333maxwell - Spy Music

Hear The Track Here

Almost every newcomer to sites like Soundclick (ie a BIG OMD) makes the same basic assumptions, we've all done it. We look around, read some forums, discover just how big the place really is - and right around there is where the panic starts to set in. The classic response to that is to spam everything in sight in the hope of getting (as it were) bums on seats. What it does do, of course, is to get said newbies butt well and truly toasted by all and sundry. Some cunning folk decide that the way to crack Soundclick is to 'game' it - which leads to its own kind of grief. Ultimately most of get to understand that to make things happen in Soundclick, you have to start clocking up recognition numbers (plays, views, downloads), all usually by some kind of networking. To outsiders, it may look easy to - say - score a chart placing. NOT. Take Spy Music, for example. Yes it reached number #2 in the Rock:General chart but it still had to beat over 33,000 other tracks to do it.

Aaaah, now you begin to tremble...

Having a good distinctive musical sound helps of course, and Chas Holman (aka 333maxwell) certainly has that alright but he's also good at putting his face about, and that always helps. Out of the five tracks I have reviewed so far, the last two gained Must Have ratings from me but the really surprising thing is that each track has been markedly different; cool jazz, rocky jazz, pop rock, classic rock and an incredibly accurate sound picture that could pass muster as an original track from the heyday of 1940/50's smooth blue jazz. For me, its that insane attention to detail that make 333maxwell's peices so refreshing and original in their own right.

Spy Music is not a groomed track by any conventional standard, and certainly it will make people gaze wonderingly in my direction when I say that this is EXACTLY how Chas intended it to sound. Its a given then, that you may have to devote a bit more attention to this track than some of his other tracks but if you like rock history the will definitely appeal to you. What he seems to have captured this time round is a classic late 1960's groove, punctuated by guitar lines that veer between Frank Zappa and Jeff beck if you can believe that. Definitely one for rockheads of all descriptions and for trainspotters like me who love retro recreations. As such though, not as strong overall as some of his previous tracks but I don''t care because I'll still be keeping this - it is a classic rock performance.

Highly Recommended late 1960's instrumental rock.