Today on Young Ears, Fresh Perspective I'm going to do something I usually don't do: review my own work. For those of you who don't care about such things, come back tomorrow. I write what I want. For those of you sticking around, I know what you're thinking. "Josh! How can you do an objective review on something you wrote and recorded?". Well it's been at least 4 years, I've grown and moved on a great deal, and I'm playing with a completely different group of musicians. I feel pretty far removed from it all at this point.
That being said, 5 years ago I was in a band called Crisis Cage. We were a hard rock band out of Highland, IN. Our sound was pretty punkish/bluesy hard rock. I was listening to a LOT of Guns N' Roses at the time so a significant portion of the musical inspiration came from them. During the original line-up which consisted of my best friend Quin Barwick on lead vocals, Billy Mach on rhythm guitar, Frank Cizon on drums, and myself on lead guitar we never did play any live shows, but we DID record and release a 4 song EP called The First to Escape EP. This was all original material that I had written (though most of the lyric work was done by Quin). It consisted of 3 regular songs and 1 short instrumental; all of which were recorded in the basement of a semi-pro producer we knew. Also, we had a studio musician Ian Echols come in and play bass on the recordings.
The song writing on the EP while still fairly simplistic still holds up to a certain extent. It isn't my finest work, but is some of my most passionate, primal, and powerful. I was just coming out of my teenage years at the time and was still filled with some of that rage. The song Being a Gentleman reflects that perfectly. It's one of the few times I could get away with playing just an E chord for the majority of a song, but yet still have it kick serious ass because of the way I was playing it. The lyrics I actually wrote myself because of a bad date I had been on and how frustrated I was about love in general at the time. Surprisingly though, they don't make me cringe. I actually still enjoy listening to it. Quin put some serious gusto into it and conveyed the very feelings I was trying to get across.
Quin of course did some fantastic lyric writing of his own on the other two songs that had lyrics: Let's Wake Up the Neighborhood and You Better Run. For those songs he didn't write so much from personal experience but more of took concepts and let his imagination run wild with them. His vocals are absolutely killer on the recordings. You can tell he was putting everything he had into every song. His passion inspired me to do even better myself. Who knew such a big sound could come out of such a little guy?
Of course, not everything on The First to Escape EP was perfect. There were moments where things did get a little too self-indulgent on my end and Quin's as well. Plus, to a certain extent it was straight up cock rock. Not exactly a bad thing, but you could tell that not all the lyrics and music were supposed to have profound depth to them. In terms of production the guitars didn't exactly sound the best because Billy and I were using two different guitars and two different amps with different settings. This made for a bit of a muddy lackluster guitar sound. Also, there wasn't enough power in the drums. No pop in the snare and barely any kick drum at all in the mix. Personally, I felt the drumming was also a bit simplistic for my taste; though that isn't to say it was bad by any means.
As I look back on The First to Escape EP I remember fondly writing and recording those songs. Despite the fact I was trying to be Slash (especially during the instrumental titled Downstairs Blues) at the time I'm still proud of the fact that we were able to get into a semi-studio setting to record this. I'll admit it doesn't quite have the exact sound I was going for, but there are a myriad of reasons for that; some the studio's fault and some our own. I look back at it and think of the EP as my first step into a larger world. Naturally I've done bigger and better things since then (not to toot my own horn), but it's always nice to listen back to where I came from in terms of being a musician. I wouldn't mind rerecording these songs some day but with better production, better guitar and drum sounds, better solos, slightly more complex drumming, etc. I think those songs deserve it.
The First to Escape EP, by Crisis Cage receives 3 out of 5 stars.
Track List:
1. You Better Run
2. Let's Wake Up the Neighborhood
3. Downstairs Blues
4. Being a Gentleman (Gets You Nowhere)
Listen to the EP on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL875FBD03444E3018
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