Fla. Woman Dies of Flesh-Eating Bacteria

Sad but true, but it's happened here in Jacksonville.

And it's sad, too, that the St. Johns River is so polluted. Do not swim in this river. And I would advise against eating anything that came out of it.

And let's not forget the blue-green algae that is running riot in our river. Sigh.

The Mars Volta in Concert

The Mars who? The Mars Volta, that's who. These guys are making some exciting, new rock music that exudes a bevy of influences: Pink Floyd, salsa music, Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis, the Damned, to name just a few. (I find new things in their music all the time.)

A friend and I went down to Orlando to see The Mars Volta the other night. System of a Down was headlining; although I like a few of their songs I don't really consider myself a fan of "Armenian hate-rock" (as my friend jokingly puts it). They played well, though, and enjoyed an extremely energetic response from the crowd.

But back to The Mars Volta. I am blown away by how far Cedric and Omar have come since their At The Drive-in days. Cedric's emo-core days are over; he really just flat-out sings now, and I am amazed by his raw ability. Omar strikes me as a kind of lesser Thelonious Monk in that he can crank out some very creative, far-out riffs on a less than expansive store of technical prowess in the traditional sense. Perhaps that's a bit of a lefthanded compliment, but he definitely has an original sound.

Having said all that, I was a little disappointed in the band's sound Tuesday night. There were eight musicians on the stage (vocalist, guitarist, bassist, drummer, keyboardist, percussionist, percussionist/saxophonist, and a sound-manipulator/DJ) and the sound guy had them mixed way too high, which muddied the sound greatly. It wasn't the acoustics of the venue, or where we were sitting (stage right, second deck), that were the culprits, either.

The one thing that really irks me about a lot of concerts and gigs I go to is the tendency for rock bands to play wayyy too loud. Kick the levels down a notch or two, and the audience will feel and understand the music much better.

At any rate, this may or may not have been (and probably wasn't) The Mars Volta's fault since SOAD was the headliner, and the headliner will have things its own way. SOAD's sound was much clearer, which at at first I might have attributed to the fact that as a four-piece they had a more stripped-down sound. However, the opening band (the appropriately-named Bad Acid Trip, a god-awful exercise in aural abuse that could only be worse if one, uh, were actually on a bad acid trip while listening) was a four-piece as well and had really, really ear-cripplingly bad sound.

I think the upshot is that the sound guy either wasn't on his game that night or didn't care one way or another.

So the final tally is:

Bad Acid Trip: 1 out of 5 stars
The Mars Volta: 3 out of 5 stars
System of a Down: 4 out of 5 stars

While I'm being critical, I'd like to have given The Mars Volta a higher score but they get some marks off because they hardly acknowledged the audience: Cedric didn't introduce any songs or address the audience at all, and he and Omar spent the night looking across the stage at one another. (Whether this was to play off one another, conduct a mutual admiration society, or both, is up in the air. Maybe the sound was so bad that that was the only way they could stay on cue.) At any rate, what this apparent aloofness accomplished was to make the band seem remote to the audience. Not only was the music a hard to get into—particularly for anyone unfamiliar with the band—due to the mix's disservice to the music's inherent complexity, but the band just seemed distant.

On a musical level, these guys are on a different plane from most other rocks bands and a lot of people are into what they're doing: the buzz is out about The Mars Volta and people are aware that this band is making excitingly original and enigmatic music that defies categorization. The music this band creates is like a carrot on a stick: you can see it but you just can't quite grasp it literally. Cedric and Omar both have stated that part of the reason the lyrics are so abstract is to allow the audience to connect with it through their own interpretation of what the songs are about, which is an advanced concept. This band, if it is to endear itself to an even larger audience, needs to take people by the hand and connect with them when they play live.

If I sound like I'm a little down on The Mars Volta, I'm not. I chalk this up to an off night, sound-wise. I could tell through the murk that they were playing well, but when I have a hard time identifying songs when they begin, we have a problem. I will see them again on their next tour— at a different venue. I still think they're damn good.