So you want to be a rock 'n' roll writer?
One reluctant music journalist dissects the so-called
craft.
By Mike McGuirk
WHEN I WAS being
coerced into writing this article, I kept coming back to the image
of someone reading it and saying, "Who cares! This guy's a
total DICK!" Because honestly, who wants to read a person's
feelings about writing? It's bad enough that they let me inflict
my ideas about why the Brainbombs, who sing about sex acts with
infants, are better than Bruce Springsteen, who sings about "healing"
on a regular basis. But now you have to read what? – how I
go about saying that? How much I love doing it? I don't like it.
I have a strong suspicion that, like a few of the articles I have
written for this paper, I will regret it. I will see this article
a week from now, a joke won't be funny anymore, and my heart will
sink. Maybe it'll be those caps I used. My fear is that it'll be
the whole article.
That said, I would love
to share my notions of this great art, "rock journalism,"
with you, dear reader, to give you a bird's-eye view of the mechanics
of this mysterious process, if only for the $300 I will be paid
for doing so. Also I get a lot out of the people in my personal
social sphere telling me they read my article and liked it. People
always say, "Hey, I liked your article," which is nice
to hear. Because I live in a world of brain-rattling paranoia, I
don't believe a single word anyone says, but it is nice for that
one second before my inner dialogue begins.
OK, so for an article
to work you need to make sure of a few things. Most important, your
article has to contain the number of words that your editor asks
you for – no more, no less. If you write too many, he or she
will almost without fail choose your favorite ones and cut them
out.
Next, you need to make
sure that the words not only add up to the desired amount but also
that the sentences they form make sense and that there is an overall
theme that "hangs together" (a term we insiders use).
The idea with the theme is that it is not so much written in the
words but sort of emerges from the sum of the words, like when you
go see Blue Velvet and you think it's a thriller, but then
at the end of the movie, the fire truck drives by and the guy's
waving at you and you realize, holy shit, the joke is totally on
me. This wasn't a thriller at all! It was a comedy the whole time!
The other important thing
is that in the first paragraph you say something that means something
in terms of the rest of the article, especially the last paragraph.
This is what's called "the lead. Like, "This band is good."
Then in the end, you're like, "See? I told you this band is
good." When I write for anyplace besides the Bay Guardian,
I get into a lot of trouble about the lead because I never come
up with one until paragraph number three and it makes editors kind
of antsy. They always say, "Hello??!!! This is basic –
where is the lead?" They get uptight unless I start an article
with, "I just love coffee. It's the best. You know what's just
like a good cup of coffee? This hot new band, Spank Monkey! Dude,
this band rules." Then at the end I have to have, "Coffee
and Spank Monkey – they just go together!" or something
like that.
But the Bay Guardian
editors in their kindness have always let me just sort of bump around.
Why? Is it because I have such a good shtick? Hell no. It's because
I'm what you call "instinctive," a real seat-of-your-pants,
"gonzo"-style writer, and when it comes right down to
it, you could say that I march to the beat of my own drummer. You
never know what I'll do next. Like right now, I'm even tossing around
the idea of writing a "live" article, where I give out
my number and write the article over the phone, live, to people
who are interested. Shows available around the clock every day for
the whole week. There'd be no way to archive it, but maybe somebody
could take some pictures and put them up on their Web site. Then
somebody could give me a review where they say, "That article
totally rocked/sucked," depending on their point of view, and
then eventually maybe John Dwyer would have a band that did covers
of my articles.
I'm getting off the subject
a little bit. So, once you've got the amount of words, the theme,
and the lead (which is basically the first and last paragraphs),
you need to fill in the middle. Personally, I don't care a whole
lot for these middle paragraphs – they're difficult because
this is where all the information goes. I tend to toss in a funny
anecdote here that in some tangential way relates to the band. Like
that one time when the guitar player was making a soufflé
and the other band members kept coming in the room and making noise
and he was like, "My soufflé! My soufflé!"
Or that moment when the Stones ran into the Dead in an elevator
and the Stones were scared because the Dead were all carrying guns.
Other things you can put here are facts about the band's new album,
where they all grew up, and what bands they listened to when they
decided they wanted to start imitating the Stooges. All kidding
aside, you are actually supposed to have quotes from the band here,
I think. I fear talking to people I don't know and have a recurring
problem with recording devices, so I almost never have quotes here.
Sometimes I get away with it.
Finally there is the
all-important last paragraph. This is where you are supposed to
be like a comedian who refers to the first three gags of his set
and ties them all together getting that big laugh as he or she leaves
the crowd gasping for breath. You should have a dead-on one-liner
here or a particularly good quote from the star of the band:
... As he turns to go,
Lightfoot says, "I don't even think about the UFOs. Not anymore,
at least."
Neither do I, dude, neither
do I.
And that's the end –
another successfully written piece of journalism and/or an effective
promotion of a band.
I've used the words "rock
journalism" in this article, and although I don't actually
consider myself a journalist, I wanted to use it – for all
the nice people who like to write in and say that my writing doesn't
qualify as journalism and that I ought to be ashamed of myself for
using the f word and that from now on I should only write
about bands that I'm an expert on. One guy even said he would like
to cut my head off and that I should watch my back. That seems a
bit extreme, doesn't it? Are my, or any writer's, opinions about
bands that important? God, I hope not. I only write because I am
allowed to, really. I think most people read my articles and get
a laugh, and that's all I want them to do. And if you are the kind
of person who likes the first King Brothers record, then I want
you to know that I am too. Besides that, I am just making fun of
everything.
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