All that you read is the product of the delete button.
You see, I had this review ‘ready to go’ or whatever you
want to call it but it was such a dry document with too much tradition. A
product of more editing than creating. Too much hitting the SAVE button when I
truly know deep down that when you’re dealing with rock and roll like this,
there is no salvation. Hit the DELETE button and do it all over again from the
heart this time. Fuck SAVE. There is no SAVE. There is no SAFE! It’s hot today,
as I write this. I haven’t been out all day. I have started drinking heavily
too. A cleaning of the house on a holiday weekend because you’re too tired
through the week brings this very CD to be listed as MIA. It’s nowhere to be
found. Strange forces are at work, even on this holiday weekend that sort of
seems like training for other, similar holidays… The forces don’t take holidays
off. I hit the DELETE button out of personal frustration before I realized that
these forces that I feel myself and bands like Strangetunge always seem to
fight, keep using their science and weaponized magic to try and fuck us all.
They, it, or whatever you want to call it, doesn’t take holidays. They are
already hip to what holidays are all about; a reason to launch a surprise
attack. Well played you fucker, but dig this: I will keep going straight, in a
forward direction. I look not to the sides or rear. Rock and Roll is always a
suicide mission. I know this.
I know no victory except defeat.
Defeat… Its victory if you are doing it right.
Real rock and roll is filled, brimming, with ample amounts
of struggle, contempt and damnation. What I had originally written was untrue
to the true spirit of what Strangetunge is all about. Too dry. Too fucky. I know this because I understand the band and what they are going
for. I understand their frustration and contempt they have for the ass-kissing,
name-droppers that surround us both. I understand this band. Their songs on How
About some Strangetunge is as if a
soundtrack the final days of the middle-times. Strangetunge usher in the
beginning of the end (your end-you know who you are). This band, they could be
something else entirely. An un-named primal force that should have strong
heavenly-based religions to represent it. If you want to talk about such novel
things as bravery, then this band are truly pioneers. They are brave.
Strangetunge is like a six year old calling his Mom a motherfucker.
There is more bravery in any members of this band pinky
fingers than most bands have during their whole careers. I have said it before
about their times and battles as The TALKEN TUNGS that it would be so easy for
this band to just go the safe route and do covers and make the safe masses feel
as if they are someplace safe. The safe-ones feeling better about themselves
and their fragile frail necks hid behind all the beer-lights. The Talken Tungs
just don’t go that cover band route. That’s the safe-necks victory. Despite the
unpopular move, the choice to go the route of all originals proves even more
dangerous than originally thought. Where are all the interested crowds who say
one thing and do the next? Where is the prestige for being individualistic?
Where is all the glamour of victory? Well, its all not there but its not
because Strangetunge isn’t doing it right… It’s because they are doing it WRONG
(which is really about how they are doing it RIGHT) because the safe-necks are
sticking out anywhere. They stay safe, where they know it’s comfortable. The
mere fact that Strangetunge isn’t popular doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be
on higher levels than they are. It doesn’t mean that the bands that are already
on levels shouldn’t be there or they don’t deserve to be there either. But when
you have a band as good as Strangetunge, who can belt out passionate songs like
“High Price”, “Crazy Mavis” or Hot Like Alice” and they don’t have people
swooning over them the way that I feel they should, well then something is just
wrong…Or right. Just crack open another Port Republic and try to keep up you
mothers. Shits getting twisted, beastus and chaotic as the sun sets and the
Pint 8’s are disappearing before our every eyes (do you believe in magic? Well,
watch this GULP, GULP, GULP. Burp. Ta-da)
And as America
has taught us, someone is to blame. So, as America has taught this son of the
revolution, I blame everyone else. It's easy. Easy is the American way! Eat
that missile! How About some Strangetunge
is only available for limited release. I’m not really too sure how many the
band are doing because they are making copies themselves. Production levels are
high with song content, ability and over all delivery scoring high (it could
just be the Port Republic Beer talking and forcing me to Sail Close to The
Wind) but this band, this CD is pretty fucking rockin’. They deserve a label
careening over them and supporting them, but that’s a different 12 pack that’s
being drank…
At times Strangetunge hits like a DOORS sorts of poetic band
mixed with DIRE STRAITS. Listening to “King Cool & The Golden Boys”, a song
that mentions The Comet by name and is undoubtedly some place the band loves,
but also recognizes in its patronage the attitudes and mannerisms that make one
feel as if they must cross moral and ethical lines to just be acknowledged by
peers. There are tons of open-minded individuals in this city who are
completely open to novel ideas and concepts and new, fresh ideas. Always have
been, but in the last decade, its suffering a bit. The other side is gaining
ground… It’s making things harder for band like Strangetunge to find a spot…
Their own spot not full of piles of shit. But really that’s what makes bands
like Strangetunge stand out to the few. If there is one thing, one concept that
Strangetunge need to understand… and Its easy to forget sometimes, its that
QUALITY is always, and will always out shine, QUANTITY, in every scene, or
movement since the dawn of rock and roll, that has remained true.
