Thinking about the upcoming elections…
“…Bet you thought you had it all worked out…Bet you thought you knew what I was about… Bet you thought you’d solved all your problems, but you are the problem…”- Problems by The Sex Pistols
“I didn’t ask for sunshine and I got World War 3… I’m looking over the wall, and they’re looking at me…”- Holidays in the Sun by The Sex Pistols
With “The Tao of Rock,” I’ll be randomly dropping examples of lyrical snippets that have rocked my soul and/or touched my heart (or just plain sounded cool the first time I heard ’em!).
“…I want something good to die for, to make it beautiful to live…”- Go With the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age
The following was written shortly after we released “The Art of War”, when I responded to a fan’s request on a torrent site for someone to upload the album so he could bit torrent it:
Hi, (believe it or not) I’m Keith from Anarchy Club. The physical cd should be made available to buy at the cdbaby online store later today. Please buy one, and tell your friends.
As far as downloading our stuff from torrents is concerned, here’s some things you should know (and please spread the word!)…
Firstly, as honored as we are that we have fans all over the world that go to great lengths to get their hands on our music, the truth of the matter is simple. Anarchy Club is composed of just two guys, Adam and I. We write, record and publish EVERYTHING ourselves, out of Adam’s living room. We both have day jobs and spend out of our own pockets to release our music. There’s no big label, no expensive sports cars, no room full of drunk, eager supermodels (well… sometimes, but I digress). The bottom line is that we are NOT Metallica, and we don’t make millions of dollars a year. In fact (largely due to illegal downloads) we have a hard time putting our music out and promoting the band. If people bought our stuff and spread the world, we’d have the money to play more shows and tour. And if they sold WELL (read as well enough to pay our modest rents) we could spend more time in Adam’s living room making more music to put out more often.
We had some research done and found out that if only 25% of the people that downloaded our stuff illegally actually bought it legitimately instead, we’d have made around $800,000 a year for the last five years. This means we’d have had more than enough to quit our jobs, pay our rent, and hire a touring band, as well as be able to record constantly. It also means we’d be able to afford to LEGALLY give away songs for free (as we did with “Riddle Me This” a while back). In this ideal scenario we’d be making enough from merchandising and shows to be able to release free downloadable music all the time. And to be honest, if we were there, I wouldn’t really mind the torrenting so much because I realize that a lot of the people not buying the music would be supporting us by getting merch and going to shows (because we’d be touring).
So, to all of our fans who wonder why we never play their town, or why we aren’t “more famous”, or why we don’t have cds available at your local store, there’s your answer. We love our fans dearly, and we know you love us, too. So here’s hoping this sheds a little light on how the game really plays out from a working band’s perspective.
At the end of the day you’ll do what you will. All I ask is that when you are listening to our music, you take a second to think about the guys that made it for you to enjoy…
Yours in Rock,
Keith
When Moses came down with the tablets, there was one commandment so important and so obvious that God* didn’t even feel the need to inscribe it.
“THOU SHALT NOT AUTO-TUNE JAZ COLEMAN”
So the new Killing Joke album “Absolute Dissent” is out, and for me that’s a big deal — they’re a huge influence. My personal quintessential KJ album is Extremities, but Keith and I agree that the self-titled 2003 album featuring Dave Grohl on drums is one of the most devastating albums of the decade.
Jaz Coleman, singer and channeler of primal chaos, often sounds exactly like a lion roaring straight into your face from two inches away. Who in their right or even their wrong mind would sand the edge off that with f#*$&# auto-tune? It was bad enough when they auto-tuned the hell out of James Hetfield on Death Magnetic. But JAZ COLEMAN?
Hey, I can understand using auto-tune as a special effect now and then, and maybe in extreme cases subtly fixing a bum note in an otherwise great performance. But cranking it up and leaving it on, as more and more contemporary producers are doing by default, is satanic. On this issue, I will remain a Luddite.
I am proud to say that I don’t use it on Keith, and unless we’re going for a particular special effect, I never will.
A
Yeah, I know. I’m late to the party and all the cool anime/manga super fans beat me to it. Do I care? Not really. Initially, I was hesitant because the first half of the series has a sorta cheesy j-pop rock style opening theme song (which I would find out is later replaced by a cool thrash/death metal song by Japanese shredders Maximum the Hormone). I’m so glad I made it past the first opening and actually watched the show!
For everybody else out there who let this gem slip under their radar, here’s the premise:
Overachieving honor student, Light Yagami, finds a notebook in the school yard, only to discover that if he writes a person’s name in it, they will die. This causes him to question his moral integrity. After all, if you were a jaded, overachieving, well-to-do suburban kid suddenly granted power over the life and death of everyone around you, how would YOU use it? Would you use it?
A twisted, 37-episode supernatural noir story of how power can corrupt, Death Note hits heavy from the beginning and never lets up. Part Dexter, part detective story, and all bad ass, this dark tale kept me hungry for the next fix like a crackhead with a pocket full of twenty dollar bills.
I could go on for hours on the plot twists and clever subtext, but I’ll spare you. Just check out Death Note…
I should add that there’s also a series of live-action Japanese movies that give you the short version of the story. The general consensus is that the first two are good, but the third one sucked, and was a poor attempt at making a sequel. And word on the street is that Hollywood is working on an American live-action movie, so you might want to get in on this before the crappy U.S. remake of the remake comes out, and it’s not “cool and underground” anymore.
Keith
Hello and welcome to the new and improved, streamlined, aerodynamic, recession-proof Anarchy Club website.
We will be updating this site regularly, so be sure and check in to see the latest happenings, as well as find out what trouble Adam and I have gotten into.
Please join the mailing list and be free to leave love mail, hate mail, and large wads of unmarked cash.
Yours in rock,
Keith
Anarchy Club 