Grief Scene – British Petroleum
Berlin, Portland, or Lisbon all don’t want you there anymore, especially if you have a funny haircut and stroll into town carrying a guitar case. It’s full! It’s done, and no more songs need to be written inside or about these places.
They’re damn expensive too, and some would suggest that cleaning them up now would be a Sisyphic task. To be clear, it’s we who made it this way. But we never promised we’d come over and plant flowers by the sidewalk, or host free yoga classes in the park. I certainly doubt that this is how they got Grief Scene to found their band in Neukölln, Berlin.
All you can depend on from these creative types is that they’ll make pretty art, run anti-war marches, and that, when enough of them have congregated in the same place, they’ll be responsible for the rising rent prices.
Grief Scene’s “British Petroleum” are worried. And they’re pretty passionate about their worries. They are earnest folks and ambitious artists. They make warm, pleasant, clever indie-rock as can be heard on “British Petroleum.” All that they want is for the big companies to take their pledge of cleaning up the planet seriously. They wouldn’t mind someone cleaning up all the rubbish that’s floating around in the Spree. As for the rent prices? We’ll start selling Doner Kebab if that’ll pay the bills!
Ryan Wayne – Functioning Dysfunctionals
It’s all tricks that we’re dealing with. We learn them early on, and the ones of us who learn them best are the ones who advance the most in our society. It’s all about concealing information, or trying to highlight one thing before they notice something else.
But it’s hard to be entirely earnest in this world. Nobody has time for it. And, one can argue that these ideals don’t do much good either. If this all sounds rather confusing, or if it’s hard to admit, this is precisely what Ryan Wayne has to wrestle with.
They asked Maradona about whether he felt bad for scoring the most famous goal in World Cup history by cheating. He answered that he didn’t and that sports have always been a game of deception. But aren’t love, work, and survival?
Ryan Wayne’s “Functioning Dysfunctionals” is a song about a very weighty topic, but it is dealt with using the lightest of touches. Wayne’s greatest assets are his pristine singing voice and a real knack for coming up with a strong pop chorus. It’s enough to make you feel that it’ll be alright as he gets you humming those melodies. Is that trick as well? Isn’t this how it all works and how it always will?
