Rock School

"This is the final Rock School show. We felt 1000 shows was a good number to end on since Tammy and I are retiring at the end of this year. Thank you to all who ran the show. You gave us an audience. For this final hour, we are looking at the top 10 moments from the almost 20 years of shows. Thanks again and goodbye. We sure did enjoy your company."

"This is the second to last Rock School show and I'm using it to pitch my 4th album, Widow Maker, which went live last week on Spotify and Apple Music. I hope you enjoy it and I hope to see you all next week for the final Rock School Show."

"Tammy and I have decided to retire from our jobs and also from creating the Rock School Radio show. I know this is the 744th show on PRX but it's actually our 997th show overall. We will do this show and three more, ending on our 1000th show. To that end, in this show we will announce some musicians who might be retiring soon themselves. We will list the oldest people touring this summer."

"Every list of the best bands contains the same bands in the top 20 so I made a new list. I looked at several best band lists and eliminated those top 20 bands. My list gets rid of the obvious choices and gives many lesser known bands a chance. See what you think."

"For an experiment, I denoted the last ten generations and attempted to define the song of their generation. Some were easy and some quite difficult. I offer five possibilities first and then pick. See if I made the correct choice."

"I was talking about the Paul is Dead conspiracy theory in class one day and the students began asking me if I knew about THIS theory. And then THIS theory. We went on for 30 minutes and then I did some research. There were so many theories I had never heard of. Hopefully they are new to you as well. We have a long list."

"When you listen to Van Halen or Extreme or Steely Dan you expect a great guitar solo. The point of this show is to offer some examples of totally unexpected solos. These are solos in a song or a genre or by an artists that it seems to be coming out of nowhere. "

"Back on May 31st Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson chided an audience for chanting USA. Much of the audience then walked out. I wondered if this had happened before and it certainly did. We have multiple examples of an audience turning on the performer and vice versa. For many we have the audio from the stage."

"The new owners of Fender since 2020 are attempting to own the copyright on the Stratocaster body. A German court has taken them part of the way but most experts don't believe it will hold up to scrutiny. Nonetheless, Fender has sent Cease and Desist letters to multiple guitar makers telling them to stop production, call back orders and destroy stock. Fender may have just committed brand suicide b...

"The New York Times released their 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters list a short while ago. I know online lists usually have some click bait to start conversation but this list was overtly egregious. Not for who was on it. It was who was left off. We will go over the list and play some artists that should have been on there."

"Sony Music Publishing confirmed an agreement to acquire Blackstone’s Recognition Music Group catalog for $3.5 billion. The Red Hot Chili Peppers just sold their catalog for $300 million. Other Funds are raising billions to start buying. These buyers are called Music Rights Funds. I became interested in how these Funds actually made money. How does one invest and can I sell my own music. I have th...

"It is no secret that music contracts can be rather brutal on artists. Often the stories focus on not getting paid but there is also the interesting idea of a lawsuit ordering a musician to fill his or her contract and record what we are calling a court ordered album. We have multiple examples plus one where the band was paid NOT to record an album."

"Many summer tours are having to scale back or cancel altogether. The nickname given to this practice is Blue Dot Fever. It is named after the blue dots that appear on unsold seats when a ticket buyer uses Ticketmaster. It has become indicative of a larger societal and financial concern that is leading to people not being able to attend live music. We will explain."

"This is a requested topic from a friend. He wondered if we had ever discussed steel drums. We had not so we did a show. We have some history and some discussion of tuning and prices. There are also a lot of songs that use the steel drum you may not have noticed before."

"On April 16 2026 A federal jury in Manhattan found that Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation have been acting as a monopoly. The case is wide ranging involving 33 states and the District of Columbia. Live Nation will not appeal any of the verdicts. We will discuss what is a monopoly and what these decisions could mean for the future."

"Just a bit of fun this week. Nobody is perfect so it is pretty easy to hear mistakes in recorded music. Here are some of the big ones in rock and hopefully some you did not know. Once you hear them, you cannot unhear them."

"The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has released its 2026 State of the Industry Report. There are some pretty big take aways including stances on AI and the fact that the music industry is now more profitable than ever before. We will explore the findings."

"The former head of Interscope and Geffen records Jimmie Ivine said that streaming has had its time. Spotify will see its demise soon. Whether you believe that or not, the question is what comes next. After Spotify. Many have suggest this next step in music evolution. We will tell you what Ivine said and offer up some possibilities for after Spotify."

"I found a cheeky online piece where the author was using funny put downs to describe some popular bands. Tourist Rock. Ring Tone Rap. Yallternative. So I put it to the Facebook and received a much longer list. I call then Genre Insults and we have a bunch for you."

"I ran across an article that listed three songs that people listen to only to wait for just that one section. It mentioned the drum break in the Phil Collins song In the Air Tonight. I knew exactly what it was talking about and immediately had five examples from my own collection. I put it to Facebook and now I have a slew of examples."

"Major record companies are suing SUNO and Udio over song usage to create AI tunes. The one big thing the companies are looking for is a Walled Garden, the idea that what is created on SUNO will stay on SUNO. It cannot be taken and spread around. One company has already settled but it goes much deeper than that."

"I ran across an article listing musicians who are in both the Rock and the Country Halls of Fame. There aren't many. When I started looking into it further I found that the people on the list were in multiple other Halls of Fame as well. I wanted to find out what musician is in the most Halls. There is a clear winner."

"Luminate is a company that tracks the Entertainment Industry pointing out data analytics and trends. Their 2025 report has come out and it points to overall listenership being up. Listening to new music is way down. There are also some interesting data points regarding AI."

"The internet loves lists. The click bait ones often choose to list the worst of something and choose the best of it just to upset the audience for engagement. I can usually ignore these but this one really bugged me for some reason. I'll tell you the list and debunk it and offer some of mine."

"The Rockin 1000 is a project that started in Italy as gag to create a video of 1000 musicians playing Learn to Fly in order to get the Foo Fighters to come and put on a concert. It has since grown into full scale concerts across Europe. On January 31 the Rockin 1000 played their first concert in America, in New Orleans, and I was part of the band. Let me tell you the story."