Territorial Bloggings

The latest offering from the American Idol brain trust — The Next Great American Band — ain’t all that bad.

Compared to its siblings, it’s different in certain ways & similar in others. Overall, however, I’d say that it bears a closer resemblance to AI than to SYTYCD. That’s not bad & it’s not good; rather, it just *is*.

I liked that the first two “rounds” were handled differently, in that the “open auditions” were done via DVD submissions, which served as the fodder for producers to winnow things down to the 60 bands that were flown out to the Nevada desert for the equivalent of AI’s Hollywood & SYTYCD’s Vegas phases. The producers erred on the side of brevity for this first installment, and I think it was an overall good choice. Hewing too closely to the formula that requires lots of “train wreck” auditions might’ve been just a bit too much for this initial installment. The two hour premier left me wanting a little bit more, instead of feeling fatigued & abused by the parade of delusion & ineptitude.

The host (the New Zealand version of Seacrest) is ok. He’s no Cat Deely, but he’s ok.

The judges are right out of the AI playbook, except that Sheila E is so far & away better than Paula that it’s not even funny, and Johnny Rzeznick does a more credible job in the Dawg role than the caricature that Randy has become. Dicko’s Aussie spin on Simon’s “bad/mean” slot isn’t bad, but I can’t help but be distracted by the fact that he looks & sounds to me like Darrell Hammond playing a role in an SNL sketch.

The top 12 bands represent a reasonably diverse cross section of the musical spectrum. It’s nice to see genres as diverse as big band swing, bluegrass, gospel-tinged heritage, Philly-funk, new-wave/punk, 70′s hard rock, 60′s Brit-pop, speed/heavy metal, and country-pop. It’s not cookie-cutter in any way — I mean, come on, who would’ve thought that there’d be two bands that feature the mandolin?!? Cool!

My personal favorites at this point are the Clark Brothers (the trio of brothers who are sons of a traveling tent revivalist) and their gospel-tinged heritage music, The Muggs with their Detroit 70′s hard rock (in a serious Ted Nugent, Stranglehold-era vibe), Sixwire with their very slick country-pop sound, and Rocket because I’m a sucker for their neo new-wave/punk, Go Go’s type of sound.

I think that Franklin Bridge could also go a long way, and it’s quite possible that they could work their way into my favs list, as they are really, really good with their whole Philly power-funk sound.

None of the rest of the bands are really grabbing me all that much. Light of Doom could be interesting, if only to see how their speed metal sound will develop. They’re also interesting because they’ve got such strong musicianship for a bunch of 12 & 13 year-olds. Musically, they really do do justice to their metal genre; unfortunately, their vocals & overall presentation (keep your shirts on!) hold them back.

It’s not the best of shows — it strikes me as more of a Summer realitytv offering — but it’s certainly not the worst show out there. And that, is good enough to keep me watching.

-ghp