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A Tribute to INDECLINE: Watch Videos the Anarchist Collective Made for Deaf Club, Cursive, Rise Against, More

Posted in Lists, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , on 05/30/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

American Anarchist art collective INDECLINE played a pivotal role in bringing attention to The Bad Penny‘s ongoing series On Tyranny, which focuses specifically on how fascism damages the lives of musicians artistically, emotionally and personally. They also generously provided us with a list of essential reads that those who are resisting the fascist takeover of America can turn to for guidance, inspiration and knowledge.

As a thank you of sorts, as well as an opportunity for you to get a better handle on their aesthetic and message, here is a compilation of videos INDECLINE created for Anti-Flag, Atmosphere, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, Billy Strings, Codefendants, Cursive, Deaf Club, Get Dead, Jack Evan Johnson, Rise Against and William Elliott Whitmore.

Enjoy.

(Note: I recently began writing about politics for The Idaho Vanguard. My first two pieces for the outlet are “Trump: the Most Destructive Baby Ever” and “[Idaho Governor] Brad Little’s Limbo for TPUSA.”)

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Maneka Marvels Over Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind,’ Polvo’s ‘Exploded Drawing,’ Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’

Posted in Interviews, Lists with tags , , , , , , , , , on 05/27/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Ever run into a stranger wearing a T-shirt of a band you like, strike up a conversation and realize how much you have in common? That maybe they’re your doppelgänger, even? And then, the deeper you get to know that person, it dawns on you that their taste in music is actually superior to yours? But at that point you’ve already exchanged phone numbers and promised they’ll be your +1 at an upcoming gig you both really wanna see and then you get so nervous about meeting up with them at the show because you know you’ll be distracted from the band’s performance and instead obsess over your inferiority complex to your new amigo to the point that you second-guess whether it was even worth attending said show because it’s induced more anxiety than excitement in the marrow of your bones?

Does that ever happen to you?

We had a hunch Maneka (a.k.a. Devin McKnight of Speedy Ortiz and Grass Is Green) was onto something cool way back in 2017, when we got our mitts on a copy of their debut, Is You Is. Admittedly, we gave it a listen after reading that a description that touted the release as “future-space alien-dream-post punk.” Five years later, Maneka dropped Dark Matters, in which the artist “deftly explored the anxieties of working as a Black man in majority white indie rock spaces,” according to his press materials.

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10 Best Free Bandcamp Downloads #12: Orchestra Gold, Sadness, Lux, Pet Mosquito, LAPêCHE, Products Band

Posted in Features, Lists, MP3s with tags , , , , , , , , , on 05/24/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

The 12th and latest installment of The Bad Penny‘s Bandcamp Freebie series features our strongest offering of free music to date. In addition to pay-what-you-want releases by a handful of artists that the site has featured (and thus recommended) in various posts, there’s only two singles among the bunch. The rest are full-lengths and short-players that the bands we’re featuring deserve hi-fives for posting for no cost on Bandcamp. So, without further ado, let’s dig in.

(Note: If you’re financially capable of supporting any of these artists and/or labels, please consider doing so.)

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10 Best Finnish Melodeth Bands Ever: Amorphis, Children of Bodom, Kalmah, Insomnium, Circle, Mors Principium Est

Posted in Lists, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , on 05/24/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Earlier today, we introduced you to Helsinki’s brand-new, red-hot hard-rockers the Feral Kids, who gifted us with their first video interview with an American music journalist. We dug a little deeper into the band by then running their list of the 10 Best Finnish Bands Ever, in the Kids’ estimation.

The Bad Penny couldn’t resist sharing its own two cents, lest we neglect and even betray our decades-long love for about a dozen bands that hooked and reeled us in over the past two decades. They’re in descending order below. (We narrowed our list to melodeth bands; rank what you know, right?)

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10 Best Finnish Bands Ever, According to Natives the Feral Kids

Posted in Lists, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , on 05/24/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Now that you’ve become acquainted with Helsinki’s brand-new, red-hot hard-rockers the Feral Kids – courtesy of The Bad Penny delivering their first video interview with an American music journalist – let’s dig a little deeper and get to know what other bands from their homeland of Finland really make them tick … or rock. Per The Bad Penny‘s request, the band submitted their list of the 10 Best Finnish Bands Ever, which is featured below.

Surprisingly, many of The Bad Penny‘s favorite Finnish acts who call(ed) the country home are not represented on the list: But hey, who are we to say, still having never set foot on the gnarly Nordic country.

