Autolux doesn't suck, thousands mistaken

There's a reason that most of the big modern rock acts today don't have much drawing power (unless you count pop darlings like Coldplay) -- fans seem to have lost the desire to hear fresh new sounds.

Or maybe I'm some sort of elitist music Nazi. If so I'm proud.

Whether or not my hypothesis is true I can't say for sure, but what I saw Oct. 14 at the Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age and Autolux show at the Savvis Center seems to back the notion. The experience for Autolux had to be disappointing, to say the least. They were seen by many as an afterthought, a band that was brought in to fill a crappy time slot. Their music was ignored, they were booed, all despite the fact that the California band put on a great performance.

But it seems most of the few who were there paid no heed to their weird, new sound, only wanting to hear QOTSA and NIN.

Of course, the key factor here is most people don't know who on earth Autolux is, so here's a brief introduction.

The history of Autolux really has to start with the late great post-grunge band Failure. Hailed by musicians and a select cult of fans, Failure simply failed to capitalize on their craft in the mid- to late-1990s. The music was dark and introspective, but often filled with wry black humor and skillful, melodic songcraft. Not what the hyper-aggressive Korn, Deftones, Limp Bizkit-dominated market could sustain at the time.

Failure broke up after a few albums, and some of the members went on to other projects. Singer Ken Andrews formed Year of the Rabbit, and bassist Greg Edwards became the singer/co-songwriter of Autolux.

Autolux's first album, "Future Perfect," is a spacy, opiated, noise-rock jewel that combines the right level of experimentation with pop songcraft.

It's both catchy and thoughtful, a rare combination in today's rock music, and it's drawing great praise from critics and fans.

But not the fans at the Savvis Center in St. Louis on Oct. 14. Instead the fans at the Savvis Center chose to boo Autolux, pretty much cheering for this great band only when they announced their last song.

What causes today's rock fans to be so close-minded? What causes them to not give a band a chance just because they've never heard said act?

The answers to those questions are hard to find, but when you look at the kind of drivel that tops the charts and passes for rock music these days (think Nickelback, their newest hit should be on CMT), the booing of Autolux is not too surprising. We've reached a point in the popular music cycle where much of the more innovative music is shunned in favor of more shallow fare.

That's not to say that some great bands don't conquer the world. Two examples were playing with Autolux that night -- QOTSA and NIN.

But just listen to modern rock radio, and most of the time you'll hear the same recycled riffs under the same gruff I-wanna-be-Kurt-Cobain-or-Eddie-Vedder vocals. The question then becomes, is radio playing what they want us to hear, or what we want to hear?

Judging by the fans at the show that night, those two ideas are one in the same. Those fans didn't know Autolux because they hadn't heard them, so they didn't like them. The idiot DJs on 105.7 The Point were the same. To them, Autolux's "art rock" -- spoken by these DJs with a negative connotation, as if music isn't art -- must have been something to fear. The sounds they didn't know, the crazy bassist/frontman getting mad feedback from his rig and playing through some of the weirdest effects, these things must have inspired that primal fear.

It's the fear of a fool, where achievement becomes pretentious.

Trent Reznor wasn't afraid. He personally asked Autolux to join his tour and at the end of the St. Louis show, Autolux's last on the tour, he called them one of the best bands today.

Screw the crowd and the DJs. Way to go Trent.