TWISTED TEENS COULD KICK YOUR AI MUSIC'S ASS
Blame the Clown is the album you’ve been craving
We’ve all lived many lives, and in one of mine I was tramping around the country playing music and drinking too much and having a grand ‘ol time. At some point, I crossed paths with the band Blackbird Raum. In fact, I’m pretty sure a few of them crashed on my living room floor. And it’s rather wild because now I’m researching the band Twisted Teens, and it turns out their bandleader is the same guy who sat at the helm of Blackbird Raum.
It’s not all that surprising, though– Caspian Hollywell is kinda mythical like that.
Photo from Chainsmoking Records’ website (Ramon “Razor” Santos & Caspian Hollywell)
Twisted Teens is a New Orleans-based punk/rock/old-timey/country community garage band swirling around Hollywell, its main songwriter/lead singer, like a sweet and melancholy hurricane of ragged sound. I say community because, outside of Hollywell and the other core member, Ramon Joseph Santos, players seem to appear and disappear as needed.
Their recent album, Blame the Clown, sits at the opposite side of the spectrum from AI-generated music. At this point, that might be the highest compliment an album can receive.
Blame the Clown is about as DIY as you get. The tracks all seem to have been recorded in various home or makeshift studio set-ups. The overall mix makes it sound like the band is playing inside a giant tin can, and you’re standing outside of it with your ear pressed against the buzzing metal wall.
The songs may not have been recorded in one cohesive studio session, but the sound is certainly cohesive. It does what all great albums do– it creates a world for you to live in. The first track, “Is it Real?”, lays out all the elements that define the album’s mood: hyper-distorted guitars, crude drums, Hollywell’s heartfelt, howling vocal, and Ramon’s earnest, twangy pedal steel.
There’s no doubt the sound is rough, but every song is also perfectly balanced. The drums are remarkably well-mixed (which, if you don’t know, may be the hardest part of production). And cradled by all of it is Caspian Hollywell’s vocal, which sits front and center, like he’s singing right to you. There’s no unnecessary compression or autotune, which have become the norm in modern recording. The sound is raw, unaffected, and completely their own.
Who produced and mixed the tracks, you ask? Spotify lists Cas P. Ian as “Composer / Studio Producer”. As I said, whether by design or by accident, the guy’s made a myth of himself. Ramon “Razor” Santos, too, has a very American folk hero aura around him.
Unlike most punk music, which attacks the beat like an angry dog, Twisted Teens lays back. Somehow they maintain the energy of running without running; without ever stumbling over their own feet. It’s like a really enthusiastic amble. In that way, it is very New Orleans.
Songwriting for Blame the Clown
None of this would really matter that much if the songwriting wasn’t as strong as it is. To me, the standout track, at least for songwriting, is #2 “Wild Connection”. It’s a funny little love song, though you wouldn’t guess it from the sound.
Walkin’ down the aisle carrying all your books.
Boys you used to date give me dirty looks.
But I don’t mind the evil eye looking my direction.
They’re all worried about stupid shit.
Making model trains from a kit,
and placing online bets from an application.
We got a wild connection.
The lyrics are specific, image driven, not fucking around, and funny. The absurd sense of humor might be the best thing about the lyrics throughout.
The next track, “I Operate”, is a clever little ditty about “a religion called circumcision” that ends up with Hollywell talk-singing a story about being 10 years old and getting circumcised “in a car going downtown”. In the story, they threw his foreskin out the car window and it “hit a woman who was wearing only a nightgown”. Hilarious. And, again, mythological. If this story isn’t the makings of a modern American tall tale, I don’t know what is.
Blame the Clown’s Surprising Instrumentation
“I Operate” incorporates a dreamy, even shoe-gazy electric guitar, which tastefully appears throughout the album. It also introduces some seemingly out-of-place programmed drums, which somehow, just fit. Similar drum sounds show up in “Little Seed”, “100 Bill is Gone!”, and “Who Could it Be?”. Usually, I’d be turned off by them, but it works with the aesthetic, which is completely unique. It gives the songs a charming collage-like quality that I’m not mad at.
While the whole album has a Southern edge, it shines brightest in “Peekaboo Hand”, which starts with a dirty 4-on-the-floor kick and classic southern guitar lick, then resolves into a swinging shuffle. “Our love is real, could never fade away. Peekaboo hand, I’m going away,” Hollywell croons in that raspy, nonchalant way.
The most sonically different of all the tracks might be “Hurricane”. On the 3rd beat of the first measure, a blown-out kick drum rages in like a gunshot, along with the pedal steel which has been so distorted it sounds like the low growl of a swamp creature crawling toward you. This is followed by “White Hot Coal”’s return to a fairly straightforward southern singer-songwriter tune, with a halo of fiddle hovering around it.
Photos by Bobbi Rich (IG: @mamahotdog)
Twisted Teens‘ laid-back, unaffected vibe is captivating and that is because it’s real. These guys seem to genuinely be who they appear to be.
But, underneath all that nonchalance are some real artists taking their job as artists seriously. They aren’t trying to sound like anyone else; they aren’t keeping up with the trends.
They’re digging into their specific experience, their singular artistic vision, and sharing something with the world that the world wouldn’t otherwise get to experience. That’s the job. And it’s a job that AI will never be able to do. It’s a job that should be taken seriously, mixed with all the absurdity and messiness and passion and attitude that only an artist can bring.
I applaud them for doing their job.
Go listen to Blame the Clown. It’s really good.
Bandcamp:
Spotify: