The Eternal Search for Tasty Jams

By: Kris Harrison |Editor|

In today's multi media, face paced and information saturated reality, we all face a great deal of bullshit thrown our way. Not all of it is bullshit, but the sheer amount hurled at us while sipping our diet colas at the monitor makes it easier to adopt a cynical outlook on the whole. This has its upside, when I do find something that is musically, philosophically, or aesthetically worth a damn it is overwhelming and utterly stupefying. This is not so only out of sheer amazement for the existence of contemporary talent or depth of any kind, but because of the enormous amount of effort it takes just to find something that can qualify as "awesome". I've spent a number of nights staying up on iTunes, jumping from album to album, band to band, recommendation to recommendation trying to find something that will rattle my bones. Usually, around 4a.m. I feel my eyes creeping back into my skull, and stomach curdling with a mixture of diet coke, pretzels and the six hours of garbage I just ingested through my ears. Maybe I'm just picky, and maybe I just have too "high" of expectations, but I can say in full honesty that by 3a.m. Oasis are sounding good to me. I'd take anything with a catchy melody at that point.

Music journalists and publications are no better; I've piled up stacks of Guitar World, Revolver, Rolling Stone, and any other "rock" or metal oriented publication that has shreddable looking fellows on the cover. All that is inside these would be encyclopedias of rock are shitty writers kissing the ass of mediocre musicians next to ads of mediocre products (which feature borderline-unattractive women). I have bought countless metal, punk, screamo, and rock albums because these writers built them up to be the next "BIG THING". They were even stupid enough to use the phrase "The Next Nirvana!" for a number of bands. They were right; these bands sounded like Nirvana, but were worthless for doing so. After a while I began to tell how shitty or good bands would be just by how they looked in these magazines. This failed from time to time because most of my favorite artists looked like dumbasses in dumbass poses written about by dumbasses who didn't really know what was so badass about these guys. These mags also led you to believe there wasn't much going on out there in music land. They'd feature the same guys on the cover every couple months, or couple them all together in one big issue. This led a teenage me to think "well, this is all that's out there better not bother looking elsewhere." Don't worry, I still searched and discovered a lot. One can only read about Zakk Wylde's squeals, Eddie Van Halen's tapping technique, and Kurt Cobain's suicide for so long before they begin to start loathing the music rather than just the poor form of media they're receiving. This is just a micro chasm for media as a whole, but I'll save that for another day.

The worst was the writers though. They always kissed ass. ALWAYS. Some of these guys needed to be tore apart, their music was aweful. Shadows Fall for example. They were hyped by everyone and their step-mom as being THE heavy metal band. I bought the "Art of Balance" album, put it in, and expected some fuckin fury to come busting out of the speakers. What I got was Dream Theater metal. Shallow, lame riffs, precalculated solos with the weakest high E bends I've ever had to hear attempted. I wasn't a big fan of screaming vocals at the time either, but I put up with Bodom at the time because the music still stood up. Shadows Fall were just lame. The singer's dreads were the most appealing aspect of the band. I was dumb enough not to stop here, and to keep trying to digest it. I told a few of my friends about my experience and you'da thought I just ripped on Sabbath. So I kept at it. Never caught on (thank God), I even tried learning some of the riffs. This made it worse because I felt it infecting my guitar playing. I went through this same shit with Avenged Sevenfold-another band Guitar World claimed were the saviors of metal. My ass! These bands suck. All the while, a good metal band, Mastodon, slipped through my fingers. Oh, the hours wasted on shitty riffs that could have been well spent rocking to "Blood and Thunder" or learning the chicken pickin' of "Aqua Dementia". Mastodon only received a few articles here and there, were also hyped as the saviors of metal along with bands like Pig Destroyer. It was a sad tale. Wasn't until they finally came out on a major label that they got the cover, and the coverage they deserved.

These magazines weren't for the music, they were for the lifestyle. Even Guitar World, who you'd think would be looking out for GUITARISTS was really just pushing product. Not too surprising, but still. Where the fuck are all the real critics? These bands are going to think they're fucking Led Zeppelin and eat up all the press their getting. They're going to start believing they are the saviors of metal or rock or punk or whatever. Back in the heyday of rock n' roll, when those untouchable by today's standards, albums were released by actually talented musicians they were still being torn apart. People forget Zeppelin used to be referred to as a Sabbath rip off until their fourth album or that people used to hate the Stooges.

We're so exposed to mediocrity that people don't even realize it, and if they do they won't write about it! Those of us who get that there is a real leveling down of society, especially art and music walk around in quiet desperation, holding in our screams. Well, I say let them out. Let these musicians know we will not settle for shit, they need to try harder, think deeper, and stop riding the nostalgia train. I'm sick of going to the store and buying thirty-some-odd-year old albums because what today's artists have to offer is embarrassing. Not all of it, but most of it. I've now found a better way of discovering new bands and it started with closing the cover of those magazines. Let's usher in some bitching, constructive bitching. Not your run of the mill anonymous comment on a YouTube video. Blurt out your opinion and put your name on it. Here's your chance. Atonal Magazine is just for that purpose. Write it, I'll print it and hopefully others will read it.

The project starts now.

Stay True, Jam Econo