Nazi Punks, Fuck Off!!!

     Earlier this month, there was an altercation at a bar in the borough of Avalon, which is northwest of Pittsburgh.  A man, who happened to be black, entered the establishment to say hello to his friend who was an employee at the bar.  Unfortunately, there just happened to be a group of skinheads at the bar when he walked in.

     These dimwitted racists started with the verbal abuse and then got physical with their abuse.  The cowards fled the scene when they were told the cops were being called but the cops eventually caught up with them.  They were charged with ethnic intimidation, simple assault and conspiracy.  You can read the full, but short, story here.

     Luckily, there were witnesses to this incident.  Hopefully, they'll come forward and their identities can be protected to prevent any witness intimidation when the legal proceedings get started in August.  I'm sure these stable geniuses aren't going to be very willing to face the consequences of their very stupid actions.

     These intellectual lightweights were seen sporting white power tattoos and t-shirts but most news accounts are describing them as “alleged” or “apparent” skinheads.  Usually, when I see an individual in their Sunday best Steelers jersey and the team logo tattooed somewhere on their person, it's fair to suggest that they are a fan of a team that includes a dopey looking rapist that chucks a ball down a field, without any equivocation.  So why are journalists hemming and hawing about calling these racist pigs the racist pigs that they are?  They were wearing the uniform and the ink, loud and proud, so the general public would know what they were and the hate that they represent.

     This group of people is said to be affiliated with a hate group called the “Keystone State Skinheads.”  Way to go, fellow citizens of the Commonwealth.  We've got our own gang of skinheads.  What the fuck is wrong with these idiots?  They squander, and fail to take advantage of, their white privilege so they have to band together and take it out on someone because of the color of their skin.  This isn't out in the boonies of central PA where dumbfuckery like this is bound to crop up.  This is less than thirty minutes from downtown Pittsburgh.

     It is very unfortunate that these racist dipshits have become emboldened over the past ten years.  Their numbers grew during eight years of a black president.  And now that our country is being run by a bunch of pigs walking on their hind legs, they feel like they can take this nonsense out in public and ruin things for everyone else.  Hopefully, if this country ever comes back to its senses, we'll be able to cut the heads off of these snakes before they crawl back into their sewers.

     One of the last times I was at the 31^st St Pub, I had a really weird encounter with the skinheads that moved into the place.  I understand that looking how I look, with my pasty complexion and shaved head, it would have been rather easy for these idiots to confuse me for one of their own.

     I had heard the rumors that the skinheads made the 31^st St Pub a home but didn't take it too seriously because I didn't think the owner would have put up with them.  Boy, was I wrong.  I guess a beer sold was a beer sold in his book.

     I stood in my usual spot in the back of the room so I could be as close to the exit as possible so I could beat a hasty retreat as soon as the music was over.  The skinheads set up right next to me when they walked in.  As one who does not want to be associated with neo-fascist morons, I moved to a different part of the club.  Between songs, I noticed that they had moved near me again so I went back to my spot near the door.  This bizarre dance went on a couple of times until, thankfully, the bands that I was there to see were done so I hightailed it back into the night.

     I'm glad I didn't have to have a conversation with these lunkheads where I would have explained that I only shave my head because I look like an idiot when my hair grows out and I don't know or care what to do with it.  And by shaving my head, it's my way of having some level of control over how stupid I look.  I'm sure the discussion would have ended promptly with me getting my ass kicked.

     My only hope is that at some point racism will become wrong again.  It's getting harder and harder for me to believe that it will actually happen.  I used to think that old way of thinking would eventually die out and we could all get further down the road without the weight of active racism holding us back.  But seeing the new wave of young hate groups popping up all over the place I don't see that ever happening.
     In the words of the wise prophet Jello Biafra:  Nazi punks, fuck off!!!

An Afternoon Spent With People Much Better Than I

     On Sunday, July 15^th, 2018, I went to a rally in support of John Fetterman.  Currently, he's the mayor of Braddock, PA but he is out campaigning to become the next Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.

     John's wife, Giselle, emceed the event.  Given the amount of work that she does in the community with various non-profits, the commonwealth will be much better off with Giselle in a more prominent role across the state.

     Also speaking at the rally were Sara Innamorato and Summer Lee.  Both women ran against long time incumbents of the state house of representatives and won.  Both candidates were tired of nothing ever changing so they changed it themselves.

