Tim Mechling – Jack Got Back to New Orleans
Genre: Psychedelic / Freak Folk, Jazz Fusion, Southern Rock / Red Dirt
Similar artists: Tom Waits, Shakey Graves, Mark Ribot, Primus
The problem about having heard so much rock music is that everyone now thinks that they can get in on the action. This has scared the really good writers away. Some of them are making the big bucks writing marketing blog posts for top brands. Others are busy trying to write their unforgettable novel and picking up a dangerous drinking habit.
Just because Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits wrote songs that many people know doesn’t mean that Nikki Sixx can’t come up with about as many tunes that the average music listener will have heard. It’s enough to give anyone who can depend on five fingers on each hand and a rhyming dictionary a reason to hope. But what about really good writers?
Some of them take hope from the talented freaks that have preceded them and make a go of it. Tim Mechling’s Jack Got Back to New Orleans may well be a Tom Waits dress-up cosplay performance, but it takes a good amount of talent and a lot of ambition to pull it off. Mechling is a clever, funny writer, and this kind of jazz-rock may just be the best use of his considerable talent.
Pi Fire – Image Problem
Genre: Shoegaze, Psychedelic Rock, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Mr Bungle, Dead Kennedys, Primus, Yob, Cardiacs, Ween, Fishbone, Weedeater, Melvin, 88KasyoJunrei
People who listen to too much rock music learn to hate it! Or, at least, they learn to dislike its limitations. But, what can average folks like you and me do about it? Sure, there’s always the option of picking up instruments like an angry mob would gather firearms and storm the palace gates.
Of course, the best course of action would be to try and make music everything that cookie-cutter rock isn’t. The dream is to create something compelling, complex, and conducive to critical thinking. But, who has the time to learn to write that kind of music? Who has the time to acquire the skills to play it? And, who would possess such an advanced sense of humor to even attempt it?
Pi Fire’s Image Problem presents a group that has looked at all of the favorite cult prog-punks of old and decided that someone might as well try and carry the flame. This is music made by people who have chuckled all the way through the numerous musical lessons that they must have taken to come up with this. It’s messed up music made by folks who could have likely done something more profitable with their time. We can only count ourselves lucky that they’ve chosen complex, scary, hilarious pop music instead.
