Jackpot

Weightless (Future Farmer)
by Jamie Kiffel

“I don’t want to deal with it today, so I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” sings Rusty Miller, lead guitarist and vocalist for Jackpot, one Northern Californian pop band that dares to do nothing, and crow about it. Americans know, after all, that being lazy is what really sells. Even the most industrious of us kick back and watch Greed (a Californian show, incidentally) or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and dream of ways to make our fortunes by laying around and drinking beer. Jackpot could be speaking to a college student as easily as to a husband blowing off church, the trash, and dinner with the line “Nobody’s movin’ and nobody’s gettin’ hurt.” All sentiments culminate with the exclamation “Forget about your finals; let’s get naked.”

In “Weightless,” which is the general quality of the thoughts on this disc, the singer wants to “go swimming today/with one of those air mattresses under my back,” and the music never sinks farther back to Earth than that. Imagine the sound of Rod Stewart’s “Maggie” with the poetry of Joey Buttofuoco. Listening to this could be AA for closet slackers. Come out, admit voluntary brain decay, and love it.
(www.futurefarmer.com)