Rock and Roll music has never been about musical virtuosity

 There has been a social media storm about the comments of an account called @lachlan regarding Meg White, drummer of The White Stripes and stating that they'd have been a much better band 'with a decent drummer'. My friends at Bally Studios had their say, I added mine.

From our friends at @BallyStudios - we agree, in fact we’d go a bit further https://t.co/g7M95JiD28 pic.twitter.com/av5scZyXK9

— Roger Tichborne/Rog T (@Barneteye) March 14, 2023

I didn't realise that there was such a Twitter spat on the subject, until I decided to have a look to see the full context. It seems the bloke who posted the tweet had second thoughts, deleted it and offered a 'Mea Culpa', which is fair enough. We all make mistakes

By now you’ve probably seen an ill-advised (and since-deleted) tweet I sent out yesterday about the White Stripes and Meg White. It was an over-the-top take on TWS and White as a drummer, and was, let's face it, just truly awful in every way. Petty, obnoxious, just plain wrong.

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) March 14, 2023

It got me thinking about the whole issue. As someone who has played in many bands (and been slung out of a couple for not being good enough technically), it is a matter close to my heart. To me, the matter at the heart of this is "What is Rock and Roll Music".  As someone who has spent my adult life going to gigs, it has never been about virtuosity, It is about the chimistry of the individuals. Two of the very best live bands I've seen were The Ramones and Crass. Neither had any degree of musical virtuosity to speak of. Tommy Ramone did not do a single complicated fill on The Ramones first three albums and when Mark Bell replaced him for the fourth album, the band did not become a better version of The Ramones. As for Crass, they were all 'anti musicians' when I followed them around, deliberately not playing music of technical complexity. They were, however, one of the most powerful and compelling bands I've seen and I've seen a few. 

At the other end of the scale, we have bands like Queen and post Barratt Pink Floyd. As a guitarist and a songwriter, I can appreciate the craft, but it leaves me completely cold. It's a personal thing, if you love them, that's fine, but they don't rock my boat. For me, Rock and Roll works best when there is a band, who all spark off each other. When this happens, there is a creative buzz. It may or may not be technically accomplished, but when it is buzzing you can feel it. 

I know thousands of musicians. All aspire to improve, be better and make better music, but putting the best players together does not guarantee that a rock and roll band will be better than one that has average players who gel. If you were to replace Johnny Ramone with a technically brilliant player such as Joe Satriani, for me it would destroy the essence of what makes the Ramones. It may well be brilliant and something that would have sold five million records, but it would not have the essence of what made the Ramones. 

On Sunday, I went to The Boogaloo club in Highgate, to watch the Midnight Crawlers. They play a blend of rockabilly tinged country music, think of Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Hank Williams. The music was simple but brilliant. When a band have a common vision and put the work in, it comes together. I am of the opinion that often technical brilliance does not sit well with Rock and Roll. If you worry too much about playing the right notes, you end up with a performance that is too conservative. I've played with people who have come off stage to raptuous applause, only to say it was a terrible gig because they fluffed a note in their keynote solo. The same players have said how brilliant a gig was, when the crowd drifted off, bored by the passionless performance. Live music should not simply be a recreation of a recording. It should be live, edgy and dangerous.

As to the White Stripes. Seven Nation Army is a wonderful piece of music. When new, young rock bands start getting together, it is almost always a song they start with. It is beautiful because it is simple. I've seen kids starting drum lessons and being shown the song, coming out beaming, because they can play a bon fide hit. For me, I buy into the punk ethos, set by Mark Perry of the Sniffin Glue fanzine. He put three chords on the cover, with the invocation "Now go and form a band". A generation of teenagers did just that. Some gave up, some are now brilliant, some (like me) are somewhere in the middle. Loving what we do and entertaining people 45 years later. We need the Meg White's to inspire us. It may well be that if Jack White had got together with another drummer, he'd have done something brilliant, but it would not have been the White Stripes. I think that working with Meg gave him space that a more technically brilliant drummer may not. Of course a great drummer will make a band sound brilliant and when a song has been codified, as Seven Nation Army has, it will sound amazing when performed live. But I do suspect that the song would have been a completely different beast if it had orignally been put together with a really top notch, technical drummer.

I think that the truth is that people who criticise players like Meg White don't really understand rock and roll or how bands work. Players like Paul Weller, evolve. The Jam was a very different beast to The Style Council and both are different to his current solo work. You develop and you find different musicians to give you different challenges. It's all part of the fun. I sometimes think that when bands don't really know what they are doing, they are at their most creative. Once they 'know the rules' they become less creative. The likes of Lachlan are entitled to their views. They are just as valid as mine and it's what makes the world of Rock and Roll go down. I'm sure if her watched my band, The False Dots, I'd be the first one to get the boot. 

Here's one of our ditties, if you think it sounds OK, why not come down to The Dublin Castle next Friday, 24th March and watch us. More info here www.wegottickets.com/event/573818