Jason Crowe – White Fire
Ideally, artists manage to both entertain us and stun us with their skill. But that’s rare. For the most part, we choose one or the other nowadays. A very good portion of the people who try to act, direct, write, or make music have acquired through diligent work, and, usually, by using their parents’ money to pay for fancy schools, real technique. But few have stories to tell. Jason Crowe has the technique, but wants to bring soulfulness to it.
However, there are also those who have the most wonderful ideas, barely know how to execute them and regularly play in punk bands or something similar to it. They’re the things that haunted Frank Zappa’s dreams, and often run on pure inspiration and a sanguine attitude toward failure. But, oh, what they could achieve if they only knew how to tune their guitars and play a solo.
Jason Crowe makes old-time rock n’ roll. Crowe sings classic rock like one of the late 1970s singers. That’s an area of music, almost entirely, left to the experts, to people like Crowe. “White Fire” is a dynamic, well-arranged, well-played radio rock tune. But the impressive command of technique wouldn’t mean much unless it was balanced by soulfulness, and the songwriter has provided this as well. The best music blends the heart and the head.
Rockvyn – Digital Heroine
Maybe having nearly all of the world’s information tucked away into one tiny computer wasn’t such a good idea after all. It’s not just the fact that the vastness of the information and the fact that it’s constantly updated make people spend most of their waking hours with their eyes glued to the tiny screens. The worst part might be that there’s no mystery anymore.
The good news is that artists like Rockvyn are trying to find the romance in this world of 0s and 1s as well. While previous generations could fall in love with movie stars and rock gods because of their movies and recordings. While in years past, kids used to try to get hold of posters of their heroes so that they could plaster them on their wall and dream of knowing them personally, our daydreaming occurs while being able to check on our favourite stars at all times.
Yeah, what we need to keep the fires lit is a bit of poetry, a bit of mystery surrounding this complex, interconnected world. Rockvyn’s “Digital Heroine” is a big rock song, echoing the hard-rock heroes of the 1970s. But while many of those bands were drawing inspiration from ancient mythology, Rockvyn works backwards and creates a mythology around the people we see splashed on our screens every day. The powerful riffs and over-the-top vocals work well for this kind of material. Perhaps we’re living through great times after all.
