AUSTIN, Texas — Local musician Garrett Thompson’s attempt to explore diverse music genres resulted in five uniquely terrible solo projects which were met with embarrassment across the scene, confirmed multiple sources familiar with the situation.
“I usually just stick to my usual alternative stuff, but I thought to myself ‘I have a really eclectic taste’ I could probably do this stuff too. I’m kind of a music freak, I even listen to everything. It’s weird, but I’m like a weird guy, you know?” said Thompson before long-windedly listing the influences his music sounds like a pale imitation of. “I wanted to do a psych-folk thing like Neutral Milk Hotel, but if Aphex Twin was in the band and they were mixed with the nu-metal elements of Korn, all with a tinge of Coldplay layered deep in the roots. I’m also working on a ska project for the eventual sixth wave.”
However, Thomspon’s attempts to showcase his expansive taste and finally be taken seriously as a musician backfired when it became apparent that he just sort of sucks.
“He did this one EP and was calling it ‘experimental hip-hop’ but it sounds like he’s just ripping off JPEGMafia,” said longtime friend Tim Weaver. “We can normally tell what he’s been listening to based on his current ‘style.’ He was really into country music for like a week, so he released a song ‘America My Home’ that was all weird and patriotic, but that same month he did this solo noise thing where he made a song called ‘This Country Can Lick My Shit-Filled Ass,’ and honestly I don’t know which was worse. Garrett is a nice guy, I don’t want to discourage him from trying new things, but he should stop trying new things.”
Thompson’s experiments mixing different genres have received a lot of local attention, though it is overwhelmingly negative.
“You’d think he’d try getting good at one thing before jumping into like five other projects but it seems like he really can’t focus,,” said Gage “Bull” Rees, a scene mainstay and bouncer. “I see this all the time. Last year there was a person who tried doing ‘Jazz EDM,’ and it was so bad we had him arrested. I think he might actually still be in jail. Kids think it’s innovative to just mash a bunch of shit together but it’s usually unlistenable.”
Faced with the resounding criticism and public mockery of his diverse projects, Garrett reportedly decided to step away from the music scene altogether in order to “change the landscape of cinema” by writing a screenplay “that’s sort of like Tarantino, meets the MCU, meets A24.”