Search - Speaker :: Model Citizen

One of the greatest bands of all time

M. P. Wilcox | 03/30/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am from L.A., and saw Speaker live several times. They were one of the greatest bands of all time. Tom Gonzales and Matt Jacovides were amazing players and singers (it was kind of mind-blowing to hear hard and edgy rock being sung with sophisticated and complicated harmonies), and Scott Devours was one of the most skilled rock drummers I ever saw. However, Speaker (formerly "Meat Nixon" to those of you old enough to remember), suffered from one flaw: Their records were about 1/10 as interesting as their live shows, and it felt like they kept tweaking their songs in the studio again and again and again until all the edge and life were gone. Speaker was almost PERFECT when they played live; no mistakes, tightly controlled chaos flowing out of every note and beat, and they were absolutely ELECTRIFYING. However, when they sat down in a recording studio, they stopped becoming Speaker and sounded like a Speaker cover band. I have no other way to say it. Their records are thin and weak representations of who they were because they were simultaneously sophisticated, crude, clever, edgy, smart, gutteral, and just amazing. Blink-182 was a trio of dumbass punkers compared to Speaker's harmonies, playing, and writing. It is so hard to describe; you just had to be there, and you either got it or you didn't. What troubled me more than anything else in the world is that sometimes it seemed to me that Speaker did not understand who they themselves were. Every Speaker show left me breathless and pumped up, but both albums left me hungry for more. They were one of the world's greatest rock bands, and I literally think about them nearly every day."

Where did these guys come from?! (Where did they go?)

C-Spock | Chicago, IL United States | 11/08/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I didn't discover Speaker until 2003, years after they released their 1997 (debut?) EP "Model Citizen". These guys rock(ed?), and rock(ed?) well. It's hard to categorize the music on this album as of a very specific type, but "alternative rock", "psychedelic rock", or "just plain really good garage band rock" come to mind. These three guys seem endemic of the great bands that I occasionally encountered at local clubs but that never ended up getting national radio play. - too bad. In an effort to describe their sound, I can suggest the Red Hot Chile Peppers with a dash of early Smashing Pumpkins, though again this description fails to describe them properly and may conjure up an image quite different from your actual experience of them. A couple years after buying it now, I find Model Citizen to be an enduring album. Buy it if you can and let me know where these guys are now if you can! Incidentally, I think I originally stumbled across their song Violet on an online music sharing community and I am quite pleased that I managed to track down and buy their album. I've since bought another as a gift for a friend of mine (though the fact that the album cost less than shipping makes it easy to be so giving!)"