Archive for the Lists Category

From the Vault: Dr. Know (Bad Brains) and Brandon Cruz’s Guide To DIY Touring

Posted in Interviews, Lists, Sound Off with tags , , , on 10/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

[This article was originally published on IndiePit in 2010.]

Punks don’t make the likeliest businessmen, for obvious reasons. Capitalism and punk aren’t exactly synonymous – in fact, by definition, they’re more or less contradictory.

But funny things happen in a time of crisis.

These days, more bands are taking more matters into their own hands, whether it be issuing their own material (like Clutch), producing their own records and/or shooting their own videos. But while this trend has mostly arisen out of necessity – the mother of invention, as the saying goes – self-empowerment has historically been a brass ring of sorts for bands adamant about maintaining control over their artistic output. Now they’re managing to find an opportunity in crisis: complete creative control.

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On Tyranny: As No Kings Rallies Near, Here Are Music’s Top 20 ‘Kings,’ From B.B. to Gizzard

Posted in Features, Lists, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags , , , , , , , , , on 10/16/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

The second and potentially attendance record-shattering No Kings protests are rapidly arriving in less than 48 hours at an estimated 2,500 cities across the U.S., intended to demonstrate that Americans are more opposed to the Trump regime than ever before. For no real reason other than giddiness, we decided to express our excitement in utterly esoteric fashion by ranking the 20 best musicians and bands with “King” in their name.

Here goes:

(Note: Musicians nicknamed the “King” of a certain music genre are disqualified. And no, we didn’t forget Kings of Leon. They suck.)

1. Nat King Cole

2. B.B. King

3. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

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8 Great Psych LPs From Summer 2025 by SWRM, Zabus, Spaceface, Insomniac

Posted in Album Reviews, Lists, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , on 10/02/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Albums by SWRM, Zabus, Spaceface, Insomniac, Go Kurosawa, Late Again, Nate Smith and Orsak:Oslo made the cut on my list of great, overlooked psychedelic albums released in summer 2025, in my first quarterly column on the genre for Treble.

On Tyranny: Donald Trump Is More Insane Than the Craziest Musicians Ever, From Elvis to Kanye

Posted in Essays, Features, Lists, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags , , , , , , , , , on 10/01/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Consider the following:

1. Michael “Pras” Michel, one-third of the Fugees, was convicted in April 2023 on 10 counts related to falsifying business records. Donald Trump was convicted in May 2024 on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

2. Syd Barrett, guitarist and co-founder of Pink Floyd, allegedly took LSD every morning and locked his girlfriend in a room for three days. Donald is allegedly sending individuals who may or may not be documented U.S. citizens to gulags in El Salvador and is publicly urging Americans to not take Tylenol.

3. Keith Moon, drummer of The Who, admitted to accidentally running over his friend and bodyguard with his car. Moon, who was allegedly drunk at the time of the incident, publicly apologized for the tragedy. Donald Trump proudly and remorselessly declared that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

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Best New Music Videos (September 2025): clipping., Automatic, Pupil Slicer, Smokey Brights

Posted in Lists, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , on 09/30/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

We hear ya here at The Bad Penny: We cover too much metal, not enough metal, etc. One common denominator across all genres is that artists are capable of creating captivating, innovative, original, hilarious and harrowing music videos regardless of genre. With that in mind, here are the clips we enjoyed the most in the month of September, two thousand whatever.

1. Peter McPoland’s “Last Looks”

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    Nirvana’s 10 Best Videos, Ranked

    Posted in Lists, Videos with tags on 09/20/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

    1. “Heart-Shaped Box”

    2. “In Bloom”

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    On Tyranny: 10 Great Protest Records by Refused, Lamb of God, PJ Harvey, Divide and Dissolve, More

    Posted in Lists, On Tyranny with tags , , , , , , , , , on 09/19/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

    How you likin’ Authoritarian America now? To all the conservative “disrupters” out there, The Bad Penny hopes this is what you were wishing for – and (with tongue firmly planted in cheek) that the wave of tyrannical terror sweeping the nation doesn’t drown you in its wake.

    Don’t say we didn’t warn you; after all, we launched this On Tyranny franchise in December. But rather than subject you to “I told you so examples” from our 25-part series, we’ll instead suggest some of our favorite contemporary protest records that you can serve as your soundtrack for the weekend. Here goes, in chronological order:

    Refused‘s The Shape of Punk to Come (1998)

    System of a Down’s Toxicity (2001)

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    Favorite Films: Point Break 2 Frontman Cops to His Guilty-Pleasure Movies: ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Terror,’ ‘Elvis,’ More

    Posted in Favorite Films, Features, Guilty Pleasures, Interviews, Lists with tags , , , , , , , on 09/19/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

    Earlier this month saw a new release by Point Break 2 – no, not a sequel to the immortal 1991 surfing-undercover-cop-thriller-pseudohomoerotic-unintentional-comedy-action masterpiece starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, but rather a fresh record by a band using that amusing name as its moniker. Featuring members of Brooklyn indie bands These Are Powers and The Flag including Ted McGrath, Point Break 2’s self-titled EP dropped on Naturally Records.

    McGrath originally assembled Point Break 2 to bide his time while The Flag’s second LP was in the works. But he hit it off so well with Flag bandmate Ryan Crozier, Jason Robira of Sunwatchers, Fixtures’ Kris Liakos and Billy Bouchard (Ice Balloons, Dancehall Crashers) that they decided to formalize Point Break 2 as a full-fledged project.

    And how could they not, with a fuzzy, skronky song as infectious as lead single “Hall of Justice”?

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    Top 20 Touch and Go Bands of All Time

    Posted in Lists with tags , , , , , , , , , on 09/06/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

    (Note: The number of releases and duration of time spent by the bands on the label factored into this ranking. Nor did it take into account bands that issued records through Touch and Go‘s sister label, Quarterstick Records.)

    1. Shellac
    2. The Jesus Lizard
    3. Big Black
    4. Slint
    5. Scratch Acid
    6. Die Kreuzen
    7. Don Caballero
    8. Girls Against Boys
    9. The Black Heart Procession
    10. The Delta 72
    11. Killdozer
    12. Blonde Redhead
    13. Didjits
    14. Quasi
    15. The New Year
    16. Silkworm
    17. Man or Astro-man?
    18. Laughing Hyenas
    19. Brick Layer Cake
    20. CocoRosie

    (PS: Fuck Butthole Surfers)

    Best New Music Videos (August 2025): Packaging, Spaceface, Runnner, Cosmic Reaper, Oruã

    Posted in Lists, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , , on 08/31/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

    We hear ya here at The Bad Penny: We cover too much metal, not enough metal, etc. One common denominator across all genres is that artists are capable of creating captivating, innovative, original, hilarious and harrowing music videos regardless of genre. With that in mind, here are the clips we enjoyed the most in the month of August, two thousand whatever.

    1. Packaging’s “In Your Pocket”

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