Meanwhile...Maddie Jay & the pH Collective's Arrival

I followed the Berklee-trained bass prodigy Maddie Jay in late 2014, when she would post note-for-note covers of Jazz and R&B heavyweights from Jaco Pastorius to Stevie Wonder. Though tastes are changing with the implementation of such artists in the curriculum of music colleges, it was still striking to see someone so young do justice to some of the most technically demanding music from long ago. Jay's cover of Weather Report's lightning speed bass classic "Teen Town" even caught the eye of Metallica's Robert Trujillo.

When Jay launched her Facebook music page and billed herself as a "singer, songwriter and rapper", her cult of followers responded with great intrigue. After having gained some notoriety as a bass pro, did she decide overnight that she wanted to expand into other creative ventures, or had she been working on a career behind the scenes?

The latter turned out to be the likely case, and the result is the fan-funded Meanwhile.., the recording debut of Jay, backed by a collective of Berklee musicians dubbed the pH Collective. In the months before its release, Jay & the pH Collective released the serenely funky single "Throw Away Your Hate" and several live performances. This provided insight into the band's tight interplay and Jay's potential as a bandleader, but revealed little about the end production en route.

One of the greatest strengths of Meanwhile... is its difficulty to place into any existing category, much like Jamiroquai before them. It's an album of subtle contradictions. The whiny envelope filters and laid back grooves recall 1990's R&B or Hip-Hop, but Jay's dense chord progressions and the band's organic playing root them squarely within an "acidic" take on jazz. Even the cover of the Spice Girls' "Say You'll Be There" augments the post-disco pop song with a complex slash chord arrangement worthy of Steely Dan.

Like Steely Dan, the production on the album is as tight as any state of the art pop record, impressive for a relatively large group. Even the distorted guitar solos and drums never sound harsh or muted, finding the middle ground usually heard in large studios. For a band featuring many virtuoso players, the arrangements are surprisingly economical and song-oriented. Even Jay's bass spends very little time dominating the spotlight. Whenever a solo is taken, it's usually melodic, groovy and lasts not a bar too long.

At times, the pH Collective sound very much like jazz school favorites in the vein of the Yellowjackets or Lettuce, but Jay's equal emphasis on storytelling and youthfully urbane verses set the group apart from such instrumentally-focused groups. Lyrically, Jay mixes post-millennial disillusionment with her own innate optimism on songs like "Let's Talk (Trade in Your Vice)" and the upbeat "Freaky Lady". Even the caustic urban tale "This City" teeters on cynicism without embracing it. "I'm Tired (Of You)" is the darkest song on the album, yet its ?uestlove-like beat and elastic bass line make it sound as fun as "Freaky Lady".

Meanwhile... is a refreshingly original debut, something of an anomaly in today's music scene which features more electronics and fewer piece-by-piece bands. While Jay is indeed the visionary and commanding presence of the pH Collective, this is the sound a group of equally-weighted musicians, with no audible weak links. It's the sound of a band defying any existing convention in Jazz, Pop or R&B.  The band is indeed young, but possessive of an immense amount of skill. The only question is what direction Jay and the band will take next.

As a rock fan, I would absolutely love to hear Maddie adopt the draggy cynicism of Lou Reed, or the pH Collective bending the rules they've mastered by taking a note from Talking Heads.

4.5/5

On the Death of Rock Music - And Why it's a Good Thing

"Rock is Dead" - Believe it or not, this statement has been floating around for decades. Before the last five years or so, it was mainly uttered by purists who lamented the loss of rhythm and blues influences and the joyously cathartic simplicity of pioneering artists like Chuck Berry. This authenticity has been challenged by changing conventions with every generation since he first sung "Johnny B. Goode", from the excess of early 1970's progressive rock to the moody aggression of grunge in the 1990's. While rock and roll has certainly evolved and devolved in its sixty odd years of popularity, it remained the fantasy of every youthful outsider who dreamed of conquering the world with his electric guitar and a couple of friends.

