You're a punk and you'll amount to nothing!!! Tell that to three of the most educated musicians out there...

[Graham]

Dave Hunt, the vocalist of black metal band Anaal Nathrakh is a philosophy PhD, he often references philosophy in their music

 

Video for anyone not acquainted

 

https://youtu.be/q8m4vGqJS4U?si=XU8Rh6UfnS8OTEEv

[SteveXFR]

There are a lot of musicians with university educations and probably because of the number of bands who started while at university. 

[Guest]

All of our band have degrees, three bachelors, me postgrad, and our lead guitarist got his PhD in some field of physics relating to electricity, which doesn't seem to be or the remotest help when trying to diagnose his Strat's noise problem.

 

We're just a bunch of scruffy old whingebags and the parchments have no real bearing on that. It's just happenstance that we're all old gits from the same part or the world and share similar key demographics.

Edited May 25, 2024 by Bassfinger

[ahpook]

2 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

There are a lot of musicians with university educations and probably because of the number of bands who started while at university. 

 

Indeed. When my old band from uni reformed for the guitarist's 50th we all had, by a strange conincidence, degrees.

 

[Maude]

I don't have a degree but I can rescue a mean rubber brick from the bottom of a swimming pool whilst wearing pyjama bottoms if needed. 

[SteveXFR]

1 minute ago, Maude said:

I don't have a degree but I can rescue a mean rubber brick from the bottom of a swimming pool whilst wearing pyjama bottoms if needed. 

 

Just tell people you have a BSc. They won't know it means bronze swimming certificate rather than bachelor of science. 

[BassTractor]

the boys in my band had all three degrees.
demnit, my shift key won't work.

[TimR]

11 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

PhDs are not about passing exams but involve extensive original thinking and research. GCSEs may all be about box ticking and A levels don't really require much critical thought but higher degrees, especially in STEM subjects, are special and do indicate advanced intelligence. 

 

Saved me a bit of typing.

[Nail Soup]

James Williams, of Iggy and the Stooges had a very high-tech career afterwards....

 

From Wikipedia:

Technology career

Immediately following his graduation from Cal Poly Pomona, Williamson moved to Silicon Valley. For the next fifteen years, he worked for Advanced Micro Devices in San Jose, California, designing products around its chips. His coworkers never inquired about his earlier career as a rock musician; in a 2010 interview with Uncut, Williamson asserted that many of his colleagues were "nerds and geeks ... they don't listen to The Stooges much."[17] In 1997, he was hired as Sony's vice president of technical standards; in this capacity, he liaised with competitors and helped to codify nascent industry standards, most notably the Blu-ray Disc. During the Great Recession, he accepted an early retirement buyout offer from Sony in 2009.

In 2015, Williamson was selected to receive ANSI's Ronald H. Brown Standards Leadership Award for his contributions to consumer electronics standards development. The award, named after late United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, is presented as part of World Standards Day celebration.

[BillyBass]

I followed a band called Delta 5, back in the day.  They were Leeds Uni students, influenced by the Gang of Four and 2 of them (Beth and Jules) had been girlfriends of members of the Mekons.  Unfortunately Jules (singer, songwriter, occasional tele player) and Kelvin (drums) have passed away.  I don't know what Beth (bass, vocals) and Alan (guitar) are doing now but the other bassist, Ros Allen, is a lecturer at the University of Sunderland; Animation is her thing I believe.

 

Not punk, I know but there's an association.

Edited May 26, 2024 by BillyBass

[Piers_Williamson]

14 minutes ago, BillyBass said:

I followed a band called Delta 5, back in the day.  They were Leeds Uni students, influenced by the Gang of Four and 2 of them (Beth and Jules) had been girlfriends of members of the Mekons.  Unfortunately Jules (singer, songwriter, occasional tele player) and Kelvin (drums) have passed away.  I don't know what Beth (bass, vocals) and Alan (guitar) are doing now but the other bassist, Ros Allen, is a lecturer at the University of Sunderland; Animation is her thing I believe.

