Once upon a time, there was Burst, a little band from Houston. Back in 2000 and 2001, they put out a couple of songs on mp3.com that received some good notices and a lot of downloads. They successfully fused an edgy, modern sound with classic pop sensibility to give them a unique voice. There was word that they’d signed a record contract and were about to break. Then, like with apparently all else except for me, September 11th changed things. Its lead singer went into the Army and departed for Iraq, and the band went into dormancy. Now stationed back in the States and within a relatively easy commute of Houston, said lead singer decided to get the band together again. One necessary name change later (naming yourself after something that happens to your appendix isn’t the best idea since sliced bread, let’s face it), they’re about to have a coming-out-again party with the release of a five-song EP and a podcast of their new work on Tuesday, March 21st…
…okay, you’re all asking yourselves why I’m doing this. After all, I’m well-known for being a person who only listens to music made after 1992 when driving in an area that has a paucity of good radio stations. What makes me qualified to listen to these guys and judge them? Well, I did hear those tracks from 2000-1, for one thing. I remember those tracks, for another. Yet another thing is that said lead singer asked me to do it. If you’re a reader of the site, you know his name: Jeremy Botter. JJ’s always been serious about his music, and he knows that I’ll be an uncompromising reviewer due to my ineffable taste and the fact that I’m not swayed by the fact that he’s my friend. I’m equally not swayed by the fact that he was the guy who fired me from The Smarks during l’affaire Babs. He’s always appreciated my objectivity and judgment, if not certain other things. So when he asked me to have a listen and jot my thoughts down, I happily volunteered (something that I also did for him with his group’s first two releases). So there. That’s why you’re seeing me in the Music section in a capacity other than someone who writes Gloomchen every once in a while about stuff.
Hope that answers your question.
Now, on to the guts. Much Ado About Nothing was cooked up by JJ and The Favorites’ bassist/producer/engineer Jon Stanka during JJ’s copious free time away from his current and my former employer. They worked on the five tracks of the EP over a six-month period in an effort to get everything perfect. You can definitely hear the effort put into each track. All the mixes are perfectly balanced, and each instrument and voice is given equal time. It’s a balance that not too many artists try to achieve in a misguided effort to emphasize supposed strengths.
One thing the group’s always been on the edge of is distribution methods. They utilized mp3.com very well when it was still the hot way for a band to get noticed. Since that option’s been long dead thanks to the RIAA, they moved ahead with the times. They’ve released all of the songs under the Creative Commons License, the version of open source for artistic works, and, as said, are debuting this work to the public via a podcast, available either on iTunes or PodServe, where they have a distribution set-up courtesy of Big In Japan. You can download individual tracks or podcast to your heart’s content. Just a demonstration, as if another was needed, that artists don’t need brick-and-mortar anymore, or the bloated systems of the record labels.
But a distribution system is nothing without product to feed through it. Does Much Ado About Nothing deserve to be put through the system in the first place, or is it something that doesn’t deserve the bandwidth?
The former. Definitely. All that time was very well-spent indeed. All five tracks have definite strengths that put it up there with the best of the alterna-commercial stuff that you hear on radio stations in college towns all the time (it would fit in perfectly with a radio station I know in Lawrence, Kansas, a place that’s definitely too hip for the state). The production gap has given the group a more mature outlook that assists their musical sensibility. The Favorites are not as liable to charges of cookie-cutter-itis than Burst was. There’s definitely a unique, individual voice here. However, they’re not “unique” enough to alienate. There are similarities to be heard to other groups with higher profile, and in general, the comparisons are favorable, and should attract listeners who might be skeptical. The songs are of the mid-tempo alterna-rock school, as easy to digest as white rice and as filling as the meal that accompanies it.
Take “Four Years”. To me, this is the centerpiece track of the EP. When playing it for the first time, it instantly reminded me of Counting Crows’ “Accidentally In Love”, a song that I happen to be able to listen to over and over. JJ’s vocals have a definite whiff of Duritz on this track, and you can definitely hear Duritz doing a song like this. No, it doesn’t have the intensity of the Crows song (on purpose), and the vocals aren’t as up-front, but the comparison shows the level that the group’s working at and the potential that it has for bigger things. It’s definitely a song that hooks you in, from the acoustic intro that reminds you of the continuum back to Bowie’s similarly-titled “Five Years” to the lyrics, which while definitely part of a cliched school (he let her get away, she married someone else and had a kid, he feels like an idiot), still resonate with people. The closing bridge also provides an example of Mister Ford’s talented lead guitar work. The song’s structure, featuring an a capella chorus close, adds to the mood. Well done.