With the gradual surge of hip-hop and electronic music's popularity over the past two decades, that statement has taken on a different meaning. Now it seems less like the ramblings of an old person and rings more true than ever. For some reason, Gene Simmons of all people is most widely credited as being the first famous musician to speak this truth which has been boiling over for years. While Simmons has a history of making farfetched and controversial statements, he's not entirely off-point in this particular case. He's also not the only one to make this point. The infamously straightforward Tom Petty has likened the current state of rock to the decrease of popularity that befell jazz and blues as rock took the main stage.

Today's Billboard top 40 charts features no rock artists in the traditional sense. Every once in awhile, pop rockers such as Maroon 5, Twenty-One Pilots  and the like will have a charting hit, with the only qualifier of their "rock" credentials being the presence of a few live instruments. While rock bands and artists could be seen in live television interviews as late as the 1990's, today's talk show hosts seldom hold extended conversations with rock artists. While it was once difficult not to see a rock band in Los Angeles' sprawling and eclectic music scene, today's venues find it much more convenient and appealing to book self contained artists such as solo performers or DJ's.

This claim has elicited much controversy, especially from those who champion independent music and claim that exciting rock music is still being produced well below the public radar. I don't doubt that. As a matter of fact, there are still notable bands making rock music today, even in the public eye. Bands like the Black Keys, Alabama Shakes and Arctic Monkeys do their part to keep the tradition of an interwoven, organic (for the most part) band alive. Still, none of these bands have truly had a hit which endured in the same fashion as The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" and apart from the very countable Black Keys, it's hard to name the secondary members of these groups.

This revelation has understandably made rock musicians all over the world nervous. It's as if the door finally closed on the gamble upon which every unsightly guy with a guitar depended. It was once our escapist fantasy; the back entrance to a glorious world of money, fame and the opposite sex. Even if you didn't end up becoming famous, there was at least a shallow appeal to playing guitar, drums or sometimes bass guitar which would at least draw some favorable attention from the ladies. Now it's just as common, if not more so to see women crowding around a DJ instead of the guy with a Gibson SG.

One of the most telling signs of rock's demise as a cultural influence is the shift of demographics. As the voice of disenchanted youth for multiple generations, rock's fan base now generally seems to be comprised of people seldom younger than twenty five. Of course this makes sense, as rock was last wildly popular two decades ago. It hasn't been around to endure the post-millennial generation. In its absence, the broadly categorized Electronic Dance Music art form has become the defining voice of youth. Featuring blockbuster festivals, bona fide stars and the hippest drugs, EDM has essentially taken rock and roll's place in the cultural zeitgeist. Even the once indie-rock oriented Coachella has become more electronic than ever. Young people flock to its festivals the way they once would to Lollapalooza or even the Vans Warped Tour. They invest in the musical equipment in a genuine effort to learn the craft. Barely legal college students meet, take an illegal substance, engage in casual sex and proclaim to their incensed parents that they had a good time. Sound familiar?

Why would I, the most rabid rock fan of all sub-genres from punk to prog feel good about the currently critical endangerment if not extinction of rock music? I've had a mix of reactions to the realization that the world wasn't going to open the door to glory just because I'd learned to play blues guitar and perfected my goofy Jimmy Page-influenced stage antics. When I turned twenty-five, I finally had to look around and see that the people around me who were gathering the attention I sought looked drastically different from myself. It was as if I'd practiced all of my life for the wrong challenges. I should have worked on my vocals, my image and listened to a lot more pop music. Or maybe it wouldn't have made any difference, as the only unsightly Asian musical figures over nineteen to gain any success in recent years did so at the expense of dignity. Think PSY or William Hung.

As a social outcast, I finally feel ecstatic about rock music fading from the mainstream because in a sense, it's finally been returned to its outsider roots. It's no longer the corporately corrupted pop culture exploit it had become. It's not the norm for a couple of weirdos to take the stage and hit loud, rude power chords. The coolest artists on the music scene don't play flashy minute-long guitar solos. I've done that and stuck out like a sore thumb. I love driving around and seeing the surprise of people hearing the Clash or ZZ Top emanating from my car. I love the mixed reactions that come from playing a Lou Reed dirge after three other singers play the same Sia song.

Rock music has never been about conforming to social norms or "making it", so to speak. It's the voice of social frustration and the accompanying cathartic release. It's a loud, rude and crude way for those on the fringes of society to express themselves. It's not a ticket to popularity, nor does it exist to please capitalist goons looking to exploit young people. It was born the mutant child of carefree youth and irreverence. It was once the true music of the people, not a big business trend. While it will never enjoy the same widespread exposure and sales numbers it enjoyed in its heyday, it finally feels "underground" once again. And that's a beautiful thing.

