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www.churchonthursday.com
Atom & His Package
Redefining Music
Hopeless Records
2001
"You're undercover funny, you're only funny when I'm not around"--frickin'
brilliant! It's safe to
say that I love Atom & His Package. Sometimes dorks get their say, and
sometimes dorks change a current standard. Atom (yes, a dork) does this with
Redefining Music.
Usually I dismiss sequenced, sampled, drum-track, etc. type "music". I don't think sampling other people's music and creating another song from it can be defined as a valid piece of music. Yet Atom & His Package is just that--sampled music that gets sequenced and sung over live. I need to point out that Atom does sing, play guitar and (I guess) keyboards. It's just that he is his band. He has a small box, thus his "package"! I don't give a rat's ass how that was made or done...I just know it rocks.
Not to categorize this music, but you could justifiably hear it on Live 105 or a pop station. This album transcends all boundaries. The only way to redefine music is to make something new using what you know from the past and twist it; this is how genres are born. Atom deftly pulls from a vast background of roc 'n' roll, rap, pop, and the list goes on.
I recently missed Atom & His Package live, but I will catch him next time for sure. So, if you missed him too, here is a sample of what you can expect from Redefining Music:
"Undercover Funny", a song about how he and his friends relentlessly requested a band called the Dahli Lamas (a bar band I guess) to play one of their songs again and again and after all this, Atom had the audacity to steal it.
"If You Own The Washington Redskins You're A Cock" is about sports teams with non-P.C. names and mascots. Atom doesn't agree with this but I'm all for it. What if Spain gets a pro football team and they called themselves the Conquistadors? They are Spain, and that is part of their history, right? Mexico might get pissed about being taken over, but that just makes for a great rivalry.
--Garren Hanon