Unbiased is the Name of the Game

I wrote a review of the new Tantric record the other day for a blog I contribute to. To say I am not a fan would be an honest statement. What a joke this record was. I may have been a little too brutal in my piece... brutal enough anyway that the editor decided against running it in record time. So I'll just print it here. No record labels are paying for banner ads here anytime soon.

Tantric
Mind Control
Label: Silent Majority

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Who’s on first? Those are classic dilemmas that is the baffling ‘what happens to modern rock when time keeps moving forward?’ Thank Tantric for finally answering this riddle: it just stays the same.

The late nineties were a terrible time for rock music. Everything got muddy and the lines between grunge, rap, metal and soft rock were horribly crossed. It was the sound of the suburbs and it can still be heard coming from pickup trucks pulling out of mini marts all across the American Midwest.

Tantric is one of the survivors but calling them that is just a nice way of calling them the Warrant of the new millennium. Mind Control is purely NASCAR rock; it’s dumb, romantically heavy and packaged for thirty second commercials for pro wrestling or the county fair.

The title track chugs along reminding us of the better memories from this era: a big chorus and race track ready riff straight from the better Filter songs. It’s American rock and roll and that’s a sad thing for our country. ‘Fall to the Ground’ is the same song slowed down to a brisk trot. Another big chorus and another radio dial turned to the classic rock station for a little relief.

‘Kick Back’, ‘Run Out’… I could continue to name song titles but it’s like changing white socks, they are all the same it’s just a lesson in futility.

Maybe this review is harsh but as this country enters a brave new era can we not just let go of this Busch era pickup truck rock? Big songs do not always come with big ideas.

If you like Tantric you might also like: window decals of cartoon characters pissing on car company logos, fishing and Nickleback.

Enter Mr. Chernus

I have often told myself that I would not resort to doing a personal blog. As a writer I do think blogging is a great way to gain a little excersise in your craft not to mention it’s a fine escape from regular daily duties. Of course, I could not restrain myself from joining in the fray and thus, two years ago, I started what has become my baby, Deadtown Cleveland (www.deadtowncleveland.blogspot.com).

Deadtown is an all around celebration of Cleveland: the town I grew up in, the first town I fell in love with and the place that will always be my home. I like to use it to reexamine my former place of residence and write about all of my favorite parts of it be they restaurants, bands or people. For awhile it was also a sociology project where I compilled my thoughts and misadventures in regards to being a Midwesterner in a western world.

But even with the last bit of information in mind, Deadtown was never meant to serve as a personal blog that is subject to my whim and abuse. No, I’ve always thought those blogs to be a little self serving and a tad boring. Ha. Now here I am. But I hope that this won’t be a bunch of complaints or even lots of patting of my own back. Rather I would like it to be some basic shit talking, with the spice being some zombie and wrestling rants and then some altogether indifferent writing.

A little about me: I’m nearing 30 and am entering into the arena of screenwriting with an open mind and an empty one too. I have worked as a freelance music journalist for six years. My foul mouthed work has been published in books, national magazines and alt-weeklies in Cleveland, Detroit, Denver and Los Angeles.

Excuse me...

There’s a god damn ant crawling up my leg as I write this first entry. I hope that by the time this blog is finished that the intruder in question is long, long dead. But for you I wish the best. Only the best for you, my friend.