#46: Angry man with a bass

Beercan Pentagram; Special/Sexy/Sleazy; Weed & Dolphins; Strangely Shaped By Fathers

Beercan Pentagram

Sometimes you find what you’re looking for while searching for something else. Case in point: While googling information for Reno band Beercan! (“4 dudes that love to drink beer” who released an album called Have Another), I came across a link to an Encyclopaedia Metallum page for a Wisconsin band called Beercan Pentagram. Having spent a lot of time in Wisconsin, I can assure you that Beercan Pentagram is the perfect name for a Sconnie metal band. It’s also perfect that they make said pentagram out of Busch Light cans (and one Milwaukee’s Best Light can) in a photo. That they called their 2019 album A Triumph of Poor Taste is also perfect. Furthermore, this is exactly how they should look.

I guess what I’m saying is, we can all stop making music now, because Beercan Pentagram has hit the goddamn bull’s-eye. While I’m a little distressed that they haven’t updated their Facebook page since April 2020—aside from a random “Eat shit zuck” post a few weeks ago (💯)—I suppose nothing gold can stay. Good thing I can order a 3-foot-by-3-foot Beercan Pentgram banner for only $15! (That it’s labeled “Beetcan Pentagram” on the merch site is also perfect.)

Special/Sexy/Sleazy

“LA-based scumbags with instruments,” says their Facebook page, though Special/Sexy/Sleazy look more hipsterish than scumbaggy. A fine line separates the two, to be sure. But did you know that Bobby “Boris” Pickett, who co-wrote “Monster Mash” in 1962 with Leonard Capizzi, wrote a sequel in 1985 called “Monster Rap”? He did, and Special/Sexy/Sleazy covered it.

Special/Sexy/Sleazy’s Google results are more interesting, like the text that shows up for an Etsy result: “Check out our sleazy sexy selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our riding & farm animals shops.” Wait, what? Or this informative article from allwomenstalk.com: “AWESOME TIPS FOR WOMEN WHO WANT TO LOOK SEXY WITHOUT LOOKING SLEAZY …” Number nine, “Watch those heels,” advises, “You may want to avoid anything that's super, super high, as these can come across as looking over the top and slightly stripper-ish.” Take heed, Special/Sexy/Sleazy.

Weed & Dolphins

It would’ve been a lot more fun to talk about a band from Belarus a few weeks ago, but now, I’m just hoping these guys are okay and how it must feel to have an evil army using your country as a base for an unprovoked war on another country. Not that life in Belarus was a picnic before, thanks to dictator/dildo Alexander Lukashenko, but it must be so scary.

Anyway, here’s a tattoo of a dolphin smoking from a bong (or maybe a dolphin masturbating?).

weed.n.dolphins

A post shared by @weed.n.dolphins

Strangely Shaped By Fathers

I love it when Facebook’s nav offers inadvertent commentary.

When you’ve written a book called Authentic Democracy: An Ethical Justification of Anarchism, you will likely also have an autobiographical “punk poem” called “Anarchophy,” a word-dense treatise on how you came to punk rock and anarchy.

From there, it will be no surprise that your personal website has an 1,800-word “about” page that ruminates on your decision not to hide your socio-political attitudes even though you’re a teacher and dealing with parents is the worst.

So after a decade of hiding all the various things I am and do outside of the classroom because of some misguided notion of “professionalism” within education which encourages teachers’ lives and personality to remain hidden behind a veil of privacy (forgetting that privacy is not something to be enforced, but something we choose to maintain or yield when interacting with our fellow human beings) I decided in the summer of 2020 that I was sick of the hypocrisy of hiding. That we shouldn’t live in fear of some future employer, or whoever, Googling us and disliking what they find anymore than we should cover up our tattoos.

Your songs will not be fussed over. “This is a ‘live’ album of 9 songs recorded one hot July afternoon in 2021. One man (me), one bass, recorded live in one take with no overdubs or re-dos,” goes the description for Angry Man with a Bass. Of the song “Alternatives to Extinction,” you’ll say, “I am really unsure about the recording of this one too. I did it with one ear totally messed up with wax and unable to properly judge levels or sounds at all. Again - I decided to honour that too and just put it out there, warts and all. Enjoy!”

You’ll accompany your releases with a “free inlay PDF (included in every download) for full, warts and all, information about the origins, development and recording of this infectious mixture of melodic punk rock and harmonic psychotherapy,” but you won’t explain where your band name came from anywhere.

POST-SCRIPTS

• Weed & Dolphins can’t have their music on Bandcamp because of “technical issues” in Belarus, according to their Facebook. I wonder what that means.

• Band name for free: Dictator/Dildo.

• I cannot hear “Monster Mash” without thinking of Nick Wiger as “Leo Karpatze” singing his song sequel, “Monster Fuck” on Comedy Bang! Bang! It is profoundly filthy.