Headbanging is for the cunts in front... not you.

Not that i know of.

Looking directly at someone in the crowd might make them think you've dedicated the song to them.

On stage,do not dedicate songs verbally.Only on the inner sleeves of your records.

Going down on your knees while looking up makes you look like a religious prick.

No Air Guitar

I like how I've perpetrated an awful lot of these rules. I like that a lot.

Did you now?

Yes, very much so. I am in an improv band though, so I think I have certain exemptions.

You lot get away with murder under that moniker.

1. Don't suck.

2. Don't do this:

Mmm. It's certainly a concern. There is so much very, very bad improv out there.

no smoke machines and keep lighting to a bare minimum. no light shows. dont have a concept and dont try to put on an accent. if anyone says anything bad to you just keep playing. do not look at the audience. turn you back, kneel on the floor and face your amp. drink on stage, smoke on stage. dont have dedications unless its to someone who's dead and even then recently cold. no anouncements. only thank people at the end. dont dress up, wear what you wear all the time. if no one likes it, so fucking what. no five string basses. dont make a big entrance onto the stage, just walk on get on with it.

that reminds of motorhead on their european tour of some time in the 80's. while playing in dresden the stage prop was a giant lancaster bomber overlooking the stage. lemmy says 'bet you havnt seen one of those for a while'

I happen to enjoy fog, lights and some consideration in stage wear. I wear my "stage clothes" in regular life, but I do think some effort in looking good onstage is good. Just not too costumey.

-The above post reminded me of a very important rule that i haven't posted about yet.DO MAKE SURE THAT WHEN YOU PLAY LIVE YOU LOOK GREAT IN THE DARK!It's more important to look great in the dark than it is to look cool in bright lights.

edit-reference was to jonboy's post.

oops.

Lux Interior gets a pass on all this stuff. That guy can pull it off, no matter what "it" is.

don't let one member become the centre of attention. look at what happened to U2.

don't let your political ramblings become the staple of your live shows. Again, look at what happened to U2.

Don't do anything that the guys in Oasis have done in the past 10 years.

Example: Don't break up 14 times without actually breaking up, don't get banned from an airline, don't walk out and make your guitarist sing lead for entire chunks of the tour, don't start fights from the stage, don't record Be Here Now...

Yeah. It gets really old really quickly.

-Do abide by the law of the right beard.This law has been passed 400 years ago and it's caused a lot of overpopulation in prisons all over the world.

Chapter 2
How to sound

-Always make sure that those influences of yours stay as such wich means they don't sound like a rip off of other(and perhaps more talented)musicians.This particular regulation was passed at the dawn of time but it seems difficult to put it into practice for a scarily enormous amount of bands.

Beards

How to sound: 1. Whatever you do, don't play guitar. If you must play guitar, try and turn it down so it is inaudible. If you, further to these rules, must play it, you absolutely must kill yourself if you ever even think about what Eric Clapton could possibly sound like, let alone actually hearing it.

2. The Shaggs. Why are you even thinking about playing music when I have now told you the name of the Shaggs?

Dispose of most superflous instruments and musicians and do everything yourself.Particularly important is that this instrumentation is used:
-Field recordings
-Oscillators
-Keyboards
-Samplers
-Creative imagination


There are many more but due to my lack of being arsed i'll list them later.

don't sound like radiohead

If you're songs consist of two-note power chords, and it is not the blues: quit. Just stop playing.

punk is dead.

So are my grandparents. Cool!

ooh, they must be punk.

That was funny and depressing. Which happens to be the best kind of funny.