Garage T. Rashington III – Acoustic Slop
Garage T. Rashington III – Acoustic Slop – Album Review
ADULT CONTEMPORARY. Fuck.
Okay, I’m kidding. It’s not that.
A DUDE AND A GUITAR. Acoustic Slop.
Alright, that’s what it is, but it’s probably fair to say it’s more than that too.
I’ll tell ya this much, this guy is never gonna be normal in comparison to the rest of ya out there.
“Where’s The Tylenol?” “Where’s The Acetaminophen?” Is there a difference that I’m somehow unaware of? I knew there was a difference between Tylenol and Aspirin, but is there a difference between Tylenol and Acetaminophen? Quit yer damn bellyachin’ Garage! I’m here to listen to some music, not learn the fundamental ingredients resting behind the mirrored glass of the average medicine cabinet. Listen…I’ll be real with ya…this man makes nutty decisions sometimes, which you can tell is certainly the case when someone starts out their last two records with a reference to the same kind of over the counter drug in the title of their tunes, but obviously in the case of GTRIII it goes beyond that, because it always does with this guy. Dude’s gone and made one of the better tunes I’ve not only heard in his own catalog, but indeed this year, and then savagely muddies the waters towards the end of this tune with a minute left to go, and for what – to make a Schwarzenegger reference? Am I tripping out here? What in the all fuck? Everything else about this track was working out brilliantly, and Acoustic Slop seemed like it was gonna be a straightforward victory from the very first moment – “Where’s The Acetaminophen” has incredible harmonies, fantastic acoustic vibes, and great words for the most part – so for real Rashington…why in the all hell did we need to drag Arnold into this, let alone with one of his most over-used lines of all time? Life is often about regrets…I feel like he’s gonna look back on “Where’s The Acetaminophen?” after the years go by and shake his head as much as I have been every time I reach that moment, wondering what in the hell he was on when he wrote that part. Is it a “side effect of medication?” It certainly could be. It’s not a side effect of being normal, that much I can tell ya. If you get 98% of what you’re doing 100% perfectly right be wary of how that 2% can bite ya in the fucking ass. He does so much just to get a reaction from you…don’t give him one…don’t reward his weird behaviors.
This mythical beast of a man we know as Garage T. Rashington III should definitely be proud of how this whole record sounds, that much I can tell ya. Cleaner than clean, these opening tracks sound freakin’ spectacular…to the point where the guy might just have to consider becoming a permanent acoustic act. Dude will reveal some remarkable chops on the ol’ acoustic axe throughout “Third Rate Movie” – Garage is no slouch y’all. Sloppy as fuck as a human being, a definition of which I’m using loosely at best, but as a musician, it’s like he locks right in and gets the job done right when it matters. “Third Rate Movie” has his folksy storytellin’ style on display…heck, it’s even a bit Bluesy when it comes right down to it. I suppose you could say this song is about communication and miscommunication combined…at least I’m guessing. I don’t ever pretend to know what the heck Garage T. Rashington III is on about in the songs he writes…the guy communicates on a level the rest of us will likely never understand. You gotta read in between the lines to get it all, and I’m a writer, not a reader. Like, I hear music, but I don’t REALLY listen – or whatever it was that Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson were going on about in that “Third Rate Movie” of their own. This is real good though…I’m feeling like GTRIII could very well be onto his best work so far after these first two tunes in what’s been a wildly productive debut year that has seen him release three records…so far. Not a hair outta place on this track though…I might still like “Where’s The Acetaminophen?” better up until that Schwarzenegger line, but this sounds damn good too. His guitar steals the show here, which is saying something considering how much personality the dude puts into the vocals and the effort he puts into his lyricism. All that work, and I IGNORE IT so I can listen to the guitar. Take that motherfucker. You’re in my world now Garage T. – I spare no one’s feelings, ever.
“I’m A Clown” – his words, not mine. This is pretty damn clever though. For a carnival barker to become a clown is no easy feat. He spends this entire track walkin’ around on his hands and doing things with his feet waving around in the air. Don’t laugh! What have YOUR feet done lately? Walk? Take you from point-A to point-B? Ohhhhhhh, you’re AMAZING now, aren’t you? What a load of horseshit. Our man GTRIII is over here, doin’ his “walk of shame” on his hands, throwing knives around with his freakin’ feet, and all you do is use them to WALK? Hows about you take them feet for a long walk off a short cliff eh? The things we do for the people we love I tell ya. “She is not amused, neither are her friends,” he laments after all this walkin’ around on his hands and juggling dangerous shit. “Practicing all day and night perfecting my routine just to be rejected is an absurdity.” Maybe to YOU, Garage…maybe to you. To the rest of us non-clowns, non-clowning around in our daily life, we probably figure you got what you deserved. Play clown games, win clown prizes, as they say. I dig the tension, drama, and self-loathing you’ll find in “I’m A Clown” though…he knows his efforts are all for naught, every bit as much as they are for any creative type of person. You make art? No worries, no one will look at it. Make what you wanna make. You write songs? Pretty! No one cares, and no one listens. You write music reviews? Like…for a living? Well that’s just plain fucking sad & I’m embarrassed for all the people that know you. You wanna meet a clown Garage, trust me…that’s every critic that’s ever critiqued a single damn thing & thought that it would ever mean something to anyone else. Existence is a hollow void of emptiness.
