Why I Spent The Last Three Years Of My Life Writing a Rock Music Book

This blog is intended as a crossover blog to the musical community — that this book is heavily dedicated to — and not so much for math education audience. I have written over 200 blogs in that space. I am beginning to move on…

Nobody I knew would have predicted that my string of writing math books would be be broken by a book about rock music — also my longest at over 400 pages.

I would include myself in that category.

I thought I was done writing books. I had nothing more to say in mathematics education. It was all becoming a test for echo — to see if mathematics education as a whole was interested in mathematics content.

Test successful. Mathematics is dead. It’s a rotting corpse.

It’s a bloody gong show of pedantic pedagogy doing nothing but cozying up to edu celebrities and creating one big cult of offensive buzzwords that only an administrative bureaucrat could like.

If you hated math in school, you would hate just as much today. Nothing has changed. Ship still sinking. More people lounging on deck chairs and more selfies.

That’s because the same fuckin’ boring math content that put you rightfully to sleep is still there. It was never fault for hating math.

Everyone who goes to school should hate math. School is about as good as communicating and teaching the truthful beauty about mathematics as Rolling Stone magazine is about communicating the state of the union of rock and roll.

The parallels between institutionalized math education and institutionalized music industry is frightening — piss poor curiosity for anything new with regards to content and conservative gatekeepers to maintain the falsehood about math and music.

Both kick ass on several levels, except the aforementioned institutions have lukewarm enthusiasm about focusing on content.

Mathematics was always going to be a losing battle — as most people already start from a position of boredom, dislike, apathy, anxiety, and even trauma.

My gut instinct told me to switch my focus to rock and roll — that’s something closer to my heart and closer to most people’s.

I am still in the world of mathematics, but at a micro level — literally! I will running a “Math Treehouse” at Conduit, a micro school.

I am also co-writing a book with Amoret Lyon, a 9 year-old girl who lives in Italy. Yes, the story of even that coming about will be in the book. It’s really a more personal story/continuation of my last math book.

But, in a few short weeks, I will be going to my first music festival in 20 years — RippleFest in Austin, Texas! My first day there will be the official book release/party for Sonic Seducer.

I poured my heart and soul into this book like no other. The reasons are multiple, but here are some of them.

To let the rest of the world know that this is the best period in rock music in over 50 years.

To let the rest of the world know that the “scene” responsible for producing this ridiculous abundance of music is the most tight-knit, inclusive, welcoming, warm, and kind group of people you will ever come across.

To let the rest of the world know that this “scene” has gone beyond cult — like it was 30 years ago. It’s global. Here are the countries that have robust scenes with dozens and dozens of bands playing the rock and roll we love so much — stoner/desert/doom.

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Ukraine.

4. To let the rest of the world know that all this new music leads back to The Beatles.

5. To let the rest of the world know that the word “heaviness” has been redefined to go beyond just ferocity and velocity of instruments. Heaviness is an emotion that is boundless which also incorporates moments of quiet and sparseness. And that all the wonderful sounds of blues, psychedelia, prog, and soul that were inextricably found in some of the greatest classic rock songs, are now in fuller bloom in 2024.

That’s why I devoted 36 months of the last years of my fifties to write a rock and roll book.

It’s not for the faint of heart. That’s because rock and roll, in its most untamed and unvarnished form, is not for the faint of heart.

The quote that opens the entire book is this one. My passion for rock and roll is — and has been — out of control for most of my life. Thank god.