29th Street Ballroom
Modern Musical Mediocrity
RECEIVED Tue., Feb. 22, 2005
Dear Editor,
Alright, maybe I'm the cynic here, and after reading Christopher Gray's "Cruiserweight, Armed and Ready" article in last week's Chronicle [Music, Feb. 18], I am additionally yet unreasonably aware that I may in fact be the only person in Austin (despite Cruiserweight's singer, according to the article) with any sort of "grumbling" to publicly air about this band, as per Gray's assumption. Yet I feel as if I can't be the only one! After having a recent routine trip to Waterloo darkened by these local impresarios of modern mediocrity, I was suitably chagrined upon finding them featured prominently in last week's Chronicle, lending itself in part to my letter today. However, a point is needed: Here we have a band that fancies itself fashioned from such banal influences musically so as to completely retard itself from the outset, and then seek to transcend those influences to come into its own as, what? Plagiaristic of unoriginality, completely lacking in any sort of redeeming quality save the fact that it is, despite the band's assertations otherwise, part of a ridiculous musical trend that has come and will, hopefully sooner rather than later, be gone. These young locals, as with every bit of music they have constructed themselves after (the whole emo-pop-punk battalion of disaffected musical subnormals), need to hang up their gloves and get out of the ring. It's helpful here to remember why they put the Cruiserweights in their own division: They can't stand up to the heavyweights.
Alright, maybe I'm the cynic here, and after reading Christopher Gray's "Cruiserweight, Armed and Ready" article in last week's Chronicle [Music, Feb. 18], I am additionally yet unreasonably aware that I may in fact be the only person in Austin (despite Cruiserweight's singer, according to the article) with any sort of "grumbling" to publicly air about this band, as per Gray's assumption. Yet I feel as if I can't be the only one! After having a recent routine trip to Waterloo darkened by these local impresarios of modern mediocrity, I was suitably chagrined upon finding them featured prominently in last week's Chronicle, lending itself in part to my letter today. However, a point is needed: Here we have a band that fancies itself fashioned from such banal influences musically so as to completely retard itself from the outset, and then seek to transcend those influences to come into its own as, what? Plagiaristic of unoriginality, completely lacking in any sort of redeeming quality save the fact that it is, despite the band's assertations otherwise, part of a ridiculous musical trend that has come and will, hopefully sooner rather than later, be gone. These young locals, as with every bit of music they have constructed themselves after (the whole emo-pop-punk battalion of disaffected musical subnormals), need to hang up their gloves and get out of the ring. It's helpful here to remember why they put the Cruiserweights in their own division: They can't stand up to the heavyweights.
Reed Burnam