Big Rock Finish… reviews of independent music

Name: God Made Me Funky
Album: Enter the Beat
Released: 2008
Members:
Kaybe - Sangin’
Lynzie Kent - More Sangin’
PHATT al - MC
Cam Dougall - Bass
Rich Grossman - Guitar
Arthur Kerekes - Sax
Benji Perosin - Trumpet
Al Witz - Drums
Danny Argyle - Keys

Website: www.godmademefunky.com
Favourite Song: We All Fall Down

This band is huge. Seriously. God Made Me Funky is huge. Not only in a musical sense, but in a general… physical sense. Not each individual, but the sheer amount of individuals. Causes for an interesting sound because there’s such a blend of different things going on that could be pulled off in studio as well as on stage. If I am to use the album art as an indication, there’s eight different people in the band. Possibly nine, I’m not sure if the sillouette of a person is supposed to represent a band member. After writing that last line I thought it’d be a great idea and check the “members” bit I just wrote, which states there’s nine people in this band. NINE!

Juding soley from the NAME of the band, I’m going to say… Funk. Myspace fills in the Hip-Hop and R&B tags. I can’t disagree. The bass reminds me of “funk” like no other. I forget now where I heard it from, but someone somewhere at some point (…) says the bass line is what makes funk funk. So… yes. And you don’t hear brass instruments a lot in my “line of work” seeing as not a lot of people I can think of really play them outside of the school marching band.

I like that the songs have enough of the same elements, in that you know it’s the same band. The diversity of the band is what makes each individual song great, because there is so much you can add and take away with this amount of members, that isn’t possible when it’s a three piece band. I don’t hear a lot of vocals that are shared by a male/female lead. Also makes for interesting music, since it’s not just someone singing background vocals, or being used as just an extra filler, but a big part of each song.

Get out on the dance floor. Whether through someone’s mp3 player or live on stage, I can’t imagine any club playing God Made Me Funky is going to have an empty dance floor. It’s impossible. Sitting in my seat, and extremely rhythmically challenged, even I’m trying to dance.

Name: Len’s Haulage
Album: The Hope Museum
Released: 2006
Members:
Michael Sbrocchi - vocals
Mike Novalski - guitar
Even Chochrane - bass
Pete Diculescu - drums

Website: www.myspace.com/lenshaulagemusic
Favourite Song: Underrated (Track 5)

Len’s Haulage is (another) rock band. With some very interesting graphic design for their album art. They don’t sound like an overly religious band, granted religion is hard to pin into one particular genere of music these days, but also the lyrics don’t strike me as particularly deep in religious overtones either. Yet looking at the artwork on the front & back covers and inside the liner notes, I see angels and Virgin Mary’s. Granted, I also see broken hearts, and pick-up trucks, so maybe I’m just pulling what I naturally gravitate towards. (I’m not a religious person!)

Len’s Haulage is a rock band. A pop-rock band perhaps. The first song definitely reminds me of the pop-rock genre, if only it’s peppy and up-beat and sounds a little happy. In the “glass is half full, not half empty” sort of way. I’m letting my imagination run wild here, and just picture that when the band is playing a show, there will be screaming girls in the audience. They sound like a band with screaming girls as fans. (the photo of the band under the CD also leads me to this belief by the way.) Even the slower songs (later in the album) make me think screaming girls would enjoy them. I have a lot of experience in what screaming girls would like to see on stage, seeing as how I spent much of my music-enjoying career being one of them!

Other then my diagnosis of a peppy band, even when the lyrics sound just a bit like it should be a slower song, they’re peppy. The second song, Hang On, reminds me of this the most. My interpretation is someone giving another person some advice. But… still peppy. Granted, I spoke too soon as I’m listening to the third (Limits) and fourth (Small Town Girl) songs, way to make me think something then throwing me a curve ball.

I would definitely want to see Len’s Haulage on stage, on tour, performing. A band that would sound great live needs to be heard live. I can’t figure out at this moment where to see them next is the only downer!

Name: Distorsis
Album: Distorsis (self titled)
Released: 2007
Members: Eric Bridenbaker, Jeremy Elliott and Tim Melton

Website: www.distorsis.com
Favourite Song: No Love Lost (Track 4)

Of all the very simple albums I’ve received through the mail (a CD shipped in a plain slim-line case was my copy) the artwork is amazing. They definitely used every square inch of the available space to their advantage, and if they meant to or not, it looks great with how the circle in the middle now looks like an eye due to the graphic design. It’s hard to tell from the image that’s been uploaded since that’s stolen from the band’s myspace page, but really, it looks cool. The font for the band name however, is really difficult to read and until I popped the disk into my iTunes, I didn’t really know how to spell the name.

Distorsis is a rock band. Plain and simple. Good steady beats and a strong melody. Catchy tunes and lyrics to make you beleive… whatever the band wants you to believe. (That one’s always a bit tricky to describe. How does someone intrepret someone else’s lyrics?) This is obviously a band of very passionate musicians that work well together to put together some music they really are into.

The individual songs are really awesome in a unique way. The songs are ordered in a way that you can definitely tell one from another, as they all have a different vibe, tempo, and all that other musical technical jargon I don’t always understand. But I do know that Distorsis has very catchy songs that are unique in their own way. Which is always fun, because it shows they are capable of being much more than a one-trick pony, even on one album. Also it’s refreshing when compared to commericial radio, where everyone’s songs sound the same, and everyone sounds like everyone else.

Driving tunes. Long drives need interesting music to keep the driver (me about 99% of the bloody time) from falling asleep. While I don’t yet have the lyrics memorized, I can always nod my head to whatever the tune is on the album. I could also probably listen to this many times before getting tired of it, seeing as how the songs are so different. I could probably learn the lyrics and still not be tired of listening to the same seven songs. Unfortunately I don’t know when Distorsis be playing next, but if I can check them out, I will!

Name: Unknown Component
Album: In Direct Communication
Released: September 16, 2008
Members:
All songs written & recorded by Keith Lynch

Website: www.unknowncomponent.com
Favourite Song: Between Guilt and Relief (Track 4)

From what I can tell so far, Unknown Component is a one-man band. Very admirable to say the least. Even more impressive is if you visit their website, you’ll find that Mr. Keith Lynch has released multiple albums, all with rave reviews and fan favourites.

Once again Myspace is my friend. Unknown Component list themselves as Rock, Indie and Pop. Thirty seconds into the first song on the album and I can’t disagree. This sounds a lot like what I grew up listening to. (Some would argue I haven’t really grown up, and I have a hard time disagreeing with that as well!) Listening to the songs, especially the lyrics, it’s a little hard to hear, maybe due to my headphones not working properly, but I also believe the music may be a bit louder than I had anticipated. And Mr. Lynch sounds like a pretty soft-spoken vocalist, if such a term exists…. interesting.

The songs on the lbum? They all have really long titles. Well, they seem to anyways. Perhaps it’s the font chosen, but all the titles seem pretty intellectual, like some clever play on words where you’ll have to really listen to the album to even understand where the song name came from. I know that song names are a very personal thing for most artists, and I can see Unknown Component putting in much thought into the naming of their songs.

I’d be interested in seeing Unknown Component on stage. For what’s seemingly a solo artist, there’s a lot of components… (not a pun, seriously) to the music that I would just love to see live. I can tell already that Mr. Lynch is a talented musician, and I think live is probably my best bet! So if you’re in Iowa, check out the second CD release party at the Basement of Jefferson Building on September 20th!