About the Juliana Theory…

I can still remember hearing about the Juliana Theory for the first time.  A friend of mine had a song of theirs on some sort of comp, and he knew that I liked heavier music than he did, so to try and entice me into like them, he says “Dude, the guitar player from Zao is in this band.  It’s awesome.”  That was all the description I needed.  I was expecting this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxaYXUTbzw4

shred your throat for christ, brah.

What I got instead, was this:

uhhhhhhh…

So, needless to say, it wasn’t what I expected.  But here’s the weird part…  I didn’t hate it.  This sort of sound was popping up at shows in the NJ/NY/PA area, and it wasn’t completely weird to me.  I ended up buying the record “Understand This is a Dream,” and it was a bit of a guilty pleasure at the time.  Plus, girls dug it; which is always a pretty good reason to at least be familiar with a band.

For me, it was tough to ever really super get into them.  Much like how people hate Burzum because of Varg’s douchebaggery, a lot of people couldn’t get past Brett Detars douchebaggery.  I mean, he didn’t kill anyone or burn any churches, but there were really tight black pants, weird hats, acoustic guitars, and Garth Brooks headset mics.  The dude wanted to be a rockstar, and had no problem admitting it.  It took some balls back then to more or less say you wanted to be a less edgy Third Eye Blind.

mirin’ your boot cut jeans bro

It didn’t bother me when 18 Visions became rock stars in their minds. It actually made me like them more. But with the Juliana Theory, it just rubbed me the wrong way. I wasn’t there to witness it, so I may be missing details, but allegedly at a show at the Wayne Fire House, a pretty young band was playing before the Juliana Theory, and they decided that they wanted to play right then and there and they literally unplugged the bands gear. Feelings were hurt. Plus Buddyhead hated these dudes, and I would have done everything short of listen to the John Spencer Blues Explosion to be down with Buddyhead.

Anyway, the Juliana Theory’s first record is pretty good if you don’t think about it. And I try not to.