Jonah Matranga

There's A Lot Here [CD/DVD]

(Equal Vision)

Record Review by Alexis Roberts

The title of this CD/ DVD collection from Jonah Matranga really says it all, folks. There’s A Lot in Here… plain and simple. You get a DVD with 2 shows and a “movie of sorts,” which is basically a music video for every song from Onelinedrawing’s The Volunteers.  Jonah, former member of Onelinedrawing and Gratitude, has musical ADD and that’s okay with me—because his music is nice.  If I wanted to make a new friend, every day I’d play them a Jonah song and win them over immediately.

The living room concert is a new concept to most people and a bit awkward to watch at first, but Jonah’s quirkiness really does a good job of overriding the fact that he’s standing in a living room with a painting of Audrey Hepburn behind him while he sings away about girls with seashell hips.

Throughout the concerts he tends to give random commentary on his songs, sometimes even in the middle of his songs he will begin talking about this or that, and it can get annoying, especially after watching 5 hours of footage.  Because of this I highly recommend breaking up the DVD into three segments and taking a break in between each or you may have a Matranga overdose.  Like all good things, there comes a point when it becomes too much.

The video collection for The Volunteers is actually quite a treat because it was directed by the one and only Darren Doane, and his concepts and filming techniques for rock music videos are always innovative.  For the 11 videos he superimposes a fog over the actual images, giving you the feeling that you are watching someone’s dream play out on the screen.  This part of the DVD is much better than the living room concert.

The CD is composed of 12 songs (half from the living room set, half from the Chain Reaction show) because Jonah said that when he would watch a music DVD he would want to be able to take the music with him.  However, since they are live recordings, the sound quality isn’t exactly the best.

After watching this DVD and listening to this CD, I feel like I have gotten to know Jonah Matranga the person, and not Jonah Matranga the singer of Gratitude.  This collection can be overwhelming, because there is so much included.  I have a feeling that it will gain him fans because you can’t say you don’t like a dude who plays shows in living rooms just for the sake of being able to share his music.  That’s what this collection is really all about:  sharing as much of his music as possible with as many people as he can... not because he wants to make money, but because he wants to make friends.