The great thing about this job is that I get a chance to experience everything our culture has to offer. But if you apply the old adage that 90 percent of everything is crap, that doesn’t really bode well for my long term sanity. Imagine I did this full time and had to listen to every album that came across my desk. They would more than likely be scraping my gray matter off the office ceiling with a rake by the end of the week, provided I didn’t OD on a Zoloft/caffeine bender first, my eyes bulging out and my ears leaving dark puddles of blood on the carpet from trying to comprehend the soul-deadening mediocrity of it all.
Still, I do wish I could do more. I wish I could, through sheer force of will, bring to the public’s awareness great works of art and entertainment that would otherwise go unnoticed. Of course this would be something akin to a single man knocking down the Pyramids of Giza armed with nothing but a spork and his own skull, i.e. not going to happen in this lifetime, Charlie.
But I can still do my part. On that note, I think I’ll give a little rundown of some of the music I have come across that has, for whatever reason, gone unmentioned in these pages during my term of office, as well as a few others that were mentioned but ended up being about as popular as a fart in a crowded elevator — undeservedly so, in my opinion.
First off, let me make some amends here by apologizing to the Secret Machines, a New York City band whose debut album, “Now Here is Nowhere,” was given a scathing review last summer by, well, me. I believe the term “aural pain parade” and accusations of intellectual property theft were bantered around, for which I am sorry. Having given the album a couple more spins later down the road, I’ve decided it is not as mindlessly boring as I first thought. In fact, I rather enjoy it. So I recant my earlier proclamations and now endorse this worthwhile effort.
Consistency is a load of bullcrap anyway and not a worthwhile quality when it concerns someone’s
opinions. I’d rather be right than consistent.
For something less embarrassing to my sense of self, let us turn to my new favorite band, the Mars Volta. These Latin-tinged prog rockers have given us two excellent albums,
“De-Loused in the Comatorium” and “Frances the Mute,” as well as a smattering of EPs and live material. Mars Volta is closest thing to a
modern day King Crimson, the real thing excluded.
Here’s a group all of you out there can name-drop and sound cool when no one knows who the hell you are talking about: Seattle’s The Purrs. Spacey alt-country that doesn’t make you blanch. The Purrs’ “No Particular Bar, No Particular Town” EP has been a recent favorite in the disco of my mind. It is the tranced-out reinterpretation of the Leaving Trains’ “Creeping Coastline of Lights” in particular, what with the trance-inducing organs and “Easy Rider” samples.
Here’s one I’ve been hoping people would pick up on, only to find myself disappointed to no end. The Appleseed Cast, a former emo band that went all whacked-out-experimental and then returned to make some of the saddest pop music to ever come out of Kansas, released “Two
Conversations” a couple of years ago. Me and three other people in town listened to it. I give copies of this away as a cheap present for
any occasion.
Oh, while I’m at it, check out the following local bands/performers: Yeltsin, Mood Area 52, Eleven Eyes, Botox, Tom Heinl, Cap Gun Suicide, Ed Cole, the Sour Mash Hug Band, The Ovulators and Scrambled Ape. That should about do it for this week.
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