     There was also some other guy there.  I think his name was Bernie Sanders or something.  It was great to finally hear him speak in person since I missed all of the other times he came through town on his run for president.

     The theme for the afternoon was Democratic Socialism and coming together to make government work for everyone.  Instead of the current model that seems to include corporate plunder of public treasuries to the detriment of the many.

     Mr. Fetterman kept his remarks short because he was in a tough spot on the bill.  After the fiery speeches of Ms. Innamorato and Ms. Lee, there wasn't much left that needed to be said and then he had to introduce Bernie Sanders.  It was like being on a bill with James Brown, The Ramones and Hendrix. There wasn't much room for him to do his thing so he played it smart and got out of the way.

  Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders, came out and played what I begrudgingly refer to as his greatest hits.  Using our tax dollars for healthcare and education instead of on the military and prison industrial complexes.  As well as equity in the economic and justice systems.

     I refer to them as Bernie's greatest hits because I'm tired of hearing about them and I'm sure he's tired of talking about those topics.  These are all things that should have been settled by now but aren't due to the fact that we are surrounded by greedy pigfuckers.  Greed and their desire for more of everything, consequences be damned, is going to get us all killed.

     For me, the personal highlight of the afternoon and the reason I dragged my bundle of social anxieties off of the couch and into a large crowd of people was to see Derek Zanetti (a.k.a. The Homeless Gospel Choir) open the proceedings with a handful of songs.

     Derek has very quickly become one of my favorite people in the land of Punk Rock.  Armed solely with an acoustic guitar, he's able to very succinctly get a message across that, even though we may feel like outcasts, we are not alone.  He doesn't shy away from pointing out the impact that Punk Rock has had on his life and I'm right there with him.

     Trying to navigate my way through the world became much easier once I knew there were a bunch of other maladjusted people out there trying to find their way too.  And they made records about it!!! The discontent of Punk Rock became a lighthouse for me and I was immediately drawn to it.  The Ramones, The Clash, anything with Ian Mackaye or Keith Morris.  Those records are my equivalent to magic Mormon underpants.

     Seeing Derek play his protest songs in front of an unexpecting audience that was waiting for political speeches was a treat.  I was worried about the response he would get but the crowd seemed to be into what he was getting at.  When he started into his last song, “Normal,” it took every bit of restraint that I had to not start pogoing in the folk pit.  Chances are I would have ended up crippling the two elderly women that were standing next to me.  That certainly would have put a damper on the afternoon.

     Derek is the closest thing to a Punk Rock version of Mr. Rogers that I have ever encountered.  He is all about inclusion and kindness.  The Punk Rock weirdos should be uniting and holding each other up in order to push back instead of forming into competitive factions that keep us divided.

     Derek is also very open, in his lyrics and between song raps, about his struggles with mental health issues.  The more we talk about mental health the sooner the stigmas surrounding it will fall by the wayside.  If something he says at a show encourages someone in the room to reach out for help and brings them some sort of relief to their feelings of isolation, the greater good has been served.

     The Homeless Gospel Choir is on Anti-Flag's A-F Records.  Please, take a moment to check out his work.  Your ears will be greatly rewarded.
     And if the internet isn't lying, Derek is assembling a band to take his songs out on the road with a fleshed out Punk Rock sound.  Hopefully there will be a warm up show in the area before they head out.

Here are some links for the curious:

https://www.thehomelessgospelchoir.com

https://thehomelessgospelchoir.bandcamp.com

http://a-frecords.limitedrun.com

Here's a video that I shot of The Homeless Gospel Choir's set that day:

Adventures In Questionable Parenting

     As a person that does not fit into the standard definition of a “grown up,” I have started to find some of my parenting choices to be rather comical while raising a fourteen year old girl.

     I am certainly not the khakis and golf shirt wearing type of father that aspires to be the CEO of whatever soulless corporation that I ended up working for.  I could give a shit about sports and put as much focus into rare punk rock singles and Batman as the average father puts into their fantasy league.

