Philly Music!
ALONE AT WORK
We've seen many recent stories about warehouse jobs. Many of them now relate to the current pandemic environment. However, even before the covid-19 pandemic, we were seeing stories about bad or unsafe working conditions in many warehouses, and how workers were protesting to bring these conditions to light. (For example, Amazon comes to mind.)
The final live band & show I saw before the current pandemic lockdown was Philly band "Tough Guy Soda" doing a show at Century Bar. (I originally was trying to spread these write-ups out so that this final one would be right before we reopened and provide free-flowing connections to when live shows resumed. ... But that part of it didn't work out the way I thought.)
The stress at a warehouse job can not only be physical but emotional, a feeling of alienation and futility. This is what's tackled in Tough Guy Soda's song "Warehouse Job", which is the second track on their 2017 album, "Demos". The main character in the song talks about feeling alone, about feeling detached from other people there and feeling detached from any purpose in life as a whole.
The feeling of being alone in the workplace appears in other parts of the band's work as well. In the lead song on the album, "War Against Me", the main character talks about that sense of feeling no human value in the workplace.
The warehouse job can be monotonous, and, before you know it, life has passed by. This is interestingly conveyed in the interlude that starts around 1.59 on the clock. The instrumentals keep going like endlessly humming machines and the lyrics stop, and then the main character says I’m at my warehouse job working in the city ...
Still at this warehouse job . Cool the way they did that.
I asked the band to tell me more about their background and especially about "Warehouse Job". John gave me the full story :::Tough Guy Soda as a band came to be in Winter '16 / Spring '17. The four of us, to varying degrees, have been playing music together for a long time but in different forms/projects. A band like Green Day is incredibly foundational to our love and appreciation of rock music. With regards to Warehouse Job, that song was written four or five years ago. Songwriting became my outlet for dealing with stress and, as one of the early TGS songs, seeing it take on new life in the context of making music with friends was really encouraging. The combination of a creative outlet and support from friends helped me manage through a tough time at work. And work shopping that song idea was a big part of how TGS got started. Fast forward to today, we've long been working on new music for an upcoming record that will come out this year. We're self recording and producing it now (started March 2019) with hopes of getting it mixed and out there this fall.
Here is a link to "Warehouse Job" on Tough Guy Soda's Bandcamp page, where you can hear the song as well as read along with the full lyrics, and where you can also find links to the band's other platforms :::
"Warehouse Job" by Tough Guy Soda (CLICK HERE).
pic from band's Facebook page
=====================================================
CENTURY BAR always seemed to me like a place on the other side of the world because it wasn't near any transit line from my area. But with the advent of ROUTE 49, that bus goes directly from the Hood to Century's doorstep, so Century is now on my radar screen.
=====================================================
John says : It feels like forever ago since we were all there and, hopefully, we will all find ourselves back sometime soon.
