So, before you get all excited: this is not a new dconstruction.org posting. This is a favor.

About sixty thousand years ago, the anonymous wondermen behind We Shot JR approached us to discuss putting together a podcast/mixtape. Originally, there was going to be commentary from a local radio luminary, but apparently luminaries have very busy schedules, or else need to put down the bongs. Still, through all the delays and missed appointments, I was excited to help get this thing going.

Why?

Like it or not (and I often don’t), We Shot JR is the vibrant, throbbing, irreverent-yet-relevant source for discussion of local music. The tastes run, uh, eclectic and the discourse is often rancid, foul-mouthed, ego-fueled puffery. Reading the strings of comments is commonly painful, and I’ve more than once shut down my browser, mid-comment, in disgust. Despite the caustic tone, misguided derision and in general poor behavior of the commenters (or perhaps goaded on by them), the site itself - the authors of the posts - keeps up daily with a scene that is underrepresented, underappreciated and so fickle and mercurial that we lost pace back in February.

To be a fan of local music requires work. The bands are unknown, no songs on the radio, no videos on TV. The venues are cramped, loud, uncomfortable places, often in areas too far flung or too far gone to be appealing. The songs are rough-hewn, the production and presentation leaning towards amateur. You will not be dressed properly; you will wonder if you fit in. You don’t. Neither does anyone. You’ll be bored. Your conversations will be robbed from you by a blaring PA and the roar of alcohol on tongues. Or else, your conversation will be all that the twelve people in the room can hear, even the crickets silent in reverence for the doomed, lonely set about to be played to parents and friends. You have to want this. It’s difficult. “Rock music is mostly about moving big black boxes from one side of town to the other in the back of your car.” [reference] I’ll submit that being a fan of rock music - the real, local, dirty-faces-and-bloody-knuckles type - is watching big black boxes being moved, with a rare intermission of entertainment.

This collection that We Shot JR put together is entertaining. I have some serious issues with it. There are songs I hate, there are bands that puzzle me; much of it sounds bad. The Night Game Cult needs to change the controls on their time machine to something other than “1986,” “Top Gun,” and “Suck.” But as a collection, in its entirety, it’s entertaining. Enjoyable, even. And as a service to the scene, it’s invaluable.

Love it or leave it, we have:

• 00:00 White Drugs, RU 365
• 02:48 Tree Wave, Sleep
• 05:43 Current Leaves, Easy to Leave
• 09:38 Washing Machine, Heart Like a Megaphone
• 12:50 Eat Avery’s Bones, Sweater Petter
• 14:25 Prayer For Animals, Love in the Third Degree
• 19:45 Theater Fire, These Tears Could Rust a Train
• 23:35 Shiny Around the Edges, Waiting for the Night
• 26:26 Chris Garver, Wasp in the House
• 29:25 Undoing of David Wright, We Dig With Fingers Crossed
• 32:06 The Angelus, Crimson Shadow
• 35:53 Violent Squid, Nawlans Brown
• 41:25 The Night Game Cult, The Sparking Sea
• 46:50 Mom, We Know
• 53:52 Krispee Ones (Prince William), Erotic Citay
• 57:14 DJ Nature remix of Turbulence, Notorious
• 1:02:04 Red Monroe, Finger Tips
• 1:05:57 Teenage Symphony, A Promise
• 1:07:55 iDi* Amin, Ziggurat

Tearing it down,

dconstruction

Direct download: Projection.mp3