Cambridge Common Restaurant Website

[plumtreeblossom]

First, click and listen:

http://www.cambridgecommonrestaurant.com/main.html

Just e-mailed:

Dear Manager and Dear Webmaster,

I feel a need to tell you that the song that auto-plays on your website is hands-down the worst song I've ever heard in any musical genre in my entire life. I'm glad it's possible to mute it while trying to read your website, but I hesitate at the idea of actually going to your restaurant for fear that "music" similar to this is what plays in your dining room. Your website would be much more usable and inviting without this noise that sounds like a cat in grand mal seizure accompanied by a 2-year-old on guitar.

I hope this song isn't representative of your dining room's ambient music, as I'm sure I would otherwise like to try dining in your establishment. I just don't want to have to bring earplugs.

Thanks,
-Mare

Comments

[ron_newman]

When performed properly by someone who actually understands music, I think it's supposed to sound like this.

(If you get an e-mail reply back from the restaurant, I'd love to read it.)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

See, I never would have guessed the song itself was a John Lee Hooker classic if you hadn't linked it, given how horribly slaughtered it is in the cover version. I don't know why they don't put the John Lee Hooker original on the website instead, or if royalty issues prevent that, at least get a listenable cover from any hobby-level basement band.

[ron_newman]

I just fed some of the lyrics into Google and came up with that. Result sure surprised me!

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Blues can be fantastic dining music, as Jay and I know from our beloved Firefly's in Quincy. But that cover version is definitely not blues, and I can't call it punk because it has no emotive edge or drive. It's not music, as far as I can tell.

WRT electric guitar playing, I know from experience that it takes about 5 minutes to teach someone two basic chords, and then about 10 minutes practice to be able to shift back and forth between them. That's not "playing" the guitar, it's just using it in more or less a percussive capacity. I have, with my own ears and eyes, witnessed pre-schoolers play student guitars with much more mastery.

As for the singing, I can't tell if it's a woman or an adolescent boy, but it either case they sound remarkably drunk and devoid of talent.

Poor John Lee Hooker.

[beowabbit]

Thanks for the link! I just bought a John Lee Hooker album with this song on it. (Sure is a far cry from the cover on that web site.)

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Much better, but -- I like to converse while dining, so would like to see the volume set on way low.

[ron_newman]

I fully agree. Recorded music in a restaurant (as opposed to live music) should always be background. Unless it's a real old-fashioned place with a jukebox.