Since my first Musical MySpace Tour article a couple of weeks back my friend requests have upped in speed. They have not, however, upped in quality. I think this is the poisoned chalice of the experiment. There is going to be a lot of crap to wade through before you can get to the diamonds. I’m indeed energised by the poor souls who have offered themselves to be criticised though. I wonder at what point I’ll be getting hate mail.

Anyway, lets get the show on the road. As before, the bands who I subject to my harsh musings here all tried to add me as a friend over at www.myspace.com/aaronhbp. Only bands who send these requests to me will be reviewed. It’s the name of the game!
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GERARD DALTON
www.myspace.com/gerarddalton

Apparently the guy singing at every wedding I’ve been to got himself a MySpace page.

It’s hard to say a bad word about Mr. Dalton.

You can tell by his singing style that he has a fondness for the cabaret/big band genre of music. His music is genuinely pleasant. His song’s seem to be written with love. This is a grown man putting his music out in the world.

It’s really hard to say a bad word about Mr. Dalton. But I’ll do it anyway.

This is dire. The vocals are all over the place. The music is sloppy. This is exactly what you would hear in a hotel bar on a Tuesday night. He’s a grey velvet suit away from Vegas.

The song’s lyrics are really generic. Dalton’s protest song, “A Simplified Solution”, is laughingly preachy without actually making a point other than “the world is a bit shit really, we should, like, do something about that”. I’m quoting him when I say “we cannot tolerate a simplified solution” well I can’t tolerate this. It’s painfully simple.

I feel bad thrashing this. It feels like I’m taking pot shots at someone’s nice uncle.
However, I have to be honest. This is terrible.

Presentation = 1/5
Content = Quite a few song’s and too many pictures of himself
Music = 1/5
Friend Request = DENIED!

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GRAYSON
www.myspace.com/graysonau

Do you remember Pugwall? It was a TV show in the late 80s in Australia. A teenager and his friends were in a band. They would sings songs about their days and what happened in that or a previous episode. Grayson is also an Australian native and his song “Stand Clear” may have been written by Pugwall’s Orange Organics. It’s naff. Laughable in a lot of ways, especially considering he uses a recording of a bus. Seriously, a bus. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m happy for you but give it a listen. Any Irish person will recognise it.

Outside of that things get better, but not much. This is mostly weak pop musings. The 80s feel carries on. I can imagine him wearing a beret and rolled up sleeves. His actual look is a kind of ginger hobo thing. Friendly, but you’d expect him to scab a cigarette from you outside a pub.

To the guy’s credit, he sounds almost exactly like Savage Garden (which were not my cup of tea but were huge for a while… and Australian, go figure) so I’m sure he’ll appeal to a few people. My biggest qualm though is that his lyrics are too obvious. I like it when musicians draw from their life, it’s something that can both help you relate to and “dig” a song. Brendan Benson is an example of someone who can tell you a story about his day in his songs masterfully. However, when the rhyming scheme is as simple as it is here and when he keeps referring to being stuck in Dublin as an Australian… in every song, we get it.

At least his photographer is decent.

Presentation = 4/5
Content = A respectable amount of songs, but needs at least a video
Music = 2/5
Friend Request = DENIED!

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THE BEAT POETS
www.myspace.com/beatpoets

If you read the blurbs on The Beat Poets’ page you would get the impression that this Belfast quartet are made for big things. NME, Hot Press etc all have a great word to say. They’ve even had support slots with some good bands such as Sonic Youth and The Chemical Brothers (which seems an odd match). Accordingly, they must be brilliant, right?

There is some quality here. The biggest stand out being Staring Stars Down. It also seems to be the only song that is presented in its entirety as all the others are clipped down in the player. I hate such miserly moves from small bands. From any band, actually. If you put a song on MySpace, put the whole thing up!

After a few listens this does grow on you but I don’t see the hype being justified. It’s all too familiar. Nothing really stands out from anything I’ve heard before. If someone told me these were Kasabian songs, or The Music, or countless others I’d believe it.

Maybe their appeal is in their live performance and this is something that can be hard to capture in recordings. Indeed there are a few bands that I personal consider myself a fan of that just don’t sound the same on CD as they do in a venue. But a good performance can also cover a lot of flaws in songs and so this could be the ugly truth of the matter here.

At the end of the day, The Beats Poets could be worse, yet they could be better too.

On a side note, what is it with people walking away from camera? Their EP cover is the umpteenth picture I’ve seen of someone walking away on a MySpace profile. Keep walking!

Presentation = 4/5
Content = 4 songs is not enough, one video is good to have, too many quotes makes me leave.
Music = 3/5
Friend Request = DENIED!

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NATURAL CORRUPTION
www.myspace.com/naturalcorruption

My first impression when I click the page is, well, not good. The “myspacemaster” layout doesn’t fill you with confidence. Let that be a message to all bands out there. If you’re going to put a background on your page, make it yourself. Everyone has at least one friend who can do it for them if you don’t know how. Seriously, even if you’re not a professional band you need to at least pretend and make it look like you are.

The pictures aren’t exactly impressive either. As you can see by the one I chose here, these guys are DUDES. If the only seat in the bar was beside them, I’d stand. It says in the usual place that Natural Corruption are from Long Beach/Queens. I don’t know about the Queens part but they definitely look like they’ve spent a lot of time on a beach drinking beer.

The thing is, despite the fact that they have all these things going against them… I kind of like this.

It reminds me of a lot of stuff I would listen to in my early teens. That testosterone fueled music that is part ska, part metal, part whatever they listened to that week sort of mess.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a total mess. But it’s also fun. It’s played well despite the low grade recordings and you can hear the sweat engrained in everything from playing countless tiny venues, I’m sure. Baby Stay would be the highlight of the offerings here. It’s also the lightest of the songs too, maybe there is something in that.

It’s most likely only the nostalgia clouding my judgement but I feel like there is an honesty in the type of garage band that Natural Corruption is. They’re never going to “make it”. The music simply isn’t good enough. But if they were playing in a bar when I arrived, I’d stay. So maybe if you ever catch them in the same scenario you will too.

I wouldn’t be caught dead with them in my friends list, though.

Presentation = 2/5
Content = 4 songs again but this time it’s probably enough to give you more than you need
Music = 2/5
Friend Request = DENIED!

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