I walked down to my mailbox a few days ago and found it stuffed with a number of bubble mailers. These things are bound to happen when one reaches the forefront of the blogging world. Recent I have been inundated with records and CDs sent by silly PR agencies in the hopes that I will pay some attention to the contents of these packages. At the very least it is expected that I will do more than just smile my smug little smile and chuckle at the works of art whose creators’ careers may well depend on good Internet press. Really I think the agencies and labels just want me to provide them with free quotes to fill their one-sheets. I refuse to stake my reputation on a stupid album. I might stake my reputation on a stupid movie if it meant I could have my quote grace the front of the DVD package, but definitely not for a fucking thirtieth-rate “indie” CD. I won’t lie and promote some album that blows just because I got it for free.
And when I walked down to my mailbox the other day, one of those bubble mailers stuffed in my mailbox was not sent from the address of a record label or PR firm. It was mailed from one of my oldest and dearest readers, the wonderfully kind Old Mail Neill. The contents of said package? A compact disc. I couldn’t read the name of the artist or title of the album, because Neill had slid a note into the jewel case that was obscuring the cover art. The note read, “Here is something truly horrible. – Neill”
It was backed with a folded-up newspaper article from The Other Paper, Columbus, Ohio’s alt. weekly paper. The title of the article is “Starkey on disk: endearingly bad, like baby poop.” I removed Neill’s note from the jewel case and took notice of the cover for the first time. Zachery Allen Starkey. Solitaire.
I devote a lot of space to obscure albums, private press recordings, “real people” records and vanity pressings. There are a million of these floating around the country, and vanity albums have been produced and self-released by normal folks like you and I for many, many decades. And yes, vanity albums are still being made today by some supremely untalented but brave souls. Case in point: Zachery Allen Starkey.
I don’t think I can describe the guy’s music as well as John Petric from The Other Paper does, but I’ll offer you a few thoughts of mine as well as one of Nicci’s. If you want to learn more about Zachery, by all means check out his MySpace page.
At its worst, the music contained on this CD sounds like something you might here at the old leather bar Cuffs. Huge blasts of synthesizer backed by mechanical drums that rarely change tempo or timbre. Throughout the albums twelve tracks, literally nothing changes other than the key of each song and the lyrics. And the vocals…I’m pretty sure I know deaf people with better pitch control.
Nicci describes Zachery’s voice as “sludgy,” stating, “It’s like he can’t even land a note, he’s just sliding through every single one! I mean, that note is in there somewhere, but he’s not going to find it. Ew, and everything is flat. He slides right through it and still stays flat. I don’t know how that’s possible.”
Then she made a barfing noise.
Part of me thinks that if Zachery left the rust-belt and moved to LA, he would have no problem landing on a bill with any number of shitty local bands that use synthesizers. You know, that whole…scene. What’s it called? Where the kids with gross nostalgia for ’80s synth pop slap some effects processors on their instruments and pretend it’s amazing and unique “dance music?” I don’t know much about the LA music landscape at the moment but there’s enough garbage here that he might actually succeed with what others would deem endearingly awful music. If there’s a last minute opening some Sunday night at Part Time Punks, are you going to tell me this guy wouldn’t be the most amazing fill-in ever? At least one person at the Echo would go un-ironically crazy for his lyrics. The song “Nuclear Star” (yes, he pronounces it nuke-u-ler repeatedly) asks, “Do you remember Mr. Rodgers? / Do you remember Sesame Street? / Do you remember kick the can? / Do you remember Pacman? / Do you remember life with no Internet / Do you remember how you…” — it kind of sounds like he says, “doody.”
There really isn’t much else I can say about this. You have to hear it for yourself. I was hoping there would be a slower, ballad-y song we could all enjoy, but this thing…it’s just unrelenting. Holy Jesus…Wow. I don’t feel right sharing the full album because I just spent 5 paragraphs destroying the artist behind it, and because it just came out a couple years ago, and because I really want this guy to get all the money he can out of this album. Seriously. I almost feel bad for receiving it free in the mail. Maybe we should set up a fund of some kind to help this guy out. We can take PayPal donations and write up a really sad press release detailing how underprivileged he is. It would end with the sentence, “Save the man, save the world from having to endure his music.”
Enjoy!? …
Zachery Allan Starkey
Solitaire
Tracklist:
01. Nuclear Star
02. The Eyes Of God
03. Bye Bye Love
04. Don’t Live In Washington Beach
05. Stand In Line
06. Marco Polo
07. Not Enough
08. In The Dark
09. Alternate Ending
10. Day Glo Girl
11. Solitaire
12. 70 Millimeter
