Dirt City Chronicles is about rock music, levity and honesty. When writing about bands or reviewing albums that nobody remembers, you have to keep things in perspective. As Lester Bangs once said, or was it Phillip Seymour playing Lester in Almost Famous "My advice to you: I know you think those guys are your friends. You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful." Lester Bangs never said that, but that's how movie magic works. However, it does hold true, for example I recently read a review by Michael Henningsen where he describes Jason Daniello as "One-half the songwriting force in Naomi, arguably the local band of the early and mid-90s", Michael Henningsen played with both The Zots and The Ant Farmers, so immediately that statement is suspect. Naomi was a band led by the migraine inducing duo of Ben Hathorne & Jason Daniello. Their legacy is two cd's worth of lyrical scrap paper doodles. Jason knows his way around a guitar and assorted string instruments but songwriting is not his strong point. Ben in my opinion really screwed the pooch every time he took pen to paper, with the exception of one song "Bella." So in summary; Naomi was good for two bad albums and maybe two good songs. When a music critic is called upon to write about his friends or peers, he may hold back or even worse, lie. And there's the rub, the average music fan would rather decide for themselves, good music attracts, bad music repels. Jason Daniello is a journeyman, a solid musician who is at his best when he's not playing his own songs. (he does killer versions of Cortez the Killer and Fairies Wear Boots) That's it in a nutshell, he is no different than a good reliable carpenter. No offense to carpenters, musicians or any other living creatures including Ben Hathorne. Ask any cop in Mexico and he will tell you that money changes everything. Once a writer collects a paycheck for writing, editorial policy becomes a factor in determining what he can and cannot write. It's the brick wall that Lester Bangs kept hitting, Lester was fired from Rolling Stone magazine over a negative review he gave a Canned Heat album. Canned "Fuckin" Heat and if I said they were the band of the mid-late 70's, I would be a lying S.O.B. Keep your stylus sharp boys, it's getting kinda dull around here.
