Lock Up Your Kids

Louisiana natives tell tales of days lost in the bayou. Each story follows a similar pattern of events. While trudging through the murky waters, an upright bass captures the heartbeat. Two female voices entangle leafs with an eerie radiance. Eventually they would enter an enchanted campsite of lost boys and crust punks. The victims would awaken with the fire’s last ember. The only thing left were the songs etched onto their souls.

Locals call it, The Endless Night.

Kimi, Joe, and Reba, were once like you and me. One faithful day, they became love struck mid-performance, driven mad by a straightedge muse. Immediately after that performance, they vanished into the boxcars of a local train yard. Their names and instruments were all they retained.

Mad with music, Wifebeater rejects society. Legislators see them as a scourge on the rolling plains of existence – kids living beyond the law of civilized man. As they traveled the United States their legend grew. Women started throwing bread at passing boxcars as tribute for vagabond deities.

The Icy Hell Hounds of Keelut

While adventuring in the Great White North, Wifebeater was cornered in an icy cave by the famed Inuit Bounty Hunter, Keelut. He commanded hellish chimeras, polar bears crossed with huskies. Permanently snow blind, he used his heightened sense of hearing to locating the three rouge musicians.

The fight was as bitter as the cold that surrounding them. Joe wrestled half the unholy chimeras through sheer force of will. Kimi morphed into her animal spirit and accepted the challenge with a boisterous roar. Reba dauntlessly faced Keelut’s onslaught. Even Reba’s blessed guitar of relentless fury could not overcome Keelut’s poisoned soul.

Close to death, Wifebeater sang out to collapse the icy tomb. The crystalline roof crumbled and the floor gave into the breathless waters below. What happened after that moment is unclear. Three weeks later, polar bear like creatures were spotted on glaciers in the Hudson Bay and Wifebeater appeared in Pittsburgh.

I met Wifebeater in the cellar of an ancient church. The Code Orange Kids were playing, and The Edukators were negotiating the surrender of Comrade  Kangaroo. There is little documentation of that night, but I assure you of the following:

A death glare from Wifebeater can kill three flies, two birds, and a 1986 Ford Taurus. I survived, but a parked Nissan Sentra had gone to a better place. The car was promptly replaced with a bicycle, and nothing of value was lost.

The local shows after that blurred together. Wifebeater became local heroes with their soy-based leather tannery. Additionally, they unionized the bees to produce vegan friendly honey. Our paths often cross, for adventure’s muse never sleeps.

Wifebeater reminds us:
We are all vagabonds aimless and free.

Holy Hand Grenade of Punk

Crafted by the Heavens, Gifted to Man

There was a day not long ago, the heavens stood still. The clouds shook with thunder and shattered into fragments. Through the Soul Forge’s flame, a figure of perfection streaked down unto the world leaving an amber sky. Legend has it, a punk angel received her wings on that day.

As I wandered aimlessly, going on such adventures required of a punk prophet, I was visited by Mercury, messenger of the gods. He was in one of his many forms, a bicycle punk. His messenger bag was filled with heavenly items: PBR, Show Flyers, etc. From his bag he delivered one particular item, The Last Hope Manifesto CD.

The Last Hope’s CD Release Show was over a week away. If it had been delivered by anyone else, I would have simply concluded it was the work of the devil and burned it. The mere fact that Manifesto had come to me before it’s release could only have meant two things. This is destiny, or it was from the future.

Receiving a CD before it’s released is a tricky situation. If you tell the band about it, their creativity process could be impacted thus resulting in a different cd, time paradox, or parallel universe. Erroring on the side of caution, I decided to wait until the CD Release party before ever listening to The Last Hope. Time Paradox resolved.

Photos of The Last Hope CD Release Show

TheSixtyOne, Demonoid, and bands sending me mp3′s is where I get my music. (Ask me for Demonoid invites here.) Originally, I wasn’t sure what a CD would do. Googling it revealed that in the before times, CD’s were used much like the Edison Phonograph Cylinder to store music. Digging further, I found Apple hid a CD/DVD reader in my iMac.

Non-organic

I was surprised to find out that The Last Hope’s Manifesto was non-organic and non-edible. We can finally put the myth to rest that Manifesto is made of candy. The drool proved the CD to be surprisingly water resistant. Field tests show that rubbing The Last Hope’s Manifesto on SUV’s won’t immediately set them ablaze as one would hope.

Contrary to popular belief The Last Hope doesn’t prevent winter. I left Manifesto in my garden over night to see what effects it would have. My parsley and cilantro did not become ‘herbs on steroids’. Most everything was still killed by the frost. Manifesto survived the winter night’s frost to look pretty bad ass.

Contrary to Popular Belief the Last Hope Doesn't Prevent Winter

Shameless Self Promotion: Buy it at Active Left

The Last Hope’s Manifesto is a refreshing roundhouse kick of ember punk. A panda might be able to eat more bambo, but this album delivers a consistent row of chaos spikes.

Their lyrics are emotionally revealing, highlighting the spiritual struggle and symbolizing the evolution of world mythology beyond the sword birthing into new social theories on autonomism in a post colonial world; Indeed, Manifesto impeccably meshes Emma Goldman’s anarchist romanticism with Noam Chomsky’s polished rhetoric exemplifying DIY Culture and reminding each of us in our hearts:

There’s no war, but the Class War.