Clemy’s Crew Supporting Idaho Families of Pediatric Patients With Saturday Benefit Event

Posted in Concert Previews, Interviews, News with tags , , , on 11/26/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

As more than 8,000 families in Idaho have kids with special healthcare needs, the nonprofit organization Clemy’s Crew is rallying the citizens of the state to provide much-needed assistance by staging a benefit concert at Treefort Music Hall on Saturday.

Dubbed the “Concert for Compassion,” the inaugural event will support families of Idaho pediatric patients going through medical crises. It will run from 5 to 9 p.m. and feature performances by local bands, a silent auction, raffle prizes, pizza and a full bar.

Clemy’s Crew has helped more than 30 families of pediatric patients during medical crises in its first year. President and founder [editor’s note: and all-around great guy] Scott Thompson recently told us that Clemy’s Crew aims to help far more families next year – but will need substantial community support to accomplish that goal.

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Saintseneca’s ‘Highwalllow & Supermoon Songs’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags on 11/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

It’s hard to pin down exactly when the hippie term “far out” went the way of the Dodo bird, but chances are if you say the phrase to someone under age 30, they won’t know what the hell you’re talking about. If they bother to ask what it means, you can try explaining that it was an LSD-inspired term suggesting that one’s mind was being blown. Or you read this excerpt from a new Saintseneca album that came out on Halloween — because it encapsulates not only the gist of the phrase but the ridiculous and unserious culture that crouched and enabled the term “far out” to last well beyond its shelf life.

‘’The band’s first album in more than seven years launches the listener onto a ten-song landscape orbited by two sonic ‘moons,’ Viridian Moon (tracks 11-16) and Cinnamon Moon (tracks 17-21), named for the colors bandleader Zac Little experienced through synesthesia while writing. … In a world orbited by two moons, lunar phases dance in tandem, tugging at the tides. Beneath these amulets of light lies the landscape in which Saintseneca’s new album Highwalllow & Supermoon Songs came to be.”

Ya dig?

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On Tyranny: Elway Frontman Tim Browne Says ‘Keeping Optimistic Against All Odds Is Your Obligation as a Person Who Wants a Better World’

Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, Videos with tags , , , , , , on 11/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Settle in for a profound conversation about Authoritarian America with the hyper-intelligent and hyper-talented Tim Browne, vocalist and guitarist for long-running Colorado punk band Elway.

“There’s an endemic undercurrent of detached cynicism and irony on the left in general, and there’s a point of no return after which you become disengaged with politics, you become part of the problem by letting your detachment rule you out of doing anything to fight it,” he says. “And they’re counting on it too.”

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Two Cent Review: 夢遊病者 (Sleepwalker)’s ‘РЛБ30011922’ (Skopofoboexoskelett)

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , on 11/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

And the winner for this year’s most difficult-to-pronounce band name and album title belongs to … 夢遊病者 and their album РЛБ30011922. The production is raw, the experimentation unlimited and the sound just about as atonal as music can get. But sing-songy guitar passages and merciful breaks allow the listener to catch their breath and, like a good workout, push through what is ultimately a very rewarding listen that will make music fans who thrive on challenging themselves all the stronger for it. Read my full review at Treble.

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Amorphis Bassist Says It’s Impossible for AI to Create ‘Real Metal Music’

Posted in Interviews, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Olli-Pekka Laine, founding bassist/backing vocalist of the greatest progressive metal band to ever come out of Finland – Amorphis – sums up the act in one word: “professional.”

“Amorphis is a really professional band, so we don’t actually [need to] rehearse that much,” he told The Bad Penny yesterday. “We only rehearse when we enter the studio, right before that, and before the shows, of course. But I’d say that we probably … rehearse … maybe one or two times a year, maximum.”

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Strange Passage’s ‘A Folded Sky’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags on 11/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

What makes Strange Passage from Somerville, Massachusetts, strange in the raddest of ways is that their take on psych-rock is tight and precise, and their songs are well considered from melody and flow to texture and tone. Read my full Treble review here.

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On Tyranny: Transcending Obscurity Works Around Trump’s Tariffs With Innovative Move

Posted in Features, News, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags , , on 11/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

It doesn’t take an economic genius to know that Donald Trump’s deranged obsession with tariffs – a fixed charge on an imported good that citizens of the country importing the good ultimately bear the cost of paying – is wreaking havoc on America’s economy. Not to mention the economies of many other countries across the world.

The policy is so plainly dumb and illegal – it’s the U.S. Congress that authorizes tariffs, not the executive branch – that it appears likely even the U.S. Supreme Court, which has failed to rein in Trump to the severe, perhaps irreversible detriment to our country – is going to strike down Trump’s unilateral move, which appears to be the only be the only kind he can make due to, you know, that whole separation of powers thing. (Hence the reason why this post is part of our On Tyranny series.)

Anyway, one of The Bad Penny‘s favorite record labels – Mumbai, India-based underground extreme metal specialists Transcending Obscurity – declared Monday that they’re executing a workaround to Trump’s moronic policy.

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The Bad Penny’s Top 50 Best LPs of 2025, Pt. 1: Sharon Van Etten, Spy, Turnstile, Swans, Cloakroom

Posted in Album Reviews, Lists, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

A lot of fucked-up up shit happened in the U.S. this year. Way, way too much of it. For many of us Americans who actually carry values in our hearts instead of bloviating about them or slapping bumper stickers on our monster trucks, it was almost too much to bear.

Fortunately, 2025 also saw the release of a staggering number of stellar records, which made the year a little more … well, bearable. Hence, for the first time ever, The Bad Penny is deviating from its usual annual tradition of limiting out favorite listens to just 10 and breaking them into a five-part series containing 10 records per installment.

What follows is the first batch.

41. Sharon Van Etten – & the Attachment Theory (Jagjaguwar)

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Paz Lenchantin’s ‘Triste’: Two Cent Review

Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags , , , , , on 11/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Whatever you were expecting from a solo album by A Perfect Circle and Zwan collaborator Paz Lenchantin, you won’t be prepared for what you hear when you press play. Read my full review of Lenchantin’s Triste at Veil of Sound, one of Germany’s premiere sources for alternative, experimental and heavy music, with a particular predilection for post-rock, black metal and krautrock.

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On Tyranny: Singer/Songwriter Robert Deeble Claims ‘Faith-Based Social Justice Work Has Been Lost,’ Creating Power Vacuum for Autocrats

Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags , , , , , on 11/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck


Seattle singer-songwriter Robert Deeble has a lot on his mind these days, and it isn’t just his seventh record, The Space Between Us, which is planned for release Feb. 6 through his own Mind Bomb Publishing imprint. Nay, the socially attuned, voracious reader, prolific musician and contemplative in the truest sense of the world is trying to gather what he gained from spending four years mostly in isolation – but with some help with trusted collaborators. They include bassist Viktor Krauss (Allison Krauss/Robert Plant), drummer Lacey Brown (Damien Jurado) and producer Ric Hordinski (producer, string arrangements, guitar).

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