Jack
The Impossible Sound
Rad Pad Records
By Jose Fritz
I hate the word genius in music. It’s been utterly compromised by overuse and worse yet, misuse. Ray Charles is a genius -- combining gospel with rock n’ roll and inventing modern R&B is genius. Elvis covering a bunch of blues songs does not make him a genius, but his manager knowing that his charisma would sell something -- that’s genius. The early Rolling Stones bad-boy image was genius as was dressing the four lads alike as a marketing gimmick, even if the same bright manager had both ideas.
Alice Cooper’s early shock rock antics were pretty clever, but it Screamin' Jay Hawkins crawling out of a coffin that was genius. The theremin was genius, but the roto-tom was not. Cowbell at this point is never genius, not even in jest, but glass harmonium certainly could be and while we’re on the topic, Ravels Bolero was indisputably genius.
My genius standards are high, and I can honestly say that Jack is genius. I have not been so enthralled with a rock record probably in the past decade.
An act of genius is not possible in a vacuum. One must see, understand, overcome and conquer the past to create the new. Americans feel a cultural sense of superiority because we’re so damn good at this. We owned the last century of music. There were international artists of significance, like The British Invasion, but that was just a fraction of the pie. In the last hundred years we invented rock n’ roll, blues, rap, disco, funk, R&B, electronica, country music, metal, industrial and on and on.
Of course, all of this leads to a continually upped ante. You can’t invent R&B again. You can’t shake your hips like Elvis and expect the world to drop to your feet. It’s been over a century since Bolero was debuted and by now, repeating one bar for 14 consecutive minutes is considered pretty dull. Dressing alike is over, and crawling out of a coffin won’t interest anyone except Goth teens from upstate New York -- even if you’re naked. The bar is raised again and again for each successive generation.
As of this minute Jack is the fucking bar. Their singer wails better than anybody who’s gripped a microphone since membrane was glued to magnets. They take simple melodies to hook you in, and then seconds afterwards they flush them out with vivid breakdowns and a resounding Ikara Colt level-intensity. A band like The Strokes can write a good rock riff, but they never take it where these guys can. That skinny, choreographed male model can’t drop his voice down and impersonate the ghosts of Golden Gate Jubilee Quartette, but Scott Holland can. He can also squeal like a wounded animal and somehow make words of the pained noises.
This handmade CD-R is where I want music to go. I want to see singers get more varied in approach and to draw on the many schools. I want to see a simple rhythm bullied and crushed by the torque of a substantial song and made into tempered steel. Who didn’t want to hear another band that could rock the stage like The Teenbeaters, then steal your girlfriend like Gunfighter, trash the bar like Stony Sleep and then follow you home and drink all your beer like Bob Pollard? I want to see somebody rock that shit hard and live that dream that we all had as teenagers.
It is no surprise to me that Ace Fu signed this band. Any respectable A&R person would. Look for a full-length out sometime next year, but get the EP now, there’s no reason to wait.
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