A response, of sorts.

Oy, Jesus Chainsaw Massacre. These guys! I’m sure these nit-wits have their hallowed ideas as to what “rock & roll” is & should be & far be it for me to disabuse anyone of his or her adolescent wet dreams, but I can pretty confidently tell you what “rock & roll” is not. It is NOT throwing on a pair of aviator sunglasses you picked up from CVS on your way to the show, an ill-fitting, second-hand blazer (ironic, perhaps?) & then mildly swaggering about onstage as though you were Rick Moranis trying to fit in on Soul Train. “Rock & roll” isn’t about being utterly devoid of any miniscule crumb of fashion sense. This is something I’m fairly certain of, though I may wrong; “rock & roll” may be about looking like a middle-school-er dressed as a tampon for Halloween. In all honesty, I don’t know & don’t care.




Let me just say that I’ve never been one to pigeon-hole any musical genre & I’m extremely dubious of those who do & thus go in for the same hackneyed tricks that have been dealt out for decade upon decade. All the asinine pomp & “raw rock” in the world can’t hide a lack of vision or imagination. Or talent, for that matter. Still, there are those who continue to eat this kind of shit up, including Jesus Chainsaw Massacre. These poor guys provide the world with ample evidence as to their lack of even the most modest modicum of taste in both the music (?) they create & the music they promote on their God-forsaken poor excuse of a Geocities website wrenched from the clueless depths of 1994 that they pass as a blog.

While we’re on that subject, let’s take a minute to discuss that gem-like turd, a forum meant to both offend & provoke laughter that manages to do neither. Who the hell thinks this is funny anymore? Pre-teen boys across Middle America, I’m sure, but who else? Once you’ve gotten laid, read a book & seen the world a little bit the shit that tickles JCM’s funny bone will inevitably lose its once invaluable charm. Remember dead baby jokes? Weren’t those hilarious when you were ten? Then you stopped wetting the bed & you were a new person, all grown-up & sophisticated. “Jesus Chainsaw Massacre”? What does that even mean? Is that meant to bother my grandmother?

Don’t get me wrong, their website doesn’t manage to offend a single sensibility of mine other than an aesthetic sense. I actually enjoy abrasive humor when it isn’t shallow, lazy & facile. Unfortunately that brand of “humor” seems to be the sole offering from JCM apart from their wet-blanket bitching & juvenile, feckless, white-bread “observations”. I’m sure that if you’ve never been on the Internet before their harmless baby-boner snark will seem novel. However, this being my 28th year on Earth, I’ve enjoyed enough genuine wit that JCM just bores & mystifies me.

Now, Computer Perfection is far from greatness or, pardon me, perfection. If you don’t care for what we do, I’m sorry, I guess.  I will say this, though: even I am not satisfied by what we’ve done. Keep in mind that we are still a brand-new band. The songs we perform have hardly been around a year. We are, though, looking forward to continually pushing forward and struggling towards more experimentation, innovation & just plain good, catchy songs. I’m well aware that there are people who don’t like our music & never will, but that doesn’t bother me in the least. What does bother me is the witless, cynical negativity that I see from the likes of the gentlemen (a term I use loosely) of the tragically-named Jesus Chainsaw Massacre. Attitudes like that not only contribute nothing but in fact detract from the otherwise dynamic & fruitful discourse that art can provide. I’d consider it no hyperbole to say that the world is better off without it, to say nothing of a tiny & perpetually struggling arts scene.

& this here, for the two people still reading this diatribe (hi Grandma!), is the crux of my beef with JCM’s off-hand, reptilian-brained criticisms, toothless though they may be. If you want to see what is wrong with Detroit’s music scene, fellas, I suggest you take a look in the mirror.

Excelsior!

N. Francis Burgundy IV

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is Jim Reid from The Jesus and Mary Chain and I take exception to some of the things you said in your article...

First off, how can you say we-

Oh wait... Never mind.

Anonymous said...

you really need to challenge yourself

Anonymous said...

The Jesus and Mary Chainsaw Massagers have needed their asses kicked for a long time. I'm probably not the first, nor will I be the last person to do it.

