Reaching the pinnacle of his songwriting acuity, the vignettes Cass McCombs paints with his voice and guitar on his 13th album, Interior Live Oak, evoke a conversation between Thoreau and Nick Cave. Read my full review on FLOOD.
Cass McCombs’ ‘Interior Live Oak’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Cass McCombs on 09/02/2025 by Kurt OrzeckRock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #10
Posted in Fun And Games on 09/02/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Solution here.
For previous rebuses (rebi? Reba?), give these a go:
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #9
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #8
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #7
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #6
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #5
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #4
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #3
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #2
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #1
At Boise Gig, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst Recalls Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch Doing Him a Solid
Posted in Concert Reviews, News, Reviews with tags Bright Eyes, Built to Spill, Commander Venus, Conor Oberst, Doug Martsch, Saintseneca, The Poison Oak Project, trans, Treefort Music Hall on 09/01/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Bright Eyes commander Conor Oberst shared a heartfelt and formative memory with the crowd that packed the Treefort Music Hall to see his ensemble perform tonight.
About halfway through Bright Eyes‘ 20-song set, Oberst recalled that his prior band Commander Venus opened for their idols, Built to Spill, when the latter band performed in Oberst’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. He noted that he was only 14 years old at the time.
Oberst then recounted that when Bright Eyes played to an empty Neurolux in Boise when they were starting out, he received a note from that city’s hometown hero, Built to Spill leader Doug Martsch, on which he had written his home phone number an invitation for Oberst’s band to crash at his house for the night.
Continue readingOn Tyranny: Meatwound’s Mantra Is ‘Fuck the Cops – and the Government Too’
Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny with tags authoritarianism, Daniel Wallace, dictator, disappeared, Donald Trump, Meatwound, On Tyranny, police state, trump on 09/01/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Acerbic. Snotty. Sarcastic. Ruthless. Hard-hitting. There are a lot of adjectives that could be applied more gently to the ear than the name of the band in question, Meatwound. Spawned 10 years ago ago in one of the crappiest cities in the country, Tampa, Florida, The Bad Penny has wanted to catch up with this band since the release of their 2015 debut, Addio.
The skronky, snarky, snarly – have we exhausted our cache of descriptors yet? – crew immediately drew comparisons to a lot of our favorite bands. But we’re gonna show Meatwound some respect by saying they are a uniquely awesome slab of protein-rich noise-rock and encourage you to listen to the many songs of theirs embedded in this post. Most are housed on their latest record, Macho, which they coughed up in mid-July.
The Bad Penny talked with Meatwound vocalist Daniel Wallace in mid-May, just two months after the detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and before shit got even crazier – you know, the deployment of the U.S. Marines to the streets of L.A., Trump bombing Iran, Mahmoud Khalil was finally freed, the U.S. blocked global agreements for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine, all that good stuff.
And yet, Wallace’s remarks, stances and predictions all still, terrifyingly, hold up as true for the most part.
(Meatwound also features guitarist Ari Barros, bassist/programmer Mariano Iglesias and drummer Dimitri Stoyanov.)
Continue readingDoppelgängers: Louis CK’s and David Cross’ Nearly Identical Jokes on Male Rollerbladers
Posted in Comedy, Doppelgängers, Essays, Features with tags David Cross, Louis C.K. on 08/31/2025 by Kurt OrzeckLouis C.K. and David Cross were roommates in the ’90s, so it’s not shocking that they came up with nearly the exact same bit on men with mustaches rollerblading in public with a sense of superiority to those they passed on the sidewalk.
From David Cross’ comedy album Shut Up, You Fucking Baby (2002):
From Louis C.K.’s first full-length broadcast special, Shameless (2007):
This post is dedicated to Dan Stevenson.
Anciients, Now Touring the U.S., Are the Must-See Metal Band of the Moment
Posted in Concert Reviews, Reviews with tags Anciients, Dawn of Ouroboros, Nott, The Shredder on 08/31/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Keeping this quick, because The Bad Penny doesn’t typically run a review of a show previously previewed on the site: By any means necessary, catch Anciients on their current tour of the U.S., the Vancouver band’s first in eight years. Their gig in Boise on Friday night at the Shredder was pitch-perfect. When the band finished their 10-song set, it took awhile for the attendees to leave, as they struggled to locate their jaws, which had dropped off their faces and onto the floor during Anciients’ unrelenting, uncompromising, unpretentious and unimaginably spot-on set.
