Professor Lester Langley usually entered class from the top of the auditorium, running down the long staircase as the day's theme song played on the house speakers. Students loved it-- or so he thought-- and he was frustrated that he would have to disappoint them today. Last week, he'd fallen down the stairs to the tune of Rodan's "The Everyday World of Bodies," fracturing a bone in his left leg.

Of course, the embarrassment of his injury always faded when he remembered how cool it was that he taught a class on New-Post-Post-Punk-Re-Rock (titled "What? You've never heard of_____???" in the school's course book). Today's dissection was scheduled to be the Need's latest record, The Need is Dead. In his backpack (he had to forgo the briefcase for a while... you know, because of the crutches) were discs by Need frontwoman Rachel Carns' previous band, Kicking Giant, and some examples of Carns' artwork. He'd pull this stuff out if things got slow in the class discussion. He didn't have much on Need guitarist/bassist Radio Sloan, but hopefully they'd be able to spend the class analyzing the "text." Lester hobbled across the stage and put on the album.

"So," he began. "I presume we all had a chance to listen to this. Any initial responses?"

An anonymous response from near the door: "Uh, they don't have this in stock at the bookstore yet."

"Oh. Hmm... Well, I'll have to see about that. I know I put that order in. Anyway, you're listening to it now. What do you hear?"

A girl in the front of the class: "Well, it sounds kind of heavy. Is this goth or something?"

"Now, now. You know we don't try to completely categorize in here. Let's go through the first track again. There... what do you hear?"

"Birds? It sounds like it's outside."

"That's right. What else is coming through?"

"It sounds like the guitarist is playing the top of his guitar like Fugazi does," a guy from the third row said.

"And there's something backwards in there," mentioned the girl from the front row.

"Yes. But first off, you know we don't assume that the guitarist is male. However, in this case, he is. Good call on the Fugazi influences there, Paul. I know that I've said it before, but I can't stress enough what an important impact they've had on modern music. And how would you describe what's taking place now?"

[Heavy guitar and drums had broken the serenity of the first 45 seconds with some arena rock-esque licks, followed by darker, crunchier power chords and monotone female vocals.]

The class responded:

"It sounds kind of heavy."

"The vocals are kind of like Billy Idol crossed with Alice in Chains or something?"

"This is weird."

"Alright," Lester interrupted. "We'll go with 'weird.' Why would you say this sounds weird?"

"It changes its time signatures?" questioned an anonymous long-hair from the back of the room.

"It keeps changing style, too," said the girl in the front row. "This song now sounds like some sort of surf-rock, or something off the American Graffiti soundtrack. Oh, wait. Now it doesn't anymore. Hey! That's why it's weird. What do you call that thing in the background again?"

"It's a theremin, Megan. You might have remembered that from the Beach Boys to Blues Explosion: The Theremin in Rock packet I handed out last week, if any of you read it. So, we have heavy guitar at times, stylized vocals, and changing time signatures. Putting all this together, we get 'weird.' Perhaps 'genre bending' would be a better term for our purposes. By mixing 'surfy' organ chords usually associated with the garage bands of the '60s with more modern electric guitar and vocals along the lines of Wire, Television, or Devo, we end up with something quite new. Let's click ahead a few tracks and see where else this goes. ...Mmm, a couple of quieter tracks here. Then, we get back into the heavy stuff. Notice that it all has a fun, experimental air about it. It's as if the artists are approaching the music with the knowledge that they're toying with the concept of 'genre' but can't really decide what genres they want to toy with."

"Uh, sir, it's 11:35."

"Oh, right. Well, for the next class, I want you to listen to Gastr del Sol's The Serpentine Similar and tell me what's wrong with the tracklisting on the back. Also, please take a look at the Gastr del Sol: From Beautiful Bundy to Awful O'Rourke-- Why, Oh Why, David? packet I'm passing around. See you all on Thursday.

-Chip Chanko