Godsmack Inspiration

In the new paradigm of temp services and unemployment alternatives, a person can find themselves in the most hellish of musical circumstance while immersed in the muck of industrial quagmire for the sake of paying the rent.




For the past few weeks I’ve been working as a temp at a windows factory on the North side of Evansville. My duties are menial and sometimes inhumanly brutal both physically, and mentally. The physical aspect is easily dealt with because of my long history with nightmarish labor jobs, but I’ve happened upon a torture worthy of international inquiry, "Godsmack" overexposure.



One of the potential perks of this horror show of a job is an unbelievably loud stereo on each line that one can slide his or her own CD in to enjoy while carpal tunnel syndrome sets in destroying the nerves of said person’s hands. There is one serious problem with the musical situation on my particular line; my direct supervisor is a "Godsmack" savant.



At first I thought my twenty-two year old window glazing mentor had just forgotten his other CDs and decided to play one CD repetitively throughout my first day, but unfortunately this was not the case. "Godsmack’s" guttural vocal styling and fast paced instrumentation must be a subject of fixation for the guy. I had to admit that the metal made my pace on the line pick up a beat or two; sometimes from anger, and sometimes from resignation.



After a weeklong bombardment of never ending windows and "Godsmack", I decided to make a bold move and bring some of my music in to see how it would go over. I knew that most of my tastes wouldn’t jive with the industrial accommodations, so I compromised and brought in some; “Led Zeppelin”, “Mr Bungle”, “The Black Keys”, and “The Beastie Boys” to name a few; but my attempts at compromise were met with an uncomfortable silence amidst the deafening noise of the factory. My young windows pedagogue even did the unspeakable; he ejected “The Black Keys” midway declaring, “This is too slow.” Absurd!



This past week I found myself deconstructing "Godsmack" lyrical clichés, which there are too many to count, and deciding whoever wrote the lyrics had mother issues and an obsession with death. I sometimes found myself laughing out loud at the thought of how this third rate band and the many like them were selling millions of records and influencing popular music blaring out onto the streets of American trailer parks and out of speakers perched on factory lines haphazardly with mutilated wire hangers.



There is one redeeming quality concerning my "Godsmack" nightmare, inspiration. As I’m finishing up this piece I’m listening to the haunting genius of Jeff Buckley’s, “Grace” album, and am gearing up to polish my resume. While Buckley inspires me to break down the walls of my subconscious to find my inner truth, Godsmack inspires me to riddle my resume with white lies to escape my immediate circumstance.



Someday I will be exposed to "Godsmack" in a different setting and may possibly find some good qualities I may have missed in their dynamic due to association, but I seriously doubt it!







©2011JerryAllenMasterson