The Vacationist League
Unjust Intonations
Vactionist League Music


by William Michael Smith

Self-appointed destinations
You make non-standard deviations
Follow the slide rules you just might slide away
-- "Song for Terry" by The Immature Scientist

I suspect if we ran a blood test on Knoxville's Immature Scientist, one John Tilson, we'd find DNA links to Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and Lou Reed. Unjust Intonations is certainly one of the most interesting and unorthodox recordings I've heard since Beefheart, Zoot Horn Rollo, and that gang of psychedelic outlaws discovered "Eeeeeelectriciteeeeeeeeee..."

Todd "Premo Dope" Steed, another Knoxvillean with an addictive musical jones for Zappa and Beefheart, once told me, "John Tilson may be the smartest guy to ever pick up a guitar. Which makes you wonder why he did." Mr. Tilson, who is currently on sabbatical in Germany where his wife is studying under a Fulbright Scholarship, plays with the guitar like it is a joystick control for a space ship. His playing certainly isn't limited to the four directions we mortal humans are bound by. It's definitely rock, but it has nothing to do with Eddie Cochran or Buddy Holly or Elvis. Tilson takes the joystick and manipulates it like a Martian who's never seen one on the album opener, "Little Helicopter." When Tilson simulates the helicopter's flight pattern with his guitar during the break, he gets that same reverb-kazoo-run-though-a-Marshall-stack-on-Venus sound that Beefheart peppered "Electricity" with on his first album, and the effect is...well, electrifying. Tilson simply imagines progressions and structures most rockers can't. Is it commercial? Hell no. Is it interesting music? Infinitely.

So where does the Lou Reed angle fit in this picture? In the lyrics. Tilson writes and delivers lyrics in deadpan, droll, hipper-than-Kerouac voice, the words and ideas coming in waves like rush hour freeway traffic. The word play involved is another indication that Tilson has an intelligence quotient off the high end of the scale. For a prime example, one needs to look no further than the title, Unjust Intonations. But it doesn't end there by a long shot. In a tongue-tripping torrent on "Skateboard in the Cemetery," Tilson vents about how the town fathers and the economic forces that want to sell to the teen market make sure they keep the kids where they want them.

At Tuesday evening's downtown council meeting
They're looking for ways to keep the kids off the streets
Off the bank lots and out of the church parking lot
They don't even use 'em til the end of the week
Man from the arcade's in a tirade
Woman from the snack stand takes his hand
Then they and the lawyers start a libel dance
Council passes ordinance
Without a discussion of what these kids really need

And I say, "Let 'em skate in the cemetery
Let them find their own ways to play
And the best part is they won't be disturbing anybody
Open the gates and roll the stones away"

On a rainy day we'll send them to the mausoleum,
Behind the checkered walls rests our checkered past
Of poets and painters, even an alcoholic banker--
Not a spirit remains can tell his head from his ass

Tilson also composes lyrics that come from fellow Knoxvillean Bob McCluskey's school of wry observation and cracked mirror reverse perception love-gone-wrong songs. Tilson's "Easter Surprise" is much more than just a clever play on words.

All winter long I felt cold rejection
I kept my faith awaiting resurrection
But a chocolate bunny with its head bit off
Was my Easter surprise

I run the water between your plate
And save this appetite to decapitate
The goose that laid my golden paperweight
With this my Easter surprise

Spring is here
The tomb is empty
So's my life

Tilson comes by his zany, off-the-wall approach honestly, having been one of the driving forces behind the comedic Knoxville garage rock band, The Swamis. For those familiar with The Swamis' albums, The Vacationist League will seem like a logical extension. Fans of Smokin' Dave and the Premo Dopes should also immediately grasp a cross-pollination of styles and aesthetics, both lyrically and musically.

The brainy, eclectic, comedic Unjust Intonations just goes to prove what I've been telling the authorities all along ­ there's something wrong with the water in Knoxville, Tennessee. They ought to find out what it is and ship some of it down to Nashville. Tilson could be in charge of that project. I'm sure it would just be little more than a regular day's work for The Immature Scientist full of unjust intonations.

*At last report, Tilson had sold 31 copies of Unjust Intonations, 4 to his sister and 27 to his mother. Make it 32 by getting your very own copy at www.cdbaby.com


Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

 
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