Jukebox Junkies
Choose Your Fix
Independent

by William Michael Smith

For me lately, the new music that really grabs me by the ears and slaps me out of my scratchin'-and-noddin' aural stupor is music that mixes alt-country and power pop to produce smart rock. That's not necessarily the musical fix that my severe tonal addiction absolutely demands, but lately it's the one that gives my extremely high tolerance sonic synapses the best buzz. In particular, California bands like Shawn Amos, Beachwood Sparks, and $1,000 Wedding seem to be able to induce the desired state of euphoria that I go several times a day to my musical medicine cabinet for. The local pushers recently supplied me with a brand new California musical herb known as Jukebox Junkies and it may be a hard habit to kick.

Jukebox Junkies is a project of the talented and brainy Marc Dauer. A one-time medical student immersed in a surgical residency at UCLA, Dauer tossed all the schooling aside in the middle of the program to follow his muse. After a year of residency in which he was perpetually tired, he quit the program, formed a band called Five Easy Pieces, and quickly produced an independent album which caught the attention of MCA. The band was given a significant budget to record a full-length release with T-Bone Burnett and Don Smith producing, and the resulting album was one of the top debuts of 1998 according to All Music Guide. But before Five Easy Pieces could capitalize on that success, MCA got caught in the industry consolidation that was rampant in 1998. The band got out of its commitment and moved on.

Independent once again, Dauer arranged with members of Wallflowers, Minibar, and many of his former bandmates to record an album on spec. While the main recording was done at Ocean Studios, Dauer did the overdubs in his garage and put together Choose Your Fix "for less than the food budget" on his major label album.

In describing the album, Dauer doesn't dither about naming obscure influences, admitting up front that he likes the alt-country sounds of Wilco and The Jayhawks and the power pop of bands like Big Star. A strong British power pop influence is also evident throughout the production. Plenty of punch, big, crisp, pinpoint harmonies, and solid radio-friendly hooks sums up the basic formula for the 11 tracks on Choose Your Fix, which Miles of Music has dubbed "roots pop."

The jangly "A Wish" highlights the Wilco/Jayhawks leanings, but as with most of the tracks on Choose Your Fix, Dauer often takes the pop fork in the road rather than the country path. "Undertow" finds Dauer revving up the tempo and making a wry comment on the forces at work in the big city rat race, while "Wrecking Ball" and "Nothing Gets Me Down," with their wistful pedal steel licks and Dauer's just-a-touch-of-hillbilly-angst vocals, are straight from the No Depression textbook.

My ears tell me two Junkies' tracks should have a chance on the radio charts (or one of the smart television series like Ed or Dharma and Greg). The smart, jangling, Wallflowery "Uptown Train," which features the best of numerous hooks on the album and some of Dauer's finest lyric work, has the best chance of any Junkies song of being a hit single.

She's a picture
Overexposure
High speed dancer
Makes you notice her
Blue fingertips, flaming lips
She'll run you over if you don't know her

The other radio-ready track is the dark but rocking song of risk and desperation, the edgy "Seven on the Line." It features another of Dauer's satisfying hooks, this one drawn straight from LA high life.

Two dollars and a pack of smokes
Twenty bucks just to get you home
Double down, seven on the line
We've been waiting a long, long time
Another wasted dream
Another trip to hang over

Formally trained as a violinist, Dauer has a growing list of songs that he's placed in films (Mystery, Alaska, I'll Be Home For Christmas, and American Pie). He also wrote the theme song to Fox's Significant Others, the string arrangements on Me, Myself and Irene, and performed in a segment of Melrose Place. Dauer has a natural gift for cinematic images and an instinctual understanding of the sounds that modern pop films require. Listening to Choose Your Fix, one gets the feeling that much of music on the album could find a home either in the movies or on mainstream rock radio. On tracks like "Sentimental Tattoo," Dauer demonstrates a scriptwriter's grasp of the argot and atmosphere of modern city life.

Frustration our common fascination
Got a cryptic message
Found it lying beside the bed, it said
"This hard drive's almost empty
Know we've both had plenty
But our egos are underfed"

Ironically, Dauer's grasp of modern city life and the required media aesthetic may also be the one drawback to the album. While most of Dauer's arrangements and melodies are big, bright, and muscularly lush in a McCartney-meets-Wallflowers, radio-friendly sense, some of it will certainly come close to being a meal of less-than-filling ear candy to those in the Americana/alt-country audience who prefer their music with a bit of grit and a few rough edges. Even the moments that touch on country music here are obviously aimed at city ears, and there is no denying the similarities with the Wallflowers sound (Wallflower keyboardist Rami Jaffee plays on the record) on tracks like "Over and Over" and "Reason To Believe." Without a doubt the music is well played and well produced, but some of the tracks are highly mainstream oriented in a calculated, stay-in-the-middle-of-the-road vein. If there is such a thing as "too perfect" (or too slick, too smooth), some of the tracks on Choose Your Fix probably qualify.

I suspect Dauer's darker pieces are probably the works that will appeal most to the Rockzillaworld audience. The closing track, "Anything," with its sad organ-grinder keyboard accent by Walt Vincent, is a murky emotional tangle with an ominous, fatalistic, end-of-the-rope undercurrent. It's a love song, but the singer knows the odds are long and the path fraught with chances to misstep and miscalculate. The possibility for failure seems almost infinite versus the chances of love and happiness.

The end has come late again
Let's share a cigarette, tuck off the night
Excuse me for letting loose words from my head
Maybe better some left unsaid,

You could be anything, you could be anyone, would it be you
If I could be anything I'd be it for you

With Dauer's heady musicality, his obviously large talent, and his theatrical grasp of the writing equation, the Jukebox Junkies could become a huge popular success with a few breaks. Certainly their association with T-Bone Burnett is an indication of their prowess and of their promise and they are definitely in the right town to get a big break. (The two gigs currently listed on their website are at The Viper Room, so...) I could stand for Dauer to roughen it up a little, maybe add a bit of testosterone to some of the tracks the next time out, but Choose Your Fix is a very sophisticated, polished, together musical document. Don't be surprised if another big label doesn't scoop this band up sooner than later. They're good.

* As effective as a shot of Hadacol Elixer, Jukebox Junkies'll cure whatever ails you. Get a dime bag (no, really, for $10, check it out, my brother) direct from the growers without going through middlemen or DEA agents at www.jukeboxjunkies.com/junkies


Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

 
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