Thank you for reviewing the song I asked you to “Junkie Town”. I’ll take 1990 Alice in Chains over the carpon copy emo screamo shit so prevalent today any day of the week. As for myspace numbers don’t be duped. Half theses bands have their girlfriends play their songs over and over again to inflate their numbers. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go review these ground breakig bands of which you speak.

Nothin’ Left To Give: The guitar in the left channel sounds absolutely terrible. The song sounds like a parody of what was happening in Seattle in 1996 or so, when grunge had been co-opted by the major labels & bullshit imitators like Candlebox & Bush were running wild. The leads are all noodly & super boring. The guy obviously doesn’t know how to do anything but solo. And the first lead section is out of synch & awkward. The vocals are something that’s been done a billion times before, & the whole “take it awf,” “mawning sawn,” “everywawn,” thing is just trying waaaay too hard. The bass drum also has way too much attack & is way too active, which is the hallmark of an amateur rock band.

But aside from the shortcomings of both the song & the production, the thing your friends need to understand, Brett, is that grunge was a very specific reaction to a very specific point in time. It was a reaction to pop metal and power balladry & the excess that defined the Regan Era. It resonated because, even on the death bed of pop metal, Firehouse was still getting artist of the year awards. But this is 2008, not 1991. If these guys feel now like Kurt felt then, they’re out of touch with popular culture. And so a new grunge band comes across as completely ridiculous. Sure, everyone can find a few fans… the bands that you’re whining about probably have plenty of followers, & you’re probably right that a lot of them suck (most bands do, after all). But I’ll bet they could pull up plenty of positive reviews if they sent out hundreds of copies of their albums.

What’s also important to note is that they’ve been on myspace since 6/05. That’s close to 3 years. And there’s less than 6,000 visits & not even 700 plays on any of their songs. That speaks volumes about how little resonation this music is having with the general public, especially given all of this incredible press they’ve been getting.

Now if you want to play grunge music, I’m all for it. But you no one in the world owes any musician anything. If you don’t resonate, you don’t resonate, and you’re just going to have to be content playing music in your garage. But as their publicist, maybe you should be a little discouraged.

But just for shits & giggles, I’d love to hear your thoughts on 3 of my favorite indie bands… Colour Revolt, David Vandervelde, & Dr Dog. (All 3 have the obvious MySpace urls.)

But you know that you can’t be sensitive in this business and that there will always be negative reviews whether they are on point or not.

My thing is why go back and forth on this? Dean stated what he felt about the music and leave it at that. Was he wrong? Who can really say how a person feels about something is wrong. That’s the way he/she feels. Leave it at that.

Some will like their music… some won’t….

I’ll bet the record reviewers are really onto something. I bet you’ll turn the sounds of Alice In Chains, Live, & Collective Soul into something truly cutting edge & unmistakably relevant in this, the band’s fourteenth year.

I’ll keep my arm chair criticism to myself & my eyes to the sky, waiting & wishing for your next recordings to fall into my lap not unlike candy rain. Please accept my sincere & humble apology.

Love always,
Jon.