I don’t like MTV, or VH1 for that matter, they have poor taste in music but play just enough interesting music videos to keep me flipping through when ever I’m on the couch. My disgust for what they show wavers from mildly nauseous (Duran Duran) to complete and udder disgust (both channels relentless obsession with underage pop divas who can’t really sing, you know who they are).
And then out of now where, MTV blind sides me with their “You Hear It First†news feature, and I start to wonder if I was being unfair to the network. But this feeling lasted only until a rerun of The Real World started and I felt sick again.
At exactly 4:50 a.m. in mid-December VJ Gideon Yago’s head appeared on MTV to tell me about a band from L.A. called Something For Rockets. I listened to the snippets of songs the segment played and watched the quick bio about the band. By the end of the minute and a half I had decided I would learn more about this band because I liked what I heard.
Stuff to steal: Three MP3s can be found in the Media section of thier flashy Flash site. Plus a stream of their entire album.
Now, it may have been my lack of sleep but I almost thanked the talking head of Gideon Yago and began to wonder who it was exactly at MTV that had such good taste in music to get this band on the air. Was it Yago? Or was it some unnamed intern who lucked out because he/she too really liked Something For Rockets and some how got them on the air. Who ever it was, please put them in charge.
But I digress, 99 percent of the music played on MTV every week is not good, the point here is the one percent this week that was good – Something For Rockets.
What I find most intriguing about some of these new bands whose members were children of the 1980s is the wonderful amalgamation of all types of music they mix together.
Listening to Something For Rockets I hear, in no particular order, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, every other cheesy pop song from the 1980s, The Beach Boys and some great electronic beats ranging from disco to house to down tempo to drum and bass all fused together in perfectly crafted gems of pop and Indie rock goodness.
It is this sort of mixture and attention to arrangement and detail but not forgetting to have fun that I really like about all the bands and music above and why I would put Something For Rockets in the same category (don’t get me wrong, I not holding Something For Rockets up next to Pink Floyd, that’s just silly, but I’m pretty sure these guys like Darkside of the Moon but then, who doesn’t?).
This also helps to explain why I found it so out of the ordinary that MTV would actually show a band that good. Most of the time it is music and programming that doesn’t require the smallest bit of thought. I can only imagine millions of teenyboppers and brainless Top Forty freaks wondering why MTV would bother showing a band like Something For Rockets. There they are, the MTV faithful, eyes glazing over at the mention of Itzhak Perlman, (world renowned violinist) whose son, Rami, just so happens to front the afore mentioned band.
But then I remember that most people watch TV so they don’t have to think and if they are thinking too much, about 30 seconds of any MTV program will destroy all coherent thought.
So what am I getting at? That MTV is mediocrity and incompetence personified as a cable channel or that Something For Rockets is a great band? Well, I guess it is both but the irony of the entire situation is that MTV, a channel that places more emphasis on looks then talent (Carson Daly, Ashlee Simpson, Lindsay Lohan, etc.) informed me of a band like Something For Rockets (not to say I’m an all-knowing music snob; I’m in “the know†most of the time but I don’t turn to MTV to find new music).
This band that uses talent and not their looks, you’ll know why if you ever see a picture of them (sorry boys, you’re not that handsome) creates beautiful sound-scapes encasing intelligent lyrics and inspired songwriting and there they were on MTV (I won’t hold my breath for music videos anytime soon). But the best part of the whole thing, they are unsigned, doing it all themselves with out label backing.
Now I could go on believing that somebody with good taste in music at MTV put them on the air and they weren’t put there as some sort of payola deal with the sleazy record industry.
There is the potential that I’m completely wrong, maybe nobody at MTV listens to good music or maybe they know something I don’t. Maybe they listen to all the great music out there but play only the worst and most well funded crap in some selfish attempt to keep the bands they love secret while making themselves stupid rich off of inane shows about stupid and beautiful people for the key demographic of stupid people with cable. (If this offends you, then you probably aren’t that stupid and would do yourself a favor by turning the TV off).
That is all I really have. MTV is not cool but sometimes they do cool things. And if your interested you can read MTV’s story on Something for Rockets at http://www.mtv.com/news/yhif/ or check out Something For Rockets’ web-site at http://www.somethingforrockets.com/ and listen to or buy their album and download stuff.
