So, you're a philosopher? : Most educated rock stars

Jaz Coleman, obviously.

Alex, one of these days I'm actually going to be convinced to listen to Killing Joke.

Sting? English teacher
Weezer guy? grad student (?)
One of the guys from Big Black got a law degree
Decemberists lead singer? MFA
David Grubbs? English lit PhD
Some of the guys from Can? Studied with Stockhausen
The Offspring lead singer? PhD of some sort

And Gregory Abbott was an MBA before shaking you down.

Air: "Their former professions were maths teacher and architect respectively" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/southampton/music/air_rev.shtml)

This totally explains his Isaac Newton hairstyle. Sort of.

i don't think charles ives qualifies as a rock star, right?

Would-Be-Goods: Jessica Griffin was an Oxford-educated merchant banker

Aren't there a large number of musicians who've studied architecture? For example: Brett Anderson, Justine Frishcmann, Ice Cube ... er, I think someone out of Pink Floyd...er...

When would he have found the time for this?

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), October 1st, 2004.

I read about this in an interview with Lydon in Q magazine in the very early 90s. He was talking about how well married life in California was treating him, and they talked about his marine biology studies too.

Robert: Getting into computer networks. (Later says that he's "studying for his MCSE (Microsoft Certification)")
Kevin: Math Teacher in Bodmin Community College, but I hear that he's going to Truro(?).
Wil: Teacher

also that dude w/the beard one sub pop that makes boring whispery folk songs has a phd. i cant remember what hes called though.

ruben blades isn't really "rock," but he's also a lawyer. (santiago durango is the big black J.D.).

and lest we forget, mick jagger went to the london school of economics. dunno if he graduated (as if he cares at this point).

Seriously, Tennant is actually a B.A. - in history, if memory serves. I believe Chris Lowe has a degree in architecture.

Defari has a degree in sociology and a master's degree in history and teaching, and works/used to work as a teacher. Someone on ILE mentioned that Mike Ladd was a teacher too. Paris' economics degree is of course a famous case, because he quit rapping and went to work as a stock broker (before returning last year). I'm pretty sure some of the members of Roots (Black Thought) and The Hieroglyphics have master's degrees too. Did Puffy ever finish that masters degree in economics that was always mentioned in his mid-nineties interviews? And what about Canibus? I'm not sure if he has an university education, but at least he spits some quite "academic" words.

I'd love to hear more about academic rappers, since it's so much against the stereotype. I don't mean to say having a degree makes anyone a better (or worse) MC, I'm just interested for curiosity's sake.

"this year election day fell next to a halloween weekend/me and john kerry been trick-or-treatin'"

that said, i find this hard to believe.

Biz Markie is working on his Ph.D at Columbia (major unknown).

we must ask ms. kearney if she's seen him on campus!

Does Green Gartside (Scritti Politti) have some sort of classy degree, I think I read that he's dabbled in his fair share of post-structuralism and/or was friends with Derrida, or something of the sort.

Another scan of wikipedia doesn't make it sound as impressive, but prove me wrong!

wiki:

"In October 2006 it was announced that Coleman had been chosen as Composer in Residence for the European Union. As Composer in Residence he will be given a grant to write and perform music for the EU on special occasions."

and

"He also appeared on the soundtrack to Disney's animated feature film Mulan (1998)."

berlimey!

Carsten Jost seems rather educated, most techno producers don't put Adorno or Deleuze as their top Myspace friends, and I know he's a professional artist (as David Lieske, his real name).Interestingly enough I was flipping through Artforum half a year ago or so, and out of nowhere I stumble upon a photo of Efdemin, subsequently think "what the hell," as if my mind has started caving in on itself, then realize it was for a review of a show of his.

BOC met up at college. Clarkson in upstate New York. Joe and Al Bouchard are both high school teachers, if I remember right.

didnt BOC meet at stony brook?

guy from bad religion (greg gaffen(in?)) was still working at a Phd in zoology at cornell. don't know about harvard. huey lewis was a cornell engineering student, but quit.

and..um...dr drew daniel, kids...

Carsten Jost seems rather educated, most techno producers don't put Adorno or Deleuze as their top Myspace friends

Except everyone on Mille Plateaux, a label which was even named after the book from Deleuze & Guattari.

I think there's a fairly strong academic undercurrent in electronic music, people like Terre Thaemlitz or DJ Spooky even include academic essays into their album liner notes.

When I talked to Tim Hecker last, he was in a grad program in Montreal, I think pursuing a PhD in Communications or Media Studies.

There's a lot of overlap between academia and electronic music.

haha im not smart or a particularly badass music nerd but my interest in electronic music became a lot more deep as i got more into college and studying and stuff

so i guess they sort of go together

"didnt BOC meet at stony brook?"

No, they gathered there after college, I believe their manager taught there or something. Al, Buck and Bloom met at Clarkson, I think.

I am glad that BOC in this context meant Blue Oyster Cult and not Boards of Canada.

I don't have a fucking clue who Boards of Canada are.

Anthony Braxton?

Brian Harold May CBE (born July 19, 1947) is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the lead guitarist in the British rock band Queen. He built (with his father) his own guitar, called the "Red Special" with wood from a mantelpiece. He wrote some of Queen's most famous songs and biggest hits, including "We Will Rock You", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Who Wants to Live Forever" and "I Want It All". He is also well renowned for his long-term interest in astrophysics, having recently completed his doctoral thesis in the subject.[1][2][3]

Carsten Jost seems rather educated, most techno producers don't put Adorno or Deleuze as their top Myspace friends

Except everyone on Mille Plateaux, a label which was even named after the book from Deleuze & Guattari.

-- Tuomas, Thursday, 28 February 2008 18:04 (1 hour ago) Link

Yeah, but has Mille Plateaux done anything that even hinted at something non-academic or not of intellectual validity?

That was only a half joke, since I generally tend to like smart musicians, more so than not very smart musicians.

Iggy Pop is one of the few famous popular musicians to have published in an established journal of Classical scholarship: his article "Caesar Lives"[2] in the second Volume of Classics Ireland (1995) considers the applicability of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to the modern world. In the article, Pop further relates how reading Gibbon while on tour in the Southern United States inspired him to a spontaneous soliloquy he called "Caesar".

I kept thinking BOC meant Blue Oyster Cult.

i guess i just dont think about boards of canada

didn't the butthole surfers meet in business school? also that guy from Luna went to Harvard

Galaxie 500 met at Harvard actually.

DJ Rupture graduated from there too.

I don't have a fucking clue

-- Bill Magill, Thursday, 28 February 2008 19:33 (Yesterday) Link

Damn, you really got me there. Congrats

Boards of Canada is an underground rap crew from Toronto, consisting of four MCs named Board of Education, Board of Defense, Board of Health, and Board of Trade aka "Gumpy".

Snappy name.