Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #12
Posted in Fun And Games on 11/15/2025 by Kurt OrzeckFrom the Vault: Trivium’s Lyrics Don’t Make Any Sense
Posted in Essays, Sound Off with tags Matt Heafy, Trivium on 11/15/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Trivium is quite possibly The Bad Penny‘s guiltiest of pleasures, and we’re gunning to see them in concert for the 10th-or-so time Nov. 29 at Revolution Concert House in Garden City, Idaho. But to balance out this website’s legitimacy, we’re counterbalancing our affection for vocalist/guitarist Matt Heafy’s band by unearthing this harsh but fair analysis of his lyrics that IndiePit originally ran in 2009.
Hey, what can we say? Trivium is pretty good at breakdowns; The Bad Penny ain’t too shabby at takedowns. Also, any guilt we might feel over this lambasting of Heafy’s lyrics is rendered moot by the band charging $55.70 to attend the aforementioned show. Not cool in the economically devastating times in which the non-billionaires among us are currently trying to survive.
Continue readingOn Tyranny: Locust’s Bobby Bray Says Bands Have ‘Responsibility’ to Tour Red States, Recalls Yeah Yeah Yeahs Solidarity
Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags authoritarianism, Bobby Bray, censorship, fascism, Justin Pearson, Locust, On Tyranny, Three One G, tyranny, Yeah Yeah Yeahs on 11/14/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
“Perhaps this new panopticon is leading us further down the path to a modern-day banality of evil.” -The Locust’s Bobby Bray
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A conversation about iconoclastic, antagonistic musicians subverting authority wouldn’t be complete without input from Bobby Bray, best known as the vocalist and guitarist for The Locust. For that reason – and because his convictions about politics are as fierce, thoroughly considered and perfectly executed as his artistic vision – The Bad Penny could not be more grateful that he agreed to participate in On Tyranny, our ongoing series about how authoritarianism directly affects artists.
We carried out our exchange about tyranny, fascism, censorship and related topics with Bray last month. In the end, Bray delivered some of the most eloquent, cogent and sensible comments voiced thus far by any of the 50-plus musicians who have participated in the series we launched roughly a year and a half ago, when ICE assaults, a third Trump term and blowing up boats in international waters more than 1,000 miles away from U.S. shores seemed inconceivable to most Americans.
Without further ado, here is what Bobby Bray had to say about the current state of affairs in the U.S.
Continue reading10 Best Free Bandcamp Downloads: Smirk, Miracle Blood, Jute Gyte, Rat Champion, Iodine Sampler
Posted in Lists, MP3s with tags Charlie Nieland, Count Your Lucky Stars, In Lieu, Iodine Recordings, Jute Gyte, Miracle Blood, Rat Champion, Smirk, Something Is Waiting, Twilight Sad on 11/14/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Strapped for cash but hungry for great music? You won’t have much luck camping out at the grocery store these days; Bandcamp is a way better destination. Here’s a rundown of 10 rad releases, about half of them newly released, that The Bad Penny recently came across on Bandcamp.
(Note: If you do have some green to spare, please show your thanks to these deserving artists and labels.)
1. Smirk’s “Domestic Dog” b/w “Manhunt In Paradise”
Connecticut punk prince Smirk greased the wheels for a swing of spring dates last year with this single, which Industry Standards just put out today in the form of a 7-inch. The still-free digital version tops our list of gratis Bandcamp releases because the humble artiste donated all proceeds from sales of it to HEAL Palestine.
Continue readingNov. 14 New Releases: Bell Witch + Aerial Ruin, Avett Brothers + Mike Patton, FKA Twigs, Home Front (Updated 10:45 a.m. MT)
Posted in New Releases with tags Aerial Ruin, Avett Brothers, Bell Witch, FKA Twigs, Home Front, Mike Patton on 11/14/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
(Looking for great, free music you can download legally? Check out The Bad Penny‘s new roundup of 10 gems available gratis on Bandcamp.)
