1. |
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They're all dead-end jobs, the morning alarm is the cinderblock wall, and your dreams for the day are in the back without a seatbelt. The last thing they see every morning is the shards of windscreen protruding from their foreheads and a life only wished for flashing before their eyes.
See, my bosses made me a bed of nails, I wathced where they hammered, feigning sleep. And when I rose, bleeding, I bound my wounds with the sheet and stole the nails to build the fence that keeps them out.
Lee asked me if I'd ever had a job I really loved. I had to admit the only employment I've loved has been "un-" And so I take what I can, steal what I must, I want out of this fucking workforce before my life turns entirely to rust.
Its coming apart in my hands in blood red flakes.
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2. |
G.T.F.O.
01:25
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Smoked all the weed, stole all the darts, colonised my bedroom like a lingering fart. G.T.F.O.O.M.H. Get the fuck out of my house. Drank all the coffee, drank all the milk, ate all the cheese, would you fuck off please? Life is so much better now you're gone.
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3. |
Mosh Pit Etiquette
02:29
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We're never taught this stuff as kids, these important, loving, helpfull things. As youths we don't have too many worries. We run around climbing things, jumping BMX's, making friends with anyone our own age, we don't need the bourdon of having to know what to do when we're losing it, our our closest friends are carrying the weight of the world, what feels like tonnes of steaming shit on feeble shoulders.
The mosh parts of life are 2-stepping on your skull, and the rational part of you knows its not just you thats going through hell. We all have our breakdowns, our times of chugging chords.
The best palm-muted barres are crushing, and we dance, but our existence can't be palm-muted, and its easier to flow with the circling pit until you fall.
We need to talk while we're still standing about what happens when we go down, and the nicest ways to pick us back up. So that when the mosh parts of life are 2-stepping on our skulls, and the rational part of us knows that there's heaps of us going through hell, there's hands reaching down to pick us back up.
To dance.
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4. |
Once Said
02:39
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Nick cave once said "When I was younger I thought music had the power to change the world. As I grew older I learned music only had the power to change people, they had to do the rest."
Now Miley's in the charts. Its 4 am, Nick's son has just bottled himself in the head, and he's trying to sell me drugs.He's so drunk he looks half dead.
This power? These coming changes? They're a horror movie; B-grade.
Hemmingway once said "The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for." There's days though where the last bit's the only bit I'm sure of.
We grow bubbles to block out all but the parts we find most fine. Surround our lives with ocean, create views without land in sight. How easy it would be to just stop fighting, to dive in.
Santiago only got the bones; a skeleton, but he got it. It might only have been what they left for him, but Santiago, he was loved for it.
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5. |
Scando Crust Song
02:12
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Scando crust song
Oh what, you’re confused? It doesn’t sound like Scando crust? Would you call yourselves straight-edge hardcore if you were drunks? We don’t live in any of the nation states that make up Scandonavia. Would you call yourselves indigenous folk, if you were stupid white punks?
Is this some joke that I don’t get, taking the term un-Australian and running away with it?
If you need to define yourself by a sound that’s “owned” by a geographical location, shouldn’t it come from the culture that spawned you, and the land-base that raised it? Let me put this another way: If you want so badly to be boring, unoriginal and limited by the dictates on “...ian” hardcore, why aren’t you ripping off Depression?
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6. |
Griptape In Ya Face
04:11
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Griptape in ya face
Back alley stories: Like arseholes. Like the time we found graff that was slanderous about the flowerpunx and Lewy, or the surprise 21st glitter party. And skate tunes, too, shred themed 7”s in piles, Duane’s songs of pools, songs of Jacks. Bouncing souls sang to us of no-comply’s and we had loungeroom circle pits to McRad.
So we’re not breaking any new ground; just one more for the collection, but a guy once stopped my mates off Russel, and shank in hand demanded a selection of what was in their wallets. My cousin wasn’t having that though and while most were emptying their pockets he asked a question of his own
Hey dickhead. Whats the one thing all skateboarders carry?
The guy with the knife may never pen a hardcore song, may never hit deep end coping. But Indy 139’s he remembers, bouncing off his stomach.
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7. |
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Growin’ up is givin’ up?
You know, I thought about getting that tattoo, back when I wasn’t “gunna grow up” soon. But it’s a fucking lie. GIVING up is giving up, growing up is LEARNING. As we get older we only give up the stupid scene points we’ve been earning.
The crustiest kids I know, the inspirational choices, the come from building houses, having babies, ensuring punk rock stays a journey.
Staying punk isn’t a record collection, giving up isn’t an option. But giving up on Peter Pan no longer seems that shocking. See I’m not about to disappear, it ain’t yet my time to breed, but I’m not gonna live my life pretending that my best years were my teens, or using my points in some scene to mack teenagers sleazily.
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8. |
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Hot sands in the winds of time
Like Rome, this Hades we’ve constructed wasn’t built in a day. We gather riding hand-baskets we wove from the fronds of long since buried reeds.
Mashed gossip. Stone ritual. Too big for a single mortar and pestle.
We’ve rallied against rifts that didn’t yet exist, made dry-wall fortifications for tiffs. We made sure lines were drawn, then wonder why there’s no visitors to our castles after pouring oil on them.
Everyone talks bullshit. If everyone leapt off cliffs...
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9. |
For Annie
01:05
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For Annie
When it’s all too much, the kids are running amok, you’re behind on the distro and emails to Pablo. Get Nanny Cess, put leaves onto steep. We’re here to remedy the dearth of songs about tea.
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10. |
Sucked Away
03:43
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Sucked away
Sucked away in the undertow of swollen drains. Swept through sewer systems paved over old waterways. We’ll wind up in the ocean, floating.
Why build pools if we’re not going to learn to swim? Why learn to swim if we’re not going to get out of the rip? Waving won’t help when you’re clothed in what makes you sink. Spend your life in knee deep puddles and all it takes is a tap to put you out of your depth.
We watch the world close over our heads, yet still we won’t kick off our shoes.
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