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Wizard Rock Has Fans in Hogwarts Heaven
(By John Locher -- Las Vegas Review-journal Via Associated Press)
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"Tonight we are all one giant Harry Potter, united in the purpose of vanquishing all evil in a 500-mile radius of the L.A. Public Library!" Paul crows. Big cheers. He puts his guitar behind his head and flails away at it.
* * *
Twin sisters Megan and Mallory Schuyler saw Harry and the Potters perform in Olympia, Wash., in 2004. The Potters were performing in a garage (the Olympia library wasn't immediately on board with wizard rock).
"It's nuts. You can't leave their shows without being on a total Harry Potter high," Megan says.
Hooked on the idea, and with some film background (Megan works for a video production company), the Schuylers decided to create " The Wizard Rockumentary," a feature-length look at the world of wizard rock, now in post-production. The sisters interviewed bands and went to performances and fan conventions across the country.
They are planning to shop the film to festivals in 2008. As such, the Schuylers are the closest thing the world of wizard rock has to experts. (See also http:/
"We all want to think that we're fighting for the greater good," says Mallory. "There's a lot of qualities in Harry Potter that we all aspire to. He's a hero with flaws, that makes him more believable. He's out there trying to do his best, and that's all anybody can do."
"And who wouldn't want to go to Hogwarts?" she adds.
Wizard rock is a bit like Puff the Magic Dragon; Harry is growing up too fast. The music will always be there, playing on old MySpace profiles and Web sites long after the creators forget their passwords. But in five years, will wizard rock be anything but a footnote in this literary pop-culture phenomenon?
"I think that people are always going to be engaged in this story to some degree," says Ross of the Malfoys.
For the most part, the future does not weigh heavily on the wizard rockers. They live for today, for the rock -- but for the love and the literacy, too.
"If we can make the library a cool place to hang out for the summer, I think we're doing something right," says Carpenter, 24, frontman of the Remus Lupins, on the phone from Idaho. He's in the midst of a 32-state, 56-show summer tour that won't make him rich, but will pay for itself.
"I'd had this lifelong fascination with wizards. And reading," says Ross of the Malfoys. "So to have a book come out and then this music that got kids to read and is about wizards? It's the greatest."
Talk to enough wizard rockers, listen to their lyrics, and it becomes clear there's something more in all this than just virtue and inspiration: Wizard rock is an escape into a different world -- maybe not Hogwarts, but a world of non-judgmental fun where grown-ups dress as wizards, evil is vanquished by song, and reading is cool.
