May 20 : "Warehouse Job" - Tough Guy Soda (Philly)

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





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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.

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John says : It feels like forever ago since we were all there and, hopefully, we will all find ourselves back sometime soon.

May 09 : "Burning Smell" - Sam Seeger (New York)

News
Sam Seeger Releases New Animation

"Burning" might be the segue word from the last post to this. Sam Seeger came out with an animation last week titled "Burning Smell". WATCH OUT if you ever phone Sam and leave him a voicemail because you might find that it winds up in a video. "Burning Smell" is based on a voicemail message that his father left for him :::

To visit Sam on Facebook, here's the link ::: Sam Seeger on Facebook (CLICK HERE).

Apr 29 : "Light at the End of the Tunnel" - Bel Heir (Philly)

News
Bel Heir Releases New Video

Philly Music!

A SONG FOR EVERYBODY

Wow here's a song that captures a lot of our hopes. Having been grounded for weeks during this pandemic, I think we're all looking forward to that "Light at the End of the Tunnel". This song was just released last week (Apr 20) by Philly band Bel Heir, and it seems so appropriate for these times.

A little bit unclear is how do we reach that light at the end of the tunnel? I could be wrong, but the song appears to want to have it both ways, telling us opposite and conflicting things. It seems to tell us to both bite the bullet and to also be a "rebel". Something for each of us?

The "burning" could either be the virus itself or the anger and frustration that's building in all of us.

Upbeat and opaque.

Here is the link to Bel Heir's Facebook page ::: Bel Heir on Facebook (CLICK HERE).

p.s.... Demand UBI!

Apr 21 : "Paper Planes (M.I.A. cover)" - Sam Seeger (New York)

News
Sam Seeger Releases New Video

TECHNICAL CHALLENGE

Two weeks ago (Apr 8) Sam Seeger released a new video. This is "Paper Planes" and is a cover of a song from hip-hop artist M.I.A.. The song came out in 2008-2009 and is a satire on society's attitudes towards immigrants, written in part as an expression of M.I.A.'s own experiences as she fought the U.S. government.

I asked Sam how he came to do a cover of this song, and he said that part of it was for the challenge! I love everything about M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes”. I just wanted to play that riff on slide, and see if I could do the gun and cash register sounds with my guitar.

Challenge met! Here is Sam Seeger's version of "Paper Planes".

To visit Sam on Facebook, here's the link ::: Sam Seeger on Facebook (CLICK HERE).

Apr 08 : "Pilot" - Wetbrain (Asbury Park)

OPPOSITES + INCIDENTALS

It's rare that an event comes along that gives a new context to a song that's already been written. And maybe even less probable that the new context will be opposite from what the writer might have intended. ... ... all while keeping his original meaning intact.

Such is the case with Asbury Park band Wetbrain's song "Pilot", the first track on the band's 2018 album, "Things You Think You Thought You Knew". The song opens with the words If some sort of a natural disaster ripped out my rug from beneath, and the song's main character thinks about his decision to respond to either "spring into action", or "just keep watching tv". Through the song he weighs and balances and finally comes to the conclusion that taking action is useless, he'll just watch tv. Apathy en masse is not so much a question of people not wanting to take a stand, but that taking a stand would be to no avail. And I probably should add that he seems to have some misgivings about taking this position.

The song was written in 2018. Fast forward to April 2020, and we're in the middle of the coronavirus epidemic. We're being told that, to control the spread of the virus, we should self-isolate and stay at home. >>> So that's where the contradiction comes in, that to take action to control the spread of the virus, we should stay home and watch tv! Not what the writer originally intended, I'm sure.

It was my final night out before everybody was grounded due to the virus that I saw Wetbrain do a show at Century Bar. A highlight of the show itself was some amazing guitar special effects that I had never seen or heard before. ...

Since the show, I've listened to a lot of their work on line. The band employs some very unusual song structures, or maybe they should even be called non-structures. They're more akin to incidental music one might experience in a film, where the instrumentals follow particular lines that are occurring in the dialogue on screen rather than the words wrapping themselves around a pre-set melodic line. It's also more akin to opera, where the instrumentals sometimes follow and catch the nuances of the thoughts being expressed, phrase by phrase, rather than the words' fitting in to the instrumentals and more traditional structures of verses and refrains.

A lot of the songs in the album deal with personal relationships, and the introspection reveals some complicated entanglements not only between the characters in the songs, but also with the integration of outside concepts such as "free will" as well.

The main character in "Pilot" says, "I don't need your commentary", so I guess I better end my comments here. This is the link to the song "Pilot", where you can read the words as they're being performed. "Pilot" by Wetbrain (CLICK HERE).

pic from Wetbrain's Facebook page

Here's the link to Wetbrain's Facebook page ::: Wetbrain on Facebook (CLICK HERE).