Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

The Marble Tea is Knight Berman, Jr., Jersey shore musician and songwriter. You can read all about Knight—his background, former bands, etc., in my first piece on his music, “No Boy Wonder,” where I reviewed his I’m Batman EP in 2005. Knight constructs ear catching and damned near perfect “3-minute pop songs” (the title and subject of one of his songs, available on the Hoga-rama disc you can get free by purchasing I’m Batman), creating 15-minute EPs that take the listener on a whirlwind journey through a number of styles, moods, and philosophical concerns. As he says on his website, www.marbletea.com (a very groovy site where you can get downloads, purchase cool stuff, and read Knight’s prosic ruminations), he “continues to examine the underlying connection between life's smallest things and the grander design behind it all through an unpretentious brand of indie pop.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. The first song on Fantastic Day, the title track, picks up where I’m Bat...

(PrestoMusiCo, 2004, www.marbletea.com) In a letter to his niece, the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky said: “The chief idea of the novel is to portray the positively good man. There is nothing in the world more difficult to do, and especially now.” Nearly 120 years later, the word “disc” (or record/album for us older, more nostalgic folks) could easily be inserted for “novel.” Now, granted, these are politically, socially, and morally complicated times, and I am a fan of the politically edged records recently released by the likes of Green Day and System of a Down, but I don’t believe for a second that plain-old good-time tunes on the positive tip, produced by a “positively good man” aren’t equally vital. Just the opposite—having fun and looking at things simply (and dare I say, with the eyes of a child) is incredibly important—especially now. So it is with great joy and a lot of excitement that I present this review of Knight Berman Jr.’s five-song EP, I’m Batman, which runs...