Thus, without further ado, here’s the list that the Feral Kids passed along:

1. Smack

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Favorite Films: Avant-Garde Trio Kilter Get Off on ‘Stalker,’ ‘Annihilation,’ ‘Street Trash’

Posted in Favorite Films, Features, Interviews, Lists with tags , , , , , , , , on 05/23/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Credit: Malena Marquez

If your tastes in music are liberal and erudite enough to encompass Khanate and Yakuza, you are living in sin with each passing moment you fail to avail yourself to Kilter. The instrumental metal-jazz trio from Paris and Brooklyn is counting down the hours till Kilter’s new album, Ten Billion Years, arrives via Excursus Production on June 19.

“A concept album depicting nothing less than the birth and death of our solar system, Ten Billion Years unfolds with cosmic-level grandeur, its instrumental compositions exploring spaces between the sounds of John Coltrane, Sunn O))) and Meshuggah,” reads a statement in press materials about the release. That jibes with us; does it for you?

If you’re sold, mark your calendar for a week from today, when Bandcamp hosts a Ten Billion Years listening party a week from today at 1 p.m. ET. And with that sneak preview still a week away, The Bad Penny is casting the spotlight on the burgeoning band by featuring them in the latest installment of our Favorite Films series. If the title doesn’t give it away, the ongoing feature allows musicians to share their favorite movies ever (and we usually publish it on Saturdays).

Buckle up (especially in the case of the first selection) for the picks that Kilter’s Laurent David (electric bass, production); Ed Rosenberg III (bass and tenor saxophones); and Kenny Grohowski (drums) handpicked for their installment of Favorite Films.

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Best New Music Videos (April 2026): Converge, Tiny Music, Foo Fighters, Tim Heidecker, Lamb of God, More

Posted in Lists, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , on 05/02/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Enjoy The Bad Penny‘s latest roundup of the best music videos that caught our eye last month. And be prepared to be both shocked and awed, as the songs and accompanying imagery run the gamut, to put it mildly.

1. Converge’s “Hum of Hurt”

2. Tiny Music’s “A Snack and Your Money Back”

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Best New Music Videos (March 2026): Portrayal of Guilt, Robyn Hitchcock, Death Lens, Julez and the Rollerz, More

Posted in Lists, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , on 04/04/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Enjoy The Bad Penny‘s latest roundup of the best music videos that caught our eye last month. And be prepared to be both shocked and awed, as the songs and accompanying imagery run the gamut, to put it mildly.

1. Portrayal of Guilt’s “Object of Pain”

2. The Frēqs’ “John Travolta”

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Top 10 Most Overplayed (and Overrated) Classic Rock Songs That Deserve to Be Buried Six Feet Under

Posted in Lists with tags , , , , , , , , , , on 04/04/2026 by Kurt Orzeck

Presented practically without comment given the irrefutable accuracy of this Top 10 list. Videos not included because we don’t need to hear any of these fucking songs even one more time.

1. Eagles – “Hotel California”
2. Journey – “Don’t Stop Believin’ “
3. Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Sweet Home Alabama”
4. Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Freebird”
5. Queen – “We Will Rock You”

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Top 10 Most Hilarious Louis C.K. Bits Ever (Well, as of 2017)

Posted in Comedy, Lists with tags , , , , , on 04/03/2026 by Kurt Orzeck
Louis CK, without doubt one of the funniest people on the planet

Whether you love or loathe Louis C.K. – a comedic entertainer so polarizing that there isn’t much room in between – no one can dispute his status as one of the biggest comics of the 21st century. For proof, look no further than how he survived a sex scandal that would’ve put the nail in the coffin of just about any other comic’s career.

Supplying more evidence that his equally raunchy and philosophical sense of humor renders him a teflon comedian, Louis C.K. will notch one of the biggest milestones of his career next month. As he notified subscribers to his email newsletter on Thursday, the ultimate comic’s comic will headline the Netflix Is a Joke festival showcase at the 17,500-capacity Hollywood Bowl. His missive also revealed that he has a new comedy special, Louis CK: Ridiculous, coming at a to-be-determined date this summer.

“My show at the Hollywood Bowl on May 5th will be the very last show of this tour which has taken me around the world and will likely be my last full-scale comedy headline type show for a looong time. I hope you can make it,” Louis C.K. said in a rare instance of sincerity devoid of any wise-crackery.

With that in mind, this writer dug up an out-of-print 2017 list of Louis C.K.’s best routines, non sequiturs and one-liners that preceded the controversy that became ubiquitous in conversations about comedy a mere five months after Monsters & Critics published the piece. Today we’re resurrecting it for your amusement – or disgust, in which case you don’t have to click “continue reading.”

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