September 16, 2005

<b>Curious, George:</b> Loud guitars and thick glasses. I am looking for suggestions for my Nerd Rock Mix.

The restrictions are as follows: 1) Must be rock, with real or mostly real instruments (synth ok, but no real techno). 2) Musicians should look like mathematicians, quantum physicists, programmers, or New Wave geeks. Fame is fleeting, and it should appear to be entirely possible for the artist/band to get jobs in a chem lab somewhere if the music biz should fail them. 3) Bonus for a nerd topic within the song itself, i.e.- a song about the Dungeon Master's guide or the whole catalogue of TMBG. However, this is not a call for novelty songs or one-hit wonders. The idea is that it should not have even occurred to the artist/band that writing a song about the Dungeon Master's guide would be in any way odd. 4) Bonus-bonus for any band members who have advanced degrees. Mind you, the lead singer of Bad Religion has a degree in something like Paleozoology, but Bad Religion is simply too cool. Not awkward enough. Same for Rush, Iron Maiden and Midnight Oil. The artist/band should be such that they are rock stars but are still hopeless at talking to girls. The constraints are stiff, but I am really trying to raise the bar, here. Any suggestions?

posted by oflinkey 19 years ago
  • David Byrne always seemed that way to me. So did the Pixies. The Futureheads, too. I guess Elvis Costello is the obvious one.
  • Nerf Herder is the obvious choice. The Crash Test Dummies' "Superman's Song" is geeky in its knowledge of Superman lore. Plus, the frontman holds a B.A. (Double Honours) in English Lit and Philosophy.
  • The one and only Weezer
  • Weezer was the first group that came to mind for me, too. Probably the most mainstream geek-rock. And maybe They Might Be Giants? They have a disturbing amount of knowledge of the sun. And Istanbul.
  • Led Zeppelin's Ramble On, Misty Mountain Hop, and Battle of Evermore, and Over the Hills and Far Away are all about the Lord of the Rings. I'd suggest a bunch of Iron Maiden, but you already said no to them.
  • Damian Kulash, the lead singer for OK Go, studied semiotics at Brown University.
  • I'm sorry, one day I shall read the whole post before suggesting TMBG.
  • Thomas Dolby might be more synth/keyboard heavy than what you're looking for. But he did play keyboards for Def Leppard! Donnie Iris, one-hit wonder (Ah! Leah) - two if you also count the Rapper. His music is not so geeky, but the look...
  • For true geek potential you need Ben Folds Five doing Underground. "I was never cool at school..."
  • Darn it djryan, was going to suggest Ben Folds as well. You mentioned 'Underground' so I'm gonna recommend 'Rockin' The Suburbs' for it's seething nerd angst. I always thought that the Spin Doctors had a definite lit-geek edge.
  • Half Japanese?
  • No-one has mentioned Pulp? Has no-one *seen* Jarvis Cocker? Or listened to the lyrics of Disco 2000.
  • (Oh, and Queen hit the degree front. Freddie Mercury had a BA, Roger Taylor had a biology degree, Brian May was working on his PhD in Astronomy and built the guitar he plays out of a mantlepiece, while John Deacon had an electronics degree. Freddie Mercury wasn't much good at talking to girls, either 8)
  • Moxy Fruvous is a good one, with hits such as "The Entropy Song" and "You will go to the moon", though the latter has a misconception repeated in the lyrics, probably mostly for artistic license. Oingo Boingo has some good nerdy bits from time to time. If you ever decide to do a hip-hop mix of the same ilk, I would definitely suggest going with some M.C. Frontalot. I recall some song that I don't know who did them, and weren't rockin' enough anyways, but were heavily nerdariffic. One of them talked about how love was subject to the inverse-square law of distance. Finally, and I've heard none of their music, so beware, the Rock Bottom Remainders is a band composed of a bunch of writers, including Steven King and Dave Barry.
  • VeraGemini so conveniently forgets "Love Is Like a Rock" by Donnie Iris. Weird Al Yankovic. Squeeze?
  • Koko wins me loves a good jad/david fair smash up.
  • Hands down, DARKEST OF THE HILLSIDE THICKETS!! Saw this band from Vancouver play several years back at the CMJ in NYC at the now-defunct Wetlands club. They were playing in a dingy corner of the basement, with about maybe four people actually paying attention to them. They were fucking incredible! Seems a lot of their songs are about mathematics or Cthulhu. My recommendations abound... Check out "The Math Song" [Scroll down, click play, streaming Real Player] Y Y equals X over 5 5 to the power of Z (?) Z (?) is the square root of 3 3 is the number for me I said X X by the tangent of N N minus pi over 10 That equals negative 9 Negative 9 is so fine You've got a brain And nobody really needs another love song Love song (x4) N N is the product of V V and the cosine of 3 Cube that and add 44 And not an integer more Baby V V equals 1 through the sum The sum of 101 And 83 over 5 What is the value of Y? You've got a brain And nobody really needs another love song Love song (x7) You've got a brain Yeah I heard you've got it
  • Are we not men? We are DEVO
  • And even though they're more properly described as punk, I'm going to say Dead Milkmen, if only because a) they're much too smart to be ordinary punk-rockers (Joe Strummer aside, obv.), and b), "Punk Rock Girl" is an ode which any and all nerds truly take to heart.
  • And also, we can't forget the The. I don't know what Matt Johnson's background is, but the songs are so very heavy on the Existentialism, I can't see him be anything but a nerd.
  • Many of Rush's Sci-Fi themed songs (Cygnus X-1, anything from 2112, etc) would fit the bill. And now that they all have short hair they fit the look, too.
  • The Epoxies play the best retro new wave ever (site currently down :( ). Frank Black's Places Named After Numbers is a great song about astronomy. Milo from the Descendants has a doctorate in biochemistry and teaches at UW Madison, I believe. Their song 1420 is about someone's SAT scores.
  • Only half a nerd-topic bonus (see "Human Cannonball," [warning, audio] for example) and no advanced-degree double super-secret bonus that I know of, but Webb Wilder has the nerd look in spades, and a kind-of-nerdy credo to match. Plus I'm pretty nerdy, and I like him.
  • Laurie Andersen: Let X=X The Flaming Lips. Second the David Byrne and E. Costello.
  • I second the Rush nomination, but I suggest their own suburban-angst song: Subdivisions Also, their drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart, has a PhD in English.
  • Tempted to say Le Tigre, simply because there's so much feminist theory tucked in there, but now that they're huge and popular and stuff with the kids, they're probably not proper nerds anymore. They certainly don't look like nerds anymore.
  • Oh jeez -- how could I forget -- Jane Sibbery has a B.A. in biology -- micro, I think -- but she's hardly a rocker, however rocking she is.
  • =Siberry
  • Buddy Holly?
  • Ooh! Ooh! Jake Shimabukuro, rightly called the Jimi Hendrix of the ukulele! He's got glasses and everything!
  • Oh, excellent, all, thank you. I had a few of these guys already in mind, but you have really brought out some chestnuts, here. Sugarmilktea, the math song is awesome.
  • The No Kill I. It's Trekkie Punk Rock.
  • the math song is awesome After seeing them for the first time, and hearing them play this song, it took me a good month to get it out of my head. The visual impact probably helped too - all band members were playing in full-on space suits; I don't know how they maintained the energy level that they did in such regalia. BTW, their lead singer, Toren Atkinson, is a nerd.
  • Thomas Dolby played keyboards for Foreigner, not Def Leppard. I vote for the Proclaimers.
  • the math song is awesome Sadly it has no mention of the fact that e^i*pi = -1.
  • That's my cue! So many leads... thanks all.
  • Vera had blocked Love is Like a Rock, apparently. Until now. Now, when it is on infinite loop in my HEAD!!! AAAGH! Thank you, bernockle. Thank you so much. Thomas Dolby did play keyboards for Def Leppard, on Pyromania. He's credited as "Booker T. Boffin".
  • Weird Al hits Billboard's Top 10 for his album "Straight Outta Lynwood" and the Hot 100 for "White and Nerdy," ousting both of his previous best showings with "Eat It" back in '84. Yankovic also has accumulated 155,000 MySpace friends since he joined the site in July -- all of which he says he personally added |-| 0 + ∂0g!!!