Commie Hilfiger is Going on Tour!

Okay, so it's three dates across the great state of Texas but if Mike Ness gets to claim 10 dates in two cities 20 miles apart from one another as a tour, I am allowed to do the same. Deal with it.

You're favorite Communist Action Comedy Punk Superstars will be spreading their love of Yugo's, Vodka and breadlines (in that order) with the fine people of San Antonio, San Marcos and Austin. It's gonna be rad! You're guaranteed to experience the warm, pulsing, and rapturous sensations of the People's Perestroika Party in your pants when you see these glasnost loving Gulag survivors bust this dance out.

(ladies and gents: not safe for your undergarments)

The dates are as follows, fellow children of the revolution:

Friday, April 27th San Antonio @ Boneshakers w/ Jackson & Co./Poor Favor

Saturday, April 28th San Marcos @ Mr. Fest 2012 w/ Neon Cobra & otherbands

Sunday, April 29th Austin @ Red 7 (naturally) w/ Neon Cobra/Capitalist Kids/Lazers

If that ain't enough to peak your interest you can check out my review of their debut, My Car Keeps Stalin here. And speaking of me, I'll be heading out with the band to get punched at the merch booth by the Tea Party set (seriously, you cannot comprehend the stupidity that resulted from the Free Press Summer Fest faux-protest). HIGH FIVES, MOTHERFUCKERS! So, with that casual revelation aside, you can expect to see a "tour diary" of sorts once I decompress. And I'll be tweeting updates from the road (@jaydebauchery) because I am the poster child for the ADD generation. These cats are too afraid to fuck with Twitter after what happened to Pussy Riot and those comrades didn't even communicate via phone!.

Alas, as joyous as this news is, there is some sadness to report.

Jay Guevara took a hiatus from the group to construct a banana boat from his beloved left-handed Les Paul's for a pilgrimage back to Cuba so he might piss on Fidel Castro's grave. He was informed that Castro was still kicking but reasoned that he'd arrive just after the funeral once he floated in from Miami. Since setting sail in the early winter with only a case of rum and a burlap sack full of jerked carne de burro, Jay has not been heard from since. And Yugo Fuckyourself was returning from a General Assembly at Occupy Houston in Tinsley Park when his Yugo was blown off of I-45 and into the bayou below by a 30 mph gust of wind. Upon hitting the water, the car mysteriously exploded.

After much soul searching, the group was able to recruit two new members to N.A.A.C.C.C.P. and will be debuting the talents of Vlad the Inhaler and Ivan Strokenov during this tour. Please welcome them warmly with bottles of Monopolowa (real comrades drink Potato vodka) and the complete volumes of Marx's Das Kapital. The rest of the band are so excited about these additions they've been perfecting their commiekakke at band practice!

So get ready, Texas! The revolution is coming...

Here's the band performing the title track from their album in Lafayette, Louisiana.

BeTWEEN No Rock and a Shitty Musical World Run by Disney

In case you haven't realized it yet, we are amidst another wave of teeny-bopper (now dubbed so cutely as tweens) music mutilation. Hannah Montana is the anti-christ at the epicenter of this epidemic and the Jonas Brothers are currently whipping the four horsemen of the apocalypse as this tsunami of shit barrels its way across the world. We were lucky enough to have controversial figures like Eminem (I refuse to call that motherfucker an artists. Yeah, he's got skill with words but his music is just phlacid. You wanna know how to combine a biting tongue with sick beats then check out Saul Williams' Amethyist Rock)skate us into the new millenium while Spears, Aguilera, and Moore were drowned out by kids who wanted something dangerous.
And this is the appeal of vacant pop music marketed towards the Disney set for parents. It's safe. It takes no risks and offers nothing but filler until the kid gets into high school and their musical tastes are permanently fucked. They will go on to consume whatever the turd du jour is happily while ignoring classic, innovative artists who dared to push the boundaries into the level of brilliance. To put it simply, those cats will never understand "Sister Ray" or think of checking out the Stooges or become awash in the feedback glory that is the Jesus and Mary Chain. What the tween scene does is set up an entire generation of fans for ruined ears.
And now it seems like it is an unstoppable cycle. The New Kids on the Block are getting back together because a generation of mother's JUST HAS to share the clit throbbing anthemn "Please Don't Go Girl" with their daughters and, fuck I can't believe I read this, let alone will be re-typing it, the Funky Bunch (of Marky Mark fame) are re-uniting sans Mr. Walhberg, of course.
This threat has progressed to an inter-generational level disaster. What started with Raffi and the Wiggles has crept its way further up the chain and you can see the end results of this sort of bile with uninspired and utterly generic bands like Fall Out Boy. Or, even worse, it leads to the kids seeking out faux-serious "emotionally tumulutuous" crap like 30 Seconds to Mars or whoever the fuck Victory Records is pushing these days.
But, there is a benefit. There are small portion of kids who see through the bullshit and try something daring and are brave enough to fail. They discover new things on their own and keep the underground going. They become inextricably attatched to genres like punk and hardcore, drown themselves in the ideologies and practices and learn to truly deconstruct music and find out just what makes a song a great one no matter the genre or classification. Some stay in their respective scenes and keep 'em going strong and others absorb the knowledge and ethics until they decide to move on to pastures that look more green from their viewpoint.
No matter how many Elvis Costello's or Joe Strummer's or Brian Wilson's or Lou Reed's or Joey Ramone's (all whom transformed the universal axiom of adolescent rage into beauty and transcended norms to become rock 'n' roll icons), we are given nothing will stop the surge of safety coveted by soccer moms.
Once again, we must weather the storm and wait for the geniuses to emerge. Sadly, it doesn't seem like we'll be getting to many from this lot. Time will tell.