Album Review: Jackson Firebird – Cock Rockin’

Crude, lewd Australian dudes Jackson Firebird are a duo utterly embedded in the world of sex, whiskey and rock n’ roll. Following the past rules that seem to come with the sleaze rock territory, guitarist Brendan Harvey and drummer Dale Hudak naturally claim they were “spoon-fed from a young age on rock n’ roll”. It follows that careful selection of their band name, album art / title abounds to make sure they tick the remainder of the boxes. Their moniker obviously makes reference to the guitar of the same name but, off the top of my head, it also references past blues and rock n’ roll heroes like Jim Jackson, Jackson Browne, The Firebirds and, of course, Lynyrd Skynyrd (who wrote the all-time classic “Freebird”). As for the coy, nude lady and their constant lyrical references to their collective meat and two veg, well that’s Jackson Firebird in a nutshell.

They prefer to refer to their music as “cock rock” and early listens prove that term appears to be a mish-mash of good ol’ boy rock n’ roll and frazzled blues. They flesh that all out with a good dose of Southern twang, a little noisome rap and add plenty of modern twists and turns too. Time and again they are found making room for elements of Foxy Shazam’s playful abandon and, when the duo pare down their sound into a simple two-step beat with lolloping strings, they manage to gift their music a minimalist quality that marks them out as simple wandering troubadors practicing their art. When this no-frills style is taken to the extreme, songs like “Can Roll” will have you checking round walls and expecting to see the pair busking on a street corner for beers.

Look beyond the trio of swaggering, sex-obsessed, rock n’ fuck ‘n roll openers and you’ll stumble into “Quan Dang”. It’s a game-changer of a track featuring the Johnny Dynell signature “Jam Hot” rap (“tank fly boss walk jam nitty gritty”, etc.) and plays like an amalgamation of Rage Against The Machine, The Beastie Boys and Limp Bizkit. This unique brand of cookie-cutter rock n’ roll riffery that occasionally lurches out into semi-break experimental sections really help the band stand out as one-offs, yet it’s not until they repeat the trick with the killer “Sweet Eloise” that they really make it stick. One listen to its climactic half-spat rap featuring the brutal line “This is my shit, my house, my car / It makes me even wonder how we made it this far” and you’ll be sold.

Ultimately, this duo were always going to live or die on the strength of their songwriting and their vocalist. They may not always excel at the former talent due to plenty of uninspired fillers like the repetitious “Little Missy” or the sluggish “Red Light” but, happily, Brendan Harvey has one sweet-assed voice. He proves it’s gloriously adaptable and is certainly helped out with all the added flavour of some nifty production techniques. So, if you’re a headband wearer, a spontaneous air guitarist or a Jack n’ Coke guzzler, come get a slice of Jackson Firebird’s wickedly grizzled, yet undeniably eclectic rock music.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2014/04/jackson-firebird-cock-rockin-napalm-records/

Film: 1408

Samuel L. Jackson, playing hotel manager Gerald Olin, leans conspiratorially inwards, dangles a key in the air and whispers, “It’s an evil f***ing room”. This is the film’s defining moment and a perfect summary of the horror contained within room 1408 of New York's Dolphin hotel.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is an honest and heartfelt writer who becomes bitter and twisted after the death of a loved one. His marriage breaks down and he finds himself travelling from hotel to hotel experiencing, and then systematically ridiculing, the supposed hauntings in each. He publishes the best myths rating them on mystery and intrigue alone never believing that any of them could be true. That is until he stumbles across the closed door of room 1408.

As we watch the lock mechanism twist painfully slowly from closed to open the viewer is thrust into a claustrophobic nightmare of visual and mental plot devices. The first few minutes spent inside the room are the most terrifying, when the possibilities are endless and the tricks are both canny and surprising. Enslin is quick to bat these first few away admiring the manager’s persistence to perpetuate the room’s myth with hidden props. When it becomes apparent that things have gone beyond reason the only options left are to find an unobstructed exit or descend into madness.

Cusack’s charisma and quirky acting style enables the evil of room 1408 to take form as it attacks his character’s tortured mind with remorseless energy, borrowing heavily from similar scenes in The Shining and Sixth Sense. The terror on his face throughout is gut-wrenching and holds everything together. Sadly, with the script being adapted from Stephen King’s all-too-short story, the film suffers from being rather drawn out with several overcomplicated threads ruining the tempo and patiently-constructed claustrophobia. These have probably been inserted either for variety, or, as the first few audience tests suggest, because of film studio interference. There is a sad air of inevitability about many of the sequences and second guessing the plot isn’t difficult. Thankfully the film only runs to 94 minutes so it doesn’t drag too much and the open-ended finale is clever, if a little confusing.

There is much to admire here despite the film’s flaws with fine acting performances, some clever computer imagery, and a simple, yet genius, plot. It sits nicely alongside many of Stephen King’s adaptations without troubling the best of them, yet certainly surpassing the more recent efforts.


© Johnskibeat

Commissioned by Local Secrets online magazine...