On Tyranny: Walking Bombs Goes Off (for Good Reason), Says Nazis Need to Be Afraid to Be in Public
Hello, Bad Penny readers. Surely you are familiar with and have probably read some installments of our ongoing On Tyranny series, which focuses on how Authoritarian America is damaging artists, their careers and their personal lives. This writer has been somewhat surprised at how tame and mild some of the editions are in this series, which is closing in on 65 installments.
This is not one of those installments.
Today’s entry comes courtesy of Morgan Y. Evans, who resides in Orange County, California, and whose Walking Bombs project is a solo and collaborative vehicle for Evans, writer Morgan Ywain Vink-Lainas Evans, and other compatriots of theirs. Yesterday, Walking Bombs issued a new single, a lo-fi version of the song “Barbaric Balconies,” which you can purchase for a buck and a half on Bandcamp here.
Much of Walking Bombs’ material conveys Evans’ rage against the machine, for lack of a better phrase, so what he shared with us for On Tyranny didn’t exactly come out of left field. We edited Evans’ submission a bit to make it a smoother read but left the artist’s message fully intact, as one of the core missions of this website is to defend and fight for freedom of speech, arguably the most important right in a democratic society. Just be forewarned that much of what follows is, as the kids say, “NSFW.”
That said, it’s real, unrestrained and from the heart. In fact, we’d go so far as to say that the rage expressed in this missive of sorts should be awakened in the hearts of each of us who are gravely concerned that democracy – which has already left the building, if you haven’t noticed – might never come back. As The Bad Penny says on the On Tyranny index page and often reiterates in entries, thank you to Evans and others for mustering the courage to speak out and inspire others to do the same when we realistically may lose the right to do so in the blink of an eye.
What was your relationship with politics before Trump took office for the second time? Were you totally disconnected to the news, aware of the issues but not intent on following many of them, very politically active, etc.?
I wrote for the Kingston Times (part of Ulster Publishing) in Upstate New York for about 8 years. The city was facing a lot of gentrification, even pre Covid. I tried in my nightlife column to always profile local businesses first or really vet the transplants before plugging them. I believe a lot in regionalism and micro economies, mutual aid and real scene building the old-fashioned way.
f I profiled out-of-towners, they had to be someone cool and outspoken like Wax Idols or I would find a way to plug local shit instead. I also got to interview locals and profile city residents. I went out of my way to make sure I didn’t talk to a single Republican in several years, since the New York Crimes was all about those moronic “understanding the Trump voter”-type articles babying wrestling marks for years.
Nah, I am gonna platform every trans person I can find or troll people by getting my old editor Dan Barton to run a huge picture of a shirtless Doyle from the Misfits playing guitar next to an article about a church centennial. I started out in bands in 1993 playing around Woodstock, New Yoek. We had half of the Bad Brains in our town. My first big concert was Cypress Hill with Rage Against The Machine and Seven Year Bitch opening in Poughkeepsie. I have never been about the bullshit.
Before Trump took office for the second time, I was utterly disgusted by Biden. I had very reluctantly voted for him after Bernie got pushed out by all the candidates jumping ship to help Biden consolidate power and outflank him. It is one of my biggest regrets of my life. Alicia Cordisco from the band Transgressive, one of my favorite musicians in metal and a valued friend, had a discussion with me about how we can’t hold on to dying institutions that are fully corrupt.
I was fatigued from Trump’s first term and several mental health scares, holding on to the illusion that we had to “seize the ship and sail left.” I wanted to think Biden gave a crap about fighting for Supreme Court seats. Then Biden goes on to have no spine and eats ice cream during a genocide he is gaslighting. Democrats helped move the Overton window further right in typical controlled opposition fashion. Embracing Dick Cheney instead of listening to leftists. I moved to California and have returned firmly to my anarchist roots politically ever since. Fuck the duopoly and their shared donors.
