And we’ll keep on through the shit storm
Until the metaphors are literal
Forced screams are guttural
And we’ll keep on through the shit storm
Until the metaphors, until the metaphors
‘And we’ll keep on through the shit storm’
‘And we’ll keep on through the shit storm’
‘And we’ll keep on through the shit storm’
Goodbye……Goodbye.
People often say music in its current form sucks, that it’s not nearly as good as it was in say the 60’s or the 70’s where revolution was key, where The Beatles and the Stones were kings of the airwaves. But people aren’t focusing on the right thing. Top 40 isn’t a reflection of society, far from it. Top 40 is a universal list of catchy, over-produced crap.
But it’s when you delve into the deep sub-cultural landscape that surrounds music as a form of media that you strike gold. The Smith Street Band, formed in Melbourne in 2010 amidst the Northern Suburbs’ sea of Hipster Mania. Their lyrics are intensely vivid, abruptly striking and real. These are not generated through a computer, they are not written by some long-forgotten musician. They are written from the inside and sung to the world in a shroud of heart-wrenching, rocking guitar riffs and torn vocal chords.
Bands such as this lend hope unto the world of music. Bands like this are what we need within this world of superficial self-absorption. These bands pull people from their phones, wrench people from the 9-5 and plant them down into a mosh-filled cess-pit of bodies, all moving in unison, yelling as loud as their lungs will allow. These bands allow for a sense of unity that is missing. They create a subculture of like-minded people, tears streaking down our cheeks as we scream out of ‘[keeping] on through this shit storm’.
Check out these guys:
https://www.facebook.com/elkandmammoth?ref=br_rs
They even make their music free, and for all the exact same reasons.
In this modern day world where media flows freely and indefinitely around us, sometimes we need to notice. Sometimes we need to pause in our everyday and look out for these people; those who are attempting to alter that landscape, to emerge through the dust and rubble and deliver a product that is far beyond the standard.
Studying the invention of the wireless, annotating articles on the concept of pirate radio, has assisted in such a realization- an epiphany of sorts. We need to dig through record pools, plunge our fingers through Bandcamp, Soundcloud, YouTube and community radio; because that’s what makes it so good, finding something so unique and amazing after hours and hours of searching. For taking that chance with that one record you’re not fully sure about. Because they always turn out the best.
“I was wrapped up in my doona | And wrapped up in my own head”
– I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore- The Smith Street Band