Only a year ago, Flickerstick was an obscure band floating around Texas, building a small following, peddling their first album from the trunk of their car, and looking for a break. Perseverance and hope are defining American traits, though, and the same urge that drives us to play the same Powerball number week after week (or the reflex that forces me to renew my Good Housekeeping subscription another year just to give myself a better shot at that Publisher's Clearing House jackpot) is the same urge that drives your typical up-and-coming All-American band. The same VW van, the same stages, the same shitty equipment and twice married groupies... but someday, somewhere, the right person will hear the right demo and everything will change. Darva Conger fantasies do come true. Swallow your pride for a second and you can buy your memories for the rest of your life.
As it turns out, Flickerstick contributed a song to a compilation of music by itinerant bands which the right person did hear. The band was subsequently chosen by VH1 to appear on their new reality program "Bands on the Run." A film crew was assigned to follow the group on tour and the public was treated to a first-hand glimpse of everyday life on the road. The parties, the women, the whispered exploits previously witnessed solely by roadies and those lucky enough to be "with the band" were on display to shock, amaze and entertain primetime American families across the nation. Another set of boozing, rocking, hotel trashing working class heroes was born.
Week after week, viewers tuned in to half-pay attention to Flickerstick's ability to shake off the previous night's binge and take the stage like they were trying too hard to be the best band in the world. The VH1 executives were especially pleased with the North Texas lads. After enduring two failed marriages, death threats and a total loss of privacy, Flickerstick was rewarded for their troubles with $50,000 cash, $100,000 in new equipment, a nationwide audience and a record deal with Epic. Flickerstick had arrived. Apparently considering the band's recent history-- coming off of prime time, laurel-crowned, highly visible to Epic higher-ups-- whoever was in charge of promoting the band decided they'd better take all the necessary precautions to get the new signees off on the right foot and not fuck things up. The can't-miss single "Beautiful" was released for heavy circulation on radio and TV, and Tom "Lord" Alge, who has worked with Blink-182, Live and Weezer, was assigned to remix Welcoming Home the Astronauts for re-release. Alge's thumb in the pie is immediately evident, and just as with the last Weezer album, you wish it wasn't there.
The heavy-handedness is evident from the start of the album's first track, "Lift." In what's meant to kick off the album with a sonic liftoff, which I assume conceptually ties in with the astronaut theme of the album's title, Brandin Lea's voice rises awkwardly through low electronic drones and soothing feedback in what turns out to be the countdown to 40 kilotons of arena-rock power chords. It's clear from this moment that Alge's tweaking in the studio has little to do with adding anything conceptually to the album. And conceptually, it comes off as little more than rehashed Boston and cover art that has as much to do with the contents of the album as Boston's UFO's have to do with "More than a Feeling." I think we can sum it up by saying the remixing simply adds enough conventional gloss for FM rock to swallow it.
And while the studio work is unquestionably lackluster, it's not as if Flickerstick themselves really provide much of a hook for the engineers to hang their coats on, anyway. The subsequent cycle of songs ranges all over the map, mixing and matching strains of 70s hard rock, 80s hair bands and 90s post-punk. It's apparent this is a band that was caught looking for an audience.
The lyrics throughout Welcoming Home the Astronauts span a similar gamut of styles. They move from senseless ("Tiny records spin holding in the air that you breathe/ Tearing right through the seams you sew/ It's getting right back to you") to a poetic sentimentality that only manages to come across as insipid ("I got [more than] a feeling/ It's a feeling that you'll never understand/ It's like a rush to my heart that I hope never ends/ But it all depends"). On certain occasions, the guys try to rise to anthemic heights, like on the Offspring riot calls of "Hey or When the Drugs Wear Off." Or with the Go-Go's-style rave up "You're So Hollywood," replete with "Our Lips Are Sealed" hand claps. Or the just plain ridiculous "Chloroform the One You Love."
It's all pretty silly stuff, but if nothing else, it manages to establish Flickerstick as a frontrunner for the Varsity Blues II soundtrack. Welcome Home the Astronauts really only works in two instances: on the single, "Beautiful," and the expansive "Direct Line to the Telepathic." The latter gives the only indication of what Flickerstick could be capable of if only they weren't so obsessed with pandering to massive popularity. Since this seems to be their immediate goal, however, and they do a good job of sticking to the well-trodden paths to mainstream success, I see no reason for them to fail, however commonplace the results. Of course, they may self-destruct in the process, in which case we can look forward to seeing them in their next VH1 special: "Behind the Music: The Flickerstick Story."
