The DC City Paper has published a good review by Ben Westhoff on Analog Jetpack's new album, And How They Flew. I have mad respect for Ben, as he's published music reviews and insightful music features in weeklies nationwide. When we met, he was writing a story for St. Louis' Riverfront Times on my brother Jonathan Toth from Hoth and Tucker Booth and their epic hip-hop escapades with The Frozen Food Section. Described me in the story as a "squeaky clean, 28-year old folksinger." Since then, Ben has sat down with 50 Cent, caused a messageboard uproar by calling Jay-Z "hova-rated", waxed big booties for the Village Voice, and served updates on Trent Reznor, Val Kilmer's music career, and the brains behind blackpeopleloveus.com.
In this good company, I don't mind being called out too:
Rob Getzschman, a former D.C. resident now living in Los Angeles, has toiled in relative obscurity for years, releasing mostly anti-folk solo albums that wear left-field politics (Songs for the Anti-De-Counterrevolution), sense of irony (Heirs of Pretension), and high self-regard (Hypocrisy in the Genius Room) on their jacket sleeves...
...even at its poppiest the band isn’t exactly mainstream—on “ICBM,” the group sounds more like They Might Be Giants and Barenaked Ladies than anything now on the radio. On the album’s opener, “We Are the Freaks,” Getzschman addresses his intended target market: “We are the freaks/A loose union of disillusion/Cold distinguished by the company we keep.” That seems a little off—they’re the geeks, of course, disinclined to do anything more radical than fashion fun hooks and embrace their inner nerds.
Funny that this should come through so powerfully. The Six Points Music Festival summary by On Tap reduced Analog Jetpack to "Clever and nerdly pop-rock blendings." As if comics and obsolete technology aren't cool or something? Surely the geek niche is looking for a rock band laureate...
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