I
need to get something off of my chest that’s been eating at me for a while
here, folks. When I was in my youth, I
picked up my first guitar at sixteen, I bought this karaoke machine from Nobody
Beats the Whiz and it was a dual cassette deck so one side was capable of
recording. It had a line to run into it
that I could stick my guitar cord through.
So basically, I could use a microphone, guitar and then playback on a
cassette to record. I haven’t seen
anything like this since, but I used to record onto cassettes a lot between the
ages of sixteen and eighteen or nineteen.
Now
if I could somehow transplant teenage me into the present, man, I’d be
self-releasing so many cassettes you couldn’t stop me. You have to remember, back then (This was
1996 mind you, I was born in 1980) we didn’t have the technology we do now for
promoting music (No Bandcamp, no wifi, barely AOL) and cassettes weren’t
booming like they are now either (Nobody reviewing them like I am now)
Chives
is the solo project of Ryan Perkins and it reminds of something like I would
have done in my youth only, let’s be honest as I always am, this is way better
than anything I could have created when I was sixteen or even now. I like to look back at my musical journey
fondly and think I was some hot shot, but realistically, there is a reason why
I am writing about music right now rather than creating it. If I
ever do find any of those old cassettes I once made, I can assure you that the
general public will never hear them so as to not embarrass myself.
The
music of Chives is one of a distorted Beatles-esque sound. There are elements of surf, sure, and also
just an overall chaotic garage sound.
Oddly enough, this somehow also brings out qualities of Elvis to me, and
while my original thought was of Elvis Presley (the original Elvis), my mind
also drifted over toward Elvis Depressedly and that whole sort of genre that
goes with him.
So
next time you get a big head or nostalgic, thinking you could have been a cassette
star, just listen to this cassette by Chives and realize that even though this
is how you might have remembered yourself sounding in actuality Chives is
untouchable when it comes to comparison.
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