Occupants – Sort of Person
Don’t ever start reading history books, and never become a fan of podcasts and shows discussing various historical events. Try to avoid them even if there’s simply no other form of entertainment available. It may sound like an effort, but it’s worth the sacrifice.
All that you’ll do is make yourself miserable, as well as all the other people that you’ll feel forced to share your newfound information with. You won’t find one single beam of light. At best, like punk-rock group Occupants you’ll begin to feel the weight of a mission to warn the world.
Nothing ever happened because people were generous. Nothing ever changed because people were simply looking to enlighten their fellow human beings. It’s all a terrible, violent mess. And you are, of course, just one more page in that awful book, whether you know it or not.
Well-intentioned, combative and, I’d like to think, clever enough to smile at the misery of the world Occupants deliver the excellent “Sort of Person.” If modern-day fights for land and resources should have a soundtrack, they’d deserve nothing better than this one. It’s a knuckle sandwich of a single, a monstrous, devastating kick where it hurts most. It’s just like history. You’re better off watching Wimbledon instead.
The Halfpipes – Birthday Boy
The best people, just like the every best bands, care very little about whether you like them or not. In fact, some of them get off on the very notion that they’re very existence is causing you some kind of active discomfort. Some people thrive off of that.
That’s because the best people, and the best bands, are not ones that will stop, mope about, or lose their energy over every little thing. The very greatest punk-rock bands, in fact, win by wearing everybody else out. The Halfpipes know this all too well.
How do they manage to stock up on such colossal reserves of energy? They save up on the feelings that others discard. They load up on anger, rage, and disenchantment. And once they’re all full, they deliver back to the world in a calm, controlled manner.
“Birthday Boy” by The Halfpipes is a modern punk-rock classic. A song about being the one that everyone forgets to call to wish a happy birthday, and glued to a rhythm section that’s somehow tapped into the vitality reserves of the best skaters on Earth, “Birthday Boy,” is fun, mean-spirited, and anthemic for everyone who has actively decided not to waste time sweating the petty stuff.
