Enjoy The Bad Penny‘s latest roundup of the best music videos that caught our eye over the course of this month. They feature costumed people walking in the city, people tossing back shots in a vintage saloon, Walter Goggins, interstellar space scenes, a harpist – and Joe Pera!
1. Shaboozey’s “Cowgirl”
2. LA Priest’s “Ever No”
3. Whitmer Thomas’ “Candy Corn”
As we trudge through an cultural era of moribundity that will hopefully reach a conclusion some day, we rely more heavily on those of us who, while aware of the enshitification of the world, refuse to let it pop their bubble. One of the essential artists who lives his life in this regard is Darren Smallman, who goes by the name Dez Dare when performing his heartwarmingly zany, zest-for-life music with the reckless abandon of someone who refuses to let reality get him down.
Beginning in March, Dez started slipping out one song a month digitally, with the compiled result called These Days Are Wild & Blind and available now on Bandcamp.
Because we’ve interviewed Dez multiple times before about his music, we decided to rope him into our Favorite Films series this time around. Still, we’d be doing both him and you a disservice if we didn’t precede Dez’s film picks with this video for his new song “You Woke Up on My Side of Time.” (Pro tip: Never say no to puppets.)
Earlier this month, The Bad Penny caught up with Toadies bassist Doni Blair (who is a very cool dude, wouldn’t ya know) while the band was on tour with fellow ’90s-era alternative rock bands Local H and Sparta. The consummately down-to-earth bassist regaled us with a story about Steve Albini, who engineered the most recent Toadies record (The Charmer) – and that was just one of many jaw-dropping war stories he told in our freewheeling conversation.
Continue readingAny fan of indie pop worth their salt is familiar with Low, the legendary band that almost single-handedly created the indie subgenre known as “slowcore.” And any music lover who is familiar with Low, which reached its conclusion in 2022 after the heart-wrenching death of co-founder Mimi Parker, knows that her widower husband, Alan Sparhawk, launched the singular project together in 1993.
More than three decades later, Americans are stuck with Donald Trump ambivalently tanking the United States in every conceivable way, as ambivalently as he did with the litany of business ventures he bankrupted and otherwise destroyed over the course of decades. As a result, the (admittedly justified) shouting and anger dominating the public discourse is increasing in volume exponentially.
So what better time to check in with the soft-spoken Sparhawk, arguably one of the greatest musicians of our time who knows the value of, and is an expert in, taking a calm and measured approach to his art and his life. Don’t confuse his demeanor with being content about the state of the country, which is declining so rapidly that comparisons to the fall of the Roman Empire must be taken seriously. In fact, Sparhawk – as we learned when we interviewed him this very morning – is as heartbroken, disappointed and shocked as the vast majority of Americans.
Continue readingThe track record of musicians suing the record labels that employed them is pretty dismal. The reason is obvious: Artists generally aren’t very wealthy. Meanwhile, the companies that hire creators for their services – and not uncommonly have a sick fetish for screwing them over when the relationship sours – have more money than they know what to do with.
That’s why it’s such a cause for celebration when artists defeat their employers, which are typically corporate controlled, in David-beats-Goliath fashion. One of the most heartwarming examples of an underdog band scoring a major court victory over their former label recently transpired when pioneering stoner-rock squad Fireball Ministry won back the rights to what is largely considered their best record, 2003’s The Second Great Awakening.
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Is it redundant to say that black-metal bands don’t fuck around writ large? If that question is bouncing around in your brain, try to shake it out of your ear – or at least save yourself a punishing amount of embarrassment, and maybe even your life, by never posing that question to Qasu. Well, at least when they’re not draped in cloaks. The British/American trio refer to their harrowing sound as “ancient future black metal,” the most badass name for the subgenre of another subgenre.
If the above pic doesn’t make it abundantly clear, Qasu take their music very seriously. That fact is evident over the entire duration of A Bleak King Cometh, Qasu’s recently released debut LP created by Aldous Daniken (the trio’s so-called “instrumentation” pro), Rahsaan Sagan (voice and electronics) and Nikhil Talwalkar (drums). The tour-de-force is distributed in North America by Season of Mist, and released as a collaboration effort between Phantom Limb and Apocalyptic Witchcraft.
