Category Archives: bad religion

Everybody Knows What’s Best For You

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Tomorrow is November 2nd. For most people it’s just day 306 of another poopy year. 59 more to go until a fresh start!

In the U S of A it’s significant every year as it’s our Election Day. This year, it’s a tough election. Your mailbox has been filled with thousands of politicals ads and flyers that candidates collectively have spent millions of dollars on. Dollars that would have been better spent to help the constituents they are trying to persuade.

Popular words this election? Reform, Recovery, and Jobs.

New fad this year? Tea. Tea? Some new party drug I think. /shrug

Germs Of Perfection  a tribute to Bad Religion

I have been listening to a lot of Bad Religion lately. They are my favorite band. Of. All. Time. That being said, it is not unusual for me to listen to some BR. There was a catalyst for me to queue them up this time around.

Spin and Myspace just released an album of Bad Religion covers in a tribute album called Germs Of Perfection. It’s free…so start your download now and here.

If you need a push…check out William Elliott Whitmore‘s cover of “Don’t Pray On Me” from the 1993 album Recipe For Hate.  It’s definitely my favorite cover from the tribute album. Click the play button below!

Click to Play William Elliott Whitmore – Don’t Pray On Me (Bad Religion Cover)

With 18 Bad Religion albums on repeat for a few days and an election on my mind, a particular song stuck out. Well, it was a lot more than one song, but there was one that I have always liked a lot and that fit particularly well for your Election Day.

Click to Play Bad Religion – You Are (The Government)

Hey sit down and listen and they’ll tell you when you’re wrong.
Eradicate but vindicate as “progress” creeps along.
Puritan work ethic maintains its subconscious edge
As Old Glory maintains your consciousness.
There’s a loser in the house, and a puppet on the stool,
And a crowded way of life, and a black reflecting pool,
And as the people bend, the moral fabric dies,
The country can’t pretend to ignore its people’s cries.
You are the government.
You are jurisprudence.
You are the volition.
You are jurisdiction.
And I make a difference too.

Yep. That’s all there is. A lot gets packed into that 1:22 punk rock rocket ride.

I’ve always understood that this song was probably a call to Anarchy. I like to think it’s just a call to excercise your rights. This, after all is a country “Of the People, by the People.” Sometimes I think that we Americans take this for granted. We ARE the government. If our Government failed us, then it was our own failure. We don’t have to wait for the Government to change things. The power of change is in our hands. Maybe the way to change is something more revolutionary than just casting a ballot. That I can’t tell you. I do know that this is ours, and together we can be great again. Together we all vote. On November 2nd, we are the Government.

You get your say tomorrow on how we walk into the future, and I make a difference too.

I Sold Myself For Way Too Long

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I’m probably older than you are, so when I say that for my entire adult life I have been expressing myself in online forums, this actually says something.

It also means that I am old enough to have heard of TSOL sometime in my life prior to last night at the Bad Religion show. It makes me wonder… when I was trying desperately to listen to punk music when I was a kid, why my cousin Chad never introduced me to True Sounds Of Liberty.

A lot of thoughts float around in my head on a constant basis. If I can’t let them out, I go a little nuts. Facebook and Twitter help alleviate the buildup a bit, but honestly, I need a place to work it out. And piss people off. And shock, and bore, and inform, and protest, and debate. Maybe not debate as much anymore. I think I got a lot of that silliness worked out before turning thirty. Anyway, on the expression front – I don’t think it worked out very well on my personal blog. So I’m corked up again.

Come into my nightmare now you’ve got both sides of me

Download TSOL – Come Into My Nightmare

While I was picking fights and spewing not-quite-fully-formed opinions online in the 90’s, TSOL had already been around for 20 years and had experimented with their own forming of opinions and music styles. There were political albums, morbid and macabre themes, art punk, psychedelia, even keyboards and blues metal. Over the years they split off, splintered, and reunited the original members to join the Warped Tour in 1999. They were back at it. Then, in 2002, a shooting backstage during one of TSOL’s shows left the band with a $14,000 attorney bill by 2005 after clearing their name while the House of Blues settled with the victims for a mil a piece!

