Tony Ferraro - Assemble the Bitch Wolves b/w Diaspora

The latest effort from Tony Ferraro is two songs that sound like they didn't make the final cut for that Last Joke record. “Assemble the Bitch Wolves” doesn't go anywhere even remotely interesting, unless you count the toy piano solo in the middle (which I don't). Lyrically, it reminds me of high school poetry, full of banality and tired imagery. I'm picturing him at the talent show, a handful of scraps from his notebook, just reading his prose while his friends, whose parents bought them instruments for Christmas, fumble through a hackneyed set. “Diaspora,” on the other hand, is as upbeat and rockin' as you can get for an original tune from a Counting Crows cover band. How old is this guy, anyway? Let's wrap this up with a quick track-by-track breakdown:

“Assemble the Bitch Wolves”: Boring

“Diaspora”: Pathetic

Ryan Thomas Becker & Last Joke - Last Joke Band

Well, it's a covers album of songs we've all heard plenty of times before by whatever incarnation of the Look-At-Me-I'm-Ryan-Thomas-Becker Show happens to be playing. The man has built an empire out of very little material that he just keeps rehashing through different outfits. So it seems to me that this band, and subsequent album, is a nod to the fact that he blew his lyrical wad a long time ago, ran out of things to say and now just gets by on his guitar skills and funny faces. I'm curious to see if anyone catches on to the fact that the joke is on them and they just spent six bucks on the same shit—again.