 |
Come along for the ride and watch a fledgling Chapel Hill band turn into three year experiment. This is real. brilliant is a real band, consisting, by coincidence, of brothers Mike, Joe, and Pete Procopio.
It's '91 all over again.
I still remember the day, on a five hour drive from Raleigh to DC to see a friend of mine, that I popped in a freshly purchased cassette of Nevermind. I had seen the "Teen Spirit" video the night before and thought it was a real hoot, and, even though it still seemed a bit cliche, it beat the hell out of what was on the radio/charts/MTV at the time.
It was the second side that got me. From the hellbent "Territorial Pissings" to the anthemic and true "On a Plain" (ignoring "Something in the Way," which I still think is a toss off), I found more music in that twenty minutes than I had in the last three years.
For the record, it wasn't the grunge thing that launched Nirvana into the stratosphere. Revisionist history dictates that millions of listeners, en masse, decided that Kurt and Co. were kicking off a new scene and it was time to jump on the bandwagon. Anyone old enough to remember (and , thankfully, the minimum age for this is still somewhere around 24), will tell you different. We bought that record because, unlike everything else being marketed to us at the time, it didn't suck.
Well, kids, here we are again. The circle is closing and, you heard it here first, get ready for the next big thing.
Call me a guitar bigot, but I believe that the sort of awe-inspiring, movement defining music must prominently feature the guitar. I mean rock/pop, of course, ignore hip-hop for this discussion (although that genre could use an infusion right about now as well). I just read a "classics" review of U2's Boy in which Anthony DeCurtis remembers a conversation with a friend circa 1980, summing up the sad state of music and the instant demise of punk with the question, "When's the last time you heard a guitar on the radio?"
That was shortly before the '80s revolution: U2, the Police, Stevie Ray, etc.
Guitar rock.
Here we are again.
I remember vaguely back in 1991 that Living Colour was kind of interesting, and, of course, the Red Hot Chili Peppers dropped Blood Sugar, but everything else was becoming derivative, lame, even for lame pop standards.
Vanilla Ice, Mariah Carey, MC Hammer, Whitney Houston, Wilson Phillips, Bette Midler, C+C Music Factory, New Kids, Steve Winwood, Michael Bolton, Phil Collins... the Simpsons.
Passing for rock at the time was a horrible lineup of reeeeeally bad hair-metal, even by hair-metal standards.
Damn Yankees, Tesla (and I know I'll get nagged on this, but I still submit there's little difference between Tesla and Winger), Winger, Poison, Warrant, Cinderella, Trixter, Slaughter... Nelson.
1991: Enter Nirvana. Big flushing sound. How many of these acts are still around today?
Okay, Vanilla keeps popping up on VH1. But that's more for the ludicrous nature of the end of his career than anything musical.
Now, let's look at the charts today. Gosh, it seems like there's a lot of fifteen minuteses coming to an end.
Britney Spears, N*SYNC, Backstreet, Matchbox 20, Baha Men, Ricky Martin, Christina Aguilera, 98 Degrees, O-Town (God bless 'em, they're not even going to get out of the gate).
And passing for rock? Take your pick of rap-metal or metal-rap. And Lord knows I only have so much testosterone.
There's also the tired hangers-on like Creed. Ew... Creed.
So, rockers, dust off your guitars. Throw away your effects pedals and gizmos. Find a good amp, preferably tube, and turn the thing up. Start writing with passion, and concentrate on the vibe, not the sound. The next big thing brass ring is there for the grabbing.
|
CRITIQUE THIS COLUMN | |
Want to play the critic? You can anonymously rate this column and provide the author with constructive criticism. Just sign in or join up. It's free and painless.
|
ABOUT - BRILLIANT | |
In three years, brilliant will be the biggest band in the world. Until then, they're ours, giving weekly Friday night shows in the palatial Intrepid Media rec room.
more about - brilliant
|
|
|
|
|
POSTS | |
jeff miller
2.16.01 @ 10:31a
THIS is what I've been saying. all things being cyclical, the time for smart and inspiring guitar rock is upon us again. Wanna feel the love? Go buy A Perfect Circle's CD. This is just the beginning. While visiting your local Tower, HMV or Best buy or whatever, pick up the remastered copies of:
Moving Pictures
Diary of a Madman
Fair Warning
and Destroyer
The New Age of Rock will be on us just as surely as Joe's candy apple red Strat (wherever it may be) still resonates with tangy licks from the Edge and Jamie West-Oram.
joe procopio
2.16.01 @ 10:47a
Can you out me as an 80s guitar nerd a little more. Thanks, Mildew!
On the plus side, the burning ears thingy seems to be working.
adam kraemer
2.16.01 @ 12:31p
I'm still waiting for big synth-driven arena rock bands named after geographic locations to make a comeback. I miss Asia, Kansas, Boston, and Yes.
jael mchenry
2.16.01 @ 7:19p
I may very well regret this, but... adam, you do know yes is not a geographic location, right?
jeffrey walker
2.17.01 @ 12:50p
I just bought Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the MC5, and a Sex Pistols CD. Now that's the rock I'm both predicting and hoping for!
adam kraemer
2.20.01 @ 4:16p
Jael, don't tell me you've never heard of Yes, Wisconsin.
jael mchenry
2.20.01 @ 4:46p
Is that near Climax, Michigan?
adam kraemer
2.21.01 @ 4:06p
I don't know. I've always felt that people who only listened to unheard of bands were about as snobbish as people who refused to listen to rock at all. That doesn't excuse anyone who listens to N'Sync, but the argument that just because a lot of people like something it becomes intrinsically worthless is just a specious one.
joe procopio
2.22.01 @ 9:37p
You're both right. Actually, Steve is more correct but Adam used "specious" without being pretentious so it's a tie. I say Steve is more right because deep down I believe that it is how the artist reacts to mass adulation that makes them legends or shite.
I used "shite." Was that pretentious?
joe procopio
2.22.01 @ 9:37p
By the way, how about U2 winning a couple of grammys last night? There's hope after all...
Wait. Who won best album again?
adam kraemer
2.23.01 @ 10:26a
I think that, by definition, nothing Irish can be pretentious, so therefore "shite" is fine.Pretentious bastard.
jael mchenry
2.27.01 @ 1:07p
Oh, I know Irish things that can be pretentious. Guinness and James Joyce and people I know who are proponents of both.
Pretention is international, multinational, and supranational.
adam kraemer
2.28.01 @ 9:12a
So is using multiple prefixes that mean basically the same thing.
jack bradley
3.6.01 @ 1:28a
Isn't it pretentious to call Jael on that "multiple prefixes" thing?
(and is it pretentious to suck up like this?)
jael mchenry
3.6.01 @ 9:18a
No, but it would be pretentious of me to point out that Adam's sentence is structured so that it doesn't actually insult my pretension. Instead, because of the "so is," he's actually saying that using multiple prefixes is international, multinational, and supranational. That's pretentious.
adam kraemer
3.6.01 @ 9:47a
Ah, you're both repetitive and redundant. And you say the same things over and over again.
What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Got ideas of your own? Add to the discussion! Just sign in or join up. It's free and painless.
|
|
|
:
PROJECTS
