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Long Live Rock School

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John Covelli, Simon's childhood friend and college roommate, joined up. In September 2003, a year after Simon's camp-counseling epiphany, they rented space at McMurray Music.

"We had an open house," Simon says. "We had no idea what rock school was even going to be — I just got up on stage and talked. I didn't even know what to say, I had nothing planned. That's how things were run for the first couple months."

Eight kids signed up for the first session. By December enrollment swelled to eighteen; the following March, sixty. By the fall of 2004, the school had outgrown its basement digs and moved to Olivette.

There were, however, growing pains. The original division of duties — Covelli in charge of the business side, Simon handling curriculum and music — wasn't working as the enterprise evolved.

Simon says he had a career crisis when he realized that what he really loved in a job was the creativity — whether it came in the form of playing music or running a business.

Increasingly, he found the latter vocation most satisfying.

It dawned on Simon that while he had no formal business training, the responsibilities he'd assumed in his bands — "getting on the phone wheeling and dealing with the club owners" — provided an excellent foundation for running a company. The bigger adjustment would be learning to put those skills to practical use — and leaving behind the democratic decision-making process he knew so well from rock & roll.

"I realized if I'm going to be the owner of the business, I have to run the business. I have to think like an entrepreneur," Simon says today. "I got this business off the ground because of what I can do, because of what I know and experience from music. But now I realize the success of it is determined [by] my skills as a businessman."

The casualty was Simon's professional and personal relationship with Covelli, who left the school last November.

"With John and I, it was like two captains on one ship," Simon says. "We both realized that one person has to be the boss. Partnership is tricky. Somebody has to be the guy who goes, 'This is how it's going to be done.' That was really a huge adjustment for me. My biggest fear was, I didn't want to be an asshole. I realized, 'Wait a minute, I guess I kind of have to learn how to be one. I have to learn how to come down on people.'"

Covelli declined to comment about the Rock School or his relationship with Simon.

But Simon says that after "about six months of some serious healing," he and Covelli reconciled. "People always say, 'Don't mix business with family and friends.' I totally get it now," he says. "I understand how important that is."

While he professes to prefer his front-office duties to teaching and directing bands, more often than not Simon can be found dashing off to observe or instruct, sometimes filling in when an instructor has to miss work. And it's a role he clearly relishes.

"Sometimes it's a little weird when I'm here on a Saturday all day with kids," Simon confesses. "Then my wife and I go out with a couple like us, with kids and a house" — the Simons have a two-and-a-half-year-old son, Levi — "and we have to talk 'adult talk.' And I'm like, 'So what bands are you guys into?'"

Marcie Kalina is pacing. "I'm so nervous!" says the mother of Rock School student Adam Kalina, one of many anxious parents who, along with siblings and friends, have filled Blueberry Hill's Duck Room for the Rock School's version of a piano recital. To the strains of U2's "Beautiful Day," Dave Simon walks onstage and greets the crowd: "We just let our hair down, shave it off and play some great rock & roll tunes!"

Danny Magruder's group, Hardly Davidson, starts off with Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City," which strains the falsetto skills of curly-haired vocalist Alex Guenther. Better is their take on U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," buoyed by Kim Anderson's confident, almost swaggering, guest vocals — and Simon's unobtrusive, offstage bass lines. The band's boyish ADD disappears; Magruder's studied concentration and Kalina's steady, forceful drumming betray no sign of nerves.

Mood Swings also perform well, their perma-smiles a perfect match for the upbeat tempo of their blink-182-meets-"99 Red Balloons" original, "The Bad Decision." A reggae-tinged original, "Pay the Fool," later segues fluidly into the Go-Go's "We Got the Beat," featuring synchronized guitar-and-bass moves from the front line. Like consummate professionals, they don't forget to announce that they have T-shirts for sale and a MySpace page.

But it's the Junior Mints who bring down the house, in no small part because expectations are high. Simon introduces the set as "bittersweet. This is their last show as a concert band. They're moving up to [be] an all-star band."

Only a week after their wobbly rehearsal, the Mints crank up the charm. The shuddering, dinosaur-amble riffs of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" are matched only by Blake Stumpf's howls. The newest member of the band psyches up his bandmates like a seasoned leader, tossing off guitarist intros during a bridge, shouting-out Ely Thayer's stick-spinning drum solo and singing the towering "Sunshine" chorus with conviction, eyes reverently closed. By the time Claire Holohan's taut, thrumming bass lines announce a cover of the Raconteurs' "Steady as She Goes," the Mints are all feeding off one another's energy. Morgan Trapp is immersed to the point of occasional headbangs. Stumpf stomps to the beat, then spurs a band-wide improv at the end. The performance isn't perfect, but the Duck Room audience knows it's seeing an all-star band being born.

With Rock School's survival no longer a daily anxiety-producer, Dave Simon has more time to ponder the future of his business — but very few definite directions.

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