|
|
'Gene Simmons’
Rock School,' rockin'
Sweet journey back to class for the Kiss singer
By Steven Rosen
In the face-off between new
reality shows about aging hard-rockers returning to school, score a
victory for Kiss’s Gene Simmons over Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee.
Also score a victory for cable over broadcast.
NBC’s cloying “Tommy Lee Goes to College” never
establishes why that rocker wants to be there. That leaves the
series with a sense of aimlessness. There's a goof going on but we're
not really sure who's being goofed.
By contrast, VH1’s “Gene Simmons’ Rock School,”
which premieres tomorrow night, has a clear sense of purpose and
narrative development. “Rock School” is also cheerful and even
cute, if predictable. (After its premiere, “Rock School”
switches to 10:30 on Fridays, following repeats of NBC’s “Tommy
Lee.”)
Taking a cue from the hit movie “School of Rock,” the
55-year-old Simmons, who even looks like a weary, middle-aged Jack
Black, arrives at England’s 450-year-old Christ's Hospital boarding
school to unteach, as he puts it, a class of musically gifted
13-year-olds.
The school is beautiful, a veritable castle in the
countryside, and one of the show's chief attractions. Another is the
students’ chicly archaic uniforms of dark tunic-like coats and
long gowns. They look like little monks in the making.
Almost all the students in the class favor classical
over pop, and Simmons' mission is to make a rock band out of them.
Early on he admonishes that attitude is far more important than
musical accomplishment. He tells one boy he’s too good for rock.
One could quarrel with that, and for that reason the
premise of the series seems stale. Simmons’ Kiss in its day was
indeed a bluntly simplistic musical act that got by on theatrical
bombast and lots of pancake makeup, but that's hardly the rule for
rock bands, as we know. The biggest current British rock bands like
Radiohead and Coldplay are extremely accomplished musically.
But “Rock School” is less about rock than giving
the students a chance to loosen up and have fun. Under Simmons’
tutelage, they try to act like young rock gods. A red-headed boy
named Joshua, who is studying trumpet, renames himself “Emperor”
and tries out for lead singer by writhing about and screeching like
Johnny Rotten. The other kids are appalled. Simmons is delighted.
Certainly, some of the chemistry of "Rock
School" is Simmons’ bad-boy image as a man of many women, and
in the premiere episode he's seen in a limousine with two leggy
blondes, making a devilish face in close-up. Old footage of Kiss
concerts shows him sticking out his tongue, and there’s an
obscured shot of a female fan baring her breasts at a concert.
But in class we see a very different Simmons, and therein
lies the real charm of the show. We meet Simmons the man, and he's a
likeable sort, someone we can identify with. This gives "Rock
School" some depth of the sort that's entirely lacking in “Tommy
Lee Goes to College."
Initially, Simmons comes on mock-tough, causing
one girl to scream, but he proves to be disarmingly nice with a
friendly, supportive classroom demeanor. He smiles and laughs a lot.
He explains early on that he once had a job as a
teacher until Kiss took off. He'd long wondered if he would have
been good at teaching. From the evidence here, he could have been.
He might not own a mansion, however. Or his own show on
VH1.
|
Aug. 18, 2005
©
2005
Media Life
-
Steven Rosen is a Los Angeles writer.
|
|
|
|
