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dafremen
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This is the sort of music that is coming out of me these days.
I'm going to try to describe the genre..bear with me and feel free to add if you have anything more.
It's hallmarks are a lack of pretension in dress, equipment and technical style. In fact, one of the great hopes of the Rat Rock songwriter is that his music will be simple enough for anyone who plays an instrument to play fairly easily.
The guitars(bass,rhythm,lead) are mostly simple major/minor chords/notes with simple rhythms that repeat often; very seldom employing scale work or engaging in solos. Picking is simple and clean with little in it to impress the highly skilled guitarist except, perhaps, its raw simplicity and its pure power as it moves the listener primally.
The drums are simple and rhythmic, rarely straying from the beat. Fills are brief, simple and few; placement being much more important than technical wizardry. Often only a single drum is employed..occasionally with a single stick or none at all. The object being to add JUST what the song needs to be full and not stuffing it with more.
Dress is anything you like as long as it's simple and unpretentious.
High end instrument brands do not get you the same cred as in many other rock scenes.
More impressive to the rat rocker is a low end instrument that sounds great, a high end instrument that sounds great and is beat to hell from living a musician's life, or a modified instrument that sounds great. Great sound, as you no doubt discerned, being the important thing. Fancy labels are for other genres..not rat rock.
Rat rock lyrics can be about almost anything, but they mostly recount simple stories/themes in simple words without a lot of "self talking."
Rat rock is very much about US and WE, not ME and YOU. It is something of a rejection of the self focus which defined most of the 80s and 90s and large chunks of the early 21st century.
Dance is very much associated with rat rock. If couples aren't holding each other and swinging around the dance floor, hopefully it's because it's a cool down set.
There. That's more or less how I'd describe the "rat rock" genre.
Here's an example. Mine's a very roots and folk form of rat rock:
penniless.bandcamp.com
(Oh..and thanks for listening. : ) )
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150823
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