Spite Fences – We Will Never Know Peace
“Peace” used to be a dirty word. It was the going word that if you uttered it too often, you might get physically attacked because of it. It might cause you to lose your job, as well, not to mention your friends, with everyone you know staring at you like you were some demented freak. Nah, this isn’t something that happened nearly a century ago. This was what happened just a few years ago, especially if you were a resident of Europe, a land so keen on spending billions on arming itself.
People get worked up about duty and bravery really quickly. It’s enough to call someone “chicken”, and they become the ideal recruits. Tell them that you plan to fight a “just war”, not one of those “evil conflicts,” and the budget can be made to include colossal sums of meant meant to be used to buy guns and missiles.
But one good thing has come of recent events. People, especially the youth, don’t believe in wars anymore or the people who want to get them started. American punk-rockers represent those kinds of people. “We Will Never Know Peace” is a desperate plea launched on the verge of something monstrous and disastrous for the human race. It’s angry music made by sensible people. It’s a protest song for a generation that wants diplomacy, not bombs raining down on defenceless civilians.
Dog Pops – Beige Hell
There’s a good chance that you, dear reader, are glancing over this text while stuck inside a giant glass building placed on some busy lot or boulevard somewhere inside of a colossal, frightening urban landscape.
You can’t be too happy about it all. The thing gives you the creeps. And every single day, as you make your way to and away from the workplace, you imagine what would happen if the hundreds of thousands of people all around were to simply all go insane.
How do I know? It’s just the stats. Most of us end up in a big city fighting for every square meter of space. But it could be worse. What about all the concert halls, theatres and cafes? And, what about the fact that most of them are disappearing or beginning to all look the same? That’s the Inferno that Dog Pops are contemplating.
I’ve no way of knowing this, but I’m convinced that “Beige Hell” might be written about my weekend in Florida. Dog Pops talks about a place where there are no sidewalks, nothing to do, and every building just kind of blends into the others. Then again, this smartass, tongue-in-cheek lo-fi rock tune could just be a song about rural Canada. Spare a tear for the ones with nothing and nowhere to go. They might be forced to write great songs, but they’re doing it chiefly out of boredom.