If you feel the same way I do, get off that Twenty One Pilots video, put on Raw Power by the Stooges and tell your neighbors to fuck off.

Huh Huh...You Said "Anus": Remembering Beavis & Butthead

Enough time has passed for the 1990's to have become a nostalgic decade with its own recognizable cultural and social movements. It's hard to look back upon an immediately preceding decade with the same deep insight. Generally speaking, society becomes nostalgic about an era about twenty years after it's passed.

One of the the most iconic cultural touchstones of the 1990's was MTV's Beavis and Butthead. As a cable show, it didn't endure the same lasting influence as the Fox network monolith The Simpsons, but it did attain a similarly controversial notoriety for a short while. Mike Judge's on-the-nose commentary on the purported "degradation of morality" in America's youth raised as many eyebrows as the comparably childish antics of Bart Simpson, a character who similarly stirred up trouble with social conservatives. Many passed off Beavis and Butthead as crude, immoral and anarchistic pop culture garbage which glorified stupidity and anti-social behavior.

To be fair, early episodes proved these allegations to a certain degree. In its first few seasons, the show was undoubtedly crude in both its writing and animation. That's the case for most animated series. In the first season, the series' protagonists could be seen engaging in vandalism on hapless victims and randomly uttering such non-sequiturs as "I don't like stuff that sucks!" Watching those episodes now, it makes sense that viewers weren't able to see the social commentary in all the mindless mayhem.

As the show progressed, Judge subtly tweaked the show to focus more on the duo's stupidity, neutralizing their malicious tendencies to a certain degree. Three or four seasons into the show, Beavis and Butthead were not so much destructive thugs as they were clueless losers. At times, they even appeared to be well meaning, yet they would still unwittingly cause the same amount of pain due to their idiocy. Make no mistake, their victims suffered just as much, but Judge shifted the malice of the protagonists away from other people and towards each other. Of course with this maturity, the show itself also reached a new peak in terms of writing. It was still stupid, but the stupidity was well-crafted and brilliantly applied.

I may lack the authority to write this article, because I mainly experienced Beavis and Butthead through videotapes. Growing up without cable, I was only able to see the story segments and mostly missed the duo's commentaries on music videos interspersed throughout the show. Mike Judge essentially improvises a conversation as two characters while a music video plays, which is no easy feat. I have seen a few of them, and while they obviously lack the same quality of animation and writing seen in the stories, they do have a certain off-the-cuff charm.

Unlike The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead ended before the millennium and is forever tied to '90s culture and society. Everything from the show's take on a run down San Fernando-like suburb (most likely set in Texas) to the very notion of two teenagers being obsessed with heavy metal screams early '90s. This was made clear when Judge revived the show for a short while in 2011. It was an awkward shock to see B&B taking it somewhat easy on easy targets like MTV's Jersey Shore and attempting to become vampires after watching Twilight.

While Beavis & Butthead is distinctly a '90s creation, I  love it in spite of that fact. Like many other subversive '90s shows, it stood in stark contrast to the tradition of shows like Home Improvement, The Cosby Show and Friends. Beavis and Butthead glorified depraved, moronic losers and gave them character in the tradition of Homer Simpson or Al Bundy. One of my favorite elements about the show are the unwritten rules that Beavis and Butthead can never win, nor can they ever learn. This gave the characters an "everyman" quality that was as hilarious as it was relatable.

Since the 1990's, comedy has shifted between empty shock value, intentional awkwardness and witless sarcastic deadpan. I really miss shows that weren't afraid to be silly, random or self-deprecating. They were more subversive of mainstream culture (before they ended up defining it) and made us all feel a little better in our humble lives in a way you won't see in a Seth Rogen movie. The message then was that life sucks, but you've got to learn to be okay with it. Huh huh huh huh....

The Time I Played Music for Scientologists

I'd like to relate a story of one of the most memorable musical performances I've ever had. It's a story I tell to break the ice at a bar or to entertain new friends in class. It's not memorable on account of being a great performance. It was actually quite disastrous, yet it was also one of the most fun nights I've ever had playing music to people. Why? I was playing to Scientologists.