To what extent did politics, social issues, etc. play a role in your lyrics, music-making, etc.? Did that lessen, increase or remain the same when the election occurred?
I have often had political activism tied to my music. When I was 15 I was organizing Rock For Choice benefit concerts in Woodstock in the nineties and listening to L7, Huggy Bear and Sonic Youth and Public Enemy. During Trump’s first term, Dave Brenner of the noise project Gridfailure and my Walking Bombs project did a collaboration album called Suicide by Citizenship that was anti-Trump. That album title has only gained more potency as our rights have been eroded under Project 2025. Tad Doyle guested on a song on that record about Unite the Right called “Now We Know Who You Are” about Tiki Nazis who boldly went unmasked.
Nazis need to be afraid to be in public. Full stop. Pinstripe Nazis and Trojan-horsing hate in the media by platforming and normalizing scumbags like Charlie Kirk or pretending they are in any way aligned with Jesus is the epitome of going soft on white supremacy. Since Trump’s second term began I ramped up my song output like crazy. I wanted to seize the means of literal production, so to speak.
I had been working on a studio double album for a few years with my friend Ash, but while I waited for that long effort to finish I released about 18 releases in the form of mixtapes and EPs the last year so that I could put my personal and political feelings out like journaling and also challenge myself to learn GarageBand better on my phone. If I am gonna have to use this phone made with stolen labor from Congo, I am gonna record over 100 songs protesting the state of the world on it. Everything I do is an aesthetic choice. If something sounds lo fi and weird it is because I love Guided by Voices’ album Vampire on Titus and don’t give a damn.
I just finished a 26-song alphabet mixtape for next year about aliens seeing that bigotry runs the world and so they want to end it, until they talk to some cool queer people and decide humanity is worth saving. So the LGBTQAI community that is often blamed by evangelicals as ushering in the apocalypse ends up actually saving the world. It is heavy inspired by underground rave music from the ’90s, and ’90s lo-fi, and early punk and industrial. Non-corporate festival Zionist tech bro Burning Man bullshit. Guerilla shit.
How did you react when Trump won, and what were your initial feelings about his victory? Did Trump taking office change your level of involvement with politics and/or amount of news consumption? Did you immediately become concerned that his new regime might try to wage a war on free speech and how that might affect your creative process?
I mean, I am from New York. I have known Trump is a grifter, pervert and a scumbag for decades. When he won again I was disgusted, but it felt inevitable. It is something we have to face. He is a symptom of a wider sickness. Anyone who was ever fooled by him in any capacity is a rube or a co-conspirator. Get fucked. Go grow grass with Charlie Kirk. But they are useful idiots to a bigger, demonic problem.
My process has always been the same. I am a trans/non-binary/demiflux person. I have sung in punk and metal/industrial bands for over thirty years. We have never been safe. Brunch is an illusion. The only difference is I am sober and not binge drinking and shooting heroin to cope now and am at full focus. I did a song called “Fuck The Powers That Be” with Lis from Filth of Eternal recently that says, “None of these leaders deserve us, so we’re making a ranked shit list.” Luigi style. Look, I have a copy of Martin Luther King’s A Testament of Hope by my bed. But they just took him out, despite his peace message.
The record industry has already affected free speech and the creative process for almost anyone real even before this. We have to face that it is damaged even without a Trump boogie man. And I don’t mean in some corny woe-is-me Decapitated “Cancer Culture” way, cuz cancer culture isn’t a real thing. That is a whiny, incel talking point that helps shield unrepentant abuse.
Anyway, magazines want you to kiss up to the labels buying ads. Bookers sometimes are in league with pedos masking as leftists. People presenting themselves as left leaning A&R at very influential Sony affiliates still try to find ways to sign crypto-fash bands. Weaponize cops on people or try to isolate people who stand up to them or saw shit. People ignore domestic violence and shame you if you try to get it addressed.