There’s another song on the EP that suffers a bit from Unfortunate Title Syndrome. “One And Only” can only remind one of Chesney Hawkes’ classic. Unlike Hawkes’ song, a paean to self-confidence and egotism, this song sticks to the tried and true story of the Unattainable Woman. The song has a couple of structural problems that might detract from the enjoyment of a good song. During the second chorus, the guitar work is a bit too busy. It’s more distracting than contributory. Also, I always question the need for multitracked vocals on a song about being lonely. You really can’t get away with that very often unless you’ve got incredible chops (use k d lang and her posthumous duet with Roy Orbison on “Crying” as one of the rare examples of this actually working). They’re just able to pull it off here, but it’s a close shave. Harmony vocals would have been easier to accept, I believe.
“Perfect”, though, demonstrates the fine line bands walk these days. Thanks to quick popularization of styles and instant round-the-world distribution, certain elements of music can become cliche very quickly. The acoustic introduction punctuated by a driving electric thrust into the song is now a cliched structure, and it takes a lot to overcome it. It wasn’t done very well here. The fact that the song’s about the Idealized Woman doesn’t help. Well, at least with me, anyway. But I’m the type to not idealize anyone or anything, so the song probably has more meaning to other people than to me. I really shouldn’t fault it for that. It’s well-worn territory, and the lyrics are of good quality.
“Home” shows that the band still has some weaknesses. Please, guys, stick to a time signature for more than fifteen seconds at a time. The instrumental between the first and second verses is of roller-coaster-level queasiness (and it isn’t as organic to the song as, say, the similar tempo lurch in Faith No More’s “Epic”). It’s like trying to drive in city traffic. That’s really a pity, because the instrumentation is well-constructed and effective. This song, though, does point out a weakness that JJ has as a vocalist, and it’s one that I share. Thanks to an unfortunate puberty that cut off the top octave and a half of my range, thus rendering me a second tenor and useless in doing a stage musical, I lost the power in my upper range. JJ shows a similar weakness, but in his lower range. When hitting low notes, he virtually fades into the mix. He needs to do a little more work in tailoring his vocals or strengthening his lower end.
The song that’s been getting the most amount of attention, though, is “Radio”. On one level, it’s your typical “heard our song and started thinking about her” song (the epitome of which is Donna Summer’s “On The Radio”, of course; the twist here is that the song happens to be the one the guy wrote for his sweetie, and he’s telling her to listen). On another level, it’s a wonderful synthesis of influences. The acoustic work is pure High Lonesome, the keyboards are gospel-influenced, the synthesized strings add the right level of countrypolitan-descendant heft, and Mister George’s drums add the right amount of emphasis. Even the extended fade-out, designed to remind one of radio static, works. No, this isn’t at Van Morrison’s level when it comes to a Radio Tribute Song, but pretty much nothing is. It’s a sweet ballad that carries with it the same message the Man From Belfast brings to all of his songs on the subject: it’s great to listen to the radio and hear something that brings you into a heightened state of emotion. I got that feeling myself earlier this week when driving from South Dakota back to Kansas and getting to hear one of my favorite radio stations out of Omaha, which had changed formats to something called “80s And More” since I used to listen to it while living in Lincoln. The feeling it gave me was, “Let’s see how fast this goddamn van can really go”, but it was a good feeling while it lasted, until the station faded into static and I could start picking up the Topeka stations. In these days of corporatization and homogenization, it’s nice to be reminded that radio has power.
I already know what the knock on these tracks is going to be: they’re not “original” enough, whatever that means. That’s going to be said by people who don’t know that there’s nothing original under the sun. There’s only so many ways to exploit the musical scale, and they’ve pretty much all been done over the past five hundred years of tonal music. The Favorites take some risks while still maintaining an accessibility that will serve them well as their career expands. They combine this with a sense of craftsmanship that’s too often ignored these days. I’m a sucker for a well-crafted song (the hazards of being a child of the 70s). And there’s more of me out there than there are pseudo-goth freaks or hip-hop snot-nosed punks (of all ethnicities). There’s room out there between Evanescence and Kanye West, and this is a territory that The Favorites occupy proudly. And they’re a very good deodorizer to get rid of the stench of the Kelly Clarkson types they have to share that space with.
Do yourself a favor and get the podcast or download the EP (links are above). It’s definitely worth your time.
