Week 5 (June 22)

[Author's Note: [Author’s note: If this is your first time visiting the UMC blog, you might want to check out the INTRODUCTION first.]

Before getting into the contest, I’d like to mention two things:

The first is to tell you about an article I’m writing for the blog. It’s an interview with last year’s Ultimate Music Challenge champions, Cash’d Out, in which they will answer questions like, “How did you spend the 20 thousand dollars in prize money?” and, “What advice do you have for this year’s contenders?” That post should go up sometime this week so stay tuned.

The second thing is that I’d like to write a few words in honor of my hero, George Carlin, who died of heart failure yesterday. I can’t believe that bastard up and croaked on me when he had so much more comedy to give.

Carlin was such a huge influence on my life and my writing, maybe even the primary influence. From when I was a young boy, and would steal my parent’s record albums, I adored listening to his filthy language and rampant counterculture references. I even memorized all his routines, still know some of them today.

You could even say that I “covered” George Carlin, which was kind of fun and maybe the reason I am so open to and appreciative of cover bands because I used to walk around all day reciting filthy George Carlin routines to the delight of my pals, who also had never heard anyone like him, not at 14 anyway.

Now, I don’t normally mourn celebrities. Certainly not publicly, but what I’m feeling today goes beyond mourning, so I just wanted to take this moment to say, “Goodbye you funny old prick – I will miss you.”

INSERT MOMENT OF SILENCE HERE.

And now, the winner of Week 5 of the Ultimate Music Challenge is…

Anger is a Gift.

Congratulations you wild men!

The night started off with Surreal Time and it was an explosion – of averageness.

They were a mostly contemporary country cover band that, I’m sorry to say, didn’t give us all that much about which to rave. The dynamics, as Jaime likes to say, were “mushy” and their energy was flat. I told them they sounded like they were marching through a bog. Their only saving grace was the singer, who was sexy and vibrant and not a bad vocalist, until she tried to sing R.E.S.P.E.C.T., which really exposed her vocal limitations.

She did say, during the judge’s comments, that the band had forced her to sing that song. I hope, for all their sakes, they don’t make her sing it again.

I also didn’t quite understand their choice of band name because there’s really nothing surreal about country music, but whatever, they had bigger problems than that.

Next came this weeks’ winner, a Rage Against the Machine tribute band called Anger is a Gift.

From the opening chords, the room belonged to them. Even people who aren’t Rage fans were saying how good they were. My waitress, the lovely Elia, who prefers country music and likes long walks on moonlit beaches, told me that they kicked the country band’s butt – and she doesn’t even like hard rock nor had she ever heard of Rage Against the Machine. That should give you an idea of how good they were.

Some bands simply defy genre. When you’re great, you’re great, and I bet even some of the hardcore polka fans in the room were throwing their fists in the air screaming, “Bullet in your head, bullet in your head, they put a bullet in your motherfucking head!”

When Anger started playing, I tried to get a photo of the singer but the little bugger wouldn’t stop running around and jumping and shitm so all I kept getting were fuzzy shots like this,

and this,

and this globule of nothingness

I wanted to scream, “Would you stand still already?!” but this guy was on a mission. Man did he know how to make the most of a rock stage – just like his benefactor, Zack DeLarocha.

During the judges’ comments, I mentioned that I had seen Rage at Coachella a couple of years ago, from on stage, about 15 feet away from guitarist Tom Morello, and I have to tell you, there were times that Anger out-sang and out-played Rage.

Of course, RATM did it first. They composed it, created it, sculpted it, and you can never take that away from them, but what these kids did – the performance aspect of the show – well I just don’t know how much better it could’ve been.

They closed the set with the nuclear detonation that is “Freedom,” which is the song where Anger get’s their name.

“What does the billboard say?
Come and play, come and play
Forget about the movement
Your anger is a gift.”

For that last line the singer growled and howled and screamed out while pounding foot-fists on the stage as the band slammed the song home.

