Poor Bambi – This One Is For Free
There’s an amazing health kick in the rock n’ roll community that has refused to go away for a few decades now. And, while this is all beautiful to see, it’s horrible to hear. It makes you realise that, without proper stimulation, rock musicians were never that interesting to begin with. Elvis would’ve driven a truck, Mick would’ve done your taxes, and whoever’s that guy in KISS that died recently, he would’ve been selling pills to high school students.
So, if you own a record label or are the manager of a big-name band, take my advice and push those musicians out into the streets without any supper. Nah, don’t make them go out in Calcutta or Novi Sad. Make it somewhere really dangerous, like L.A. or Miami. If they do come back alive and possess a sense of humour about what happened, there’s a hope that they’ll turn out like Poor Bambi.
It’s not easy to get yourself heard nowadays with so much popular music that’s easy to ignore. Poor Bambi’s “This One Is For Free” feels like you’re witnessing a massacre executed by street urchins wearing clown make-up. You don’t wanna be connected to the crime, but you can’t help but feel a little envious. This sounds like music made while observing people going in and out of some badly named bar. And, while all of this may or may not be factual, it hardly matters when you can push this kind of energy into a two-minute song.
Civil Protection – Forty and Punk
Mainstream media never got punk-rock, mostly because the people who run big media corporations never met any punk-rockers. It’s not like they were the kinds of people they could invite over for a dinner party. It’s not like they were the kinds of people they could stomach enough for a photo shoot destined to appear in a glossy magazine. And, because they never much liked the earnest simplicity of punk, they just assumed it was all a nihilistic trip, a mad rush to the grave.
But time has proven all of those taste creators wrong. Many of the great punks are still around, prospering and nurturing some of the anger that they had at the very beginning. As it turns out, as Civil Protection is happy to tell you, the most punk-rock thing to do was grow old, make the best of life on your own terms, and keep rocking.
Maybe it’s time that you reinterpret your standards for success. That’s what Civil Protection would, certainly, like you to do. “Forty and Punk” is a song about being angry, being alive, and being forty. How do I know? I’ve listened to the song a few times and still can’t quite make out if it’s sung in English, Spanish or some made-up language. And that matters very little. As with the best types of songs in this genre, it’s how much the musician is willing to give to those power chords and shouted vocals that matters, really.