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5 Seconds of Summer – Everyone’s a Star! (Republic)
Alissia – Hypnotic Night (feat. Nile Rodgers and Earthgang) single
Auditory Anguish – AFA (Creator-Destructor)
Avalon – How to Lie single
Avett Brothers and Mike Patton – AVTT/PTTN (Thirty Tigers/ Ramseur/ Ipecac)
• Mike Patton Word Search: A Tribute to the 40-Year Music Maestro
• Mike Patton and Duane Denison Talk Tomahawk ‘Downtime’
• ‘Bands Don’t Make a Living Off Record Sales’: Mike Patton, Greg Werckman Reflect on Ipecac
Avoid – Creature of Habit EP (UNFD)
Roy Ayers – Secrets of the Sun (limited-edition vinyl and digital versions) (UMe)
Badsoma – s/t EP
Asha Banks – How Real Was It? EP (Island)
Sara Bareilles – Salt Then Sour Then Sweet single
Beatrix – Dead Dog single
Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin – Stygian Bough: Vol 2 (Profound Lore)
Better Lovers – Highly Irresponsible deluxe edition (SharpTone)
Black Crowes – Amorica deluxe box set reissue (UMe)
Blondshell – Another Picture (feat. Conor Oberst, Samia) (Partisan)
Continue readingBad Penny Post #1,000: Your Top 10 Favorite Reads Thus Far
Posted in Lists, News, Polls with tags Bad Penny, Brian Bell, Cheap Trick, Guided by Voices, Mark Lanegan, Patti Smith, Rhett Miller, Rivers Cuomo, Superchunk, Weezer on 11/13/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
The proverbial “they” said it couldn’t be done, but with these words, The Bad Penny has reached its thousandth post since launching way back in 1862 (the same year rock ‘n’ roll was invented!). In celebration of what is still a smaller number than the grand total of songs released by Guided by Voices (no, we didn’t do the math, but are you gonna challenge that assumption?), here are the top 10 most popular posts in the modest history of this website:
Continue readingAnother Oxymoronic Creed News Headline
Posted in Comedy, News with tags Creed, Oxymorons, Scott Stapp on 11/13/2025 by Kurt OrzeckIt only took Creed less than two months to confound us once again with a self-owning update:
Mike Patton Word Search: A Tribute to the 40-Year Music Maestro
Posted in Fun And Games with tags Matt Patton, word search on 11/13/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Do you know this man? You sure as hell ought to. Mike Patton, 57, is one of the most prolific musicians, record label owners, voice actors, film composers and producers in the underground.
It’d be inaccurate and a disservice to the music genius to qualify the last word in the last sentence as “underground rock”; the limitlessly adventurous–or, perhaps better put, creatively restless–virtuoso dabbles with virtually every music genre. A short list includes avant-garde, alt-metal, alt-rock, art pop, contemporary classical, funk metal, grindcore, heavy metal, indie rock, L.A. punk, noise-rock, ska-punk, sound collage, trip-hop and all varieties of experimental music.
More extensive than that seemingly never-ending list is the number of other artists and bands with whom one of California’s most prolific and peculiar wisenheimers has collaborated over the years. We won’t name them here, or list them in the tags for this article, because it’d spoil The Bad Penny‘s latest word search, a game doubling as a tribute to Michael Allen Patton in celebration of his 40 years making music.
Enjoy this, because–even though Patton hasn’t enjoyed The Bad Penny interviewing him, as evidenced here and here, and in another feature we’ll excavate from our archives sometime down the line–we still “care a lot” about our favorite acerbic, iconoclastic, contrarian oddball musician.
Twenty Patton-related clues are hidden in this puzzle:
Snooper’s ‘Worldwide’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Jack White, Snooper, Third Man Records on 11/12/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Snooper have all the support they need to be taken seriously, with Third Man Records serving as chaperone for the band and its second record, as Jack White’s label did with their first two years ago. That said, the operators of the label appear to have removed the training wheels from Snooper’s bike this time around, letting them embrace their id on the band’s second record in defiance of the dreaded-slash-silly “sophomore curse.” Read my Post-Trash review here.
The Bad Penny (beta) 