The heads up on finance rock

by Jack Marx

Jack Marx rummages around in the world of current and not-so current affairs, matters of import and ideas of no importance whatsoever, strange thoughts, fringe theories and utterances commonly left unuttered.


The financial crisis has seen legions of formerly wealthy employees of the monetary sector spat out onto the streets with no jobs and no skills of which to speak. While many have done the appropriate thing and taken their own lives, others, addicted to the money-for-nothing and frustrated at having nobody on whom to use their stupid language, have gone in search of some other industry where sex, drugs and mountains of money are the dividends for a head full of zero, and where those dashing corporate photos they’ve had taken will not go to waste.

Not surprisingly, many have found their way into the music industry - not in the boardrooms or behind the scenes, where there are no openings to be found (all those ‘look lively’ positions at record companies already occupied by lucky ducks who won’t be vacating their seats until the last sods have been tossed onto the lids of their coffins), but “front of house”, on stage, where an absence of acumen, a propensity for bullshit and the work ethic of an old koala are not obstacles, but rather necessary gifts towards a successful career.

What follows is the sort of PR we can look forward to from what might appropriately be called “Crash Rock”, a genre with no sound of its own, but a look and a language for sure.



Paradigm Shift play slick, edgy, customer-focused power pop that goes the extra mile. Their debut CD, Analysis Paralysis, will be appearing soon on a variety of communications channels and available on a diverse cross-section of income streams next calender period.

The Gap Analysis have been flying under the radar recently, but they’re back, bold as brass and with the bandwidth to become the industry leader in the field of impactful, scalable, best-of-breed rock. Their new album, Thinking Outside The Box, is out now on Shared Vision records.

Quality Vector, who describe themselves as “the Wall Street Wham!”, are two intercompatible multi-creationalists whose business case is to pump out some bleeding-edge, highly envisioneered pop. Their latest release, Emotional Leakage, is out now on the Heads Up label.

Need to fast-track towards a temporary priority health break in a cash-neutral pattern? Why not let the blue-sky pop of That Said be your catalyst and/or change agent? An essentially live-oriented ideation, That Said see productizing as very much a matter of horizonal thinking at this stage off the game.

If recontextualized standards are what float your boat, let the good times flowchart with The Prior Commitments, a dynamic task force of individual, self-starting team players dedicated to user-centric, value-added, been-there-done-that pop. It is said the female aspirants in the outfit utilise their core competencies backstage, where fortunate right-timers can capitalize on the professional drill-down, if we’re on the same page.

Push The Envelope address the issue of big-picture, bottom-line, brainstorming, going-forward rock. Their new album, Drop Back and Punt, is out now on Synergy Records.

Another client-focused, reverse-critical outfit is Take That Off Line, whose debut hit, a repurposed Girls Just Wanna Have Funds, is in pre-production no longer.

Not your usual dog-and-pony show, Linkin Ballpark is brooding, downward-trend stuff that’s managing some optimum crowd sourcing at inner-city venues if the last show of hands is anything to go by. Those after some take-home value could do worse than to transact with a view to acquiring their new double A-side, Paving the Cowpath/Skate To Where the Puck is Going, out now on the No Brainer label.

The Deliverables are robust game-changers whose go-to-market strategy is to ramp up the volume, let the rubber meet the road and hit the ground running with dynamic and sustainable noise in the system that tears down the silos and takes no prisoners. The take-away is a user experience of maximum leverage, a seamless integration of stand-alone sonic solutioning and lyrics you can really wrap your head around. You can catch the controversial video for their new single, Voluntary Retirement, on any of the current programs that outsource material for a strategic viewer-based clientèle.

After something a bit more cerebrally technicalized? The Aperture Moments is a leading-edge, data-driven duo whose future-proof product will certainly leave a footprint on the project that is the history of music. Their left-of-centre album, Exponential Mindshare, is out now on Bucketize.

A smooth, seamless and professional experience whose sound doesn’t lean too far to one side lest the canoe tips over, Strategic Fit steps up the plate and swings for the fences with a whole nine yards featuring everything from soup to nuts - refreshing in a music scene where the rule of thumb is to put your eggs all in the one basket. Their album, It’s Apples and Oranges, is out now on Loaded for Bear.

Their music can be deregardized to some latter date – the fact of the matter is that I wouldn’t mind taking a a deeper dive into the female team member of the Information Architects, where a bit of the old integrated knowledge exchange would probably circle back to see things going from good to great until I was spent.

The Low Hanging Fruit have a goal-oriented game plan whose movement up the value chain of pop is good to go since the release of their debut album, Plug and Play, on 111% Records.

Prioritized sing from the same hymn book as your New Orders, your Ultravoxes, your Spandau Ballets...they take the European experience and bring it to the table with sharpened pencils and thinking caps on, their two cents being that they’ve contemporized the portfolio to include solutions rather than problems, with a high-performance, precision-engineered, vas-deferenized attitude that sees punters taking the on-ramp and giving the off a wide berth. Their new single Throwing Him Under The Bus is out now on Corporate DNA.

The End Of The Day is innovative, disintermediate, flexible, multitasked, principle-centered, pre-scrotalized rock. Their new single, Run It Up the Flagpole (And See Who Salutes) is out now on Six Sigma.

They’re not here to boil the ocean, people, but Backward Compatible is a rear-end benchmark when it comes to enterprise-wide, results-driven, maxi-felched pop, their new single, Experiencing Slippage, out now on Purple Cow.

Any talk of jazz will invariably feature an elephant in the room called Ducks In A Row, arguably the A-game jazz ensemble in a scene where so often the view only changes for the lead dog. Their album, Exponential(ly) Yours, is out now on the Herding Cats label.

Other acts of interest: Out of the Loop; The Functionalities; S-Calate (feat MC 2IC); All-Hands Meeting; Reality Check (whose untitled album, known colloquially as “The Whiteboard Album”, is out now), and The Wankers.

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