Kenny Crucial’s fans are even more unbearable than he is…Who knew?

Good review.

“I am the Mack Messiah. Bow to me!”

I guess it was a good thing I was “high” and/or “extremely intoxicated”

Getting it means coming out of your comfort zone, coming out of that gated community of the mind and getting a little closer to action. With the inspiration of Pitchfork Media, music writers feel more than ever that they are the ones creating the music itself. And with a few choice metaphors the musician is easily banished to a rhetorical Elba. But the kids don’t need a damn weatherperson to tell them which way the wind is blowing!

If you take the stage, you have to expect loads of negative reactions. Some of it is part of the learning process. And there are always going to be people who don’t like what you do. But there is a bitterness that sometimes fills Atlanta criticism, whether it’s on the part of journalists or fans or those actually in the music business. The worse part of it is that it literally prevents the majority of the people from deciding on their own. When a reviewer adopts the tone that she is going to authoritatively take on local music icon and his inflated reputation, it is a continuation of that same attitude.

This is a lot like sending the Sinatra critic to watch an Elvis show. It’s simply not the same
language. When a band calls itself Mack Messiah it’s a clue that there’s something entirely ironic about the presentation. That theater is a key element of the performance. Really, how could a mack be a messiah? And when Kenny Crucial is singing the song “Mack Messiah” and , tells the audience to “bow to me”, maybe he’s making fun of messianic complexes. He’s bringing a critical eye to all those situations where we willingly bow down to some golden idol of the marketplace. That’s why fans who’ve gone to punk shows get it. They’re already used to the ritual as a tonic against the blandness of their workaday lives!

This has all the absurdity of trying to use a microscope to make sense of a Jackson Pollock. You can cherry-pick the elements of a musical performance to reduce it to its component parts, but if there’s no grasp of context, then you’re not really seeing the show. Put in the frame of the other bands, The Mammals, Baby Dinosaur, and The Viet Kings, the picture is much clearer. That’s why member of the other bands were grooving up front. The reviewer did grasp part of the picture. This is about making good music. At times, it grooves. And it’s a little bit of hip hop, a dash of funk, some punk, some rock, some glam, some experimental. There’s hooks. Things to remember. And like such classic bands as The Stooges or The Butthole Surfers, there’s a crazy stage show. Hey Virginia, this ain’t American Idol

Kenny’s act is an act, to be appreciated by those who want to see it that way. But his real importance has become his presence…

I know a good line-up if Kenny shows his face.