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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Review: UNKNOWN INSTRUCTORS

Unknown Instructors
Funland (Smog Veil)

This neither respects industry-proffered strictures nor reflects appropriate sympathies.

Good.

Ambitiousness of this scope is not found on top marketing charts. Too "self-indulgent," says
Suit One. Too "experimental," agrees Suit Two.

Besides, holds the A&R chorus, tilted atonality that kicks aside standard maps and mass-accessibility formulas to dance on uncharted soils has never known numerically significant embrace.

Of course, self-indulgence is not necessarily a negative. Of what benefit to anyone is the stifled imagination?

Contributors Mike Watt, George Hurley, Joe Baiza, Dan McGuire, Raymond Pettibon, and David Thomas follow without inhibiting commercial heed the muse's seductive siren into leisurely and notion-laden episodes.

Only through bold experimentation can unlikely concepts be unwrapped and assembled. Experiments do not always succeed, but they sometimes do -- with occasionally startling appropriateness.

One at once respects the daring and is impressed by the realizations. High-minded intentions that might otherwise fall are well-raised by agile interpretation. Musicians assembled for this work are of a lofty caliber; their expressions animate creative ideation, giving it practical form.

It is true that no compositions present lend themselves to ringtone-excerpting. Just as it also is so -- and with Funland, again asserted -- that such is not art's purpose.

Recommended Maji Yabai, Later That Night, Frownland, C'mon, No Chirping.

- DC Larson

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FORMER staff writer for Rockabilly and Pin Up America magazines. FREELANCE credits include Daily Caller, American Thinker, Free Republic, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Independent Political Report, USA Today, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press-Citizen, Waterloo Courier, Cedar Falls Times, Marshalltown Times Republican, Cincinnati.com, IndyStar, Arizona Republic, No Depression, Goldmine, Blue Suede News, Rock and Rap Confidential, Crackerjack, Blues News, Wrecking Pit, Punk Globe, Prairie Sun, Music and Sound Output, BAM, New Music, and 1980s NYC fanzines Shake, Rattle, and Roll, Rebel Rouser, and Off the Wall. AUTHOR: Shake, Rattle and Rocket!, Ghost Saucers in the Sky!, Stratosphere Boogieman!, Flesh Made Music, That a Man Can Again Stand Up: American spirit vs, sedition during the incipient Trump Revolution, and Ideas Afoot: Political observations, social commentary, and media analyses. WORKED as 2004 Iowa coordinator for Ralph Nader independent presidential campaign; co-founded Iowa Green Party, also served as statewide media coordinator; press coordinator, 2002 Jay Robinson (Green) IA gubernatorial effort. Wrote extensively re Trump campaign..