You can’t honestly hear a band play a song like “D.I.B” and
say that it’s not a rocking song! Well, you can lie about it… That’s the only
way you will feel halfway honest with yourself… “D.I.B” rocks. Just save your
lies for when they will really matter and give Strangetunge their due. Go ahead
gentle citizen; join me in being part of the QUALITY. Leave the QUANTITY
behind. Live for the unsafe than the safe. Put your neck out there and cut it
with your own knife. Bleed out the bad, let the good replace it. Hit the DELETE
button, scramble to ask yourself what you have done and re-find your enthusiasm
that you never purged from your system. Do the irresistible. Do the
unthinkable. Sit inside all day on a so-called beautiful day. Drink heavily. Be
a question to what few friends you have. Be a reason to the other friends who
you can never make happy. Drink heavily. Listen to music loudly. Go ahead and
like Strangetunge. That’s what you were waiting for. Let you hear that is OK
and SAFE to like this band if you need that. Whatever makes you feel better.
When “music reviews” become almost “manifestos” about what’s
wrong with something and what’s right with something else, then there is still
a fucking chance! Strangetunge show that there is still a fucking chance. As
long as there is breath and legends and written words, Strangetunge will be a
force of resistance to the mundane powers that be. I will fight with them. I
will fight for them. I will hold them up on high. I don’t give a fuck… Let the
record show. I will write an article, hit DELETE… Rewrite the article from my
buzzed place of enthusiasm. I fucking care. I have proved it time and time
again. Face the adversity of the powers that rally against and misplace the CD
only to sit down and find what I was truly supposed to write about… PASSION
Motherfuckers! PASSION motherfuckers! PASSION motherfuckers! A Band playing
music because they want to, on their own terms. Strangetunge Motherfuckers!
Defining themselves instead of being defined. Strangetunge Motherfuckers! I
could only hope they, the band, read this and say I got it all wrong. Good. A
fist against is a fist for! I will take that too. Victory in others victory.
Victory in their defeat. Victory in my defeat. Fuck Catch 22’s. There is only
victory. Spike thee victory. I win, you win. We all win motherfuckers!
Maybe I will be the first to admit it. I may be wrong about
everything I have ever said even though that is statistically impossible. Yeah,
I will be wrong about much, maybe even a majority of what I say, but I’m not
going to be wrong about everything. Some stuff, I’m going to be right about. It
isn’t about your allies raising fist behind you that define you and the things
you do, it’s about the ones on the other side raising fist against you that
show you how right you are doing anything. The more the fight fights back shows
how important what your fighting for is worth fighting for.
Makes sense to me.
Motherfuckers.
Now, I’m going to put on my Velcro shoes and gather together
the weekly garbage to set out. Its trash night. I have been drinking heavily
today. Sailing close to the wind. Writing about a band that I wish someone
would feel compelled to tell me about instead of the other way around. I will
take the garbage out staggering, dragging the cans that the wheels fell off of
a long time ago… I will do this in the uniform of my boxer shorts and t-shirt.
Give the neighbors a show. The ones who understand will raise a fist with me
and salute me with their drinks. The ones who don’t understand are the ones who
honk and raise a fist against me. This jaunt of taking the trash out will be a
buzz-kill. Undoubtedly. I will re-build my buzz immediately upon completion. I
have had a meal of double Meat-Hoagies (a lot like Steak-Hoagies except
re-named by beautiful 4 year old Olive) TWICE today. That’s four Meat-Hoagies
motherfuckers! This is a four-a-day Meat Hoagie glorious event! That’s being a
scourge of society!!! I’m right where I need to be, on the edge. Teetering on
the brink. Heavy drinking, Meat-Hoagies. Strangetunge. Ride with me. Trust me.
Hit the DELETE button now.
My fist is raised with you but if you really listened you
would have already hit DELETE.
