Victory Point – Puppies and Kittens
“Punk-rock PR & Consultant” is the job I’m gunning for. And if bands like Green Day know what’s best for them, they’ll hire me to tell them just what line they can push and how far they can extend it before lifelong fans start gathering around the offices of their record label and begin demanding Billy Joe Armstrong’s contract be terminated.
You have to use velvet gloves these days. And you have to import really soft Italian and French velvet if you’re going to use those gloves in the U.S.A. That is, at least, what anti-protectionist punk Victory Point believe. The band doesn’t really care where the line is. They just want to find whoever it is that drew it and smash their head in.
“Puppies and Kittens” is one of the cleverest punk songs about the news. It dares to ask, “Just how much help and protection do people need before they feel safe?” It’s a song about isolating yourself from bad news until the only thing that you can stomach are endless video loops of puppies and kittens. Slap a tariff on this punk tune, and, essentially, you have the new global trade order. And, where will it all lead? According to Victory Point, it all ends with people too afraid to leave their house unless it is to feed a kitty powdered milk on their front porch.
combobox – Oh No!
People watch action movie characters with great interest. It’s not just the backflips and car chases that impress them. It’s not exactly like they’re always rooting for the main character to win the day. Most people simply hold a belief at the back of their mind that if they were asked to become a superspy in real life, they could handle the situation pretty well. Sure, they might not ever get to actually try out this scenario. But that’s not the point. The point is being ready.
That’s the attitude with which most of us rad history books, or watch bloody WWII documentaries. combobox, clever U.S. punk band, has read the same history books and isn’t very convinced of our abilities. In fact, the right attitude might to be to get scared out of your wits, or laugh yourself into a panic. It’s just like Norm MacDonald wanted us: “What if you get sent back in time to assassinate Hitler and fall in love with his blue eyes instead.”
“Oh No!” is a humorous protest written in the time of unreason, and in a moment where nobody can convince another sane human being about what the truth is. combobox makes the kind of sound that makes you fall down from a tall cliff, get grabbed back up and thrown back down. The lyrics are clever and warn us that we’ve seen these stories play out before. Do we really not know how they end?
