JMSN's Scared Straight Tour - Dark Rock Experience
JMSN displayed a once in a lifetime experience for his newest album – The tenured artist, born in Dallas and raised in Michigan, put on a sensational thematic show with such prestige and experience.
About 5 months ago, during my first few training shifts at the venue, my trainer recommended JMSN. The artist was coming to the small room to perform, having a unique cover photo for the show: A sheet with a logo, a round circle with many arms coming out of it, and the same logo tattooed on the back of his head. It was bound to be a truly unique experience, one that I had several months to get hyped for.
You can imagine my excitement when I saw I was scheduled for that Monday, as November pulled around. I was scheduled outside – I live by the saying learned on the job “Closed mouths don’t get fed,” which led me to yearn to be inside for the performance. After my due diligence with processing people in, we finally broke down and I was sent inside, let off the clock.
As I walked into the beginning of the show, the room was packed wall to wall. The widely diverse crowd lit the room with a familiar haze. The wretched smells accompanied the feedback-heavy start to the project.
The stage presence was very unique to the album ...it’s only about u if you think it is., one that created eccentric elements to it. All of their attire was white tights and a white long sleeve tee, all fleece, seemingly a little too tight on them. It looked like it would be uncomfortable, exposing. It felt naked in its combination of bald heads and mid drift peeking through. Every member was dressed to be clones of him, signifying the multi-instrumentalists’ creation of all the parts. In a sense, his fashion choice looked freeing, as if performing for the sake of the music alone, discrediting any fears of perception. It felt like a display of craftsmanship and importance.
I loved that all of the instruments were some shade and form of wood. It felt grounded in nature, expanding upon the nature of the human body. The sounds to come were heavily distorted with a high amount of gain – a beautiful abomination created from the tools of man-made nature. Their stage presence was surrounded by a circle of LED strips, giving a really cool lighting effect upon their white outfits.
Another point of interest that really caught my eye was the merch table. Wow, what an intricate and immersive experience in itself. The logo used for the project and theming of the show was strong, and everywhere. I really appreciated the imagery and symbolism that it conveyed, as a logo can hold so much meaning and power in an era of music you’re in. Lined up along the table, he had 11 projects, and all 9 studio albums on both vinyl and CD. It gave me an understanding of his tenureship in this field, and gave me a visual evolution of how his music has progressed. My favorite part was all of the CDs were only 11$!! What a great price, haha!
I went in right as the set started with the song “Blow The Spot Up”, the first track of the album. I loved the vocal contour, how it would climb up and taper off. It was dystopian, dark, emulating the Kid A vibes from Radiohead's 2000 release. Following up, the track “Love The Things U Hate” had some daunting guitar riffs and a trekking bass line. The songs from the jump gave a dark, primal sound, almost as if you’d hear them at an abandoned train yard.
A great exhibit of what they sounded like – what I dub ‘Dark Rock’ – was “Not Good Enough”, which gave out a guitar solo with effects that sounded as if you were along the bottom of the ocean, amongst an old shipwreck. The live production of this album created an atmosphere to the tracks that cannot be accurately translated from what the disc sounds like. While the studio produced album is pretty good, it being played live gave an occult feeling that added to layers to the experience – bits and pieces were added in the full band setting that created aura, such as the small but impactful ending of the previously discussed track where the bass and guitar riffs were repeated a few times to strengthen the significance. I believe having four members focusing on each of the parts JMSN wrote created a truly unique experience in the small room.
JMSN revisited some old tracks as well during the set, some of the more RnB sounds that defined his success. Tracks like “Love 2 U” & “Don’t Make Me Change” were tender and addicting, rousing the crowd while still molding into the same genre experience they were building. The track “Talk is Cheap” came on which made me realize where I knew him from – the supple, smooth track contained short and sweet guitar riffs with an underlying sexual bass line.
The band returns to the murkyiness of their current album cycle with “Click Bait”. It fosters this sort of unsettling ‘backrooms’ feel for a little bit, up until the bridge where the bass has an abnormally high amount of gain. While the bass player goes from note to note, there’s this rubbing sound along the strings that creates an in-person glitchcore screech; this is another example of how the in-person experience creates exclusive little moments that reshape the sounds of the music. Following is the track “I Don’t Even Think About U”, which sounds like Twenty Øne Pilots but darker – this track parallels their project Trench, which was incidentally my favorite era from TØP. The bass boosted nature of the concert in the enclosed space added to the effects of ugliness and agony that the heavy feedback and distortion tries to accomplish throughout the show.
The music itself was heavy, hardcore rock which really stuck out to me. Another way I can describe some of the tracks is as ‘Agony Music’ – the music is not always easy to listen to or pleasant to the ear, but there’s a subtle comfort and enjoyment to be found in the chaos. As I took breaks to talk to coworkers, I kept getting roped back into the hypnotizing dark rock that came my way, which signified that this was music I was genuinely drawn to.
It’s funny because when asking audience members what kind of music it was, they didn’t really have a clear answer. When an audience can’t describe what kind of musician you are, I think you’ve won the game. JMSN felt like an embodiment of creating what he wanted to make, completely free of perception and external desire. It was fascinating to see how intimate his stage presence was with other members in the band, despite the music not being a fantastic reflection of what the audience may have expected.
The show ended on a chord progression that got slower in tempo every play through, in which they dead ass extended for 5 minutes. Every beat contained a melodramatic reaction that teetered the crowd. The track it was from was the encore, “Cherry Pop” from the 2023 release Soft Spot, a project that directly contrasts this year's release in theming. However, the track was plagued by the dark rock and completely transformed to fit the theme of the show. By the end, the high gain created a feedback loop of sounds that became ear piercing, shining the true fans who stuck around thinking it was a cliff hanger into another encore. You can imagine their frustration after about 8 minutes of sounds when the stage manager went up to turn the amps off, revealing the source of the sounds and thus, ending the show.
For the true fans that stood around, they were treated to an impromptu meet and greet with JMSN himself. His stage persona was entirely just that; a figure created for a show. He ended up being a very friendly and down to earth guy, knowing how to interact with his fanbase that’s kept him afloat for so long. I got the chance to get the last word in with him and the bass player, getting to geek out about an artist that I barely knew a few hours prior.
It was a genuinely staggering experience that left me as a new fan. I appreciated the live experience so much and would definitely want to experience it again. The shift was a once in a lifetime experience, however, as JMSN seems to be an ever changing musician that shifts thematic personas from project to project. This artist was one of the best shows I’ve worked in during the half year I’ve been at my job, and I am reminded of the avenue and its fruits that I have in my life path with music. Thank you JMSN for the inspiration, and the experience.