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 Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 1:08 pm |
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Various Artists "Electric Apricot: The Quest for Festeroo" (Hip-O)
As a satire of jam band music, this may very well be superb. But the
catch is that to really find this funny, you have to listen to enough
jam band music to know the touchstones being mocked. And unlike heavy
metal and folk (which were so perfectly satirized by Christopher Guest
in "This is Spinal Tap" and "A Mighty Wind," respectively), jam band
music doesn't have the same mainstream cultural traction. So while jam
band fans may enjoy the ribbing, most listeners will fail to recognize
the conventions being spoofed. When Spinal Tap highlighted the bombast
of heavy metal and "A Mighty Wind" nailed the cloying sincerity of the
folk revival, Guest and his cohorts created music that was as good
(and in its reduction, almost better) than their subjects. But is that
the case here? To these jam-uneducated ears, Electric Apricot sounds
like college parody that doesn't fully singe its subject. Most
tellingly, the album's actual jam band content (from Gov't Mule, Bob
Weir, Jerry Garcia, and others) isn't jaundiced by the light of
satire. Even Henry Thomas' guitar-and-whistle recording of "Fishing
Blues" remains a happy ditty, rather than being reduced to untenable
stoner optimism. The album's non-ironic material is fine, but the
parody doesn't feel sharp enough to permanently reshape one's view.
[(c)2008 redtunictroll at hotmail dot com] |
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