UK rockers Shame don’t mince words on their fourth studio album, pairing their infectious proto-punk grooves with nakedly hedonistic lyrics. Read my FLOOD review.
Shame’s ‘Cutthroat’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Shame on 09/22/2025 by Kurt OrzeckShallowater’s ‘God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Shallowater on 09/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Houston “dirtgaze” trio Shallowater ruminate on our intolerable times with some of the quietest and slowest music—as well as the most deafening, distortion-filled cacophony—you’ll hear in 2025. Read my FLOOD review.
From the Vault: Deafheaven’s 2017 Tour Setlists and First-Ever Show in Boise – An Analysis
Posted in Concert Reviews, Essays, Reviews with tags Bosse-de-Nage, Deafheaven, George Clarke, Mogwai, Shiv Mehra, Treefort, Treefort Music Fest on 09/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Deafheaven’s setlist from their show at Mardi Gras in Boise on 3.25.17
When Deafheaven played their first show in Boise on March 25 – at Mardi Gras, a venue typically reserved for wedding functions – they provided the five-day Treefort Music Fest with its only dose of shoe-gazing black metal. Continue reading
Death-Metal Word Search
Posted in Fun And Games with tags death metal, puzzle on 09/21/2025 by Kurt OrzeckTwenty death-metal bands. One puzzle. All you need is your sword (pencil) and shield (eraser).
Confused? Peruse an issue of Highlights for Children or check out The Bad Penny‘s previous Extreme Metal Word Search from 15 years ago. Man, was it really that long ago? Time flies when you’re having fun. And if you don’t have fun with this puzzle, you lack a soul. Which is fitting for a death-metal game, we suppose.
Anyhoodles, happy hunting.
Answer key here.
Pet Sounds #63: Kinsella & Pulse, LLC’s Most Prized Employee Is Bomba the Cat
Posted in Features, Interviews, Pet Sounds with tags Cap', Cap'n Jazz, Jenny Pulse, Joan of Arc, Kinsella and Pulse LLC, Tim Kinsella on 09/21/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
When The Bad Penny caught up with Tim Kinsella and Jenny Pulse earlier this year, they were living the high life. Fresh off the release of their third collaborative album, the deliberately misspelled Open ing Night, the musicians previously of Joan of Arc and Spa Moans, respectively, were taking a break between tours with Karate by staying at Kinsella’s cousin’s 400-year-old apartment in Italy. The indie-rockers, whose new project is called Kinsella and Pulse, LLC, had just eaten a five-course lunch by the ocean and seemed to be wanting for nothing.
Well, except one thing – of the furry variety.
Continue readingOn Tyranny: Jesus Lizard Vocalist David Yow Ditches US for Portugal
Posted in Essays, Features, News, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags authoritarianism, David Yow, Eugene S. Robinson, the Jesus Lizard, trump, tyranny on 09/20/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
As our nation rapidly transforms into Authoritarian America, artists – who are typically among the first to be targeted when a dictatorship takes control of a country – are relocating to countries where their right to free speech is still protected.
One of the more prominent indie-rock artists to make the move is Jesus Lizard frontman David Yow, who relocated to Portugal earlier this year, according to multiple sources who recently confirmed the news to The Bad Penny. None of the sources said outright that Trump’s reclaiming of the presidency was their motivating factor for Yow fleeing the U.S., however.
When yours truly interviewed Yow and Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison last year for a feature on FLOOD, the vocalist whose lyrics were historically apolitical admitted that he felt boxed in by the inexorable partisan strife in America and said he was compelled to address current events on the band’s comeback record, Rack.
“A larger percentage of the lyrics than I wished were based on the political climate in the U.S. for the last seven or eight years,” he confided in a video conference call.
Continue readingNirvana’s 10 Best Videos, Ranked
Posted in Lists, Videos with tags Nirvana on 09/20/2025 by Kurt OrzeckFrom the Vault: Everclear’s Art Alexakis Recounts Every Detail of ‘Santa Monica’ While Revisiting the Place That Inspired the Hit Song
Posted in Interviews with tags Art Alexakis, Everclear, Santa Monica on 09/20/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Fifteen years ago, yours truly – while serving as Editor of Santa Monica Patch, a hyper-local news website owned by AOL – was fortunate enough to rope in Art Alexakis, frontman for hit-single machine Everclear, for a special interview. The premise? Our conversation would revolve entirely around the alt-rock band’s biggest song, “Santa Monica,” and be conducted as we walked along Palisades Park, which overlooks the setting where the song took place and what inspired him to write it.
For such a seemingly simple, radio-friendly song, Alexakis revealed that there was a genuine, heartbreaking story behind it. He spared nary a detail about “Santa Monica” during our 90-minute journey together; while the song’s lyrics consist of about 300 words, our conversation – presented in its entirety here, for posterity’s sake – totaled more than 5,100 words.
Everclear completists and pop fans curious about the stories behind some of the best-known hits in the past three decades, prepare for a quasi-extension course revolving around a single song and taught by one of the best alt-rock lyricists of the ’90s. We’re rolling it out in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Sparkle and Fade, on which “Santa Monica” appears; the 15th anniversary of our interview with Alexakis; and as Everclear tour into early November in commemoration of the former anniversary.
Continue readingOn Tyranny: Malist Maestro Fights Russian Monarchs With New Project Crimson Crown
Posted in Interviews, On Tyranny with tags Crimson Crown, Malist, Ovfrost, The Collector, tyranny, Ukraine on 09/20/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Inside Moscow, a once-US adversary that appears to be becoming more of an ally thanks to Donald Trump’s hero-worship of its dictatorial leader Vladimir Putin, is a man waging his own war against the same type of authorial rule that is taking hold in the U.S. If you’re acquainted with The Bad Penny’s On Tyranny series, in which we interview musicians who previously or are currently living under authoritarian regimes, you should be familiar with him: Ovfrost, an inspired young artist whose primary project Malist is recognized far beyond the borders of Russia thanks to its excellence in rebelling against tyranny, war and isolation with seething, searing and superiorly executed black metal.
As brave as the uncompromising music that Ovfrost unleashes with enviable proficiency practically every year with Malist, the longhaired prodigy graciously spoke with us candidly and without fear in 2023 and 2024 in opposition to his country’s invasion of Ukraine. During those conversations, he inspired the continuation of our On Tyranny series while many other rock critics and outlets began shirking away from the topics of tyranny, fascism and authoritarianism as Trump strengthened his grip on the U.S. and continued finding new ways to establish a unitary executive, i.e. making himself a king in these United States. As Putin keeps setting an example for Trump’s takeover, Ovfrost is setting an example for us on how to combat those anti-democratic efforts.
With Ovfrost’s courage in mind — keep in mind he lives a solitary existence, sans security detail, and is creating and even starting to perform live some of the most anti-establishment music on the planet — we sought his counsel for the third year in a row on how to deal with forces of evil that few of us would have imagined could effectively take over America. This time around, however, the music project of Ovfrost that we also focused on was his newer affair Crimson Crown — which, as you will soon learn, is even more brazen in its message to crush monarchic rule.
Continue reading
The Bad Penny (beta) 