South Side Sanctuary

"Hey Kid EP" by Big Rock Candy Mountain (released May 9, 2009 - click to purchase music)

Now, try not to think of T-Bone Burnett’s musical score from the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?—instead imagine Rage Against the Machine sitting down at Café du Monde in the French Quarter of NOLA with The Cure—and you’d have something close to Big Rock Candy Mountain.

BRCM, a little but feisty band from NOLA (New Orleans) popped up for the weekend to play a gig at Trophy’s (not quite a trophy atmosphere) just off the main drag of South Congress—and I have to say, as hackneyed as hyperbolic descriptive tendencies are in our musical descriptions, it was quite a show. Anytime you have a band close their set with a cover of “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against the Machine, I think you have to admire their ambition and energy. Not just anyone can pull that off—and they did.

Though it doesn’t take a musician to appreciate music—I think that musicians can get underneath some of the musical nuances upon which we depend—those syncopated beats and rhythms that help us distinguish good-good and bad-bad. Yes—there are other factors such as mood and moment that aide in this process—but, there’s a difference between ‘tap-your-foot’ and ‘shake-your-ass-wiggle-your-hips-bend-your-knees-shrug-your-shoulders-bob-your-head-white-man-overbite’ (if, you know what I mean).

In this case, here’s what Big Rock Candy Mountain (BRCM) does well—more than most: musical vision. I know—I know, what the hell does that matter to me? Well, musical timing is about taking you on a musical journey. Sometimes we just want to stroll—other times we like to autobahn—and, other times we like to mix it all up. And, though it was just one show, for me, BRCM mixes it up and they’ll take you most anywhere you want to go.

Bottom-line, musical vision is about expressing the old with new forms—it doesn’t have to be drastically new, just enough.  Clearly, vision implies sight—and, musically speaking, vision gives everybody a little something. You see—most pop songs fall into the standard 4:4 time frame, a training-wheels form, a housewife ass jiggle form (no doubt in ‘mom-jeans’)—and then, well, you have your ‘mosh-pit’ mom, knocking over pots and pans—upending the latest sugar based cereal concoction over her head, flailing her arms about as she tosses her streaky blonde like a wet mop—that’s musical vision. That’s BRCM.

Finally, what BRCM does well in mixing it up, is that they ‘get you off’—like the old AT&T slogan, they ‘reach out and touch someone’, like Calgon, ‘they take you away’. Right where you are—they entertain, but they find you. They don’t ask you to find them. If this attitude could be incarnated, it’d have to come from Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee), brilliantly muttering insecure dribble in Cameron Crowe’s incendiary film Almost Famous, “I get people off. I find the one guy who’s NOT getting off and I MAKE him get off.”

At times, you have your great musicians who can’t get past themselves—how great they are and how underappreciated they seem to be (self-exuded of course)—and they caustically berate the fans with ‘appreciate me’. At others, you have your good musicians who seem bigger than they are because of their musicality and contagious artistry.

What we should realize, is that regardless of what kind of musician we’re listening to, we, the corporately lulled audience, don’t care if you feel appreciated the way you feel you should—we want to be entertained—we want to forget about our asshole boss—or our tortuous cubicle. A good band—will find you and get you off, regardless of where you’re at. In that respect, I’d give BRCM a confident vote.

Big Rock Candy Mountain will mix it up for you—give you a spin on life from a variety of gears, and ‘get you off’. They’ve got a contagious energy that permeates almost every bar of their musical profundity. So, if you have some rage and need a cure, try Big Rock Candy Mountain.

More Info:

http://myspace.com/bigrockcandymountain

http://bigrockcandymountain.net/

http://blog.bigrockcandymountain.net/

http://twitter.com/brcm