So you know how I can’t seem to escape Dave Grohl?  Well, I’m reading a book right now called “So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star” by Jacob Slichter.  He’s the drummer from Semisonic (remember Closing Time?).  Anyway, I read this book a few years ago on the recommendation of Brian Vander Ark from The Verve Pipe (the recommendation of his blog anyway).  It’s a hilariously insightful look at the music industry and mirrored a lot of The Verve Pipe’s career, who have always held special interest for me as they made it big and are from West Michigan too.  

Semisonic (at the time called Pleasure) were courting various record labels.  The author hasn’t been through this process before and is describing the various record labels and the personalities at them, at which point Dave Grohl climbs out of the pages, leering at me.  Direct quote from the book:

“Next up was Geffen, perhaps the dominant label of the day.  Its roster - which included Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, The Counting Crows and Sonic Youth - was an impressive list of either massively successful or super-cool bands, espcially in the case of its best-known band, Nirvana.

Nothing triggered my panicked feelings of inadequacy as much as Nirvana and Dave Grohl’s monstrous drumming.  Grohl pounded a permanent change into the radio; in the wake of Nirvana’s success, the airwaves were crammed with bands whose drummers tried to play the larger-than-life fills that thundered around his drums.  None, however, could match his huge sound and hypnotic groove.  Grohl, eight years younger than me, set the impossible standard by which all drummers were now judged.  To hear Nirvana blasting out of Brad’s speakers at ten in the morning - it sounded like the soundtrack to a nightmare.”

Yup, welcome to my nightmare Jacob Slichter.