The Review Process Following 8 Heavy Bevvies

The internet is back on at home. I'm gonna miss the library and the world weary cretins that nest there, but this keyboard is clean..no dandruff, shea butter or snake oil on it. This screen is clear..no phlegm drops or stank breath clouding up the web pages on it. This room is empty, no Aqualungs(THX Perplexio!) or crusty smoke ogres crowding my mind... so I can get back to my ranting business...

  I was lucky enough to spend the weekend in NYC with two close friends wandering around the steel towered tundra of downtown and Brooklyn like pickled penguins for the past few days...We saw a few shows...a benefit at an old haunt called Union Pool which left me congested with disgust and confusion for what the newest sect  of hipster show- goers deem as acceptable listening and fanfare. I was crushed into a corner, pissing off steam as 2 hyped bands desecrated their way through a set of dischordant, yelped out puke. My blood was only kept from boiling over by the fine brewcrafters of Brooklyn Lager and the arctic air.

Moving away from that unhappy accident, we made our way to a place called Brooklyn Bowl, a very well designed Bowling alley/bar/live music venue hybrid  hidden in an old warehouse on the other side of Williamsburg. Lots of over perfumed non- Brooklyn girls, a halo of text lights, bowling birthday parties complete with balloon bouquets and a confusing bill of bands loud enough to finish off a 7/10 split via a downstroked power chord. I had researched the bands beforehand and was confident that we would be entertained. I decided to review the show in hopes of sending it to one of the websites I write for.

Scratch that. Really.... take that out of any consideration. Ain't gonna happen.

I will now show you the process of what it is like for a reviewer to write down how he or she feels about a band who makes no good argument for their own existence, makes horrible use of machinery, and throws hundreds of dollars into thin air every month if they are actually paying for practice space..

here are excerpts:

...dirty druids wielding plastic strats that cast dead spells and rearrange festive moods into spiraling arrays of contemplative doom......
...anticipating a scenario where the crowd scatters as if running from an earthquake and all that can be heard are fierce crickets dropping and dying in front of the humming amps...
...just coughing vocals out in a monotone drawl that  wet slaps your face with a three Ambien punch...
....an endless painful one note blanket drained of any emotion, wrapping me in sleepy time.....
....opium den buzzkill music where highs are lost and junkies are cleansed by the detox of a strummed out void...
....Stop singing! Every word sounds like you've been hurled down a crevasse and are screaming for help.....
....methadone rock buried under over reverb-ed waves of nothingness....
....underlying wrong notes rolling slowly on and on like drugged Clydesdales chugging through a river of tar and sludge in slo-mo....
....middle of the ditch bearded basement band that can pack a bowl much better than it can pack a room....
...just because you have a Vol. 4 tee shirt and some mangy dreads doesn't prove to me that you can prove it to me.....

 Am I frighteningly bored with music? Do I give off the air of a jaded hateful fuck? Am I a well researched and experienced musician with something to say?  The answer is yes.. all of the above. Some  good reviewers give almost every band something to feel hopeful for in 500 words or less. Not me. Not easily. Or never. My style gets cold cocked in the back of the head in the doorway while exiting the arena, and then gets back up again..looking for that one musical explosion ticking away in the shows I've yet to see.. in the hands of the bands I've yet to hear...

Reviewing on my blog will always be different than reviewing in the outside world. I can say what ever comes to the cracked surface of my flooded thoughts here. Out there almost every review is meant to sell something. Gone are the days of the free form long art pieces as reviews as they once laid in the pages of the glossy music monthlies..the entries left by the Lester Bangs/Nick Tosches/Richard Meltzers are hanging on a literary wall somewhere and great rock historians visit the exhibits for reference or pleasure. I know this. I respect this. I know attention spans of even the most yearning earnest music lover have dwindled to half a page. linked to a tweet and sharing the space with a million more..but still I trudge on clinging to the dirty wings of discovery...the pangs gripping me..aiming to feel something new every day.....it is why I am here. It is who I am...

Thanks for coming...