In early 2011, I was casually jamming with James (drums) and Anthony (bass) in the former's garage. We had just begun playing together for the first time in a few months, having been a consistent outfit in the years leading up to an extended break in late 2010. We were a ramshackle group with no real musical training, but we had kept at it so steadily that we had developed a tight rapport and a sizable repertoire, rooted in Tom Petty and Prince covers. Every once in awhile, the elusive and enigmatic multi-instrumentalist Waldo (nicknamed by me) would join us on keyboards, mostly when he felt like it. Together, we had gleefully and tastelessly dubbed ourselves "The Erotic Four". The joke's funnier when you can actually see us.

I had also been speaking  to a singer named Dana on craigslist. I had just attempted to start an R&B / Funk oriented group which was pronounced dead before arrival, so at this point I was attempting to return to my classic rock roots, so to speak. Dana was the perfect fit, heavily identifying herself with the culture and music of the '70s as explored in Almost Famous. She was the classic example of an ambitious girl from a small town in Virginia taking her first optimistic steps on the gory glory of Hollywood Boulevard. I had negotiated for the Erotic Four to become her backing band.

I don't even think we even had a chance to rehearse before Dana enlisted us in a "showcase" at a Hollywood hotel on Franklin Boulevard. We were obviously nervous at the idea of playing a show without a chance to rehearse with our lead singer, but she assured us we would only be playing two songs and it would be an opportunity worth taking. We decided to play "Cherry Bomb" by the Runaways (one of Dana's favorites) and Tom Petty's "Free Fallin", a three chord song we already knew by heart and could not possibly bungle.

In the afternoon before the show, I rehearsed "Cherry Bomb" with James and Anthony. We figured it could only help to rehearse the song, even without the singer. We had listened to the recording and played it instrumentally over ten times. By 4:00 PM, we had the song down pat. We didn't even bother with the other song, as it had become second nature to us. We had also been talking to Waldo throughout the day. Whenever he would make the effort to show up to practice, it was something of an event. When he called on this particular day, we invited him to join us just for the joy of playing with him again, even though we hadn't practiced with him for about six months. He remembered "Free Fallin" as well as we did and I figured he could fake his way through the easy "Cherry Bomb", so we weren't concerned.

By 5:30 PM or so, Anthony, James and myself loaded our gear into James' truck and headed to Hollywood to try and find the hotel before the show, which began at 7:00 PM. Waldo decided to meet us there later, though we were all skeptical as to how he would successfully navigate his way through Hollywood during the traffic infested evening. We already knew he would confidently leave at 6:30 and arrive an hour after the show had commenced.

We turned out to be the lost ones, as the traffic and poor phone coordination with Dana led us all over Hollywood in the healthy evening traffic, from her apartment near Miracle Mile to the edge of Silverlake. Even she had trouble finding this mysterious hotel. Twenty minutes before the show, we had all given up and decided its existence must have been some sort of grand hoax. I remember there were half-serious talks of just cutting our losses and going home. Then we received a call from Waldo, who not only found the hotel but was wondering where we were! Somehow he had made it to Hollywood in twenty odd minutes and found what we'd all been seeking for an hour.

Miraculously, we found time to stop at a Tommy's Burgers nearby before we met Dana in the parking lot of the hotel. She presented us with two very interesting surprises. Firstly, she had brought her friend Brittany (who we'd never even met) to join us for both songs on guitar. I took one look at her $80 bedroom practice amplifier and already knew how this would affect our sound. Secondly, Dana had just learned that the entire event was being curated by the Church of Scientology. We all looked at each other and shared a million punchlines without uttering a word.

The evening was already escalating as we carried our gear into the hotel. I was amused to see that Dana had convinced a manager (unaffiliated with the church) into securing us a "dressing room" behind the auditorium stage, even though he meekly reminded us that it was highly unorthodox to allow a band performing just two songs to use it. We certainly made great use of it. With Brittany and Waldo joining us, our group was now a six piece mini-orchestra. We sprawled two metric tons worth of amplifiers, instruments and purses across the tiny room we had demanded of the staff.