Continue readingBest New Music Videos (August 2025): Packaging, Spaceface, Runnner, Cosmic Reaper, Oruã
Posted in Lists, Videos with tags Cosmic Reaper, Dusted Angel, Jonathan Hultén, Nine Treasures, Oruã, Packaging, Rocket, ruã, Runnner, Spaceface, Tithe on 08/31/2025 by Kurt OrzeckWe 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”
On Tyranny: ‘You’re Telling My Kids They Can’t Read This Book?’ Author Andrew Laties Rails Against Book Bans
Posted in Features, On Tyranny, What You Readin' For? with tags Andrew Laties, authoritarianism, censorship, Donald Trump, fascism, First Amendment, On Tyranny, trump on 08/31/2025 by Kurt Orzeck“The majority of Americans are angry about this idiocy. There will come a tipping point.
The majority will fight back and win.”
-Andrew Laties
Andrew Laties isn’t your typical free-speech advocate. The decorated author co-founded the annual Easton Book Festival in Pennsylvania, The Children’s Bookstore in Chicago, the Chicago Children’s Museum Store and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art Bookstore in Massachusetts. In some respects, he is Donald Trump’s greatest nemesis: He is omnipresent thanks to the aforementioned institutions he established across the country, he won’t be bullied (as he was in the past), he doesn’t mince words or self-censor but rather speaks from the heart with unfiltered ferocity, he is an outspoken champion of free-speech who refuses to be silenced, and he is prepared to battle the Trump administration’s book bans to the bitter end.
In other words, Laties is one of us. Even if you don’t place censorship and book bans high on your list of priorities, whether you deem the issues to be political or not, he’s fighting for your rights too. His previously detailed his crusade in the book Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want to Fight For – From Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities. Last month, he unveiled his latest work, the very timely You’re Telling My Kids They Can’t Read This Book? Our Hundred-Year Children’s-Literature Revolution and How We’ll Keep Fighting to Support Our Families’ Right to Read.
When Laties reached out to The Bad Penny, it was a no-brainer to invite him to participate in our ongoing series On Tyranny, inspired by the Timothy Snyder handbook of the same name. Here is the exchange in which we thoroughly enjoyed partaking today with Laties, a hero in the sickening, unbelievable and yet very real battle to save democracy for us all, and not just the livelihoods of artists and dissenters, but their right to exist in American society.
Continue readingOn Tyranny: John Lennon and Yoko Ono Were Wrong; Karma Does Not Exist
Posted in Essays, Features, On Tyranny, Videos with tags Donald Trump, John Lennon, karma, Plastic Ono Band, Power to the People, trump, Yoko Ono on 08/30/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Today marks the 53rd anniversary of “Power to the People,” a performance by John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band. As a nation, we are thirsting for our own contemporary music megastars (Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Drake, Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, etc.) to re-create such an event at a time even more perilous than when the peace activists of yore performed at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Side note: The whole “karma” concept that Lennon and Ono preached? Yeah, that’s proven to be a fallacy. No amount of suffering that could befall Donald Trump from here on out would be commensurate with the amount of damage he’s done to our country, which will take many decades to repair.
Fortunately, Lennon isn’t around to bear witness to the atrocities that are occurring every day in the U.S.
Check out these previous installments of The Bad Penny’s On Tyranny series:
• Poll: Are You Afraid of Attending Concerts as the Military Patrols US Cities?
• Haggus Frontman Blasts Punk Bands’ Silence on Gaza, ICE
• As US Citizens Get Disappeared and Terrorized, Chile’s Mawiza Reflects
• Punk Legends UK Subs Denied Entry Into US Due to Alleged Trump Criticism
• Kuwaiti Metal Artist Abzy Calls Hate ‘A Black Hole’
• Hungarian Black-Metallers Sear Bliss Lost ‘Freedom’ In Orbán’s Autocracy
• Necrofier Frontman Wonders ‘Is It Going to Be Like ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’?’
• ‘People in America Have Blinders On,’ Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe Says
• Musicians Living Under Authoritarian Rule Speak Out
• Mark Mallman Says ‘Suffering Artists’ Are a Myth, Making Art Isn’t a ‘Job’
• Cellista: ‘Creating and Existing Under Trump’s America Is My Act of Radical Resistance’
3 Youngish, Anti-Bro Comics You Should Know: Jack Tucker, Connor O’Malley, Chris Fleming
Posted in Comedy, Videos with tags Chris Fleming, Connor O'Malley, Jack Tucker, Zack Zucker on 08/30/2025 by Kurt OrzeckJack Tucker (Zack Zucker):
Connor O’Malley:
Chris Fleming:
The Bad Penny (beta) 