     A few Saturdays ago, out of the blue, the kid asked if we could watch Kill Bill.  It had been a while since I had seen it so I figured “Hey, why not.”  She has always had a curiosity about the movie since there has been a framed movie poster hanging on the wall in our house since she was born.  When I asked her if she wanted to watch the standard US release or my bootleg copy of the bloodier Japanese release, her eyes lit up.  It was as if I asked her if she wanted ice cream or ice cream with more ice cream on top.  The story of a strong female hero is something that I will always put in front of her.  And hearing her laugh her ass off at the over the top arterial spray is something I will never forget.

     The only thing she didn't get was why I was laughing every time the water feature went “Donk-Donk” before the final fight scene with O-Ren Ishii.  I explained that it was a device used to break the tension of the moment and that it added levity to the scene because it's something that wouldn't be there in your average action movie.

     After breakfast the next morning, the question of watching Kill Bill, Vol. 2 was raised.  Well, if we watched one then we would have to watch the other.  Otherwise we'd be uneven.  That's sound logic in my book.

     Then last weekend, we were stuck in traffic when we ventured out to a major shopping hub out in the suburbs.  The iPod landed on the Laura Jane Grace cover of the Mountain Goats song “Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton.”  Towards the end of the song the phrase “Hail, Satan” is repeated quite a few times.  With the windows down and the volume up, a fourteen year old girl could be heard belting out “Hail, Satan” repeatedly.  The looks we got from these All-American, white, suburbanite consumers were priceless.  And we did this several times.

     After we had finished hailing Satan, who never showed up, I was asked who sang the song.  I was then asked why someone named Laura had a voice that sounded like someone that shouldn't be named Laura.  Here's where being a parent that doesn't much care what other people do becomes troublesome.

     I never put much thought into the subject of people being transgender because I don't really care.  Whatever makes people less miserable is fine by me.  All of the arguments over bathrooms and whatever else people come up with because of their fear of the “other” are tiresome and I have other things to get done.  So my usual attitude toward “normals” makes it difficult to explain things in a way that my kid would understand.  After a brief explanation without me saying, “Stupid, fucking bigots,” she responded with “Oh, that's why there's that third bathroom at school.”  Exactly.

     After we got home, we ended up watching an episode of Comic Book Men.  A large chunk of the episode was about the movie Shooting Clerks which was a reenactment of Kevin Smith's making of Clerks.  During the episode I had the thought “I really want to watch Clerks now.”  No sooner than I had finished the thought, the kid's head popped up and said “Can we watch Clerks?”  As you wish.

     I did warn her that it was much different than Yoga Hosers and that there was a bit of language which still bothers her for some reason even though she grew up riding in cars while I was driving. She said she was ready for it so we let it rip.

     When she saw the Death Star construction worker discussion, I had to pause the movie because she was laughing so hard.   She said that's the kind of things she talks to her friends at school about. She thoroughly enjoyed the movie.  Even the parts I'm sure she didn't understand.

     Every time she asks to watch a movie that might be questionable for someone her age, I have to remind myself that I took her to see Logan when that was in the theaters.  If you ever want to have a gut laugh over mundane statistics, read the IMDB parents guide for Logan.  On top of the sex and violence breakdown of the movie, someone went through the trouble of counting how many times each swear word was used and provided the count for each.  If that's an actual job that someone gets paid for, sign me up.  I'll be your “fuck” counter any day.

     That's why when Deadpool started airing on FX, I thought it would be a good time for the kid to watch it since it would be scrubbed of naughty words and deeds for basic cable.  Boy, was I wrong. Apparently, there were budget cuts at FX and the only people that were laid off worked in the Standards and Practices department.  The naughty words and deeds were intact.  At the first commercial break I thought, “Well, fuck it.  We may as well just watch the Blu-ray.”  At least there wouldn't be any commercials and I find those more offensive than anything.  At least she didn't ask what the deal was with the International Women's Day scene.  Having to explain pegging to my daughter is not really high up on my list of things to do.

     Ever since she was little, I had always exposed her to stand up comedy.  George Carlin and Patton Oswalt were always in rotation.  This was followed with Lewis Black and certain bits from Bill Hicks.

     We huddle around the laptop on a regular basis to watch Lewis' The Rant Is Due segments on his website.  She giggles her head off at his creative use of profanity and how “fuck” is used as a place holder between syllables.