After we were allowed to set up our gear onstage, we were ominously invited to sit down in the audience and enjoy a "presentation". Again, we shared a million nervous jokes just by glancing at each other. Along with about five or six other groups and their collective entourage, we watched as a middle aged man in glasses and a business suit take the stage. He began his speech with a disclaimer: "People say a lot of things about us, but most of it's untrue." This eased my fears until he showed us an eight second silent video of flashing green lights, after which he asked the audience "So what did you think of that?" I was convinced that I would wake up brainwashed the next morning.

A minute later, he made an odd joke about the Holocaust which drew dead silence apart from an unusually loud yawn from James, who was tired of driving us around all day. Anthony later informed me that whenever the speaker would share something ridiculous every few seconds, I would very obviously grin and elbow the person sitting next to me. Along with our demand for a dressing room, we were turning out to be something of a rude crew.

When we were finally invited to take the stage, the manager read our set list as a cue card and introduced us as THE RUNAWAYS, performing our song "Cherry Bomb". Thankfully, Joan Jett wasn't notified. James, Waldo and I walked directly from the front row to our places onstage. We were unaware that Dana, Brittany and Anthony left the auditorium to go around and make a more suitable stage entrance. The three of us onstage awkwardly stood in front a silent audience for what felt like an eternity. Unable to deal with this truly uncomfortable situation, I led the trio into an impromptu version of one of our old set pieces, Prince's "Kiss" while we waited for the rest of the band. I figured it was more compelling than standing there in silence.

We cut the song after a few bars when the other three members finally took the stage. Dana half jokingly  exclaimed "Jerk!" as she passed me. We kicked into a shambolic version of "Cherry Bomb", in which Waldo and Brittany were finding their way through the song. It didn't matter, because no one could hear Brittany's guitar through that tiny amp. I thought to myself, "We're better prepared for the next song. We're going to save ourselves."

I hadn't taken into consideration the fact that rehearsal works best when the whole band rehearses together. James, Anthony, Waldo and I played "Free Fallin" a hundred times together before. We knew every line and every block of its structure by heart. That didn't prepare us for the moment when Dana prematurely led us to a point in the song where we were supposed to stop. Hearing her sing that line, half of the band improvised and stopped. The other half ignored her and kept playing. This threw us off balance so much that I ended the song with the worst guitar solo I've ever played on stage.

Afterward, we were invited to hear the rest of the bands play. Of course we declined, opting to collect our gear and leave immediately. After rampaging in at the last minute, demanding a dressing room and snickering during the entire presentation, we were leaving with the faintest of goodbyes. We all went to Mel's Diner in the heart of Hollywood to discuss the experience and reclaim our brains with salty American diner fare. Waldo left a two dollar tip and we loudly announced it for kicks.


A few days after our bumbling performance and disruptive behavior, Dana informed us that the Church invited us back for another performance.

Suburban Love, Pt. 1

Autumn night falls on the city of the mundane
Faceless wives run weeping to their quarters
as nameless husbands drag them from the path
When dawn breaks, they rise in an immaculate reveille

University Road shines with its evergreens
Casting shadows on otherwise spotless vans
What a picturesque guise for the reincarnated conquerors
What a way to incarcerate your hostility

In our favorite corporate coffee house
Aged artifact ghosts of girls I'd know only by name
And of the slightly more youthful variety,
Mannequins with their own expiration date

At their sides, stocky second husbands
Clad in thin wire frames and wallets protruding
A far cry from the former elite,
Who won this Shakespearean love triangle decades ago

They are the fabric of this world,
Inheritors of family values.
The framework for our assigned ambitions,
Models for our coveting eyes and wounded envy

In these tragic figures, there's a reflection of me
Or at least who I'd grown to want to be
Who could imagine, the tense perversions
Brewing in the spirits of the nondescript?

A General Observation of Politics in America

I've always been relatively low-key when it comes to politics. I have convictions as strong as anyone else, but I usually opt to present them only in the most appropriate of situations. Political discussions are inherently divisive in America, and disagreements on emotional issues often sour relationships. The most controversial topics seem so fundamental and moral to people on either side of the equation, thus it's hard for someone not to interpret disagreement as ignorance or inhumanity. Without an established sense of mutual trust and respect, it's always been a losing game to me.

