Young Agent Jones, We Know Who You Are

I looked forward to giving another mindless modern rock band a literary ax-hug. I wanted to hate this album. I really did. But I just can’t. The only way to describe this album is as if the garbage that’s currently rotting in the airwaves wasn’t garbage. Turn on your radio and dial through the FM dial. Ignore the sounds of your teeth gnashing and your women weeping and just pretend that someone with an actual soul was playing these “rock” songs you hear. Playing them the exact same way, but without the artistic emptiness that rattles like an empty brand-name soda can.

That’s what Starkville, MS, natives Young Agent Jones invoke with their third album, We Know Who You Are. Now, I’m not calling them the saviors of modern music — they probably won’t make the next music messiah’s apostle list — but not everyone has to be the next big thing. Some bands, like The Ramones or The Smithereens, are just there to be the soundtrack of our lives, not necessarily change everything we believe.

This album is actually YAJ’s second try at it. After being thrown out of a professional recording studio (which I encourage everyone to try and do at least once in life), they built their own recording set-up in drummer Mike Yeager’s kitchen. That, I think, is what makes all the difference. The DIY ethic forces you to eschew the mechanical manipulation of emotion and over-over-production that seems to be the goal of most studios. In other words, the music industry’s goal for some kind of audio Camazotz is as absent on We Know Who You Are as it is apparent on the Top 40 rock chart.

A comparison has to be made to The Smithereens’ Especially for You, that wonderful bit of rock that gave us “Behind the Wall of Sleep,” “Blood and Roses,” and “In a Lonely Place.” It’s, in a sense, too humble to be an American Idiot or something like The Offspring’s Smash, but its very understatedness lends a tremendous amount of clout to the songs. You never doubt a word that Young Agent Jones has to say.

YAJ is apparently a big fan of H-Town. Having toured here with their first album, which did fairly well on the college charts, they were immensely pleased to play for a lawyerly crowd who expressed their appreciation in good booze. Following a suggestion from one of our residents, YAJ followed them to some creepy house, where the magic word “notsuoh” gained them access into Houston’s underground. They certainly deserve all the good ju-ju and alcohol that Houston has to offer.