The wise and once-young New Yorker writer James Thurber once wrote, \u201cEven the most pleasurable of imaginable occupations, that of batting baseballs through the windows of the RCA Building, would dim a little as the days ran on.\u201d<\/p>\n
I squandered a few years of my youth as a rock critic, a job most young reporters believe they want, but when you finally get it, you\u2019re like the dog catching the car.<\/p>\n
Three or four nights a week driving into LA to see shows by everyone, whether I liked the performers or not. You don\u2019t just get to see bands you already like. Hundreds of them: Gino Vannelli, Dolly Parton, Supertramp, Dire Straits, Todd Rundgren, Hall & Oates, Linda Ronstadt, Jethro Tull, Yes, Queen, the Stones, Dylan, REM, Neil Young, and scores of lesser-name bands in small clubs \u2014 way more than I can name or even remember.<\/p>\n
Then, after the show, I hauled back to the plant to write a review for the morning paper. They\u2019d hold the press run until I was finished, maybe 1 a.m., with editors standing around tapping their feet, while I pulled out all the reviewer tropes: \u201cIf Frank Zappa and the Kweskin Jug Band had a love child…\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, having broken all the windows in the RCA Building, I burned out into a little pile of smoldering ashes and took on a different assignment and it was a long time before I attended another arena concert. I retreated into a space where I\u2019d only see shows at Fingerprints or in somebody\u2019s living room.<\/p>\n
And my listening became a lot less critical as I retreated to a binary method of judging bands and records: I like it, or I don\u2019t like it. I\u2019m not going to explain why.<\/p>\n
Today, for my daily assignment of things to do as assigned by members of the Post\/Long Beach Business Journal staff, senior business writer and musician Brandon Richardson had me listen to three albums of his choice: \u201cMelting Sun,\u201d by Lantl\u00f4s, \u201cSimple Math,\u201d by Manchester Orchestra, and \u201cWhite Bat,\u201d by He Is Legend.<\/p>\n
So here I am back in the hell of writing about music.<\/p>\n
OK, \u201cMelting Sun,\u201d I didn\u2019t like, according to my notes on the first listen. I even wrote, \u201cI don\u2019t know why or when I would listen to this.\u201d<\/p>\n
But subsequent playings grew on me and now I\u2019d say it\u2019s a fine record to spin whether you\u2019re sitting in a chair paying attention to the restrained post-black-metal of Lantl\u00f4s, or running around the house doing chores while the sounds waft through the house. I did both. It\u2019s dense music with mega-layered sequencers and electronics, but dominated by punishing guitar work crashing over dreamy, Pink Floydish\u00a0 vocals. I\u2019ll give it a 7 out of 10.<\/p>\n
Manchester Orchestra is a thoroughly enjoyable band that I liked immediately and put on my Spotify list. The band is from Georgia, not my favorite state these days, but in terms of rock geography, it\u2019s near the top, being home to REM, Vic Chesnutt, the Allman Brothers and Drive-By Truckers. With immediately likable vocals and melodies and some great guitar work, the oxymoronically titled \u201cSimple Math\u201d goes into my Georgia-rock Hall of Fame with a 10.<\/p>\n
Assaulting, rather than cleansing my palate was Richardson\u2019s third pick, \u201cWhite Bat,\u201d by He Is Legend.<\/p>\n
The eponymous song \u201cWhite Bat\u201d (God how we critics overuse the word \u201ceponymous\u201d) does manage a nice chorus slicing through the raucous post-punk racket, but I didn\u2019t get any true enjoyment out of listening to the rest of the record, though I do admire the stamina of the musicians. It gets a 4, and that\u2019s just because I\u2019m in a good mood.<\/p>\n
Now, to update the standings of things people have forced me to do, in order of the likelihood of me pursuing them further.<\/p>\n
I asked Brandon why he chose those particular records. He said he was looking for variety (success!), that they were three of his current favorites, and he was curious about what another generation would think of them.<\/p>\n
Well, there\u2019s not necessarily a whole lot of difference in a generation (or two. Or three.) over the 60 or so years of the rock \u201cgeneration.\u201d<\/p>\n
The main genre has sprouted scores of tentacles and, while it\u2019s true that many listeners get stuck in the sort of music they grew up with in high school and college (I know a lot of people my age who hit their plateau with the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and the Eagles. Some even stalled back with Led Zeppelin) some of us at least try to keep up with the newer stuff. And these days Spotify can give people of the age at which it\u2019s highly recommended they stay home during the COVID days a boost through such features as Discover Weekly and Release Radar and any number of curated playlists.<\/p>\n
Anyhow, thanks for the fun. And two out of three isn\u2019t bad. Nobody bats .666.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With immediately likable vocals and melodies and some great guitar work, the oxymoronically titled \u201cSimple Math\u201d goes into my Georgia-rock Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":1075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[62,20],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[22],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-quarantine-chronicles","tag-tim-grobaty","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}