Australian comedy rock musician Cameron Hons returns triumphantly once again with his latest (and possibly greatest) installment, 'Rockin' In The Library' a 10 track banger of an album featuring a wide variety of musical styles. Cameron's preferred musical creativity process of just performing music and not being technical, and focusing on capturing the sound he plays rather than overproucing is often shunned by many of today's music environment. So many new bands are given the green pass for using backing tracks at their concerts, completely destroying any live feel of new music of today. Cameron Hons uses no backing tracks. He never programs drums or any other instrument. He plays them all himself. A few years ago, Cameron was busy often working with other seasonal session musicians and did a bunch of great tracks with some very famed artists from Australia and around the world. But now, especially after making not 1 but 3 Deep Purple Tribute albums from 2020 - 2021, during the high point of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Cameron seems to be having fun moving away from using expensive musicians and continuing to focus on the music he makes himself in his own personal environment once agian.
2023 has so far been a very busy year for Cameron. He's just celebrated his 20th anniversary of making original music releasing the 4 Disc boxset "20 Years Of Cameron Hons Music", an album called "You Can't Get Arrested" was released back in January '23 and many fans alike described it as his best work so far, and in February they released the groundbreaking Midnight Helicopters album "COVID22".
"It was very difficult to follow up 'You Can't Get Arrested" said Cameron. "Originally the album was going to be called 'No Skips Allowed' but I have a giant Library at home And wanted to take a photo in front of it, so I didn't have to edit any background in then I called the album 'Rockin' In The Library' it was much better.'. 'A lot of people so far have said they really enjoy the cover and are fascinated with my home library. It's huge'.
"It was very difficult to follow up 'You Can't Get Arrested" said Cameron. "Originally the album was going to be called 'No Skips Allowed' but I have a giant Library at home And wanted to take a photo in front of it, so I didn't have to edit any background in then I called the album 'Rockin' In The Library' it was much better.'. 'A lot of people so far have said they really enjoy the cover and are fascinated with my home library. It's huge'.
The opener for the album is a absolute heavy banger called "I Don't Practice, I Play The Guitar" which was used on his 20 year old Fender Telecaster, which sounds like it hasn't aged at all. It has a classic Cameron Hons style obnoxious rock sound full of fun and guitar solos that shine through the Headrush Pedalboard that he still uses. The song also discusses various themes of critics making Youtube Videos of how much they think his music sucks. 'I don't care what you say, you can make a Youtube Video of me any day. I don't care who you are, I don't practice, I play the guitar". Cameron has unfortunately been bothered by weirdos making videos of him on Youtube lately and think they can control his music by the essays that they create or make fun of his own recording process, despite not even knowing half of it themselves. In the end, Cameron just laughs off these silly videos, and has actually memed a lot of them, as well as turning some into YTPs with a funnier effect.
"If You Don't Like Me" is a great blues-rocker song about personal critics, this time from anywhere, not just on Youtube and the internet. On the internet, and in real life. It's their decision to be jerks if they don't like you. Not anything that you've done wrong. There are once again a lot of good solos in this number as well as a nice improvised jam section in the middle for a brief time.
"Just Another Day In Western Sydney" is about the suburb Western Sydney, and how there is always so much violence and crime there. The song has some catchy hooks and a great Keyboard Solo performed by Cameron himselff, talking about crimes and daily matters that go on in places like Bankstown and Greenacre.
Cameron often considers the song "I Don't Regret Waking You Up" to be the spiritual successor of his hit track from 2015, "Texting You At Midnight", although it's completely different, it has a similar concept, the same Spongebob Guitar was used, and has a similar rhythm and lots of strange sounding solos.
"Drama King" is a really funky laid out track about people on the internet who over react to everything, especially about certain specific users on some Discord websites who can be often annoying or irritating. Sometimes people over react to the spam and memes from Cameron & his friends in silly ways. They need to calm down!
You'd think a album called "Rockin' In The Library" would have a lot of rock tracks right? Well we're already on track 5 and have gone through several different musical styles already, from Rock, Blues, Pop and Funk. But now we have a chiptune song "Blame It On You". Performed entirely on Keyboards, the song is about blaming other people for the things that they did not do, and gets very chaotic over half way through with a very catchy chorus and rhythm.
One of Cameron's personal favourite songs on this album is a track called "Go Outside" - recorded on his Olympic White Fender Stratocaster, is a meaningful song about people who need to go outside if the internet gets too stressful. Especially aimed at certain individuals on certain discord websites, "If you think that the internet makes you want to run and hide sometimes you just need to go outside" Next time you want to engage in a flame war or troll battle, listen to this song and think twice about your actions.
A common neighbourhood annoyance is when neighbours leave their bright floodlights on at night. "Leave All The Lights On" Addresses this issue. Sometimes Cameron observes both of his neighbours leaving their floodlights on, and sometimes all of their houselights on at night. If they're not drug labs, they are just asking to be robbed it seems while they are away by letting people know they are not there. All of the house lights are blazing, through the night. Maybe if people hear this song it would make them understand that leaving their house lights on all night makes them look like an idiot.
Track 9 is a very 80's synthwave inspired sounding track about weird people who are obsessed with Cameron too much up to the point that they become stalkers. It's a very catchy song and has a very fun chorus and instrumental section.
Lastly is a weird blues sounding track called "My Phone Is Watching Me". It's got a very strange vibe to it, as well as a very weird reverse guitar solo from a Boss DD7 Delay pedal that Cameron rarely uses..Even the special effects you can hear at the end of the song are not digitized, they are coming straight through the amp.
Rockin' In The Library by Cameron Hons seems to be one of Cameron's best albums ever. It'll be very hard to quietly enjoy this album. Especially if you're in a library, we encourage you to play this album at high volume. If you are fed up with a lot of bands using backing tracks, too much technology or overproduction on albums, Cameron Hons is the musician you should check out.
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