People often wonder what my life consists of and, more importantly, I think they tend not to believe me when I tell them that I don't really go outside. It's 11:30 pm on a Sunday night. Someone has just placed an order for an item I will not define for security purposes. I create an invoice for them. I wish to create the shipping label as quickly as possible after they pay so as to make my shipping rate seem flawless, no matter how long I let the label sit before I actually print it or set a pickup time for the letter carrier who might not otherwise visit my semi-hidden mailbox.
As I wait, I browse through Twitter. Everyone is talking about sexual harassment in Hollywoo. This seems to be a big thing now distracting us from something much worse I imagine as for what it's worth in my estimation this has always been an issue so why just bring it to light like this now? Someone must be gaining from this. Alas, my Twitter feed brings up a tweet by Randy Spike, who I often find in there. I click on his profile for some reason and see he has a new album out.
When I last left Randy Spike- musically- I had compared his sound with that of dreamcrusher and he had a cassette with Sam Jackson on the cover. Now, in contrast, he performs under The Randy Spike Conspiracy and has the sounds of a somewhat traditional band. Fuzz on the opening song "Becky With The Good Weed" brings about thoughts of Weezer, The Mr T Experience and something else I can't quite place as it has more of a down to earth sound to it than that.
You have to think of it like this: I compare a lot of music with big distorted chords to Weezer. But what did Weezer do before the blue album? I don't know. But that was on a major label, and I always think of them based on that album and "Pinkerton", which both were likely recorded in some high quality studios. The songs here have a sound that's... It's not that it's a worse quality, it just sounds like someone actually made it. If you listen to this and you listen to Weezer it's like the difference between taking a photo and capturing someone's actual essence and then turning it into Weezer would be running it through Photoshop.
From the first song about "Becky With The Good Weed", Randy Spike does not hesitate to name drop the likes of Olivia Munn and Britney Spears, though I'm still not sure why she'll have her revenge on Long Island. Somewhat like if blink 182 had merged with Cheap Trick, there is no real time frame to pit this particular sound as it could exist really at any point in time. It could be a current release on a label such as Juniper Tree Songs, <> or Burger Records as it could be a reissue. For some reason it also makes me want to listen to Limbeck.
While I might argue with my contemporaries a lot (Again, see: Twitter), the thing is at least those people who review cassettes in a similar manner as me understand that music can be many things. More of the mainstream review sites would have crapped on "Meat Sounds" and yet fallen in love with "Teenage Cancer". In that regard, Randy Spike could have recorded this album under a name which did not show his same name from his previous work. He could have submitted it to some review site which didn't think that what he did on "Meat Sounds" was "real music".
This album could have been that fuck you to the face of normal society. Just because someone makes something you don't like (or more importantly, don't understand) doesn't mean they are without talent. Randy Spike perhaps is not as petty as me or perhaps everyone just enjoyed his music before this more than I give it credit for, who knows. But for what it's worth, in my estimation it is more difficult to create his previous work than this sound, so in a way people will hear "Teenage Cancer" and hopefully realize "noise" artists are talented and yet it very well may have taken less of his talents to make this, just to prove how remarkable it all is.
https://bandcamp.com/randypiano
Teenage Cancer is at a name your price download here:
https://therandyspikeconspiracy.bandcamp.com/album/teenage-cancer
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