As with their music, Qasu appear to be equally serious about politics – that is, if the term still has any meaning given the existentially terrifying times in which we live. Mega props go to Qasu for speaking their mind about today’s unprecedented social ills, and refusing to self-censor or obey Trump America’s fascist authority figures in advance. And while we’re at it, shame on the artists, entertainers and Hollywood executives who aren’t addressing the most important debate of our lifetimes: what is right and what is wrong, not what is left or what is right. Their cowardly calculations to not stand up for their neighbors and defend civil rights are making it all the more difficult for those of us fighting the good fight.
When we came across Qasu earlier this year, we knew right away that the band gets its. And yet, for all the seriousness with which Qasu treat their music and beliefs, we discovered Daniken to be a ye olde merry jolly good fellow. (That’s how they talk in the United Kingdom, right?) Lucky for us, he carved out some time to speak with The Bad Penny for our ongoing series called On Tyranny. And now we bring you our conversation with Daniken (which we didn’t videotape this time around).
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Leave it to gleeful trickster and indie pop-punk artist Aymen Saleh to write a song about a tattoo, even though not a single one is etched on the British ex-pat’s body. Roughly a decade after embarking on his music career with the band Holy Pinto (which initially consisted of Saleh and his friend Ryan Hurley), the artist has now amassed an enviable, consummately enjoyable catalog that is vibrant both aesthetically and musically.
Pretty soon, Holy Pinto’s discography will get a bit bigger with the September 14 release of a new LP, Wedding Season. The fact that the artist meticulously crafted the record is immediately evident from what we’ve heard of it thus far. Saleh has stated publicly that Wedding Season took years of work, particularly with the arrangements, and it shows.
Much to our delight, Saleh – who now resides in Milwaukee and has refashioned his band into a solo affair – gifted The Bad Penny not only with an early look at the incoming album but the opportunity to exclusively debut one of the songs and its accompanying video.
In discussing said song, “One Tattoo,” we learned that Saleh’s thoughts on body art go far beyond skin deep …
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First we unveiled our list of the top 20 melodic death metal bands from Sweden in mid-December. The preponderance of popularity encircling that list led us to release a “10 Best Finnish Melodeth Bands Ever” rundown several months later. Around the same time, we interviewed red-hot Finnish hard-rockers the Feral Kids, and they gave us their own list of the best metal bands that Finland has ever produced. And just two days ago, Prime Creation chimed in with their list of Sweden’s top heavy metal bands.
It was at that point that we came to our senses: Top 10 lists are all the rage these days, and that fine and dandy – but the people putting together those lists should be the ultimate authorities on what they’re ranking. Ergo, we have reached out to bands from foreign lands to learn directly from them which musical acts from their home countries really belong on GOAT lists.
The latest edition in our series, which targets Portugal, should have the word “Ultimate” with a capital “U” attached to it. That’s because the musician who put together this top 10 list is, by leaps and bounds, the most talented and iconic metal musician in the history of his country. Like most leaders of metal bands – or at least melodic death metal bands, or at least melodic death metal bands hailing from Europe – Moonspell vocalist Fernando Ribeiro is sweet to the core, extremely smart, musically gifted and charismatic.
The Bad Penny is grateful for having interviewed Ribeiro three times now, as he reminds us of the good fortune we have to live in the present moment (and all the more time we have to listen to music, my dear). Ribeiro’s list of the 10 best heavy metal bands in Portuguese seems just about perfect, save one crucial error: Moonspell, the country’s greatest contribution to metal, isn’t on it. So if you had any doubts as to whether Ribeiro is one humble, rad dude, they’ve no evaporated.
Now let’s enjoy Ribeiro’s guided tour through the history of metal bands that Portugal has produced, shall we?
Gaerea is the pride of Portugal. A band from another cosmos, with such taste and personality that defies the gods. Their private concept of pain and release keeps getting more and more to the point and Loss just cristalizes that beautiful yet heart-wrenching tension.
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