Jacob’s Fall – Like the Leaves
What are your favourite rock stars doing this very instant? Don’t snicker! It’s probably nothing like what the movies taught you. Or, to be more accurate, it isn’t anymore. Those stories of debauchery are reserved for an era that will not return.
They’re also reserved for a place where these kinds of activities make a lot more sense. For the most part, old rock n’ roll was made by British bands touring the U.S.A. It’s all about highways being ridden by fast automobiles, and people looking to make their fortune.
Modern rock is much closer to the world that the Teutonic punk-rock group Jacob’s Fall inhabit. It’s a world where your favourite rockstar is either mournfully climbing up a mountain or sitting in a beautiful, old city while contemplating the meaning of their existence.
The melancholy of Old Europe is part of the identity of modern rock music. It’s music made to soundtrack the environment, to provide a sound to the general atmosphere. Jacob’s Fall’s “Like the Leaves” is rock music made with restraint and under a good deal of gloom. Even success seems to say something about the decaying nature of the world. What are your favourite rock stars doing? Becoming existentialist philosophers!
AyoDylan – Betty White
Do kids really need to be taught about the past? Maybe a little bit of knowledge doesn’t hurt, but don’t let them get too respectful. Don’t start telling them that they need to give the Pledge of Allegiance each day and be thankful for every little thing that they have.
Kids need to escape just as much as their parents did. And whoever doesn’t manage to make it must’ve messed up somewhere along the way. Whoever doesn’t reach an exit must’ve taken a wrong turn.
AyoDylan makes short, to-the-point TikTok punk-rock. Don’t call Johnny Rotten to ask him what he thinks of it? He got out and escaped the past. So is AyoDylan trying to do.
Sure, the music might be a little light on meaning and a bit short. But so was a lot of the original punk, eh? On “Betty White,” the memories are all fuzzy for AyoDylan as he wakes up to a reality of friends growing up, getting addicted, and losing their way. Everyone’s entitled to get scared, try to get out and reinvent their own punk music.
