OFF: (waaaaay OFF) Scene Report Alternarock USA 2001

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Mon, Dec 10, 2001 at 04:38:58PM -0500, Doug Pearson typed out:

> My bandmates were going to see the Live 105 (local commercial alternarock
> station) "Not So Silent Night" package show (7 bands, last year's was
> headlined by Green Day) at the San Jose hockey arena, so I figured I'd go
> along to check out the scene, even though I wasn't really familiar with any
> of the acts.  See what the kids are listening to these days, especially
> since I never went to one of these kinds of shows (new popular acts, that
> is) when I was that age (the shows I went to in High School were all
> classic rock bands who had at least 8 or 10 albums to their credit - I'm
> pretty sure all these bands have only one, or at most, two, albums out -
> and the alternarock shows I attended in college and later were all in
> auditoriums/theaters, not 12000-seat arenas).

        <snip to the ones I can comment on>

> Alien Ant Farm - the first of many rap/metal-damaged acts of the night.  I
> thought that stuff was going to be replaced by bubblegummy stuff like Blink
> 182 or Smashmouth, but it's still going strong!  Does anyone outside the
> USA listen to this stuff (surely not in the UK)?  Boring, singer's "dorky"
> affectations between songs weren't amusing.

        The UK caught them because of the Michael Jackson cover (which I
think is good on video but a lousy version if you can't see them taking
the piss, I used not to think Michael Jackson was anything special but
when I compare his actual *songs* to the dross that makes radio play now I
realise I could have suffered worse growing up in his airplay era) and now
they're Kerrang! darlings. One of my friends considers them the musical
Antichrist as despite being an indie band to anyone who remembers Britpop
from a few years back they get filed under metal, and said friend then has
to deal with people who say they're into metal and mean they like AAF; he
prefers Slayer so the gap is substantial... but anyway with a bit of luck
they'll be gone like the boyband they are very soon.

> Sum 41 - Canadian commercial punk rockers sorta like that other band with a
> one-syllable-word and a number for their name.  Redeemed (IMO) by their
> sense of humor, dropping in Iron Maiden licks for one of their outros, and
> the singer being a geniune snotty Canadian.  Not bad, but no No Means No,
> that's for sure!

        Different guy I know thinks this lot are the business. He's a
massive Green Day fan and says they're like Green Day would be with two
guitars. He contrasts them to Blink 182 in a way somewhat akin to the
Darwin awards versus MTV Jackass; the former are clever people talking
about stupid things, the latter stupid people doing the same thing...

> System of a Down - these guys have one song that's being played to death on
> commercial radio right now (the one with the line about "I cry when angels
> deserve to die" or something), and were at least fairly interesting, with a
> lot of weird changes and low-key subsections in their (you guessed it!)
> rap/metal-type songs.  Probably a band that people into "neo-prog" (i.e.
> longer songs, lots of dynamics/time signature/key signature changes) along
> the lines of Tool would like.

        They've been around a little bit now, on the edges of my radar at
least, one of the first nu-metal bands and probably the most interesting
(which still doesn't interest me at all, but hey). They must be faintly
annoyed to have been overtaken by Limp Park 182 et al.

> Linkin Park - every other band of the night had a four piece
> guitar/bass/drums/singer lineup (a couple of the singers played second
> guitar), but these guys added a rapper (in addition to the singer) and a
> DJ, who's actually the main reason I'm posting this message here.  Mostly,
> the DJ seemed to play "backing tracks" (keyboards & percussion) for the
> band to play along with (pretty lame IMO), but occasionally, he'd spin
> records with synth effects on them.  And damned if some if his between-song
> synth sounds didn't sound frighteningly like the parts between songs
> on 'Space Ritual' (only with less delay)!!!  Obviously, that was the best
> part of the band.  So don't be surprised if you play Hawkwind for a High
> School kid, and he asks, "whoa dude, who's their DJ?".

        They're supposed to be really really good, to judge by the big
magazines. Again, like AAF getting filed under metal despite being pop by
any other name except that which includes the anodyne effected new swing
crap we get on FM these days.

        Sadly I think we have more to endure of this stuff. Whether it is
marginalising metal I couldn't tell you, I don't see that metal has much
to fear considering the state it's been in for the last ten years or so,
and in any case what I (and you) listen to is more marginalised still, not
under any unusual threat from all this, and no-one cares about it in the
world where the above bands matter anyway, so I can't really get too
agitated about it. But yes, they exist elsewhere and are the current
commercial alternative it seems. Hmph. Yours,
                                                Jon

 --
        Jonathan Jarrett                Birkbeck College, London
                 jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
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  "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." (Tom Waits)