It takes a lot of cash and a few years’ setback to get your name cleared and get yourself back on your feet… For a lot of us, it would seem.

All I ever wanted to do was be someone like you

Download TSOL – Someone Like You

I’m thankful I heard of TSOL. I’m thankful they signed with Nitro Records, the label created by the lead singer of one of my own all-time favorite bands, Offspring. I’m thankful they released another album in 2009 and called it Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Free Downloads. I’m thankful that the kid we brought to his first-ever concert got to be involved in a 90-minute Bad Religion mosh pit and met members and lead singer of TSOL afterward.

I just still wish Chad had told me about this band earlier, and I wish I still had an online forum on which to do my brain bloodletting. Meanwhile, I want you to appreciate these aging psychobilly punks with me. They are exactly the guys I love to see on stage. Loved the show.

Most of the songs in their history are stronger and faster than the ones on this album. Why don’t you download a few and take a self-guided tour through punk history. See if you can find the source of influence of some of your own favorite bands.

Black Hole Sun, won’t you come?

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I thought Trent Reznor was just being mean and overly critical. He sent the following tweet after listening to Scream:

The album starts out with some sort of horrific trumpet fanfare and I am already cringing. wtfwtfwtfwtf is all I can think. Mookie is overjoyed because he has hated Chris Cornell ever since he took up with Rage Against the Machine members to form Audioslave. I, on the other hand, have remained faithfully devoted since Badmotorfinger in 1991. I was down with the whole Seattle thing and all the roles Cornell played in it. Screaming Trees. Temple of the Dog. Alice in Chains. SINGLES!


[Chris Cornell – Seasons]

If I should be short on words, and long on things to say…

The thing I have most loved about Cornell, other than his general hotness (swoon), is his impeccable gift of lyricism, as showcased above in one of his first solo efforts, from 1992’s movie soundtrack to “Singles”. So as I attempted to give track 1, “Part of Me”, a fair listen through my cringes and distorted facial expressions, I had hope that this song would start to make sense.

Alas, it is a hip hop song, and it’s not supposed to make any damn sense at all. So, it doesn’t.

I love the man. I support him in wanting to do something fun. Wouldn’t you make a record with Timbaland if you were given the chance? I just can’t fathom how he can call a track finished, and sign his name to it, when the lyrics read like the ecstasy-induced scattered thoughts of a clubgoer.

He considers the album “an interesting sociological experiment,” since people seem to be more concerned about who is making the music rather than the music itself.

Well… OK, I am trying to follow you here, but… I don’t. “Of those who are given much, much is expected.” That’s my rule, baby.

“That part’s kinda fun,” Cornell, 44, told Reuters in a recent interview. “If someone is up in arms about the idea of an artist that they really care about doing something that they just can’t believe, it begs that question, ‘Well, what is it that you would want? Would you then want predictable, comfortable salad that gets reproduced year after year?'”

“The Answer is: listen to Bad Religion and yes,” says Mookie.

The title track is a disaster. Since when does Chris Cornell have to be obvious with his lyrics? It makes me want to cry.


Take a minute to tell you now
Don’t have to raise my tone
Take the level and bring it down
I just want you to know
I got no trouble with what you said
I don’t even think you’re wrong
It’s how you say it
You lose your head
Girl I’m standing right in front of you

It’s a travesty. You may find it funny, Chris, but I adore you, and it’s not funny. There is one somewhat redeeming track on the album. I was able to enjoy “Enemy.” And look, the music on the album is really good, and I should add the disclaimer that I really don’t like present-day hip hop. This is probably a really enjoyable album for Timbaland faithfuls and others who don’t know what flannel is.

Check out “Enemy”:


[Chris Cornell – Enemy]

There are 15 tracks on this album. 15 tracks! I don’t think I can listen a second time. I’m sorry. I’m proud of you, Chris…I’m glad you are enjoying this. I’m just not there with you.

For $10, though, you might as well try the 15 track “Scream”. Listen to it and tell me what you think. And if you’re feeling nostalgic, or interested in what I loved back in the 90’s, you can check out some of the other grunge projects CC has participated in. And for God’s sake, get Singles.