 

Not punk, I know but there's an association.

What a great blast from the past.  If the Mekons and Gang of Four weren't punk, they were pretty alternative.  My first bass teacher was Dave Bowie, who played in the Mekons from time to time.  I seem to remember they were a bit of a 'collective'

[uncle psychosis]

On 25/05/2024 at 10:56, SteveXFR said:

There are a lot of musicians with university educations and probably because of the number of bands who started while at university. 

 

There's a fairly compelling argument that the loss of the student grant has had a really detrimental effect on bands "coming through" in the UK. There must be hundreds of bands who only "made it" because they had four years of art college / university to hone their craft relatively risk free. Can't do that anymore. 

[BassTractor]

Dunno about this stuff, and I'll just revert you to my daughter's in-depth analysis:
Martine (4) :
"Dad, these rockers ... their heads are so filled with rock that there's no space left for intelligence. Now, I like rock too, but at least I have space left for intelligence."

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, uncle psychosis said:

 

There's a fairly compelling argument that the loss of the student grant has had a really detrimental effect on bands "coming through" in the UK. There must be hundreds of bands who only "made it" because they had four years of art college / university to hone their craft relatively risk free. Can't do that anymore. 

Yep, I read that Mick Jones of The Clash (and many others at that time) used their grants to get guitars and much of their college/university time to learn how to play. 

[nige1968]

14 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Yep, I read that Mick Jones of The Clash (and many others at that time) used their grants to get guitars and much of their college/university time to learn how to play. 

 

Me too, though I also failed at becoming a punk/rock star

[dmccombe7]

3 hours ago, BassTractor said:

Dunno about this stuff, and I'll just revert you to my daughter's in-depth analysis:
Martine (4) :
"Dad, these rockers ... their heads are so filled with rock that there's no space left for intelligence. Now, I like rock too, but at least I have space left for intelligence."

Brilliant. Love it. 

Dave

[Angel]

Well I'm slumming it with just BA (Hons) after my name.

[Angel]

Tom Morello graduated from Harvard with a degree in political science, which I remember from this exchange:

 

[ProjeKtWEREWOLF]

There's nothing more punk than being on the same side of the argument than the government and biog business. 

 

 

[SteveXFR]

My daughter is off to uni in September to study commercial music. The course has already produced a number of successful pop and rock musicians and producers and the head of department was a fairly successful rock musician. 

XFR junior will hopefully end up a successful musician with a degree. Possibly. 

[Piers_Williamson]

When I was at Uni I harboured a desire to be a professional rock photographer.  I did see a lot of fantastic gigs which with the benefit of hindsight were great.  Pragmatically, I discovered that there wasn't much money in it it, and I was glad to get away from all those egos.  I did learn bass properly (for the first time) though.  In a world of Student Fees, I suspect I wouldn't have given it a go if I were doing it today.  And I am happier today to be doing something I love (play music with friends) without the pressure that is being in a successful band.

[Roger2611]

I got one art O level, it did nothing for me!

[Jackroadkill]

I've got a degree; I graduated in Criminology in 2001 and it's been absolutely bloody useless.  I wish I'd gone to college and learned how to be a precision engineer.

[ahpook]

I have a degree in Astrophysics...it's the nearest I ever got to any star power.

[Richard R]

On 25/05/2024 at 08:50, Barking Spiders said:

PhDs ... do indicate advanced intelligence. 

 

Really? It must have leached out of my ears pretty soon afterwards then.

 

Actually completing a PhD meant the ability to finish writing the bloody thesis, despite being out of time and money and desperate to do anything than check results from over three years ago or try to get the references straight.  Prior to that it was great fun, but a surprising number of friends didn't manage to complete the write up within the time limit and never got to wear a floppy hat.

 

Dr May took 30 years due to some minor distractions.