myspace music monday: Nick Mckerl

Good day to you fine people out there amongst the series of tubes! I am thy seeker of obscurity in the form of audible enjoyment. Thou mayst call me thine writer of blog posts, or Cale. I have no preference as to what I am called, as long as I am called something. This week, you could perhaps call me "desperate," which, after last week's rather uneventful myspace music monday should come as no surprise. So this week, I have not found you an artist who is without flaw or quirky, but rather one that shows promise despite some glaring weaknesses. Enjoy!

Nick Mckerl

Nick comes to us either from Paris or Glasgow. His profile says both, so it's difficult to determine. Based on his English skills, I would guess that he is based primarily in Scotland. Now, Nick's skill as a vocalist is debatable. He can, at times, sound an awful lot like Ben Gibbard, which is a huge complement in my book. There's also other times when he's an unabashed Tom DeLong wannabe, complete with varying levels of bad hair-dos and emo sensibilities.

See what I mean?

With that being said, you'd really be doing yourself a disservice by not listening to the first song on his page, entitled "Regulating Air Traffic." It not only shows Nick's talent as a musician (he plays everything himself), but also his talent as producer. This stuff literally sounds like it has been done by someone who has been producing for years. It's a rich, layered song that is constantly evolving and always interesting. Unfortunately, there's not any way for me to download the song and upload it to Audio Overflow, so you're forced to visit his actual page if you wish to hear it.

His lyrics are strange, and more often than not it seems as if the music is at the will of what is penned. In other words, it feels like this is poetry that a song has been written to after the fact. Sometimes this can be good, and other times it just doesn't work. "Regulating Air Traffic" is an instance in which this plays out to our favor. "Bluebird?" Not so much. Due to his unquenchable need to sound mimic Tom DeLong, I can't recommend listening to any song other than "Regulating Air Traffic," unless you suffer from bulimia and need some sort of motivation to vomit (ouch).

So why then did I feature Nick Mckerl? Well, I do think that there is a lot of talent hidden underneath all the teenage angst nonsense. There are a lot of electronic things going on in all the songs, as well as some pretty cool guitaring and pianoing (trademarked words, I'm afraid). He's definitely a talented musician. It just seems that a lot of that is going to waste. If he stopped crying for a few minutes and wrote something that didn't make 15 year old girls crave the razor, I think that he could be a very entertaining and impressive artist. "Regulating Air Traffic" is proof of this. Until then, though, we are left with hope that such a thing will occur. The sooner the better...

Srsly?

Links
Nick Mckerl's myspace Page

Please, for the love of Dog the Bounty Hunter hook me up with a sweet myspace artist to cover. I'm hurting here. If you happen to know of one, leave a comment below or email Audio Overflow at audiooverflow@gmail.com. Thx!