The Big Rock Show
Mocking ridiculous rock isn’t anything new—witness the enduring popularity of This Is Spinal Tap—because as long as there are bad bands, there will be good source material. Part concert and part sketch-comedy, The Big Rock Show takes aim at the usual suspects—earnest singer-songwriters, air-headed cock-rockers, the meaningless pomp of arena concerts—and adds acerbic sociopolitical commentary. The show, which returns for a monthlong stint at Davenport’s in April, features the music of singer-songwriter Scotty Iseri and his sarcastic sidekick, Tim The Roadie. The setup is pretty simple: Iseri sings and plays guitar, while Tim sits next to him, getting drunk and doing little that resembles actual roadie work. The duo recently spoke with The A.V. Club about embracing and subverting rock ’n’ roll clichés.
The A.V. Club: Where did the idea for the show come from?
Scotty Iseri: We talk about it in the show, but literally we were sitting on the couch. We were both unemployed one summer, but we had cable, and we were watching VH1 videos, and we’re like “We can do that.” Our first gig was at the Beat Kitchen in 2003. I said to Tim, “Do you want to come and roadie for me?” And he said something like, “Will there be girls there?” I had to buy him a drink to get him to come play with me.
Tim The Roadie: We got like $10 apiece.
SI: Not bad for the outpouring of our souls.
AVC: How has the act changed?
TTR: The first one, what I did was sit in a chair and get as drunk as I could and just say random shit though a megaphone. And now I sit in a chair and get as drunk as I can and say random shit through a megaphone, but there are a lot more gags.
SI: We’ve also structured it quite a bit more. For the longest time, it was just throwing random songs in whenever we could. I’d write something new, and we’d throw it in that week. The past two months, we’ve been trying to think of it as working with a plot, for lack of a better word.
AVC: What are some of the bands you draw on?
TTR: I think we’re both influenced by Mike Doughty. We both really appreciate his humor and his music. I’m so fucking sick of the throwback Def Leppard thing, ’cause I worked at a shitty bar that played that every single day. But maybe when we started, it was a little bit of the kitsch from AC/DC and Def Leppard and that kind of stuff.
SI: This isn’t necessarily musical, but I have a big thing for Andy Kaufman and the way he conned an audience. When I used to play open mics, I’d get up very quietly and pretend like I was really nervous. [High, squeaky voice:] “This is a song I wrote about a girl,” and then jump into something real punk or real hard and snap back into whatever shy routine I could do. I think a lot of the Rock Show is changing the expectations of what you get from either theater or a rock concert.
AVC: You both have a lot of experience in theater, so which do you draw from more, being music fans or your theater background?
SI: The rock clichés that we play with are as much theater as anything else. In theater, it’s recognized that that’s phony. If you go and see a concert, there’s gonna be shit-talk between the audience and the band. Sometimes they’re drunk, and they’ll be like, “Oh, I fuckin’ hate Chicago! Woo!” But there’s these tropes and these ideas that you can find anywhere, like “Goodnight, Chicago!” or “Hello, Chicago!”—things that just get said that are theatrical in their own sense, but because it’s a rock concert, it’s not seen as bullshit.
TTR: I draw equally from both ideas, because all the jokes that I make have to do with the rock clichés. I draw on a lot of rock clichés and rock knowledge to make jokes, like, “Oh, Scotty, aren’t you being so Bright Eyes right now?”
AVC: Do audience members understand that you’re occasionally mocking them? Like in the song “Coffeeshop Writer,” with its references to Lincoln Park Trixies.
TTR: We are kind of mocking you, but we’re not trying to be mean about it, and people will laugh along. It’s never a laughing-at… Sometimes it’s a laughing-at.
SI: Especially with that song, I think people think that they know the stereotype, but of course that’s not them. I’ve done open mics, and “Coffeeshop Writer” goes over great in those places. I can see the dude with the black stringy hair that’s hunched over his journal, and he’ll dig it ’cause it’s not about him, obviously. It’s about the guy over there, the guy with the blonde dreadlocks and the patchouli stink.
TTR: [At one show] the guy that opened for us was a very sincere singer-songwriter who covered a Beatles song, and he also had a seven-minute epic song about the movie Westworld, about an amusement park going crazy where all the robots start killing people. It’s kind of hard playing those shows where really sincere singer-songwriters will play, and then we get up five minutes after them and start making fun of sincere singer-songwriters. Then we feel kind of bad—but not really. —Kyle Ryan