     Following the events at Parkland, FL and the subsequent protests, she was giving a speech in her English class about gun control.   I handed her an essay that Bill Hicks had written on the subject. She asked if she could cite it in her speech.  I said sure but with one condition.  She had to refer to him as “The Great American, Bill Hicks” in her speech.  She gave a puzzled look and asked why.  My simple reply was “Because he was.”  She rolled her eyes at me, shrugged her shoulders and made it work.  To witness one of the darkest/greatest pieces of comedy, jam “Bill Hicks Rush Limbaugh” into your browser and be prepared to be horrified and delighted at the same time.

     I'm not sure what affect loading a kid up with (un)healthy doses of the Misfits and Kurt Vonnegut might have on her but it has to be a better diet than reality TV, hyper competitive sports culture and Sunday school can give her.

Laura Jane Grace~The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton

A High Tension Purge

     Back on June 15^th, 2018, the ears of the world were given the gift of Purge from the band High Tension.  The band hails from Melbourne, Australia and are one of the greatest discoveries that I've ever made while diving in the immense ocean of tunes that is Bandcamp.

     After the let down that was the bill of opening acts for Code Orange, Purge was the blistering and bruising punch in the earhole that I needed to remind me of what heavy music could be.  Due to the Melbourne/Pittsburgh time difference, I received the email notification that the album download was available late in the evening on the night before the official release.  I immediately ran to my computer to jam high-res audio files onto my hard drive.  For two straight listens, at a volume that probably took years off my life, I sat in the middle of the floor and watched my speakers, as if something visual was going to happen.  I was stunned.

     Purge is a 34 minute piece of empirical evidence that High Tension is clearly not fucking around.  After their first two albums, Death Beat and Bully, drummer Damian Coward and guitarist Ash Pegram departed.  This left vocalist Karina Utomo and bass player Matt Weston as the only original members.   Lauren Hammel and Mike Deslandes stepped in on drums and guitar, respectively.  Sometimes after a band goes through line-up changes, they either end up sounding as if they lost a step or they stick to their guns and make the same record twice because they don't want to leave their comfort zone until everyone figures out where they fit in.  That is not the case with Purge.  If High Tension saw the bar set by their previous albums as a tall building, they leapt over it in a single bound.

     Karina Utomo's vocal approach is one that gives me the impression that I would not want to encounter her in a dark alley.  She can bring the savagery with the best of them and would certainly qualify to be credited in the liner notes as “Throat,” much like HR, from the the Bad Brains.

     Lyrically, Utomo is drawing from the purges of the mid-1960s that occurred in Indonesia.  This happened under General Muhammed Suharto who was the dictator of the country until 1998.  Much like the purges in Cambodia under Pol Pot, artists and musicians were swept up and murdered with their works becoming contraband.  This had a negative cultural impact on these countries that can still be felt today.  Listening to the rock and roll that was coming from these countries just before the purges is not easy given the knowledge that shortly after it was recorded all of the musicians were most likely rounded up and erased from existence.

     There is only one sonic lull on the album, it's track 5, titled “Surrender.”  The velocity of the music may have subsided for five minutes but the intensity and poetics of the lyrics that are sung more than make up for it.  “Hold on/To the fury in your voices/Hold on/To the sorrow in your pulse/Drag the sword from your back.”  Things don't get much better than that.  On more than one occasion, I've found myself sitting quietly and reading the lyric sheet that came with the vinyl.  They are that good.

     The only downside seems to be the lack of North American distribution.  The shipping costs from Australia were almost as much as the LP but so incredibly worth it.  The color breakdown, as far as I could tell, is 100 on oxblood/bone swirl, 300 on oxblood/gold swirl and 300 on straight oxblood.  The oxblood/gold swirl looks like it's only available from the High Tension Bandcamp page.

     If you're going to get the vinyl, I wouldn't wait too long.  High Tension's vinyl tends to dry up relatively fast from their webstore/label.  Currently, there are a few copies of Bully on Discogs which was on pink vinyl.  Since the initial run of 500, on clear vinyl, sold out, Death Beat only popped up for sale once on Discogs a few weeks ago.  And that copy now resides on my shelf which, coincidently, was delivered on the same day that Purge crash landed on my porch.  My turntable has been black and blue and sweating profusely for the past few weeks.

Here are a few links and videos for the curious:

High Tension's Bandcamp Page

High Tension's webstore