So you wonder why?
For the second day in a row, I’ve been basically abandoned on the 3rd Floor of my discontent, but I pulled my sorry ass up and went out for a show with fellow Twitterer. Which is fine really.
Really, no I’m ok with it.
I’m a little spooked about this whole Semantic Will meets Reality thing, but fuck it – I had to interact with the meatspace folk backin the day – so I can deal with my introversion and fight through that shit.
I’m a total geek (read: nerd/dork). I got Asimov’s Foundation for my Bar Mitzvah, and it pissed me off. I think it gave me a headache. Asimov is incredibly smart. Read his glosses of Shakespeare if you have any doubt. But as a writer, he is nothing but simlucra, artifice and empty suits, plot turns laid out like mid-western roads, all right angles at even intervals.
He parades characters and conflicts onto the stage, tidily wipes up t he action with a clever little pirouet, and moves on down the line. For someone who could recognize the brilliance of Fallstaff, Asimov has trouble writing characters with the depth of saturday morning cartoons.
Honestly. P.K. Dick kicks Asimov’s pansy little bitch ass.
But that is not what this post is about. It’s about Laurie and I heading out to check out 30 Seconds to Mars (and of course, the four bands that were lined up to preview them). Look at it this way: there are many here among us for whom the life force is best represented by the livid twitching of one tortured nerve, or even a full-scale anxiety attack. I do not subscribe to this point of view 100%, but I understand it, have lived it, have suckled that breast until it bled. Thus the shriek, the caterwaul, the chainsaw gnarlgnashing, the yowl and the whizz that decapitates may be reheard by the adventurous or emotionally damaged as mellifluous bursts of unarguable affirmation. So There is 30 Seconds in a nutshell.
A review of 30 Seconds and Jared Leto’s vanity band? No. And further – bite me. Lying to myself again? No.
Head Automatica opened for them. Did I say enough? Did I say enough when I reviewed Bright Eyes and She Wants Revenge? Do you really want that kind of review?
Short Answer: Yes. You do.
It feels dirty, and no doubt you’ll harbour some guilt tomorrow after reading this review, but fuck it, you love it when I talk nasty to you, and you love it when I promise to respect you in the morning. Let’s this party started!
Oh – right. Yes. I really am this good. Read Epistrophia – pass through puberty, then come back if you still doubt me.
The world is falling apart, I’ve got ice cream, wine, cigarettes, and Head Automatica’s debut CD is being burned both into my iTunes and nervous system as we speak. Filling up my cells inbox with text messages, and so I’m , , , optimistically overchanged.
Quote One about them from a fan this evening (no doubt Literature major at Boston College):
“OMG!!! I just love that song so much!!! I can’t stop thinking about it!! The lead singer’s voice is so AWESOME!!”
I love BEATING HEART BABY!!! <bcsweetie94>
Yeah. She has a future either as Henry Millar’s love doll, or a soccer mom with a violence fetish in some suburban death cradle like Evanston, IL or Beverly, MA.
Abviously they are a force to contend with. So I should write something serious about this band, since they made my jewish matzo balls swell with deelight.
OK – what the fuck – Daryl Palumbo, the angst ridden front man of Long Island’s Glassjaw teams up with Dan “The Automator” Nakamura makes any fucking sense? Believe it (or take more drugs). So I was thinking that information society is over rated, but Primal Scream and Elvis Costello just to name a few are the influences – and you hear it.
Palumbo’s already starting to seem like a different person to me (after 12 hours listening to his history), but this is the way it’s always been. With that being said (most of which is bullshit – go see them live) Head Automatica is not a rap metal band or another version of Glassjaw. It’s a trip back into a time period where people were going to disco clubs and freebasing cocaine at their tables. Heavy on dance, modern rock, “60′s turmoil”, and in place of Palumbo’s trademark screams you get catchy hooks. Never mind that they came on like a bunch of sixteen-year-old punks on a meth power trip.. in a music “scene” that is riddled with music that is emotional, bleak and with varying degrees of aggressiveness (or nihilism); Head Automatica comes at you with a different approach.
Not necessarily the most original (Desert of the real, morpheus? ) , but a breath of fresh air. Head Automatica draws on influences like the bands that are listed above, to develop a sound that is unique in this day and age. Consisting of members from Glassjaw, the Gorillaz, Give Up the Ghost and Tokyo Marine Fire; you hear a combination of things that each musician involved brings from their previous endeavors.
Palumbo’s vocals are flawless, both this evening and on the album “Propaganda”. The aforementioned trademark screams are few and far between, but never seem out of place when heard. Overall the lyrics are not deep, they are more ironic and cheeky than anything (and although I hate cheaky irony – there is more to talk about this issue later, damn – another seque where my medication kicks in as I am making a point). Which isn’t a bad thing. It works with this project and actually makes for a more enjoyable listen.
As opposed to the demos, which didn’t feature a full band; the final mixes (which feature a bass player, two guitarists, a keyboardist, and a drummer) display a cohesive unit and each member seems to compliment one another rather nicely.
So I was just introduced to them, just heard them, and heard them live in one evening – and bought their CD at Avalon, so – yes – I have now chanelled them and their children – so, I heard most people love them on the first listen and the rest really don’t know what to think. They might hate it at first, but in the end it will ultimately end up in their cd collection. Well, I am the former – and fuck the latter.
You heard it from me first. Anyway – I need to get my ass in bed and all that. It’s hard being this hip. Especially this hip as a super-fly TNT hipster jew in his 30s and no hope of offspring in the foreseable – what was that? Nadda. What’s my worry? You’ll read this and think I actually have the answer to something far away from here.
Oh – yeah – 30 Seconds was respectable –
if you wear depends. Bitch.
. Let’s see if they last.