For teens who are about to rock, we salute you.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

Years before Jack Black taught a room full of private school students the finer points of guitar faces and power chords in the film "School of Rock," Paul Green was running his own full-distortion training camp for kids in his Philadelphia living room.

"We were doing quite well on our own before the movie came out, but I can't say that it didn't help," says Green, speaking by phone from Philadelphia.

According to Green, in the spring of 2002, cable music station VH1 sent a production team to his rock school to film the pilot episode for a new series. After weeks of negotiations, the deal fell apart.

Then, several months later, Green began hearing about a new film that sounded eerily familiar. The movie was being produced by Paramount, the parent company of Viacom and VH1.

`I thought, `Something's rotten in Denmark,' ' Green recalls. "At first I was mad, and then The New York Times called and wanted to do a story and I got unmad in a hurry."

Even though it irks Green to hear Paramount deny it had any knowledge of his school when it made "School of Rock," he is the first to admit that he has profited from the film.

Green's Web site (www.schoolofrock.com) has definitely benefited from the publicity, and he continues to open up facilities in other cities (he hopes to have 200 opened up within the next few years). He and his students have played more than 200 live shows in venues ranging from the Wildflower Festival in Richardson, Texas, to the Zappanale Festival in Bad Doberan, Germany.

The school of hard rocks

Now, Green is taking 27 pint-sized rockers on the road to learn the art of touring like there's no tomorrow. The kids, ages 13 to 17, will play 17 shows in 16 days including two shows at the WOW Hall on Saturday.

One show will be a classic rock set with tunes by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, Yes and other acts. The other will be a Frank Zappa show featuring former Mothers of Invention vocalist Napoleon Murphy Brock.

"If you like Zappa, you are going to see one of the better Zappa tribute acts in the country," Green promises. "I'd really put my kids up against any Zappa tribute act, except of course for his ex-band members, but we have one of them now."

Green currently has about 80 students at his Philadelphia school and about 200 in three other suburban schools. He calls his facility "the original performance based, interactive music school," meaning a place where kids learn about music by doing.

"What I realized was, working on scales and chords in the living room really has very little to do with playing music," Green says. "I can go down to the basketball court and shoot free throws all day, but it doesn't mean nothing when I'm playing with some real ball players."

Green's rule of thumb when it comes to teaching music to kids is to avoid putting limits on his students. If you don't tell them what they can or cannot do, he figures, they might just end up doing it all.

The School of Rock started in 1998 after Green, then a private music teacher, began hosting rock jams for his students. A friend who was hosting an art opening in a coffee shop invited the kids to play and, Green says, the audience could not believe their ears.

`That's when the lightning bolt hit, and I said, `Ah, there's something here.'' Green recalls.

Not your father's music lessons

Tom Hemphill, president of the Lesson Factory, a 4,000-square-foot, performance-based teaching facility that's probably the closest thing in Eugene to a school of rock, says there's been a shift away from what he calls the 1950s music teaching model.

Rather than playing note-for-note renditions of classical compositions, students are learning to create their own music, improvise and play together as a band.

Hemphill imagines many of his students will be at Saturday's School of Rock performances. He says the fact that kids of such a young age are touring the country, emphasizes just how far young musicians have progressed.

"When I was 12 years old, I was getting ready to buy my first guitar," Hemphill says. "And now these kids are 12 years old playing Frank Zappa."

You might expect that some parents would take issue with their children performing, say, Zappa's "Keep It Greasy," a song about prison rape, but Green says there have been relatively few problems. His only obligation, he says, is to the parents of his students.

For example, he points to the teenage girl who was picked to sing the lead on "Keep It Greasy."

`(That song) is actually one of the few Zappa songs that's in the perfect range for a girl to sing, so I called her parents, I said, `Look, there's a song, it's great for her voice, the lyrics are stupid and it's about this.

`If it's OK with you, she can sing it. If it's not OK, we can have someone else sing it.' ' Green recalls. `They said, `It's not our favorite thing but she can do it.' And it actually became their favorite song.'

Lewis Taylor can be reached at 338-2512 or ltaylor@guardnet .com.

CONCERT PREVIEW

The Paul Green School of Rock

When: Saturday, with a `Classic Rock Show' at 3:30 p.m. and a `Frank Zappa Show' at 8:30 p.m.

Where: WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave.

How much: `Classic' is $7 at the door or $5 for ages 16 and younger; `Zappa' is $10 at the door or $7 for ages 16 and younger

CAPTION(S):

The School of Rock, a collection of rock 'n' roll students taught by Philadephia's Paul Green, will do two shows Saturday at the WOW Hall. The 3:30 p.m. matinee draws from the classic rock of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Yes, while the 8:30 p.m. concert is a tribute to the mad master of freak rock, Frank Zappa, and features former Mothers of Invention vocalist Napoleon Murphy Brock.