Clawjob delivers OTD's promotional fee
You loved Clickers. We loved Clickers. Everyone loved Clickers.
But dude, this is SO MUCH BETTER.
We are talking about Clawjob, the new group featuring ex-Clickers dude Mike Gintz and his pal Nick Burgess of the video-game-coverband Project X (not the jokey hardcore band of the same name). Along with a cast of thousands (including other ex-Clickers as well as members of Night Rally, Keys to the Streets of Fear, Piles, Paper Thin Stages, Harry and the Potters, Badman, and Tristan da Cunha), they have recorded an interstellar rock opera entitled Space Crackers. An instant classic in the mold of Queen's Flash Gordon score, Space Crackers was originally conceived back in 2000 as a fake 1976-era rock opera, but has now became a "real, yet still super absurd rock opera."
"It takes place in the future," explains Gintz via email. "There's a love triangle. There's a catastrophic alien invasion. Also, it's pretty silly."
What he's too modest to mention is that in addition to being really silly it's also really great. There are lines -- "Sat next to her all semester/I did my best to impress her" -- that feel clever enough to be on the radio, even if they reside in songs about flunking out of classes on inert gasses.
Eventually, after the CD is released, the entire opera will be downloadable at the Clawjob website. For now, the first three songs are streaming at their MySpace page, but we have the exclusive downloadable version of the first song, which is reminiscent of pompous pre-'80s glam rock a la Bowie, Rocky Horror, and the Sweet. This first installment, "Welcome to Space School," also helpully introduces us to Space Crackers' main characters: Dr O., the headmaster, a soldier in a war that ended 40 years ago after the world fought off a race of bird people and all nations joined together as one; Julian, our hero, a supergeek who wrote his thesis on the subatomic structure of crackers, and is in search of a grant for further research; Madeline, around whom the love triangle revolves; and Greg, a poor student with looks to match, who pines away his hours wishing he could snark Madeline away from Julian.
DOWNLOAD: Clawjob, "Welcome to Space School" (mp3)
PRE ORDER: Space Crackers via the Clawjob webstore
UPDATE: Clawjob has uploaded three more mpfrees at their website.
DOWNLOAD: Clawjob, "I Got My Space Pass" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Clawjob, "Let's Focus on the Research" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Clawjob, "Crackers and Chips" (mp3)