Being in a band is difficult. Especially in the suburbs.
"Suburban rock" is itself a derogatory term. That's a descriptor I've only heard used by old (think late 40s, early 50s) coffee shop hangers-on when they describe the band at their daughter's wedding. It's characterized as over-polished, boring classic rock covers, and it's performed by church group volunteers and dads. Suburban rockers always perform in collared shirts. Usually they have short, moussed hair and if it's long it's in a ponytail.
Genres that aren't as played out as white-man-guitar-rock, like hip-hop, metal, and electronica, seemingly have no place in the sprawl. Their subcultures grow fungal in the depths of the inner city and the furthest reaches of the Middle American flatland.
But demographics change! The rolling highways of the middle century lost their luster once gas topped $3 a gallon, and the far-flung populace is finally beginning to concentrate. The suburbs are the new hoods, with the former status-obsessed commercial-culture moving back into the inner city and giving up their townhome communities to the trailer trash on the outskirts of town.
But can you be taken seriously as a musician in the suburbs? No. You ain't shit until you're struggling in the city. But does that mean you need to give up the job and family you're building in your neighborhood just to be cool? Yes. It sucks and we're sorry. Does it need to be this way? No, let's try to change it. We need to be proud of the suburbs. We need to encourage garage bands. The Greatest Generation only has a couple decades left. All those retirement homes are going to become low-income housing eventually. Let's claim our territory now and make future suburban culture a liberal arts culture!
One major obstacle to face is the distinct lack of music venues. Share-houses by colleges are the prototype for basement venues, then it's cafes/bars, then clubs. Since most people move into these share houses to get away from their parents, next to none exist in the suburbs. Also, cops in the suburbs have nothing better to do than bust house parties, so the longevity of share house venues is questionable.
But this is our movement, still trying to find definition. We need to invent a new venue, one where music isn't just an excuse to consume psychoactive chemicals (although those are nice) and where suburban kids have some breathing room to be something other than burned-out, overworked, or depressed.
Americans, particularly suburbanites, are defined by work. Menial labor of the stressful or boring variety dominates our waking hours, and this is what separates us from the rest of the world. When America eats, it eats fast because we never outgrew the half-hour public school lunch break. Rarely does a meal last longer than an hour, and rarely is it cooked by anything other than an industrial flash oven or deep-fryer.
Pizza is the food of the American suburbanite. Pizza doesn't take long to make, even for like, a dozen people. It's high in carbs, so you can get fat off it if you want. It's designed to be shared, because meals are pretty much the only time you aren't working, so it's nice to see other people. It's also a childhood rite. Whenever a group of public school kids know they've done something right, it's because some authority figure is throwing them a pizza party.
Teens and twenty-somethings in the suburbs should redesign the Chuck E. Cheese model of pizza, performance, and video games. Although the pizza will have to be less shitty, the performance less animatronic, and the video games will have to be free to play. Actually, the performers can still be robots but the music has to be less corny.
I believe this is a critical step in rebranding the suburbs, and staking out the future of creative spaces and indie music. Anyone else who likes my idea of a fucking sweet pizza venue should continue to read this blog as I update it and should listen to recordings from my band (once we have some).
INTRODUCING PIZZAMERICA!
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