While we have plenty of gray area, our culture is mostly categorized by two major belief systems. If anything, that oversimplification is part of the problem. Almost anyone with internet access has seen exchanges between individuals in which the words "liberal" and "conservative" are tossed back and forth like schoolyard taunts. Amazingly, the information era has allowed this plague to reach middle-school age children. When I was in seventh grade, we called each other all sorts of names but I don't ever remember kids taunting each other for their stance on abortion. Now it's not unusual to see a video featuring Hillary Clinton peppered with inscrutable, profane insults I used to see playing online shooter games. Sometimes in lieu of profanity, people might simply say "she's a liberal feminist" as if it were a phrase of oppression.

Sadly, these exchanges aren't limited to preteens in the YouTube comments section. I've seen the very same taunting and name calling from political pundits on news segments. It's even become the main feature of presidential campaigns, which was never more apparent than in 2016. It's shocking to think that speeches and debates are supposed to be platforms to communicate important ideas, yet they've been reduced to such anti-intellectual soap operas in which very few actual ideas are being communicated. And though it's something of a signature for major conservative figures, both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of this trend. It's just a function of today's entertainment-fueled political process.

It's admirable to be outspoken about your beliefs. It's usually a sign of passion and character. Furthermore, ideas must be communicated bluntly for any real discussions to follow. However, strong expression in any category seldom produces the reactions expected of listeners. I've observed very few instances of someone completely changing the opinion of another by aggressively approaching a topic. It makes sense, in a way. You're more likely to hear someone if they are speaking rather than shouting. There must be a psychological dynamic at play, one which blocks incoming messages if they're being communicated in an incendiary manner.

It boils down to whether the message is being communicated in a positive or negative manner. More specifically, I think a message being communicated in an outspoken manner tends to verge more on the negative. The speaker sees an injustice and attempts to point it out by focusing on what is wrong, usually by pointing out a flaw or ignorance in the audience. Whether or not it's a correct observation, most people generally won't respond to a challenge of character by admitting that they've been wrong. I think it's more likely to produce feelings of opposition, in a sort of defense.

The second approach, which I've found to be more effective is more low key in nature. I liken it to the "answer only when asked" proverb. Some might say it's not as venerable or honest as being outspoken, but I think it's a much more effective way to communicate ideas. I've been constantly chastised by more outspoken friends for not doing my part to highlight the "wrong" opinions I observe in my friends and family every day. As a socially liberal person, one might be shocked to see how many connections I have who are more conservative, or downright prejudice. One might ask why I haven't yet axed these connections if they hold immoral or ignorant viewpoints.

Well, truthfully very few people ask me that because it's a stupid question. I posed it myself for the sake of rhetoric. We all have "bad apples" in our social batches, no matter who we are or what we believe in. I haven't broken those connections, because it's hypocritical to profess myself a supporter of change and tolerance when I'm engaging in the opposite. If we aren't trying to change the minds of the "ignorant", whose minds do we have left to change? Of course while I relish variety and a healthy difference of opinion, I would like to see more unity out there in the world, one way or another. The question is, how do we find that unity?

I look at my friends with the strongest opposing opinions to mine and realize that we obviously didn't bond over our beliefs. In most cases, they tend to be people with whom I had a friendly, casual connection through avenues like high school or having mutual friends. When our opinions eventually arose, they didn't divide us, for we'd already established a firm sense of mutual respect and understanding. If anything, we'd made progress and learned from each other. With every one of those connections, I learn not to demonize or generalize social conservatives. In turn, they have the chance to truly see a minority as a person and not a demographic. That in itself is more progress than I could have ever made by starting off our friendship with a debate on political correctness.

Watching our current sociopolitical climate become ever more divisive, this is something I think about every day. Considering how our differences are even leading to violent confrontations, it makes me wonder if perhaps all of this tension will come to a radical conclusion. It's been well over a century since our last civil war, though the civil rights movement of the 1960's certainly made more than a few people wonder whether or not we were headed toward the same path. Are we due for another war, a progressive revolution or both? Of course I'd prefer the narrative where everyone just mellows out out and bonds over the most inane activities. Until then, I'll enjoy the soap opera Twitter war that is the 2016 presidential elections.