Sean Lennon a few years ago used his power and clout to try to get my partner Globelamp, aka psych folk musician Elizabeth Gomez Dapena, to not boycott Desert Daze for booking her abuser in Foxygen. Bro, your Beatle dad slapped women. Have some self awareness, jackass. A tiny boycott and Elizabeth was saying “Hey, I am standing by my truth that this guy hit me when I was in that band. Please don’t support them.”
Sean Lennon (!) said the owners of the festival were his friends and then said crazy stuff to her fans on Instagram like “mansplaining is fake.” He then trotted out Yoko Ono in another Instagram post to wield her clout as a cudgel punching down on my 5-foot girlfriend who had DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) done on her by Foxygen and the Secretly Group label conglomerate.
Sean saying in the post that his mom “thought it was all funny” and lesbian icon Peaches liked this sexist post about them mocking Lizzie trying to protest her abuser. You know how discouraging that was to see? It utterly horrified me. I hate when people won’t admit fucking up or do restorative justice and talk shit out. You are the same as Trump, then.
Have you given much thought to what it will be like to be an artist living under an authoritarian regime? Are you already preparing/capitulating in advance so as to avoid any potential interference or intrusion by federal authorities — even though philosopher/historian Timothy Snyder vehemently warns against doing so?
I mean, I was at an anti-ICE protest in Santa Ana recently, and we all were tear-gassed. I will never capitulate. I feel like I have been beating this drum for years, and having people just ignore me on Facebook while I get proven right over and over. It sucks.
Anyway, if you read ‘The Fountainhead’ enough times you might become an Objectivist jagoff and actually turn into a human fountain! Here’s a song I wrote for Charlie:
Mutiny (EP) by Walking Bombs“How am I supposed to feel when it’s obvious you don’t care about the hands of society around their throats? Trying to make the next generation hateful like you? So afraid of everyone but pretending you’re a tough brute? You’re no hero/No shining example walking through the Pearly Gates. You’re entirely hateful. Can’t wait to see you fall down flat on your face. Hell is waiting for you/All of those laugh reactions staring back at you. Wondering why you chose to lay down on those hot coals?”
The Paradox of Tolerance is very true and everyone needs to study up on that. Civility politics and humoring “Debate Me” fascists only emboldens and normalizes them.
Are you afraid to be an artist in America now? If so, have you ever had that feeling before? Are you nervous about touring the country, especially in red states?
I have serious financial limitations and so don’t tour. I am playing live locally with a hard rock and metal band Pandemic Unleashed. We are opening for Vinny Appice next month! But yeah, I also have type 1 diabetes pretty bad and am working a lot at a company that is owned by one of the worst umbrella companies on Earth.
Every day is scary and a hustle in America. I am trying to survive under capitalism and a regime that wants us all to lose health care, for cannabis to be re-criminalized so people get arrested for wanting an alternative pain medicine and for endless prison labor to feed for profit prisons. I try to redirect as much money as possible towards efforts to help folks in need or make protest art or redirect money into local economies. Or even to shield other employees as best I can from getting ground up by metrics.
We all need to use our platforms. Mad props to Billie Eilish for making Taylor Swift look like such a greedy clown recently by calling out all billionaires for the wealth hoarding, insecure, labor abusing fuck-heads they are. And in front of Cuckerburg! “Life of a Pick Me Trad Wife” is Taylor’s worst era ever.
Have you been the target of any harassment, doxxing, abuse or otherwise inappropriate criticism or attacks as a result of the work you’ve made as an artist?
I mean, when you are writing Skinny Puppy’s “Rabies”‘ influenced songs like “Abortion Clinic Defender” about chasing away pro-life scumbags from abortion clinics, you are going to piss people off.
I did have a crazed Trump and Elon simp who looked literally like Temu Hillbilly Jim jump out of a truck with like three broken windows and run at me at a Tesla Takedown protest in Irvine a few months back. He really didn’t like my sign that said “Nazi Trucks Fuck Off” that I was waving at cyber trucks. I had to get loud and scream at this dude cuz everyone else was like a senior citizen.
