The Wake

“Off time” is the terminology for what are correctly known as rhythyms utilizing time signatures other than 4/4, or common time. Aptly named, common time is widespread, implemented in a variety of mainstream commercial sound applications. Time signatures are a way to organize sections within a piece of music to have a certain number of beats represented by a specific note value. The popularity of common time is apparently due to a lack of higher cognisant functions for processing more complex intervals than the quarter note or occasional sixteenth, or perhaps an underdeveloped theoretical vocabulary stunted by force-fed nuggets of formulated pop-contemporary fashion-fluff.

The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza’s debut full length, “Thank You Jason Dietz”, employs mostly linear-style track structure with small periodic repetitions, and usually two or three rhythyms syncopated to create point and counterpoint within single phrases; on occasion, a morsel such as the beginning riff from Guns ‘n Roses chart-toppling hit, “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” or a playful “woo” from the singer is inserted. The guitar sound is of the woofing, seven-string variety, with low chugging parts doubling the bass drum, and high-register harmonic chords reminiscent of Human Remains, occasional jazzy fretboard runs, fun little segues and flourishes similar to As the Sun Sets, and southern buttrock grooves meandering at times through seemingly redolent flowers blooming in firecracker sunshine fields with puppies and mashed potatoes in post-rock apocalyptic working class dinner table. The vocals on the album, by lead singer Jesse Freeland, the only member in the band not originally from Monroe, Louisians, are nice and throaty. That vocal range, from guttural growling to intense screams, has been compared to anti-capitalist New-Jersey group Burnt By the Sun, whose lineup includes drummer David “Living Legend” Witte, formerly of Human Remains. Witte’s frantic and complex style is an apparent influence on the double bass and ride bell parts in Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza’s pieces, while eschewing the continuous blast of Mick Harris-era Napalm Death for the more groove-oriented sludgefests that fill the pit of underground extreme bicycling and soapshoeing fans.

A layman would describe the changes and general song structure as “chaotic” or even “random”, but The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza are a practiceful band, a band that practices a lot, each single note precisely composed. Tony Danza’s precision is in contrast to free jazz musicians such as Sun-Ra or Cecil Taylor’s more complex pieces, or internationally recognized underground Japanese noise/grind master Merzbow’s elaborate and baroque textures, which still retain so much periodic structure, repetitions, melodic compositional intent and purpose that they couldnt be possibly be classified as random. True Randomness would entail a lack of discernible rhythym, organized harmony or melody or chords, no tonal or modal structure or repetition, which would thus make it totally impossible for the snare drum to be hit over and over again at the same time as the guitar and bass or cymbal at any given place each time the specific composition is performed (or played back in recording, for that matter).

Serialism is a rigorous system of composing music in which various elements of the piece are ordered according to a pre-determined ordered set or sets, and variations on them. The development of serial composition began with the desire of a group of young composers to find a new way forward in composition and grew from their distaste for tonal composition, which was largely unevolved since the development of the equal-tempered scale in the early 1700s. Generally, serialism is any music which uses any ordered sets applied to any musical element. The specific type of serialism employed by the Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza is an extension of Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique (sometimes called dodecaphony), where any note in the twelve tone western scale (chromatically from C to C, over an octave) is available for use. Additionally, Tony Danza relies heavily on Igor Stravinsky’s rhythmic innovations of the early 20th century, which it can be argued were the earliest foundations of metal music,

Sadly, in the United states in the mid-1990s, some huge record companies decided that the plebians should be subjected to the fad of ska, since it was easily combined with other superfluous and meaningless genres such as pop-punk and adult-contemporary-soft-rock, and sold it with the images of rebellion and fun. This reared such pointless bands as Fishbone, No Doubt, and Sublime, who all enjoyed a couple of top-40 hits and have greatest hits collections in Wallmart next to Creedence Clearwater Revival and ABBA or something. This also gave countless white suburban band geeks a chance to play a bastardized version of reggae with all of the redeeming qualities removed. Unfortunately, it seems there are still some bands that haven’t realized that the fad is over; hence fourth-wave ska, a harmless, mom-friendly and decidedly non-underground music genre represented by bands such as Slightly Stoopid, a sunburned crew of upper-middle class, hairless, blue-eyed Californian cattle who imitate a sunburned crew of upper-middle class heroin addicts who play fashionably watered-down drivel that is mislabeled as “punk” and “underground”, mewling to ignorant suburban teens about how bad their lives are, how they just want to have fun, and how authority sucks or whatever.

So go out and buy the album “Thank You Jason Dietz”, enjoy thinking about the music you are listening and dancing to, and support real people who make music that they care about. Or, if you’d prefer, listen to formulaic corporate poison like the band Slightly Stoopid that fill the pockets of corporate oil bastards and smarmy 40-something show promoters, and fill the radio and television with more garbage to pacify and atrophy.