While the Glenn’s Away

Well, Glenn’s off in Europe on a two-week vacation, which leaves me to hold down the fort. However, I’m left with a problem: before I post any songs I have to send them to Glenn so he can store them on his computer. He ain’t around, so I’ll have to do a dumbed down post.

In my last post, I talked about the band A Throwaway Society and mentioned their ex-guitarist Dave Maddux (a.k.a. Emo Dave). Well, seeing as he’s no longer a member of the band and is now working on solo material under the name Corkscrew, I thought I’d make a follow-up post about his music. The only work he has out right now is an online album of instrumental tracks called The Tree Behind the Creek available through iCompositions. I was actually afraid that I wouldn’t like it and I would have to say something bad about it. Not the case. It was a very impressive collection of songs. I would say that the only problem with that music is that you can tell that is was just made by some college guy messing around with his guitar in his garage. It was rough around the edges. But in a way, that gives it some of its charm.

But on to the review. Dave actually got a friend of his to play drums on several tracks, but on others it’s just drum effects produced by an electric keyboard. Don’t let that reflect on the quality of the music. There are some pretty rockin’ tracks in this collection that will get your head a-banging. For example, “Anti-Grouch Pills” is probably the strongest track with it’s crunchy sonic assault that must be listened to at high volumes to be truly appreciated. I really enjoy the darkly-tinged guitar work. “Risen” is also an interesting track that is very catchy despite the occasional technical slip-ups.

Despite strong tracks such as these, the use of the electric keyboards is kind of annoying sometimes. I would say that they only work in “Drop” and “Knowledge” because they aren’t the most prominent feature. In my opinion, cheap electric keyboards sounds silly if they’re the only instrument used in a song. But I’m forgiving when they’re used by up-and-coming artists without much in the way of resources. And Dave uses the keyboards well to support his guitar-playing. It shows how he can use limited resources to produce enjoyable music. I have no doubt that if he keeps at it, he will become a great musician.

At the moment, Dave is currently working on a solo album that is coming along slowly but surely. As far as I know it’s just him recording the album. He sent me the first completed track, “Gentrification,” but without Glenn around I can’t post it. So I’ll make it an “Extra KRUD” post at a future date. For now, enjoy Corkscrew’s older recordings from his iCompositions account. I linked to the best of Corkscrew’s available songs. Feel free to download all of them, I’m just directly linking to the best of them. Oh yeah, and avoid “Star Fissure.” I’m sorry, but that song just sucks. Everything else is fair game.

And this is the only picture of Dave I could find. It’s him being cut by Glenn (that’s Glenn’s hand in the foreground).

Corkscrew – Anti-Grouch Pills
Corkscrew – Risen
Corkscrew – Drop
Corkscrew – In Search Of

Yeah, I want Glenn to get back too.