JAKUZI’S ATTEMPT – s/t

(CDEP, self produced)

Attempts are a good thing, as I once read somewhere, because if you are just trying, you don’t have to succeed. Now, I have no idea who is trying to do what on this attempt nor who that Jakuzi is but he seems like an astute, open and emotional guy to me, prone to screaming and trashing about at the top of his lungs at any minute while otherwise trying to burn those noise-frittoleros in a bonfire in a large metal box for control. Something with an old telephone, a military gas canister and some backroom gambling is about to go on as well, obviously, but as far as to what it all means, I am not so sure at all. And that, instantly, is a good thing.

The main problem of hardcore in all its more or less fashionable versions in the last years was its one hundred percent instant de-codeability. Most of the times you know what a band or a record will be about, what they will sing about and what they will sound like, by looking at a picture of them or checking out the front cover of their record. Some even showed these codes with pride and hailed them as a form of tradition. Just think of all those Dis-bands (who usually dis-banded after a short while – in contrary to Samuel Johnson I do like Paranomasia as a form of humour) with the black and white covers and pictures of war victims, head wounds or other atrocities on the cover. I have a few dozen of those at home and now, after a few years, I am unable to tell them apart. (Maybe I never was.) Or take those NoFx/Pennywise/Green Day-clones still popping up as an example from the other end of punk(rock). For a musical genre overtly interested in the destruction of societal rules and dogmas hardcore was and is astoundingly conservative and traditional.

In an area where the codes (of style, of sound, of conduct) are so rigidly set and the peer pressure networks work so tightly and fast as in the global community of hardcore, any kind of codes set against the mainstream within this area are a surprise and for that alone worth mentioning. In my book, that is. The global network will find its ways of retribution. Years ago, when Hammerwerk released a single with a bunch of young Austrian hardcore bands called “resistance is futile” (taken from the Borg-slogan from Star Trek) I was thinking if the title regarded to the way our society works in general or if it was a cynical comment at the way the hardcore network is structured. Maybe I am just weary because I never had a Mohawk nor a leather jacket, no tattoos and no piercing. Maybe that’s why I sort of dropped out of the “scene”, glancing lacklustre eyes at what’s going on now and then, if something sparks my interest. As they say: you either are or you never were. I guess, I never was. But Cracked magazine was the only fanzine distributed within mid-European hardcore-circles that had the 100 best country songs listed. That earned me some with some people. Back to the present.

Something sparked my interest when listening to “Try now”: the cool beakbeat drumsolo at the end. A machine? Or human drummer? Wow, if he can do that, he might as well rehearse for Machine Head. More important, such a move is quite cool and daring for a young band within the hardcore circle. I don’t think a lot of punks and hc-types alike will stand a longer period of grime or heavy drum’n’bass sounds (except for the washed down stuff of the latest Mike Skinner release). The other song on their website “tindrums and venice” features a prominent, cool and lose noiserock-bassline and some more noise from the back plus a real industrial noise mid-part somewhere. Cool stuff. I don’t recall which band their otherwise ferocious and energizing screaming hardcore reminds me off (see above) but there was enough trashing and banging and youthful testosterone about to make me want to listen to the whole EP. And it is a smasher. I don’t care if the production is superduper – I never did with punk or hardcore, not even with rock – but the energy and emotions are there and that’s what counts.

Each of the five tracks on this record has something special. All of them are partly fast forwarded hardcore trash songs, of course, but these dudes really take care to find some new ways to structure their songs or give them a new dynamic. Which other band would bang on the same slow stop’n’go riff for two minutes as they do in the beginning of “if you hear it”. Or add a shout-chorus for that long at the end. I can see the kids standing in front of the band in a small cellar show, fingers pointed in the air, shouting along. Yes, some parts of the hardcore scene were always cool, but I have a inner tendency to keep away from all kinds of mass movements, even if it is only a dozen people making the same move in synchronicity. Not even line-dancing for me. So if I can get myself up to see a hc-show these days, it might be jakuzi’s attempt, so watch out for the old geezer at the back of the room. No, better get in the pit and pay a little bit of praise to your youth (lost or still alive), if you can still do it.
www.jakuzisattempt.com

They also have a myspace-page. Now my problem with myspace is twofold. For one, I don’t believe that the songs most downloaded or the bands with the most friends are the best. That’s highschool jock-land. And second, I always find myself clicking on the pics of some people that look interesting (like little girls in goth outfits) and get completely sidetracked for an hour or so. Time I would need desperately to do some real stuff.

04/2006