Safety zones. I think the concept of a safety zone has to be an American thing. Scratch that, it’s probably a human thing. People are generally safe within the things they know, as long as they are comfortable with their own thing. Oft times I think we ought to be responsible for our own safety, but that’s getting harder and harder to do. Welcome Big Brother, i.e. the government, who loves to continuously add to his growing watch list of things to make sure I’m safe about. Better yet, things I could potentially do to myself but are illegal to do if I’m caught doing them. Crap, I’m not sure that’s making sense. I guess I should let Big Bro step in and correct that. Uh, fuck that.
I’ll take my shoes off to run in the grass if I feel like it. Tough shit if while I’m running I tweak my foot on a sprinkler. I’ll have to go get a bandage and tell myself it was unfortunate. Yet there are people who believe it would be their right to sue the owner of the lawn, or maybe even the manufacturer of the sprinkler head. All for something they did to themselves, by not looking where the hell they were stepping.
My recent favorite is iPod headphones. There was a class action suit not long ago that was pressed against Apple and the iPod (not any other MP3 players) for volume levels. You buy a device, it’s capable of playing music pretty loudly in your ears. Hmmm… I’m usually able to turn things up or down as needed. If it’s too loud, I don’t turn it up even more. Maybe I’ll turn it down, or if I’m unable to get to the volume knob, like at a concert, I’ll put in ear plugs. I take responsibility for the volume I put in my ears. Apparently if you buy an iPod, you’re incapable of responsible use of volume. Thus now there is a cap to how loud an iPod can go, or at least you can set it in the iTunes software. Why? Because some fool couldn’t turn it down for himself/herself and had the potential of damaging his/her hearing. Lazy people! So now my zone is smaller, I dislike that.
I’ve started venturing out of my safety zone with artists submitting music to me and me sifting through my iTunes library. Meaning I’m starting to expand the area of my musical park. I spent an hour today sifting through music and I happened upon Jack Anthony. While it’s not the most technically perfect music I’ve ever heard, there was something sparky that caught my ear on this. It’s certainly got a raw quality to it, but it’s a catchy raw. I’d lump it with a variation on early Green Day. Simple straight ahead poppy punky rocky type thing. It’s scary to think how much more infectious this would be with multi-million dollar production similar to Green Day. Eek, I don’t even want to know as I’d probably start following Jack around. I’m even betting that if you’re still reading at this point, you’re already humming the melody and swinging your head and tappin your foot.
The song is a bit short, but hey, that’s the point of this style. Be quick, to the point. Get in, kick ass, and get out. You can’t knock that. In fact, I remember an industry vet once commenting on the intro to my song Closer To Ourselves. She mentioned that it would be cooler if I had made the intro twice as long. My response was that I had tried that, but the intro felt too long, so I went back to what she heard. They I replied, if you really want to hear more of it, just hit the replay button – besides don’t I want someone to want to hear it again? She agreed. Pretty much how I’m feeling about Jack’s song here today.
I’m betting you don’t have it. So do yourself, Jack, and I a favor. Buy it right now. Clicky the iTunes link and buy the song. Or maybe you’d like to have the full CD, click that cover art – you go right to the page to get it. Go now.