Jonesboro Overpass Exit Number Twelve

Feminist dada absurdity personified. Each band member subverts gender roles by enduring hours of in the makeup chair before the show, an effect that leaves the audience confused as to the sex and actual identity of each of them. Entire songs sometimes consist of free-form stream-of-conscious poetry readings layered over very involved bass guitar riffs or group chanting to a blinding chorus of fifty tambourines shaking simultaneously. Songs rarely make coherent sense in any literal construct, but when the whole point is to be deliberately challenging in order to represent the complexities of the gender binary, that's kind of the point.

Clever Bruse

Who says punk is dead? I see 12-year-old with mohawks, red plaid pants, and skull-and-crossbones T-shirts whenever I go to the mall.

The Solar Powered Chainsaw Wielding Monkey Band

We're back.

Real Band Names

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Muppet Leather

The soft, fuzzy, synthetic side of hard core.

Wrectal

An infinite series of destruction, each part of which has the same scatological character as the whole.

Happy Kids Puppets

Delightfully hardcore, with triangles and facepaint.

Belching Urethra Aside

It's a medical thing.

The Devil's Colostrum

Yummy!

Nom Nom Vajayjay

Post-feminist hard core. Dykes on guitar. Dykes on bass. Dykes on drums. Dykes on vocals.

Focalt

Focalt's piano-driven melodies seek to produce a cross between the sentimental proficiency inherent in the romantic era of classical music with the syncopated, thoroughly upbeat fun of ragtime. An intriguing concept in the hands of a competent pianist, Focalt instead fumbles the transitions between the two widely different schools, producing an auditory train wreck in the process. The music wrought forth into an uncomprehending world makes substantial demands upon the listener, demands few are willing to yield to since the results are almost unlistenable at certain sections.

Splitting time between a grand piano and a honky-tonk upright, Focalt sits astride a specially designed stool which allows him the ability to slide dramatically back and forth between both instruments. A clever bit of stagecraft, it still doesn't redeem a bad idea or major musical incompetence. Smoke and mirrors are Focalt's trade and in that respect, at least, he doesn't disappoint.

Jaimie James

The latest pop princess for the 'tween set, Jaimie James possesses good looks and absolutely no vocal range. In that regard she's just the latest in a very long line. Fortunately, computers can remedy the latter, though doing so is quite an effort and the label has to pay top dollar for the absolute best studio wizards. Though the technology has come along quite a lot in the years, sometimes James' singing voice sounds so processed that it seems she is singing underwater or in a cave.

James' voice is so bad, in fact, that she never even once risks singing live, relying instead on pre-recorded backing tracks. That phenomenon in itself isn't terribly uncommon these days, except that in most instances the backing band is highly proficient while the lead singer is not. James' musicians mime in front of the camera the same way their lead singer does, meaning that the entire performance is about as real as a three dollar bill. Or the Monkees.

Bovine Einstein

The smartest cow in the herd is still just a cow.

Fear of Heights

Simultaneously silly and tremendously irritating, Fear of Heights rose to minor stardom on the strength of an out-of-left field hit that somehow struck a chord with the buying public and produced a Top 40 hit. Sometimes record companies can successfully hype an album or a single enough that it attracts the attention of a few influential critics, who by granting their approval, will single-handedly ensure for the lucky group a certain amount of commercial success by default. The label put money in the hands of enough king-makers to give Fear of Heights a notable critical reception at least for its debt album.

Milking the new wave formula of jittery, jerky tempos and distinctive, albeit out of tune lead vocals they sound exactly like the Talking Heads. No one is sure whether this was a strategic move to copy David Byrne's formula or merely a decision made due to the band's inability to formulate its own unique sound. The music press has been known to fawn over certain bands, often coming across as nonsensical and downright sycophantic in its rationale for lavishing this degree of adoration. Fear of Heights remain a critic's darling, though many observers fail to understand why.