And so, like “A Bird Beyond The Milky Way,” we speed through life, hoping we’ll run into something that means anything, if only by accident. I gotta admit…he’s got an interesting tune here. I might actually have to write something real about it, but I haven’t decided yet. Dude’s an underrated guitar player, that much I can tell ya. I don’t want to contribute to much more to his ego, which already rages out of control to the point where you’ll wanna keep an eye out for the inevitable “self-involved slop” album that’ll come out one day, but there’s something to be said for keeping yourself busy and amused. For real though…listen to this dude play will ya? Fuck! I wish I had a tenth of the skill he has for playing guitar. Smart harmonics, tremendous technique, and perhaps above all things, the production & clarity to prove it. I might talk a lot of shit, but I ain’t gonna deny the man can play. “A Bird Beyond The Milky Way” is undoubtedly not only beyond the milky way, but beyond comprehension for most – which might be what makes it interesting to me. Tracks like this one probably shouldn’t be made at all if we’re talking about accessibility and what the masses can handle and all that…but otherwise, have at’er. There’s a level of creativity and art at work that you can’t help but admire in the music this dude makes. While it’s fair to say that this song moves like a low-key, off-broadway version of “Blister In The Sun” by The Violent Femmes in many ways, I’m making a personal choice to not hold that against him too much.
Dig the sonic references you’ll find in the echoes you’ll hear on “Into The Cave I Go” – that checks out. “In darkness darker than I’ve ever known,” our fearless hero dares to go into the deep recesses of his mind and music all at once, bouncing his ideas back and forth off the walls in his mind. “I feel as though I am a ghost” is a powerful line at the end that resonates deeply. It’s Garage’s debut year still, give him time…eventually he’ll come to the same realizations that the rest of us in the artistic community have already come to & understand we’re all just one Haley Joel Osment away from knowing what existence really is for us creative-types. No joke though, “Into The Cave I Go” is quite likely up there in my top three on this album…I dig this conceptually, I dig the imagery in his lyricism, I think he’s done a great job in how this song is recorded once again, and most importantly, I feel like I didn’t learn too much or have to look a bunch of shit up like how medicine works like I did as the album began. I still don’t remember what the bloody difference is between a stalagmite and a stalactite is without looking it up, but ONE OR TWO reasons to have to re-open Google is acceptable to me when listening to music. GTRIII does an outright exceptional job on this song, and rebounds impressively from reminding me of the Violent Femmes right beforehand. All is forgiven my friend…do not go gentle into that good night…rage, rage, and all that whilst letting your voice bounce through my speakers anytime. Love the guitar’s tone here.
For real…all kidding aside, Garage T. Rashington III is likely some of the best music out there that you’ve been currently ignoring and missing out on. Each record has been stellar so far, and I really do think that Acoustic Slop is quite likely my favorite of the bunch. I fully recognize the massively uphill battle that a sound like this has in getting heard and make no illusions about that. Are you going to find “Where In The World Am I?” on your radio dial anytime soon? Fuck no! You’re probably not even going to find it on your cool-ass cousin’s list of killer tunes from the underground either…we’re just not living on that plane of existence right now, where artistic efforts like this should be thriving, recognized, and revered. That being said, those of us lucky enough to discover music like what Garage T. Rashington III makes are among the most fortunate humans on this planet, and we’re bound to be loyal fans for life. Dude’s just doing things differently than the rest are, and in a more just society, that would lead to something more significant than toiling in relative obscurity. Even he doesn’t know where he fits in, hence, you’re hearing him ask “Where In The World Am I?” out loud while he’s trying to keep you entertained at the same time! Life is freakin’ confusing, and this track is simply further proof of that. If a mastermind genius like GTRIII can’t figure out where to get a foothold on existence and he’s walking around on his freakin’ HANDS for Christ’s sake, what fucking chance do the rest of us mortals have in figuring anything out? “What an obstacle course this has become” – that applies to this song, this life, and certainly this review as well. It ain’t easy to explain the actual significance of an artist like Garage T. Rashington III and how important he truly is to the world he’s so lost in…but to be completely truthful, this dude is special.
