You know a change will do you good

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Earlier this month Worriers played some of our last shows. It gave people the opportunity to talk with me or write messages about what my music has meant to them - a continuously surreal experience, no matter how long I've been doing this.

One comment that stuck with me is that if other folks felt safe to wear T-shirts supporting trans rights, mask in public, or other signs of community care, then they must be in the right place. It's telling when a show clearly supports that crowd, and it's a space I had always wanted to create intentionally. That feels like success to me.

On Monday I saw Gang of Four play one of their last shows. I can't call it anything less than life-affirming. I started listening to Gang of Four when I was in college, hearing the similarities between the funk-punk vibes of Damaged Goods and the Clash's more upbeat Train in Vain. I think I just assumed at that point that if you were a punk band with angular guitars that sounded anything like London Calling you must be my people. You must write punkrock from a place of personal politics, right?

While I could argue the crowd could've been more diverse, the show reminded me what committing to principles as an artist can look like. Not only were there plenty of shirts with good ideas on them, the band hung flags on either side of the stage espousing women's rights, Ted Leo had HRT FOR FREE in tape letters on his amps, and the songs felt like an empowering burst of "the personal is political" that had made me want to write music in the first place.

Entertainment! is somehow an angry dance record. It's like Situationist Footloose. I could tap my heels while shaking my shoulders to "I found that essence rare, it's what I looked for" forever.

When asked about those lyrics, Jon King told Clash magazine in 2009:

"There had been a cheesy magazine ad for a perfume, I forget which it was, that used this line. It summed up that lonely desire we all have to find something permanent and real and transformational in the middle of the relentless, oppressive programming and oppression we go through."

And it is relentless. We all feel it. The commercialization of just about everything, the monopolization of mainstream media, and the idolization of politicians hasn't let up since I heard track 1 side 1 of Entertainment! Next time I hear about that DOGE motherfucker I'll turn on Not Great Men for emotional reinforcement.

Lastly, there's nothing like a good tune about the commodification of love under capitalism:

Coercion of the senses
We're not so gullible
Our great expectations
A future for the good
Fornication makes you happy
No escape from society
Natural is not in it
Your relations are of power
We all have good intentions
But all with strings attached
Repackaged sex keeps your interest.

Whenever I see musicians with a platform actively avoid writing about how they see the world, how personal politics impact us all, I'll just think of how irrelevant they are. Bands like Gang of Four, The Clash, Mission of Burma, The Slits, Fugazi, could all physically move a crowd while challenging norms of how we treat one another. That's badass. That's cool. That's the school of rock I want to be a part of.

PS - Gail Greenwood from Belly and L7 absolutely killed it on bass. If you get a chance to see this tour, don't miss it.

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