Don't shoot me but...

I suppose everyone has guilty pleasures, artists you know are derivative, cheesy and sometimes just plain awful, yet...you can't help but love them. You might admit it to yourself or even a close friend or partner but that's about it. I have a few favourites who fall into this category: Styx, Meat Loaf, that song Kiss Me and that other one Pure Shores. The last few days however I've had another secret shame on rotation: Silverchair. With a singer who looked like Kurt Cobain but sounded a bit like Eddie Vedder, a big hit ("Tomorrow") with the tried and tested quiet loud formula and song titles such as Suicidal Dream and Freak it's apparently grunge by numbers.

However I'm now thinking Silverchair were actually a 'good' band and I'm taking them off the guilty pleasure list - here's why. First of all the band were actually teenagers (14/15) when they recorded their massively popular (and critically derided) debut "Frogstomp" so to my mind that justifies the sometimes unsubtle lyrics and admittedly over wrought angst. Some teenagers hate the world, that's just the way it is. I sure did. For the first time in your life you become aware of all the hypocrisy, shallowness and greed in the world. Not forgetting all the bullshit people tell. Worst of all is the crushing realisation you will soon have to forge your own path through this minefield. Silverchair, considering their age, articulated this disillusionment incredibly coherently and even on occasion poetically through their lyrics. So fine "Tomorrow" is seemingly full of nonsensical ramblings but how about "Pure Massacre" which singer/guitarist Daniel Johns wrote after witnessing footage of the Rwandan genocide and other atrocities on TV -

"People crying for freedom,
No one hears the sound".

 Or "Faultline" which deals with the loss of a friend following an earthquake -

"You're leaving me all through the night.
If he's born again, I need you to find,
Need you to find where he is."

I'm not saying Johns is Bob Dylan or Neil Young, he's 14! But that's the point, he's only 14, when I was that age I knew things were messed up but I doubt I could have articulated it particularly well and then put it to music. This takes me to my second point, the actual music. It's shockingly good, the riffs are sure to get your feet tapping and they like to mix up riffs and tempos throughout the same song, it's better than the offering of many bands twice their age. Like many of the original Seattle bands they clearly have a strong affinity with the best of 70's rock. Likewise there are also strong melodies throughout, these songs will get stuck in your head. And whilst John's vocal style might be typical of a grunge band he has a powerful voice that doesn't betray his years.

On the next two albums (Freak Show and Neon Ballroom) the band experimented with Eastern sounds and strings but stayed within the grunge template. Towards the end of their career though they ditched the grunge entirely for an extraordinarily diverse orchestrated sound on 2002 's Diorama revealing John's composing talents. Bush's Gavin Rossdale couldn't have pulled that off.

So don't judge Silverchair too harshly, they might have been a bit clunky at times and yes I'm sure they did just lift a whole Nirvana song (Tourettes) for Freak Show but they were genuinely talented young musicians, had some great songs and honest intentions. They just happened to come along at a time when teenage angst was all the rage and you can't really begrudge them that.

Local H - Ham Fisted - Review

                                    Local H - Ham Fisted

Seeing as I've stolen one of their song titles for the title of this blog it only seems right to kick things off with a Local H review, a two man band from Zion a suburban town in Illinois. Ham Fisted (1995) is singer/guitarist Scott Lucas and drummer Joe Daniels' debut and it really doesn't come across like the work of only two people. Lucas hit upon the idea of modifying his guitar with bass pickups, it obviously worked and you really don't miss the bass player. The sound is actually nicely layered with some space for the guitar and Lucas' phantom bass; on later albums they added more instrumentation and achieve a pretty big sound. I have no idea how they pull it off live. Needless to say they thankfully sound nothing like The White Stripes.

At this point in their career Local H were firmly in the grunge mould, the pissy Nirvana kind as opposed to the earnest Pearl Jam variation - grunge was always a lousy genre definition. So we get crunchy, fuzzy, catchy riffs, the drummer hammering the kit and of course plenty of sarcastic angsty lyrics. It may not be all that original and maybe the vocals do occasionally remind you of Kurt Cobain, but the band have their own merits and know how to get a song stuck (jammed) in your head. "Cynic" is built around the grooviest riff you could imagine from a supposedly depressed grunge band, whilst "Mayonnaise and Malaise" sounds like a great 90's alt rock anthems that never was. If it had come out in 1993 it might have won the band a big audience, however in 95 it was probably lost in a sea of 'post grunge' acts (another weird genre that one...) Best of all is "Manipulator", its got about 3 lines worth of lyrics on repetition but the chorus totally soars above the metal dirge beneath (dirge in the good sense - naturally). Things do dip a little towards the end of the record, but the last track "Grrlfriend" is a pleasant acoustic rumination on the pains of falling in love with a committed feminist. 

Whilst some other alternative rock bands of this era sounded laboured, like it was an effort to be a misanthropic slacker, (if you're doing it right it should be effortless) and throw meaningless lyrics around in an attempt to sound profound, Local H feels pretty honest to me. Apparently Zion is a shitty place to live and their boredom and general dis-satisfaction seems genuine. With their next album "As Good As Dead" they would turn that sense of desolation gained from a life spent in Zion into a concept album. A grunge concept album? Well Nirvana never tried that...