He is saying, “Fuck You!” and starts literally sieg-heiling in the middle of an intersection. Everyone’s mouths dropped except mine, which was busy yelling at him. I am like, “Oh, that will prove you aren’t a Nazi. Why would you simp for Elon and Tesla when your own car has no bumper or any windows!?”
Inappropriate criticism? I mean, I have lost track of the times ignorant Trump incels or sociopathic Zionists have called me the F slur and made fun of my pronouns the second the don’t like my politics in a comment section. Also, a prominent Neo-Nazi literally kept trying to hit on my girlfriend for awhile. 10/10 wouldn’t recommend he continue that.
How are you preparing to survive as an artist and deal with whatever repressive efforts the Trump administration may try to extract on artists and people who volunteer or work for nonprofit organizations with which he doesn’t agree?
I don’t know. Mutual aid and community, again. Calling out any NYHC [New York Hardcore] band that gets too red-pilled and clownish?
I was thrilled to be featured on two recent compilations I feel are two of the best of the year: Trans Of Noise – Compilation No. 1 and the Green label Forest Summoner’s food insecurity SNAP comp Volume 1. The first showcased groundbreaking trans artists like Filthburger, Cage Mother, Surgery Season and many more. The second helped raise money toward feeding people in the L.A. area. It featured bands like Sunrot, Gylt, Couch Slut, Intercourse, Ends Embrace, Tachanka and so many more. And my humble little song “Barbaric Balconies” about Newsom ripping down homeless tents and people being apathetic from the comfort of their homes.
Do you have hope that all this madness will be over in a little over three years? How do you think artists – and America – will survive this, presuming you do think so?
No. It will not be over. The imperial boomerang will come for us all as long as we live under capitalism, scapegoat socialism and immigrants as the enemy, we live in DARVO land. Or humoring Stephen Carpenter that the world is flat! Bro?!! Anyway, the duopoly is rotten. Here’s an example.
I live in CA Congressional District 40. We have Republican Young Kim running. She sucks and is a model minority conservative pick me and pull the ladder up type of politician. Rubber stamps Trump. Running against her we have Esther Kim Varet for the Democrats. She bills herself as the first potential “art gallery owner” to be in Congress. She is a gentrifier and has said insane shit behind paywalls like the biggest threat to the Democratic party being healthy is anti-Israel sentiment. She blocks her constituents and calls them Hamas if they ask her reasonable questions about Palestine. Her husband is disgustingly rich and once helped fund Daniel Pipes, the direct inspiration for the Norwegian Spree Killer.
But still, Zionist Joseph Varet (who had famous anti-Zionist and philanthropist ancestors he is betraying!) finds time to lurk in the shadow-banned Instagram stories of me and my girlfriend regularly. His wife’s smug campaign manager shoved my recently post ovarian surgery op girlfriend Elizabeth at a protest on video for asking Esther why Esther laughed at her sign that had a picture of Jesus and said, “Don’t Fund Israel.”
This is my opposition party representative? How are you going to stop ICE if you support Zionist tech apartheid BlackRock surveillance state wet dreams? Like Kamala saying, “Don’t Come Here.” Read Harsha Walia’s book Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism. What good is your art gallery if you make excuses for a genocide state and try to pretend it is all just Netanyahu and not systemic entitlement for over 70 years?
You want to see a real artist, Esther Kim? Instead of your stuffy, rich gallery bullshit? Bana Majed Jebril is a young Palestinian girl, and she does digital and hand-drawn portraits of pro-Palestinian activists with her dad. Elizabeth was very honored that she did one of her recently.
Anyway, thanks for letting me rant. Appreciate you, dude. One Love. PMA.
For more on Walking Bombs, hop over to their Bandcamp page.
The Bad Penny (beta) 
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