Erik Flaa – Fiesta for My Failure
Rock musicians are rarely honest. That goes against the job description. It’s too much to ask of them. It’s the same as demanding actors to use their real names and not fix their teeth. Some things are just standards of the industry.
The honest stories are usually reserved for late-career autobiography and storytelling tours. The truthful, juicy stories are kept in a vault for when the marble statue has finally been raised up in the town square.
However, that leaves quite a wide avenue to travel for the few who are looking for a different route. Tell the truth once, and it will sound like a mistake! Make it a habit and you’ll certainly stand out.
Erik Flaa is looking to give a confession and cares that as many people as possible hear it. “Fiesta for My Failure” is an ode to the things we screw up, miscalculate, and fail at. It’s a tune about the very things that help make us human. Flaa’s honest lyrics and rock impulses are balanced by sophisticated production strategies and odd-time signatures. Sometimes, it pays to tell the truth.
Tyler Beans – Modern Oddity
They’ll soon be teaching classes on punk-rock in the music conservatories and history schools. They’ll probably give students lessons on how to hold the guitar like Johnny Ramone, or how to approach an audience shirtless just like Iggy Pop.
But since that course is likely to cost a small fortune, I’ll give you the rundown right now. All you need to know is that the ideal punk-rock song, just like alternative and garage numbers, are really short pop confections played by people who sound in a real hurry get going.
Because their road is about to end soon, these bands play like they’re on a tight schedule. There’s no time for solos, or unnecessary bridge parts. This is pop music with an expiry date. It’s pop music before the bomb actually goes off.
Tyles Beans manages to capture the excitement of classic punk and alternative rock, and a fairly big dose of contemporary excitement. This ain’t a number for those obsessed with nostalgia as you can tell from the title, “Modern Oddity.” These are fast-paced, Stooges-like chords played underneath lyrics about being at odds with the world and finding the resources to win anyway.
