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“People Worth Knowing” may not be, but have potential
Photo courtesy of People Worth Knowing
Written by Staff Writer - Abigail Christensen
After a performance on Saturday, March 27, at Harkins at San Tan for their music video release for their single, “All I Wanna Do”. Local band, PWK (People Worth Knowing), proved they are not exactly a band worth knowing. Although they have musical potential, their talents were well hidden by easy guitar riffs and simplistic melodies.
As the songs rolled on, the lyrics began to sound similar and even boring. In some spots in their song, “All I Wanna Do,” more than half the song was reserved for the repetitious chorus, “All I wanna do is spend my days with you. All I wanna do is have some fun with you…” PWK is utterly mainstream, if anything else, and completely “poppy” with no unique sound to pick them out amongst the many pop stars in the world such as Emily Osment and KSM. Their song, “Gonna Be Me,” was slightly more promising, with a catchier tune, less recurrence, and a little more character. However, each song seemed to have the typical pop drone of artists long past, such as Hilary Duff and that of the 80’s retro classic, “Hey Mickey,” by Toni Basil.
On the positive side, the band continued to switch their instruments around, showing their talents in different areas of instrumentals. Michaela (16) plays bass guitar, cello, violin, and sings. Cameron (14) sings and plays lead guitar. Raina (14) plays piano, bass guitar, and vocals. Noah (14) plays the drums. As the band played, a pattern began to form in their instrumentals and musicality; each song had the same, bright phrasing and tunes. Although the music struck a happy chord inside, it just didn’t have a distinguishable sound worth listening to.
PWK’s history of “rock your socks off pop,” as Michaela described it, started about a year and a half ago when she and three middle school students from Greenfield Junior High teamed up to form what was originally, “You’ve Been Warned, but soon after changed to PWK because of the hardcore metal-sounding title. With inspirations such as Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, ACDC, Jimmy Eat World, Train, and Phish, the band was motivated to compose their own music. The band has played covers of “Tattoo” by Jordin Sparks, “Perfect Day” by Hoku, and “That’s Not My Name” by The Ting Tings at venues such as Warren’s Jazz Bistro, Native New Yorker, Harkins at San Tan, and many other charity/fundraiser events.
Recording independently with an uncle who is a music producer, their songs, “All I Wanna Do” and “Gonna Be Me” can be purchased on iTunes and Amazon.com. Hoping to record more in early summer, more songs and possibly an album will be available in late 2010. Their website, www.PWKMusic.com, is now under construction and should be open to the public sometime in April. In the meantime, they currently keep a band profile on Facebook that can be visited at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/PWK-Rocks/372831046074.
April 8th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Brilliant article, and I agree.
April 19th, 2010 at 9:13 am
thats cool. they’re really young though ha!
May 19th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Ok well I have no idea what you are talking about because I think that they are worth knowing. They play great and write some really cool songs. Yeah some are “catchy” but a lot of songs are. So go check them out! Rawk on!