to that fulfil the function?
What do you think is "the essence of reading?"

10. "Rap lyrics are the best in the world." - Tricky
Choose some of the best lyrics of rap and non-rap music.
Compare them.
How are they different?
How are they similar?
What are the good qualities of rap lyrics?
What are the good qualities of non-rap lyrics?
Is Tricky correct? Why or why not?

Written by: Neil Andersen
Neil Andersen is an award-winning Curriculum Consultant with the Toronto District School Board. He is also a speaker and consultant in media and communications technology. His most recent work includes the Between the Lines CDs, the teachers' study guide for the award-winning Scanning Television, and study guides for Space, Bravo! and MuchMusic's Cable in the Classroom broadcasts of original media literacy programming.

For more information about MuchMusic's educational programming -- or to give us your feedback -- please contact:

Calla Dewdney
Public Affairs Coordinator
CHUM Television
416-591-7400 x5940
callad@chumtv.com

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