SITE RELEASE - Ask me now why I built this site by Jen 11/20/99

As you all know, next week is going to be really huge for Third Eye Blind. They release their new album, host 2 internet live chats, play on Letterman, play at the Bears/Lions game in Detroit and OH, it's a holiday week, too, that they obviously won't be spending with their families. For all the dates and times, check out the NEWS U CAN USE section.
Now the reason I titled this post as "press release" is because I have been interviewed by two major internet publications this week for a fan's point of view on 3eb and the new album and the censorship of "slow motion". sonicnet.com and sfweekly.com were very interested to hear why I liked 3eb so much and what my take on the new album and songs were (go figure). So I thought that I would post my response to them both. My pal Ruby who runs the "Visions of Third Eye Blind" site that analyzes Third Eye Blind to a T, helped me edit out things that could be taken the wrong way and reword. Thanks a mil Rubix Cube. So, on to the short story by Jen...

Would love to tell you my thoughts. My name is Jennifer Griffin and I currently live in Montgomery, Alabama, but I am soon moving to the Bay Area to further my career in advertising. I am 23 years old. My site is called "Jen's StephanJenkins.com" and is located at www.stephanjenkins.com

Here is my take on Third Eye blind and the new album, "Blue". You can find my references to "Slow Motion" here as well...

I respect Third Eye Blind far more than just another band with a few hit songs. Not only do they write, play and perform their own material, they also produce their own music, too. Stephan himself does a little bit of everything, including design of the stage sets for when they're on tour.

I guess what really drew me to Third Eye Blind was their obscenely captivating on-stage abilities. Their shows are just so LIVE and full force, yet intimate at the same time. When the concert is over the audience is athirst for more. I can't get enough of them in concert. When I look at the faces of the hundreds and thousands of elated fans around me at concerts, I realize the expression is universal -- the music has struck us right through the heart and we're willingly drawn in to it. Honestly, I can't count the number of times or the miles I have driven to get an
overwhelming high from their live performances. You see, I can directly relate to the lyrics because I have lived so much of what Jenkins sings about, such as "Jumper" and "How's It Going to Be". Third Eye Blind fans have a way of taking songs and applying them to events in their own lives - making 3eb's songs symbolic for who we are as people.

If you listen to the songs close enough, you'll notice there is an underlying theme to every song that's really rather simple. In my opinion that theme is "life will always contain infinite amounts of bullshit, there will always be some good and some bad and you just have to learn how to deal with the situations handed to you". That theme is chronicled by Jenkins who often writes about real life experiences that are his or ones he has bore witness to. A good example in regards to relationships is "How's It Going To Be" - about a relationship that went sour, reminiscing of the good times and how they wish it could be good again. "Want to get myself back in again, the soft dive of oblivion."

"Losing A Whole Year" is just an extension to HIGTB. They are similar songs, but just the musical delivery is different. Lyrically, Stephan is making fun of how bad it's gotten, by painting familiar, helpless images in our heads of "Now we're stuck with the tube, a sink full of dishes and some Aqua-lube". Jenkins also addresses issues like adolescent turmoil in the song "Graduate". Life is so bad and we want so desperately to be "normal", but Third Eye Blind asks us to question normality: "Do you live the days you go through?"

Third Eye Blind continues the tradition with "Blue" and reiterate the theme of "good and bad", but with more sophisticated technology and some hair on their chins. The band has matured and progressed musically with their experimentation of new sounds, yet the songwriting still "comes from a real place" as Jenkins would say. "Blue" is candy for my ears and in my opinion it is collectively a better album than the first. You can tell that the band has grown closer and they resonate passion for their new material.

The really cool thing about Third Eye Blind that makes them so different is that the delivery of the "message" is unique in every song. Not one song musically sounds like the other. So often bands have chords that are similar on each song. Some notorious abusers are LFO, Mariah Carey, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Korn and Blink 182." It's like you can almost sing their last song to the next song - if you get what I mean. You start to sing the chorus, then realize you're singing another and you're like "woops, wrong tune". Not with 3eb. It's like the band challenges themselves to make each riff, drum tap and bass line matchless, but magically delicious at the same time.

With "Blue", Third Eye Blind attempts new combinations for rock by adding a Catholic boys' choir to the background of a song that contrasts the pain and joy of an unwanted pregnancy. The ballad "Slow Motion" chillingly questions the glamorization of violence, death, drug and spousal abuse, pointing the finger where it is duly deserved -- at ourselves. The irony in the lyrics "Hollywood glamorized my wrath/ I'm a young urban psychopath/ I incite murder for your entertainment/ 'Cause I needed the money, what's your excuse?/ The jokes on you," is that society frowns upon violence yet most of today's blockbuster movies are those that contain enormous amounts of violence. Violence is man made, as are the movies and other forms of entertainment that "glamorize" them. Everyone's out to make a buck and Jenkins' is acknowledging what a sick society that we really are. The glamorization of violence in the mainstream media, in a sense, promotes violent tendencies for those lost souls who want to be recognized and remembered by the masses - they don't care HOW, just the fact that they are.  3eb force their fans to think. Many popular bands today are guilty of brainwashing their listeners but 3eb present their music in a naked, vulnerable form, lay it down on the table and the fans pick it up and take it and use it the way it fits their lives at the moment. This is why I see myself as a lifelong 3eb fan -- these songs will still be with me when I'm 90.

As for Third Eye Blind's releasing an EP with the unedited "Slow Motion," I think it is merely a business decision. Artists are entitled to the right of self-expression but I do not see Jenkins' compromise with Elektra as a sign of weakness. Third Eye Blind is a strong act and they know it. They also know that their fans will buy their albums no matter whose record label is pasted on it.

My prediction is that "Blue" will catapult Third Eye Blind to the top of Billboard charts as the year's big rock album, silencing critics who harp on "sophomore slumps". It's too bad that most critics can't see past the doot doot doot's and experience the deep symbolism and dark imagery that's found in each and every song, even in that I Want Something Else ditty.

"Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race." ~ Charles Bradlaugh

Thanks for the opportunity. Let me know if I may provide you with any further comments.

Jennifer Griffin

www.stephanjenkins.com
http://thethirdeye.hypermart.net

***I included this tidbit for sfweekly only***

As for your asking me if I could relate to 3eb not providing an interview, like it was an unaccomplishable task, I can't relate. If you read my entire interview with Stephan then you would know his stance on granting interviews. I asked once and received what I wanted and when I wanted it.  Here's what Stephan said to me on 6/4/99:

"See I'll tell you how we feel about it. I feel like I have a really direct line with the people who listen to my music. And that's what's really important to me. We have like Third Eye Blind culture and that's real to me. That's not something that's gonna get dissipated and flouted out. So, most of the time when somebody asks me for an interview the answer is "no". And the mainstream media, is not something that I believe or trust at all. Where as the websites, the fans on the websites, they make this. You guys actually create these things. So, we're more likely to say "yes" to a website interview than we would be to a major publication because it's so much more just straight across. It's like, these are people who actually make some, make some identity out of what we do. And that's what I did with records when I was a kid growing up. The Police sort of helped tell me where I was at and what I was about - so that's really important."

I guess there is really only one thing I could hope from the mainstream public in regards to Third Eye Blind's music and it's a quote that I have to loop in my own head often times... "Don't criticize what you can't understand" - Bob Dylan