The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre said...

so being rock and roll is preceded by the clothes you wear? this makes so much sense and has clarified everything. i guess the clothes you wear show that you are playing the same music as every other pop band in detroit and are just hoping to reach the same minimal fame pas/cal had.

so, change your look

-jr

The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre said...

secondly, we should do a show together

-jr

Gene Corduroy said...

I agree, we should do a show. But Bem is pretty possessive of her tambo. Also, pas/cal sucked, fuck them.

Nathaniel F.H. Burgundy IV said...

I was hoping more for the minimal fame of, say, Fletcher Pratt. Or maybe Moods for Moderns.

Anonymous said...

Well put, sir! Thank you for this. Jesus Chainsaw Massacre is the biggest pile of hate-filled garbage in Detroit. Just like Pitchfork, but without the vocabulary, influence, and web traffic...

The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre said...

we have our own tambos

-jr

Bryan Metro said...

Hey chaps, the check is in the mail! And Mr. Anonymous 2:32, our web traffic is quite fine. Being, the narcissists we are, we track it via our Geocities mirror site. One time someone from California spent a whopping four hours on the Lavender Blog, though it may have been Bret Ellis' lawyers preparing their lawsuit against me.

Anonymous said...

this entry made go read about JCM. Damn you!

Nathaniel F.H. Burgundy IV said...

My money is on five minutes of reading your awful blog followed by a self-inflicted bullet in the brain & then three hours & fifty-five minutes before his or her laptop battery died.

Anonymous said...

"The Jesus Chainsaw Massagers have needed their asses kicked for a long time."

Yep.

e.first said...

i still think dead baby jokes are funny.

Anonymous said...

Brian Metro is an average white boy scenester in a Love Boat waiter jacket.

JR is just a faceless internet d-bag.

Let's start a "shock rock" blog band, since we can't write songs! Brilliant idea!

Bryan Metro said...

Whenever I see threads like this I think of the old Frankenstein movies where the angry villagers are storming the countryside with pitchforks and torches, only instead of pitchforks and torches I see a bunch of short kids with acoustic guitars, laptops, and brass instruments maybe some ironic facial hair too. (I think I used this analogy before so I apologize) The Love Boat waiter crack did get a chuckle though. Anywho, the fact that this post has received more attention and comments than all of the other posts on this "blog" combined proves my point. What is my point? No clue...

Nathaniel F.H. Burgundy IV said...

Your "blog", which, I might point out, I'd never heard of until a couple months ago & then only because of your casual piss-pants disses, can get all the attention you want it to. I'm in a band with real musicians, not a blog.

& dude, you clueless & talentless. I'll leave it at that & respond no more.

Gene Corduroy said...

Yeah! Where do these zombies with their belongings think they're going? Luckily zombies don't have brains so they can't read this stuff. And therein lies the paradox. I'm dizzy.

The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre said...

i have a face and it's spelt -jr

nate, i dont think you've ever been to one of our shows but judge from afar

that's ok

how bout another cover of "beat city"

good song-smithing there

gene, i have no idea what you are talking about

-jr

Gene Corduroy said...

Beat City was fun to play. In other non-original news, we recorded a pair of covers to be released on Friday. Talking Heads - Naive Melody and Dusty Springfield - In The Land Of Make Believe. You should review them before they come out, for fun. Great fun.

The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre said...

email w/ artwork to thejesuschainsawmassacre@hotmail.com

-jr

Gene Corduroy said...

Ok. Also paradoxes are not meant to be understood, but to blow your mind. That's another thing zombies are incapable of. You know, no mind and all. Nevermi..

Bryan Metro said...

What are the Vegas odds on Nate getting kicked out of his band with real musicians for taking himself too seriously and becoming increasingly difficult to work with while being a humorless chatch? I will turn my cheek in regards to your callous attacks on my character (I don't think I've ever been negative about your music anyway until your rant here. That was the other guy.) You will always have a log-on on our ultra-successful Lavender Blog if you want. Cheers and best of luck with the music.

Gene Corduroy said...

I just reviewed our internal band contract. It's airtight, he can't even kick himself out.

Don't need luck but we do need some kind of patron or benefactor.

Bryan Metro said...

Don't we all...

Glossy said...

I want to blow my love load on JCM's chin.