I have a cold

I am sick on tour! I am going to nonetheless try to bust the song out tonight after the show but I couldn’t last night. Sorry for the delay!

Missing the Perfect Earthquake

BOSTON–I can’t fucking believe we weren’t in LA for the damn earthquake. It was the perfect earthquake. If it was any strong as it could be and still be innocuous.

Have fun without me, my friends!

Really big article about us in the Washington Post

Check it out!

Bush’s wars: Afghanistan, Iraq and… Contraception?

Note: We recorded the vocals for this song in our van last night while driving from Louisville, KY to Chapel Hill, NC. We recorded music for our weekly songs before we left and are writing and recording vocals on the road. We’ll have video up of it in a little – it was really fun!

We were all worried that with only 100 days until election day Bush would find some way to start a third war.

We thought it would be against Iran, not contraception.

Ever the surpriser, Smirky just launched what is presumably the last topping on the sundae of his legacy: a full-scale war on reproductive rights. Armed with a new proposal that requires all recipients of federal aid programs under the Department of Health and Human Services to not refuse to hire providers, nursers or hospitals that refuse to provide abortion, and some new nomenclature that refers to IUDs and other forms of contraception as abortion, he’s apparently fighting this war with far more planning than the ones that drag on in the middle east. He might even win.

I saw Nancy Pelosi speak at Netroots Nation last weekend, and despite my and roughly half the attendees’ frustration with her occasional acquiesence-as-consensus-building leadership style, I thought that it was really gutsy of her to say flat out that a good number of Republicans are against contraception. The President certainly just proved that he is.

Our song this week is about Bush’s new war on contraception, and how the right’s war on choice doesn’t end with abortion – it’s part of a larger assault on reproductive rights that makes birth control harder and harder to get. Enjoy “Against It All”.

(Put the mouse over, a player appears)
Against It All

They’ll extricate it
From the lectures and the lessons they teach
And if they could they’d legislate it
To a shelving unit far from your reach
they’ll only mention it in whispers every once in a while
But the focus, it’s not the clinic but the CVS aisle

Come on, let’s dial any element of progress to a crawl
No matter what they say they’re against it all

Incremental little battles in a much larger fight
Instrumental in the war on what you do in the night
Please explain how some kind of life
Can begin in the back of our minds
So pay attention, they flip all the language around so you can’t hear it right

Change the name until the connotation fits
Still inocuous no matter what they’re called
If they had their way you’d never get your hands on it
No matter what they say they’re against it all

Advertisement

McCain’s new youth vote strategy?

Dave spotted this in a gas station in northern Oklahoma a couple hours ago (we’re driving from Austin to South Dakota. Ugh.)

I have never once been able to win at the claw machine, but if I was a little kid and I got this rogue prize, I would throw a fit!

Netroots Nation Fun

I’m at Netroots Nation. Some thoughts:

Bob Barr is here and he looks like Vincent Price with a bad aspect ratio.

I saw Al Gore speak this morning, which was awesome.

At a panel on voting rights, someone from Oregon with their 100% vote-by-mail self-righteousness only confirmed my belief that Portland is implicitly racist, despite being all I brake for superfreaks liberal.

Not Just Hope and Change, But Justice Too

We’re crossing our fingers that Obama’s effort to bring the country together won’t stop him from bringing to justice those who have broken a host of laws in tearing it apart.

That’s the theme of our song this week – enjoy!

(put the mouse over the title, a player will appear)
Someday I’ll Exact Revenge

They’re closing shop and taping up the boxes
The rest of us are counting down the days
But not without the clanging of the handcuffs
Will this feeling ever really go away
And I’ll thank my lucky stars
When the shackles hit the tar
And maybe then we’ll laugh and drink like friends
But when the legacy of lies
Bounces off the satellites,
I won’t cry, ’cause someday I’ll exact revenge

I’m still holding out for vindication
‘Cause I remember things like they were before
Something that was worth our being proud of
Turned into something worth apologizing for
On whatever grounds of guilt
That your library is built
You can stare up at a statue and pretend
But I’m only just one guy
And it makes me sad inside, but I won’t cry
‘Cause someday I’ll exact revenge

And history might judge as good as any
And a consensus maybe one day will come clear
Victory won’t be enough to get me
Without a punishment sufficiently severe
They’re selling artificial stones
From a wrinkles older clone
Expecting us to buy them off again
And if they slip that swindle by
It’ll make me sad inside, but I won’t cry
‘Cause someday I’ll exact revenge
No I won’t cry, ’cause someday I’ll exact revenge

Tuesday morning political tunes by other bands: Nas

(h/t Attackerman)

Jesucristo this is fucking great.

Tour starts Tuesday! Hello, America! Goodbye, money!

The Max and the Marginalized “Hello, America! Goodbye, Money!” tour starts on Tuesday. I have played in touring rock bands for 8 years and never with a national average gas price at over four dollars, but it’s cool because we’re going EVERYWHERE and we are going to rock in states both blue and red from coast to coast and back again. Dates:

7/15 – Phoenix, AZ – Modified Arts (7:30pm)
7/16 – Albuquerque, NM – Misty’s Hideaway (9pm)
7/17 – Dallas, TX – Prophet Bar (9pm)
7/18 – Austin, TX – Room 710 (9:30pm)
7/19 – Austin, TX – Ego’s (7pm)
7/21 – Vermillion, SD – Raziel’s
7/22 – Lincoln, NE – Box Awesome
7/23 – Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen (9pm)
7/24 – Louisville, KY – Skull Alley
7/25 – Chapel Hill, NC – Hammer No More the Fingers House (w. HNMTF)
7/26 – Washington, DC – Velvet Lounge (3pm, w. The Surge + Helsinki)
7/27 – Baltimore, MD – Charm City Art Space (w. Helsinki)
7/28 – New York, NY – Arlene’s Grocery (8pm)
7/30 – Cambridge, MA – TT the Bears’ Place (9pm)
7/31 – New York, NY – Alphabet Lounge (7pm)
8/1 – Philadelphia, PA – Trocadero (w. Leftover Crack and Witch Hunt)
8/3 – Richmond, VA – Nara Sushi
8/4 – Wilmington, DE – The Reef
8/5 – Cincinnati, OH – Fries Cafe
8/6 – Milwaukee, WI – The Borg Ward (w. Molitor)
8/7 – Minneapolis, MN – Club 331
8/8 – Minneapolis, MN – Stasiu’s (w. All the Way Rider)
8/9 – Tulsa, OK – Blue Dome Diner (w. My Solstice)

Come on out and see us please! And I must ask – if you have any loot to spare to help us buy gas, please go download some songs and donate with the button below and help us fight another day. Thank you!

Our fine Senate democrats have our back again!

Oh wait, they don’t. We did our song about FISA and warantless wiretapping a couple months ago. We didn’t think we’d have to make a video down the line about the Democrats rolling over like little wimpy puppies so that they wouldn’t look like little wimpy puppies on national security. Please, next time, do better.

And while you’re at it, go sign the ACLU’s ad condemning this thing, k?

Enjoy bitterly: