Post: #1

If you are one of the many of us who followed the impossible, miraculous, and ultimately unstoppable Trump campaign through its many rallies on the Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN) Youtube channel, you already -- whether you realize it or not -- know the music of Jacob Seales.

All through this unforgettable year, as Trump's rallies criss-crossed the country, ranging from Warwick, Rhode Island to Costa Mesa, California, and from the comically inspired to the thuddingly rote -- the instrumental songs of Jacob Seales formed their ever present background, playing on RSBN's loop as one waited for the often much-delayed arrival of Trump Force One in some Louisiana hangar.

The strains of Seales' masterpiece, "The American Dreamer", greeted the entrance of the man with the golden hair onto the stage and then sounded again as he was rounding off the MAGA rhetorical period at the end of the speech, muting the absurdity that was Trump's insistence on ending his rallies with "You Can't Always Get What You Want"; and between the warmup appearances of a Stephen Miller, or a Jeff Sessions, or a screaming Rudy, we had whiled away the time to the plaintive sounds of Seales' "One Last Chance" or the energetic movement of "Pride". Whether we knew it or not, that music formed the deepest soundtrack of our lives, and it will be forever associated in our memories with the glory that was this year. For that reason alone, we will never forget it.

But -- and this is one of the many miracles that this sublime year has blessed us with -- Jacob Seales' music deserves to be appreciated on its own terms. In my opinion, his is the most unique, original, and unplaceable musical talent to come onto the scene in a decade, if not more; and it is an absurdity that will sooner or later be remedied that his songs are not much more widely known and recognized. As they say, you heard it here first.

Perhaps the strangest thing about Seales' songs -- and it is so strange as to be beautifully and memorably eerie -- is that they seem to be out of time without ever feeling self-consciously, or even unselfconsciously, retrograde or dated. They take their place within the great and infinite tradition of American guitar rock, but are not of this or any time; it is as if they inhabit the tradition as a whole. They seem to recall a past that one cannot quite put one's finger on; and yet their freshness and originality is obvious and undoubted. In this too, they are a fitting echo of the great Trump campaign that, in strange ways, brought back a remote and almost musty American past, the past of Page Six of the New York Post of the '80s and '90s, and made it, through the unstoppable youthful vigor of the 70 year old Donald Trump, the freshest thing going and the thing that is going to restore and rekindle the new American energies of today.

Jacob Seales' music is the voice of these American energies. Here are a few other things that characterize it:

-- The songs are compositionally tight -- effortlessly so, it seems -- without ever feeling dull or constrained.
-- They are characterized by a sublime purity of tone, like the taste of very good water. And this is true of both the faster and the slower compositions.
-- They are soulful -- there is no other word and none is needed. It's been a while since that quality was successfully present in music.
-- Most of all, they have the quality that characterizes great music: they are dreamy. The dreaminess is something that exists beside and somehow beyond the song -- it's as if the music opens out to something outside itself. Songs that are tight must have this dreaminess to avoid feeling constrained, and Seales' songs have it.

I would like to embed two songs in this thread that I consider Seales' masterpieces; for the rest, I strongly encourage all of you to go and buy his music, which is on sale here:

http://rsbnmusic.bandcamp.com/

The first, and the rightly best known of his songs, is "The American Dreamer", the RSBN Trump rally intro and outro song. This is an outright rock guitar masterpiece, and its energies and forward propulsion are the best new thing I've heard in ages:





The second is called "One Last Chance" and it is Seales' most melancholy and soulful meditation. I will never forget how it transformed and expanded time as the crowd awaited Trump on some blazingly hot July afternoon, perhaps somewhere in Seales' Iowa (he describes himself as a "music teacher / tall goofy white guy" who hails from Bettendorf, IA -- one of the quad cities on the Mississippi river along the Iowa/Illinois border). One felt the flow of time and the lengths of the Trumpian summer as one listened again and again to Seales' modest and magical guitar:





There are many other beautiful songs beside these two, and I hope that over time you will listen to all of them -- and perhaps to more to come. They form a particularly unexpected and memorable part of the sweet and unlikely windfall from this sweetest and unlikeliest of all years.

Post: #2

Still waiting on the "Bobby Knight Appreciation Thread"

Post: #3

For anyone who missed it, we must of course include the rarest and perhaps most glorious version of "American Dreamer". It is the anthem of one of the sweetest victories of all time.

Post: #4

(12-03-2016 11:26 PM)Slim Shady Wrote:  Still waiting on the "Bobby Knight Appreciation Thread"

I don't even know this inside joke, and it's my forum.

Post: #5

Jacob's style reminds me of Eric Johnson.

Post: #6

(12-04-2016 07:54 AM)Roosh Wrote:  

(12-03-2016 11:26 PM)Slim Shady Wrote:  Still waiting on the "Bobby Knight Appreciation Thread"

I don't even know this inside joke, and it's my forum.

(11-01-2016 02:31 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  "Can someone explain the loz bobby knight story?"

Real quick because it's 12:30 and I'm still not done with work, but I can't stop listening to halloween music...

LOZ is a really solid poster with a lot of good insights, but he's got this weird... I don't know what to call it... fetish? About claiming that Trump is going to lose if he's doesn't follow LOZ's weirdly specific advice for picking topics to discuss at rallies. He would often make posts like, "If Trump doesn't stop talking about his company during his rallies, he'll lose the election!" and things like that. Eventually, it got to the point where he more or less stopped commenting on the Trump thread altogether, because he was just so convinced Trump was doomed.

The list of things Trump wasn't allowed to say at his rallies grew by the week, but LOZ had a particular burning hatred for Bobby Knight. Whenever Trump mentioned Bobby Knight during a rally, it would prompt angry posts from LOZ. LOZ preferred a very safe, generic speaking style that incorporated a lot of boilerplate about "what Trump was going to do for the country" and any mention of the bombastic Bobby Knight would set him off. People started making fun of him for it, and it became something of a meme.

That's about all there is to the story.

Post: #7

Post: #8

He's certainly talented. In searching for a metaphor worthy of this virtuoso, I can only compare his mastery of the guitar with that of the great Bobby Knight, whose skill at cursing out referees, throwing chairs and beating up his own players was equally consummate.

Post: #9

(08-31-2017 10:10 PM)scorpion Wrote:  He's certainly talented. In searching for a metaphor worthy of this virtuoso, I can only compare his mastery of the guitar with that of the great Bobby Knight, whose skill at cursing out referees, throwing chairs and beating up his own players was equally consummate.