Northern Blood – A Deer A Car
They’ve got tricks so smart that they can make a toy guitar sound like a jet engine, and a recorded jet engine sound like Lady Gaga. It’s not like they just need to press a button. Nah, they have to press several and the producers and sound engineers pressing them are essential to the whole operation. Otherwise, yes, studio recorded music has never offered greater opportunities.
But what if you don’t want a piece of heavy machinery replicating the vocals of your favourite pop stars? What if you’re not in the market to get lo-fi artists to sound like a million bucks? Well, you too could be in luck, but there’ll be some digging needing to be done. Looking for artists that sound like they have stories and a personality worth caring about?
Yeah, they’re out there, but they ain’t hanging out at country rodeos or pop Grammy extravaganzas. Northern Blood’s “A Deer A Car” sounds tortured, and left out in the cold. There’s no blitz, pazzazz or hype. But it might just make you want to know more. That’s the power of a real voice. That’s the power of someone singing their heart out without anyone training them behind a glass window. Northern Blood’s songwriter doesn’t need to get the story straight. It was the truth all along.
Morgan Jennings – “My Only Friend”
Walking by yourself takes guts and the ability to stand the sound of your own voice going on in your head for extended periods of time. It’s no wonder so few people do it nowadays.
There’s not a lot of independent thought because there aren’t many independent people. You certainly won’t be able to find them in rock n’ roll anymore. Get someone to whisper the wrong idea, or knock over a water glass and they’ll start apologizing for one year straight and ratting their friends for whatever it is they’ve done.
But those are the people you’ll spend your money to see. The vast majority of bands capable of doing big concerts only play the hits, only say the things are alright to discuss in public, and are only copies of someone else. It’s a mighty depressing thought to consider that they’re the ones we depend on for entertainment and, occasionally, guidance.
There’s something refreshingly amateurish and freeing about Morgan Jennings’s singing. There’s something freeing about hearing the emotionally direct psych-folk of “My Only Friend,” a tune about people looking for guidance, help and teachers within someone else. I’m not sure you’ll be able to pay for tickets to this at Madison Square Garden. But I’d like to think that, maybe, you will.
