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Current mood:My Girlfriend's Still Asleep
Lately, i've been trying to get back into the swing of music writing. Iwrote a brief interview piece on Freshkills for the Worst MusicMagazine in the World (and you know what that is), and i've also beencontributing reviews and previews for an amiable new blog called Knocks from the Underground (dot com). My dealings with them have been very pleasant thus far, and their appetite for local music has beenvoracious. So, it's a good fit. I was going to write about the show isaw last night, but i would've felt bad about ragging on the bands,considering it was a party, and i had fun. So, no point on getting allFrench Olympic Judge on the whole thing. Instead i wrote about the bar(see next Note).However, Knocks has sent me a couple of CDs to review. CD reviewing, i honestly don't know how people can do it. Even with Indie RockBaseball, where Hans and i chronicled just how incapable we were ofgetting through an entire mediocre CD, our patience ran incrediblythin. Now, having to adhere to a more normal style, i basically use theartifice of a review to just go off.Anyway, they politely declined the following article, and being a newblog, trying to get in good graces on the scene, i don't blame them atall. But, it amuses me, so i posted it here. Enjoy.+ + + + CD Review: Ghosts by The Gay Blades February 3, 2009By: Jens CarstensenRating: 1/11While dancing the other night with my girlfriend at a 50s-60s garagerock night, i came to a conclusion: Hip-hop has a lot more to do withrock and roll than current rock music does.Okay, probably not an original observation. Still, when you think aboutit, pre-Beatles rock – my favorite music in the world, i should add –was engineered almost solely to make people dance. The rhythms wereconsistent, there was little in the way of dynamic or harmonic shifts,and the purpose of the lyricism was merely to get listeners to thechorus. Sometimes the lyrics were take-offs on nursery rhymes orfables, sometimes they just counted or spelled something, sometimesthey were pointed one-upping of their peers, sometimes they just threwsome weird new words at you, and mostly they were written to avoidfucking with the flow. Some of the performers even went by bad-ass /goofy sounding stage names. Sound familiar?None of these are the hallmarks of what we now call rock music. Whichbrings us to the current state of rock, and specifically, the GayBlades. Or if we're continuing to look backwards, Foreigner.Now, i am not asserting that the Blades of Gayness *sound* likeForeigner, much like Mos Def doesn't sound like Chuck Berry, eventhough he plays him in the movies [see above]. What it means is thatGay Blades are filling the same professional empty-rock niche onceoccupied by the Other Mick Jones and his trans-oceanic cohorts. This means, making sure the rhythm bed is metronomic and stiff (todayachieved with pro-tools rather than expensive sidemen); theinstrumentation competently and inoffensively played (by having twoegos in your band instead of six); the compositions calculated andfine-tuned while retaining the current indicators of "edge"; and thetones rock-approved, thus resulting in a Consistent Rock Experience forthe listener.Thing is: i kinda like Foreigner, especially when they had the saxplayer from King Crimson. Or, at least i found them superior to thesimilar bands of their era, like your Bad Company (mad hokey) and yourBoston (irredeemably histrionic) or your Journey (please stopbelieving). I'd probably like Gay Blades too, if they didn't constantlyoverestimate the wattage of their riffage and their grasp on theirvocal affectations. Once a dude with a mic sounds like he's pouting, iwant to punch him in the face, and the only way i can do that is byskipping to the next track. I've done that about six times now.And, it's not like i really mean to pick (solely) on the Gay Blades;they just happened across my desk. It's not like they're inept. Really,this could've been any of 100 bands. Which is another part of theproblem. Foreigner and their ilk had the muscle of payola (and asaxophone player with a prog rock pedigree) to help separate them fromthe pack of also-rans and advance their financial standing. Nowadays,DJ coercion is more of a hip-hop thing [see above] so i'm assuming thisband lacks that resource. So what's the point of sounding so damnprofessional if no one's paying you? Right, right, the MUSIC. Well, actually, it's so they can cling to thehopes of getting on "Gossip Girl." Still, since we're here, what doesthe music sound like, anyway? If you've gotten this far, you probablyalready know. Though, not much like you predict a band called the GayBlades would sound like. So, i can't front on their marketing acumen.Still, expect a "dance-punk" beat or two, and lyrics about how cattyyour friends / ex-lovers are, because that's what bands like this do.Even the album title is boilerplate.For those of you just joining us, just spin the first 30 seconds ofGhosts. If it sounds like your bag of tangerines, go for it. It'sreliably surprise-free, and not as bad as the rating or the rantingwould indicate. In the meantime, wake me up when these guys, or one ofthe many similar acts on the "scene", finally gets to its "I Want toKnow What Love Is" phase. Cuz i want them to show me.+ + + + Simulcast here.
8:09 PM
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