musicianshi{t|p}

I went to see Rocco Deluca recently at The Social.  I really love that guy.  I first learned of him through the rockumentary starring his record labels celeb owner/(misguided)operator, Keifer Sutherland.  Keifer guides the band on a run of shittie venues that are not well marketed playing for bar-hopping-music-”listeners” that are in their late 30’s/early-mid 40’s.  Not that the music that Rocco and his band play is not easily enjoyed across the generations, but when you starting out and getting people to “start” listening to a band, you don’t go to bars where are the yocals are expecting to see some local good ol’ boys do covers of the same songs they listen to every other night on the damn digital “kickbox”.

There are some rather funny parts of the dvd, even though I think it should have had more “music”… the best are the drunken nights of celebratory music and beer that lead Keifer to regularly lose personal property, namely cellphones.  You kind of wonder if the entire cast of 24 (or better yet, The Lost Boys) get prank calls at 4a.m.  His pore choice of venues kind of echo what friends and family seem to utter throughout the documentary:  that even famous actors sometimes have no clue what the fuck they’re doing from one day to the next.

And the best insight of all into Rocco’s songwriting is summed up in one single question about his harboring anger towards his ever fleeting model mother and musician father which left him being raised by a grandmother.   He responds that he is not angered by his mother leaving home and his father traveling, the interviewee then proceeds with:  “The where does all of the anger in your lyrics come from.”  Rocco smiles and says slightly, “Well, then, maybe I am.”

I got to shake Mr. Deluca’s hand in a quick meet and greet after the show.  You can tell that he is tired and would probably rather not be bothered by all the passerbys, but he stands smiling none the less.  And he should be tired… he played an intense show and one that is exhausting to watch:  he feels what he is playing and knows what he is singing like no other… it is as if he is reliving it in every chord he plays.

I had to laugh out loud when I heard a guy trying desperately hard to impress a girl that he was with:  “all he was doing was playing chords with a glass slide”.  This shmuck was obviously not only not getting laid, but not paying attention to the lyrics, watching the musicianship or paying attention to any of the entire show.  I guess he was too busy checking out his lady friends ass, because, well it was worth checking out.  Rocco Deluca is/was not “just” playing chords with a glass slide, he is playing a sound that not many artists have ventured out to master:  Appalachian/rock/blues/funk with just enough pop to get on the radio if that comes their way.

I’ll be honest I hate “bands” that have a person’s name:  John Mayer, Dave Matthews… I don’t know why, it just annoys me.  Rocco Deluca is a name made for hanging on a billboard sign outside of a venue, but luckily it even works with “…and the Burden”.  “The Burden” also seems to work, because you kind of get the sense that his music is a way to make the carrying of all of the burdens in his life lighter and easier to pack away while on tour.