What would you say if I offered you some watermelon and sausage in the same bite? Or how about some Kool-aid powder mixed in with your wine? You in, or you out? You’re out, right? So then like…what the fuck are we doing on “Tuesday Evening” GTRIII? I ain’t lying to ya…the music on this song might be some of the most impressive stuff I’ve ever heard from the guy melodically & structurally – and I am beyond perplexed on how the fuck he went left instead of right here. Like…I’ll admit, I’m perplexed to the point of circling all the way back around to being impressed again…because there’s NO WAY anyone should have decided to do what he did in the verses of “Tuesday Evening” in comparison to what the music was calling out for. Like, he goes so far in the opposite direction of any expectations that you might have had, that you’re forced to admit that it’s insanely insightful…because no one else would have heard what he clearly did in a song like this one. The chorus is a fuckin’ fantastic fit, and I absolutely love that part…I’d even go as far as to say that’s a universal moment we’d likely all agree on too. Do I love the verses? Look…I can’t tell you one way or the other if I’m being honest with ya…to a degree, I’m like no…but at the same time, I love the words he’s written and would put this up there with my favorite tracks on a lyrical level. Do I think it’s a good fit? I DON’T KNOW. It’s a strange one, that’s what I know. Some combinations don’t seem like they’d work until you’ve got’em right in front of you…and even then, you’re probably still gonna question them. “Tuesday Evening” is odd to the nth degree in so many ways, but an undeniably pleasant listen too…I don’t think anyone out there would see this track coming or how much it might potentially grow on them within a couple of spins. I think I’ll go to my grave swearing up and down that the verses are the weirdest choice I’ve heard this guy make to-date when you consider how naturally sweet and beautiful the sound of the music is – it makes for what can only be described as an odd pairing…but I felt like redemption exists in the lyrics & the chorus of this track without a doubt. The musicianship and production on Acoustic Slop continues to be outstanding.
Oh the irony I tell ya…”Rock Songs” is as delicate of a tune as you could find on this record, and clearly GTRIII has done that intentionally in contrast to what you’d likely expect to find. To further the point, he’s inserted a shit ton of geological references into this track as well, so that you know, he’s basically done his level best to make this gentle song all-things-rock without actually BEING Rock, you dig? Like, you have to admire the commitment here…and his witty lyricism should make you smile, even if it’s only in that Dad-jokes type of way…”this rock is rocking harder than a stone,” – that’s as true as true has ever been. So…yes…on the one hand, it’s intentionally ironic, but on the other, you can’t help but acknowledge that it’s an homage to a genre he clearly loves too. Sure, it might have been fun to make a Rock song called “Rock Songs” – but would it have been THIS fun? Endlessly deciding to go in the opposite direction that you’d expect him to is part & parcel of what makes GTRIII so rad to listen to all the time…ultimately, I’m all for it. I might still be weirded out by what he created for the verses of “Tuesday Evening,” and will swear up and down that Arnie has no place on a song like “Where’s The Acetaminophen?” – but I ain’t denying the cleverness of contrast rocking our world on “Rock Songs.” It’s a similar idea to what he did on “Late 19th Century Opera” from Sophomore Slop to a degree, with a totally different sound and genre to examine of course, but yeah…ideas-wise, it’s comparable. That’s the tough thing about making so much music in a short amount of time…stuff can become more similar than we realize when perspective is only ever achieved through distance and space in between the things we do. All that being said, “Rock Songs” is one of my favorite performances from the guy on this record, it’s marvelously clever and well-executed…I think it’s one of Acoustic Slop’s better tunes really.
As he comes out of his cave and the “Morning Sun” returns, Rashington finishes his record on a fairly ‘normal’ track that’s arguably one of the more straightforward you’ll find from the man to-date. Look – not everything he’s gonna do is gonna be outright weird, but even when it’s not, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to hear something that sounds contrived for you to enjoy either. “Morning Sun” is what it is really…it’s natural, unforced, clean, and clear. It’s about missing a friend, it’s about missing that piece of yourself you can rely on to be there, it’s about feeling lost in a way that seems hopeless, yet the sun still rises the next day just like you knew that it would. Pieces of the world like this stabilize us so much more than we tend to think about…we’d be lost without routine and the things we know. You might even be one of those folks that says FUCK ROUTINE, I’M A UNIQUE – and you might do your best to try to control that or steer life in the direction you want to…but that pesky sun will still rise in the morning and set in the evening. The routine of the planet still carries on a consistency to it whether you like it or not. There’s an “Ordinary World” moment or two inside this song, whether you consider it through the lyricism or a melodic reference to Duran Duran inside this cut that may or may not be intentional, but it’s welcome all the same. I always enjoy the music of this crazy fucker from this music scene we share – and I really do think that Garage T. Rashington III is one of the most underrated artists you’ll find in any corner of this music scene we share. He’s shown growth in each release so far, even at the rapid pace he’s been releasing music…and I do very much feel like Acoustic Slop represents his best so far. It’s so much more than a mere dude and a guitar…this is well-crafted stuff on every level, and he’s performed the living daylights outta this subtle set of tunes. “Morning Sun” is a solid conclusion that’ll tell ya he’s in this for the long haul…that no matter how much time passes, he’s never gonna get old or tire himself out on life. “I just don’t get it” sounds like a complete refusal to let the sun set on his creativity and the fun he’s having in this life, and I freakin’ love it. Keep on rocking you legend…acoustically, or otherwise.
Listen to music by Garage T. Rashington III at Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2YPl1AqY1gmwsUvDH2v4hp
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