House of Rock is a satirical animation that aired on the UK's Channel 4 from 2000 to 2002. It revolved around the afterlives of some of the world's most famous dead rock stars, including Freddie Mercury, John Denver, The Notorious B.I.G., Kurt Cobain and Marc Bolan. Bolan was replaced in the second series by John Lennon. Forced to share a house in limbo, they try to cope with isolation, clashing personalities and relentless boredom.
The show aired as part of Channel 4's late-night 4 Music. Often, segments of the episode would appear as links between videos, reminiscent of Beavis and Butthead. On average, each episode from the first series was 5 minutes long, while each episode from the second series was 10 minutes long.
The characters occupy a huge rundown house in a bleak, depressing landscape with nothing around seemingly for miles. Much of the comedy comes from each character's frustrations with their surroundings, associates and inability to do anything further now they're dead.
Characters
Freddie Mercury
Extremely theatrical and flamboyant, Freddie is highly strung and quick to anger. He openly despises all of his housemates, especially the Notorious B.I.G. He keeps a cat called Galileo.
John Denver
The group's only optimist, John is sweet and naïve, convinced there is some hope of emerging from limbo. As such he is constantly abused and berated by other more cynical housemates. His love of peace has led him to severely suppress his anger. John can often be heard using phrases used in Scooby-Doo, such as "jinkies!"
Kurt Cobain
Paranoid and depressed, Kurt is so tired of life he owns a pad of pre-printed suicide notes that he can stick anywhere like Post-it notes. Nevertheless, he is quite friendly, especially with Biggie and John. Kurt's dream is to be series champion on the UK gameshow Fifteen to One.
The Notorious B.I.G.
Known as "Biggie" within the house, Notorious is especially depressed with limbo, since he has had to leave all the trappings of his hip-hop lifestyle behind. Sometimes his sexual frustration is so great he has to take it out on the house's postman, a constantly shuddering Sid Vicious. He cannot stand Freddie Mercury, and would have shot him long ago if his gun was capable of doing anything.
Marc Bolan
The house's resident hippie, elfin Marc is only capable of talking in twee rhyming couplets in the style of his lyrics. Frustrated with his hippie sensibilities and feyness, when Satan Davina McCall demands one of their number join her in hell Big Brother style, the group agree on Marc. They are then horrified to discover his replacement is the peace-and-love obsessed John Lennon.
John Lennon
John, pompous and pretentious, with a droning Scouse voice. He comes with his own Yellow Submarine, which he wears around his waist at all times.
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American musician who was the lead vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter, and a founding member of the rock band Nirvana. Through his angst-fueled songwriting and anti-establishment persona, his compositions widened the thematic conventions of mainstream rock music. He was heralded as a spokesman of Generation X and is widely recognized as one of the most influential alternative rock musicians.
Freddie Mercury was a British singer and songwriter who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist and pianist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman with his theatrical style, influencing the artistic direction of Queen.
Christopher George Latore Wallace, better known by his stage names The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie, was an American rapper. Rooted in East Coast hip hop and particularly gangsta rap, he is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. Wallace became known for his distinctive laid-back lyrical delivery, offsetting the lyrics' often grim content.
Marc Bolan was an English guitarist, singer-songwriter and poet. He was a pioneer of the glam rock movement in the early 1970s with his band T. Rex. Bolan strongly influenced artists of many genres, including glam rock, punk, post-punk, new wave, indie rock, Britpop and alternative rock. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of T. Rex.
Frances Bean Cobain is an American visual artist and model. She is the only child of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Hole frontwoman Courtney Love. She controls the publicity rights to her father's name and image.
Overdubbing is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more available tracks of a digital audio workstation (DAW) or tape recorder. The overdub process can be repeated multiple times. This technique is often used with singers, as well as with instruments, or ensembles/orchestras. Overdubbing is typically done for the purpose of adding richness and complexity to the original recording. For example, if there are only one or two artists involved in the recording process, overdubbing can give the effect of sounding like many performers.
"One More Chance / Stay with Me (Remix)" is a song written and recorded by American rapper The Notorious B.I.G., featuring additional vocals sung by his wife Faith Evans and an uncredited appearance by Mary J. Blige. It was certified platinum by the RIAA on July 31, 1995 and sold 1.1 million copies.
"My My, Hey Hey " is a song by Canadian musician Neil Young. An acoustic song, it was recorded live in early 1978 at the Boarding House in San Francisco, California. Combined with its hard rock counterpart "Hey Hey, My My ", it bookends Young's 1979 album Rust Never Sleeps. Inspired by electropunk group Devo, the rise of punk and what Young viewed as his own growing irrelevance, the song significantly revitalized Young's career.