“Freedom, yeah,”

Freedom, yeah right!”

The room erupted in applause, and when it was over, everybody lit a cigarette.

Next was a Credence Clearwater Revival tribute band called Travelin’ Band, which was ok – the singer sounded just like John Fogerty, and played his guitar parts quite well, and the rest of the band wasn’t so bad either, but it felt like they were just parroting CCR. They weren’t feeling the songs. Not like Anger was feeling theirs. Plus, they were playing small ball; the sound, the posture, the performance was diminutive. And not because they were a Trio. Anyone who’s ever seen the Police, Rush, Hendrix, Cream, The Jam, Violent Femmes, Kingston Trio, Dixie Chicks, Wolfmother, ELP, the Minutemen, Muddy Waters, Primus, Grand Funk Railroad – or our own local rock trio heroes – Superunloader, knows that making large music doesn’t require large bands; it requires large emotional output, which the Travellin’ Band, while technically proficient, was sorely lacking.

I think Jaime said it best:

“This band is the perfect example of musicians who have learned how to play their instruments; they just haven’t learned how to play with other people yet.”

So true Jaime. There was no real push and pull happening here, no bouncing off each other’s riffs, feeling each other’s vibe, feeding on each other’s energy then farting it back out again with explosive musical outbursts.

Ditto Jukebox, who, now that I think about it, should’ve been the ones who called themselves Surreal Time, what with their slightly bizarre and eclectic song selections (some that worked and some that didn’t) and vocalist mismatches.

They started with the barely adequate Killers’ song, “Somebody Told Me,” sung by the male vocalist. Then they handed over the vocals to the female keyboardist who did “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse, and whose pitch, at first, was awful.

Pitch wasn’t her only problem, but tone and style as well, which just seemed out of place for the band because her style was, as Danielle correctly pointed out, more of a stage and theater thing than that of a rock band.

After that they played a cover of “Walk This Way,” which was a total sonic failure. It really didn’t start getting good, for me, until “Little Toy Gun,” by Honeyhoney, which is a playful, and highly theatrical song that suited her tone much better. They closed with “Heartbreaker” and rocked that song quite well. Alas it was too little too late.

After Jukebox came more vocal problems with Lifelike.

Allow me to digress for a moment so that I may address these vocal issues and to make a point to some of my more snobby, audiophile friends who like to poo-poo cover bands. When it comes to vocals, being in a cover band is markedly more difficult than being in an original band because in an original band the singer just has to sing the song the way he or she sings his or her own songs. Then, when they play live, they merely have to cover themselves.

But a cover band vocalist has to sound like somebody else. And everybody in the room is waiting for that singer to hit those notes exactly like the original singer hit those notes and when they don’t, well it can get ugly real fast.

So, while I may sound harsh when commenting about these vocalists, keep in mind that I understand the difficult task before them. Believe me, as a person who has sent his fair share of karaoke patrons screaming for the door, I know how hard it is.

Lifelike was, musically, almost perfect. But their vocal deficiencies became obvious from the first song, “Don’t You Forget about Me.” The singer and guitarist kept switching lead vocals and neither of them sang very well. Their harmonies were also suspect, though I believe this was not a problem with pitch, but more about the chemistry of their voices, which didn’t seem to gel.

It wasn’t until “Dancing with Myself” (sung by the guitarist) when the vocals started coming together. They kicked it back to the bass player with “You Shook me all Night Long” – a brave choice to go with AC/DC, which at first sounded excellent, but he got winded about 3/4 way through, and returned to the same, unimpressive vocals.

During the judges’ comments, I told them they needed another singer, a pro-singer, someone who could bring those two disparate voices together, sonically, and who could hit all, or at least most, of the notes.”

They were visibly upset by that remark.

Who can blame them?

R.I.P. George Carlin. We salute you

Edwin Decker
Judge #3
www.edwindecker.com