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Smartest Man
Groundbreaking new standard for alternative urban blues
WHERE IS THIS??
Smartest Man in the Room is the latest roots rock standard from Paul Mark & the Van Dorens.
If you’re waiting to hear this sorta Rad-Records industrial noise production on your favorite rock radio, TV-talent show, Internet-soft-rock stream broadcast, well, don’t hold your breath. Deep inhale…then step outa that little world for a second and check into this stink bomb of a record. Tired of corporate-controlled culture? Had enough of the celebrity-infused rainbow of nobody-gives-a-sh#*-except-to-make-some-green sounds mechanically pulsing out of your ear buds? Well then Smartest Man is the I’m-so-fed-up-I’m-gonna-sleep-in-a-tent record you need to hear.
Smartest Man in the Room is a roots-rock dynamite stick lobbed into today’s music-biz garbage culture cocktail party. This production assembles a whole new model of what today’s music can and should be. Raw and original, this set of thematically-connected blues-based performances jabs a thumb in the eye of not just the music
industry – yeah, easy target – but it goes after the big boys, the NYC and LA 1% who hold court over what can and can’t be said in the cultural marketplace. Fasten your frayed seat belt – the cats in charge are going to freak when they hear – and see – Smartest Man. As will first-time listeners to Paul Mark. Even the smart ones.
Oh, and you can dance to it. This stew-pot of lyrical provocation and warehouse noise – created with iconoclastic abandon by P.Mark and his Van Dorens crack team – was custom fabricated out of the NYC-street scene and infused with the we-just-need-to-do-this attitude that, 15 years later, you found out was the common thread to all the cool records you always loved.
Smartest Man was recorded in New Orleans and Memphis. The audio tones crank and dive in a swirl of lyrical humor and accusation, and the production reflects everything sound engineers were told NOT to do in school. Mark’s songwriting once again points to that strange poetry dance between contemplation and gut feel, and the band’s groove sticks hard to the seismic pulse of the street. Yeah, you definitely can move to it.
Sure you can download all the tracks. But if you do you’ll miss the cover art. Doesn’t matter? Well, someday you may learn. Get this CD. And maybe things will begin to change.
Screw the publicity gibberish…Check out this YouTube vid of the Texas-tinged cover of Dylan’s Don’t Ya Tell Henry. Or for you smart guys, watch the title toon vid, sweating with current-events accusation. If you aren’t getting it, go ask your teacher.
