Kurt Cobain damaged something inside rock ‘n’ roll. His go-for-broke cathartic styling, which sacrificed health and safety, had a residual effect on hard rock. The shrieking decadence of ’80s hair-metal was suddenly discarded for raw expressions of alienation, and for a short time, energy seemed more important than technique. Suddenly self-abuse wasn’t just for parties, and there were a lot of cardigan-clad teenagers blowing their voices out in garages. Seattle native Susan M. Carr watched this phenomenon with growing dismay and alarm. A singing coach of some renown, she retooled her teaching approach to confront this throat-destroying menace and save rock ‘n’ roll. In the process she gathered some big-name clientele, including vocalists from Mastodon, Alice in Chains, and Alien Ant Farm. The fruits of this effort have been distilled on Carr’s The Art of Screaming! DVD, which rides the fence between documentary and instructional video. Vocalists who routinely blow their voices out with exuberance may find this DVD a godsend. For people that don’t sing, it’s mildly hilarious. Carr spends much of her time behind a piano, putting tattooed indie rockers and metalheads through strenuous vocal exercises that make them seem terribly vulnerable somehow. There’s a sense of voyeurism to this video, like watching the school bad-boy in detention, as they humbly defer to Carr about their own voices, which are presumably their area of expertise. The entertainment value is heightened somewhat by a Mrs. Robinson element, as Carr trains young men and women twenty years her junior.
.The Art of Screaming! DVD & CD
