8pm – Screwmaker’s Mid-Evening Crisis

It’s 8pm, do you know where your children are? 

If your child is Anthony Mena, well then, he’s having an existential crisis somewhere. But don’t worry, it appears that the forces of tranquility will prevail over his darker impulses. 

Listen to the Song – 8pm

What Does Screwmaker say about his song? 
“ScrewMaker? What the hell is a ScrewMaker? Who the hell are these dorks? Sounds like some kinda statement on how people go do the 9-5, buy another large screen TV, buy another SUV, drink beer, watch TV, get manipulated by the mass media, blippity-blah-blah-blah. Whatever…

And what’s with the drums? like the world needs more bombastic, in your face, tear your headoff, driving and crashing and burning drum loops and other programming crap?

And then those guitars that seem to come in now and again, like the guitar gods decided to fall out of the ether to smash you upside your head or something before they head back to their netherworld. Stupid !!!

Tickity-tock… Tickity-tock… Damn synthesizer arpeggios! Stupid lame ass synth pads and stuff! Next thing I know, I’m on some introspective journey. Who the hell needs to go there?

Oh yeah, and when it slows down you feel all contemplative and like you start thinking about your life and your place in the world and all this other “inner journey” crap. It’s like watching a movie or something. Don’t need it. Don’t want to go there.”

What the Music Snob says about all that…

Well. This guy speaks poorly of his art, but we can only hope that he is nice to his music students! Or maybe he makes his living putting together very competent electronic music, and has grown to hate it. Either way, we don’t really believe his faux self-hatred. The guy knows what he’s doing with his gadgets and that comes across in his music. The production is really nice, and the song has a good flow to it.

I gotta admit that I’m not generally a huge fan of this style of instrumental electronic music, nor do I know a lot about it. But given that it’s on YouLicense with a bunch of his other tracks, my guess is that its intended purpose is slightly different than a regular “song” written for performance would be. 

While we don’t know what a “Screwmaker” is and can only infer that it’s a job for midgets in some factory where they produce tiny metal nuts and bolts all day long, the name seems to accord with his music, a tangle of metallic and digital forces twisting through each other in time. 8pm is really kind of upbeat, particularly when the choral-like synthesizer refrain plays a decending figure that moves from 8 to 1 and keeps going down as it fades…

The electric guitar that comes in is just, well, over the top. As he describes it, the gods smashing you upside the head. 

Reminds me of

Run Lola Run. The circus. Heavenly baths with cherubic virgins. Check it.

Meta Music Reviews – Reviews of Musicians Reviewing their Music

The Music Snob is now introducing meta-reviews to this fine cyberworld. While some of you may have an idea of what this is, and it may in fact exist in many locations elsewhere, I can’t be bothered to seek out and destroy these other locations, or even inquire as to their existence, and so, according to this blog, TheMusicSnob.com is now premiering the “meta music review”.

What is a meta music review?

A commentator’s review of a musician’s commentary on his own music.

*Note: they can also be a musician’s review of a commentator’s review of his music. But we will be focusing largely on the former for now.

Why are meta music reviews worthwhile?

  • Meta reviews depend on musicians to think and evaluate their own music, and communicate something about it with words
  • Having musicians review their own music will foster creative and musical dialog
  • Meta reviews will bring humor and insight to the creative process
  • Meta reviews will force us to discover some new music and consider new creative ideas and perspectives

Whoohoo!

Stay tuned for the first of our meta music reviews. Bear in mind that these depend on the quality of music review submissions we receive, so 

SUBMIT YOUR MUSIC REVIEW NOW!