The East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry was a dispute between artists and fans of the East Coast hip hop and West Coast hip hop scenes in the United States, especially from the mid-1990s. Focal points of the feud were East Coast–based rapper The Notorious B.I.G. with Puff Daddy and their New York City–based label, Bad Boy Records, and West Coast–based rapper Tupac Shakur with Suge Knight and their Los Angeles–based label, Death Row Records. The feud culminated in the murders of both rappers in drive-by shootings. Although several suspects have been identified, both murders remain unsolved.
"Hypnotize" is a single by American rapper The Notorious B.I.G. featuring vocals by Pamela Long, released as the first single from his album Life After Death on March 4, 1997. The last song released before his death in a drive-by shooting a week later, it was the fifth song by a credited artist to hit number one posthumously, and the first since "(Just Like) Starting Over" by John Lennon in 1980. Rolling Stone ranked the song as number 30 on their list of the "100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time".
Gavin Claxton is a British producer, screenwriter and director of the feature film comedy The All Together starring Martin Freeman and Danny Dyer. He is also producer, co-writer and performer - providing the voices of Freddie Mercury & Kurt Cobain - of the British television comedy series House of Rock and series producer, writer & director of numerous comedy and entertainment series on British television.
Michael Lavine is a portrait photographer based in New York City. He grew up in Denver, and graduated from Denver's South High School in 1981.
On April 8, 1994, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band Nirvana, was found dead at his home on Lake Washington Boulevard in Seattle, Washington. Forensics investigators and a coroner later determined that Cobain had died on April 5, three days prior to the discovery of his body. The Seattle Police Department incident report stated that Cobain was found with a shotgun across his body, had suffered a visible gunshot wound to the head, and that a suicide note had been discovered nearby. Seattle police confirmed Cobain's death as a suicide.
Lesley-Ann Jones is an author, journalist and broadcaster who spent more than 20 years as a national newspaper journalist on Fleet Street. Of Welsh descent, she was born in Kent, England. She read French and Spanish at Westminster University, and worked in the music industry. She later followed her father, sportswriter Ken Jones, to Fleet Street.
Great Jewish Music: Marc Bolan is a tribute album featuring the music of English singer/songwriter Marc Bolan of the band T.Rex. Produced by Danny Cohen, it was released on John Zorn's label Tzadik Records in 1998 as part of their series on "Radical Jewish Culture", following similar prior tributes to Burt Bacharach and Serge Gainsbourg.
Ready to Die is the debut studio album by American rapper The Notorious B.I.G., released on September 13, 1994, by Bad Boy Records and Arista Records. The album features productions by Bad Boy founder Sean "Puffy" Combs, Easy Mo Bee, Chucky Thompson, DJ Premier, and Lord Finesse, among others. It was recorded from 1993 to 1994 at The Hit Factory and D&D Studios in New York City. The partly autobiographical album tells the story of the rapper's experiences as a young criminal, and was the only studio album released during his lifetime, as he was murdered sixteen days before the release of his second album Life After Death in 1997.
Duets: The Final Chapter is the second posthumous album by American rapper The Notorious B.I.G., and is a collection of songs featuring appearances of other prominent rappers. The album was released by Bad Boy Records and Atlantic Records in the UK on December 19, 2005, and in the US on December 20 and charted at #3 selling 438,000 copies, beaten by the extremely high sales of Jamie Foxx's Unpredictable and Mary J. Blige's The Breakthrough. In the UK it climbed as high as #13 after the release of the album's first single "Nasty Girl". It is his second posthumous album that was certified platinum.
Notorious is a 2009 American biographical drama film directed by George Tillman Jr. and written by Reggie Rock Bythewood and Cheo Hodari Coker. It is based on the life of Brooklyn-based hip-hop artist The Notorious B.I.G. Much of the film dramatizes key events in Biggie's life: his criminal lifestyle, arrest and release from prison, his relationships with Sean Combs, Tupac Shakur, Lil' Kim and Faith Evans, his involvement in the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry and his drive-by-shooting murder on March 9, 1997. The film stars Jamal Woolard as Wallace, with Angela Bassett, Derek Luke, and Anthony Mackie in supporting roles. Biggie's mother, Voletta, served as a producer for the film, alongside his former managers Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts.
The Prince Albert is a pub and music venue located in Trafalgar Street, Brighton, East Sussex. It was originally a three-storey town house built in 1848 and it was converted into a pub in 1860.
The Church of Kurt Cobain was a Christian church founded in 1996 in Portland, Oregon, and whose patron was Kurt Cobain, the lead singer and guitarist of American rock band Nirvana, who committed suicide in April 1994.
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