German punk-stars, Die Toten Hosen (more HERE) - and massive TV Smith fans (see HERE) - recently unleashed a new album called Ballast Der Republik. The album has all the expected massed guitars and soaring choruses that make you want to shout-along to whatever the fuck they're saying.
As the bonus disk, the band recorded a set of amped-up covers of influential German artists. I'll confess to my own ignorance and say I only recognize Kraftwerk's "The Model" and eighties synth-pop staple, "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco:
Let us know what you make of DTH giving Amadeus a roughing up in the COMMENTS section.
TV Smith (more here), formerly of The Adverts (more HERE) re-recorded some of his best work with German super-punk-stars Die Toten Hosen (his fourth biggest fans). The album, Useless: The Very Best of T.V. Smith
proves his peculiar genius. Specifically, TV proves what a deft
re-interpreter of his own material he really is because he never gets
caught in that old stuff vs. new stuff war that artists and their fans
can get dragged into. To TV, it's all the present:
Musically, Die Toten Hosen's (more here)
backing him up on material spanning much of his career (but, sadly, not
1979-1983) proves how devastatingly consistent and relentlessly
inventive the man is. Lyrically, TV and co. chose songs like "Gather
Your Things and Go" and "My String Will Snap" that portray a world
out-of-sorts, a world unjustly turned upside down. While Smith's never
had truck with religion, he decries the wickedness of the world like a
biblical prophet, just listen to his
voice-of-one-screaming-in-the-wilderness anthem, "Get Ready for the Axe to Drop" for proof. To hear TV and the Dead Pants (as they might be known
in English) work this theme to its most brutal effect, witness
"Expensive Being Poor" one of the most excoriating broadsides ever
written, a sharp paradox wrapped in a tune you could hum yourself to
death with:
Smith's worldview is never clearer than on the album's sole new track,
"Only One Flavour". Here, TV hoists himself up onto the rickety platform
of the post-Communist left and, in a pique and at a peak, decries the
monotony of political discourse in a capitalist society (see how even
that sentence sounds awfully pre-1989). Useless, which
shows off Smith's catalog of stirring songs that mix punk brio with
folk tropes and that joyously hammer away at the the necessity at
looking at our problems through different eyes (though maybe not Gary
Gilmore's), is anything but.
So while the physical version (LP, CD) of Useless is seemingly out-of-print, the MP3 is back at iTunes, but to hear the single go to the COMMENTS section
Do I think this was as lop-sided as the last debate?
Not quite.
Biden's laughter, perhaps over done, was crucial. As Romney proved in the last debate this Republican ticket is not honest about the rights of women, the deficit, their tax plan, their military expenditures, their own record or just about anything else you can name. I'm not claiming that the Obama's record is perfect, just that Romney's campaign has been trying to run a post-truth campaign (see "we won't have out campaign dictated by fact-checkers etc.) becuase they think that no one will effectively call them on it.
So Biden eviscerated Ryan by laughing at the lies and then, with a great big grin, carving up those lies like a Thanksgiving turkey. Can you fact-check Biden's speech? Sure, but that doesn't allow you to create any sort of equivalency with Ryan's weapons-grade malarky!
By contrast here's some power-pop by a new voice named boice, which didn't hit me as hard when I first watched as it did when I detached from my computer and still heard the song playing in my head.
While we're in sunnier territory, feel free to check out Brisbane, Australia's Cub Scout's slightly breathy take on indie-pop:
Boston's The Street Dogs re-purpose Menace's classic, "GLC" to attack the class-warriors of the GOP:
While the Street Dogs attack his party, Big Bird goes after Mittens personally:
Lastly, let us not miss Morrissey in a deeply strange interview with Colbert:
Have a view on any of these videos? Seen some interesting new videos? Let us know in the COMMENTS section!
MRML is a blog about the devestating effects of culture: music, politics, comics plus etc. blah blah blah. At times MRML will post fine, unpurchasable three-chord obscurica (punk, pop-punk, new wave, mod, power-pop, gospel, reggae, hardcore, rockabilly, folk, country...whatever.) - - - - - - "The otherwise unavailable files in this blog are posted for a limited time and are intended for educational, non-commercial use. These files were transcribed from what are believed to be out-of-print sources. If you are aware of any of these items being readily available from commercial sources, or if any of these files infringe upon rights that you hold, please notify us so that we can quickly remove the referenced items immediately." - - - SUPPORT THE ARTISTS - BUY MUSIC!
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Re: Re-Ups
MRML does not plan to restore all of the content lost in The Great Mediafire Gutting of 2012. Polite requests may be made in the appropriate section, regular commenters will get priority.
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