…with apologies to Oscar Wilde (not the most serious guy in the world, but what-ehveeeer.)

In my last death-defying rant I talked about the terrifying trend towards twee.

This time I’m giving you the flip side–the road less travelled. Or at least, the one that I have decided upon after some reflection and pain and suffering.

We all know that famous quote from Hamlet

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

The thing people tend to forget (or never learn) is that when Polonius says this to his son Laertes, we’re rolling our eyes.

I’ve taken a lot of criticism from you dears fans (we few, we happy few, we band of broth… OK, enough with the high-school Shakespeare already.)

As I was ranting, my ‘base’ has been on me for the past several years about my downward spiral towards ‘pop’. Not that I ever reached the levels of Pomplamoose (that would […]

Submitted for your approval. I give you Pomplamoose; apparently the hottest indie band in America right now, due to their hugely viral videos.

Do Americans know the term twee? Well, ya oughta. It’s a word that perfectly describes what is to me a really disturbing trend in pop music (and art in general); specifically it’s dumbing down. Or rather, it’s what I like to call the glorification of not growing up.

Now it’s not so much the ‘dumbing down’ of music that’s got me in my current lather. I’ve had most of my life to get used to that form of sadness. No,  it’s simply that current flavour is so insidious that makes it so troubling.

See in days of yore, you’d have a group like The Beach Boys or later on Abba who did simplistic, tuneful, carefree songs featuring fresh-faced kids. This was marketing gold. I call it  Audio-Wonderbread: Everybody likes it even though it provides all the nutrition for the spirit as the alleged baked good does for the […]

Add thesixtyone.com to the never-ending list of places you can check out JCHMusic. This site is a great place to see really new bands, with a heavy emphasis on ‘indie’, but every once in a while there are some out of the mainstream acts (such as moi.)

Thesixtyone has all the usual ‘social networking’ bells and whistles. You can ‘like’ and ‘share’ and create ‘playlists’ but it’s real strength is in exposing you to new, quality artists that you might not otherwise encounter (the true beauty of a good radio station is the encounter with the unexpected, n’est pas?)

OK, forget all that searching for truth jazz. Here’s the direct link to JCHMusic on thesixtyone. If you care, start there. Then you can move onto all that other stuff. 😀

Sorry to disappoint, but I found out just a few days ago that the initial run of Nice Cuts is long gone, daddie-o. I’m beyond mortified about the whole situation and am doing my best to rectify as quickly as possible. Until then, we’ve disabled those pesky ‘Buy!’ buttons to keep you safe.

If you’ve just ordered, you should’ve already received a refund and an opt-out e-mail to be auto-magically reminded when we’re back in stock. When there is product, you’ll receive an e-mail with a button to re-order.

Now that said, as with other albums, this gives me a unique chance to re-write history as it were. I’ve got one or two ideas on how to augment the CD as a small act of contrition for failing to satisfy. 😀 I may add a new song. I’ll probably re-master a couple of songs that, from the benefit of six months distance now seem a bit less than I had hoped.  Or, since I am working on […]

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/123260-pour-some-sugarland-on-me-why-country-music-is-the-new-classic-rock

Man do I love this column. I love it so much I have absolutely nothing to add. He said it all.