FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Local punk outfit Scrotal Revolt recently began opening shows with a formal acknowledgment of guitar parts they’ve stolen and appropriated for their own songs, self-righteous sources close to the band reported.
“This shameless, systemic thievery has gone on far too long and we cannot let our own ignorance live in silence anymore,” the band’s singer-guitarist Zach “Rez Hit” Phipps declared while unlocking his e-bike with a bolt cutter. “When we speak the names of bands like New Found Glory, SR-71, and even going back to the true pioneers of punk, Green Day, we not only honor the innovators of these incredibly complex four-chord progressions, but also elevate the consciousness of the whole scene. Beyond just the riff acknowledgments, we’ve started Venmoing 3% of our merch sales directly to members of defunct bands that now drive Uber. Also, we let the nephew of the original bass player of Goldfinger help carry equipment sometimes; inclusion is key. Honestly, it’s humbling to know we’re finally getting it right.”
One longtime Scrotal Revolt fan Colin Storke was less enthusiastic about the band’s new social crusade.
“When I go to a punk show the last thing I’m trying to do is learn,” Storke griped. “I like to get a nice buzz goin’ during the opener, rip my vape pen inside my hoodie right as Scrot-Volt takes the stage and then rock out in the pit, but now I have to sit through this guy whining about preserving the legacy of bands that are from, like, the ‘90s. That’s forever ago- no one cares! Could there be anything less punk than jumping on the overly-apologetic bandwagon? Next thing you know there’ll be a lecture about who invented the power chord? Just play already- I got community service in the morning!”
Linette Bowers, a distinguished music anthropologist at Juilliard, highlighted the reality of the growing trend.
“These stolen riff acknowledgments teeter between earnest historical teachings and patronizing token gestures,” Bowers explained. “So often they have more to do with making the band feel less guilty about their lack of talent than any genuine concern for the rightful creator of a song. Also, some reputations are best left to fade with time, lest some young punk band lift a ‘90s-era Misfits intro and invite Michale Graves on stage and hand him a microphone. This is punk we’re talking about; it’s probably ok to save the riff and forget the riffer.”
At press time, all of Scrotal Revolt were canceled after a stranger posted a TikTok of the band urinating on an indigenous landmark.
It’s not your fault that Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson are so obsessed with a guitar amplifier brand that they just HAD to name their band after it, logo and all. But it definitely is your fault for not looking up an interview with them on YouTube first to hear how Sunn O))) is said. So why not escape to a town with more problems than solutions just south of beautiful Baltimore? On any given day, your massive stupidity will be the least attention-grabbing sight in town.
Consider this a recommendation for any town on the Bourbon Trail, but Ludlow is a particular favorite. Most people in these places are out-of-towner bachelor parties getting blackout drunk and blasting Dave Matthews Band on TouchTunes jukeboxes. Nary a doom/drone fan round these parts.
The quirky town of Wall in South Dakota is much more concerned with their oddball tourist trap pharmacy Wall Drug than they are with your complete lack of cultural IQ. And in the unlikely event you start to get some heat from the locals, you can go camp in Badlands National Park to escape. Just don’t get bit by any rattlers.
You still want to enjoy drone metal, but you can’t engage in the metal community anymore. Where to go? The beautiful coal mines of West Virginia! There are few life choices more metal than condemning yourself to the mines of Appalachia. I can’t imagine a disease more kvlt-sounding than black lung.
If you hew close to the strip, you’ll be surrounded by tourists and transients. Safety! If you venture into real Las Vegas, you’ll find the only people on Earth with darker tales than yours. Pronouncing Sunn O))) incorrectly pales in comparison to the average ex-military junta escapee in a Freemont St dive bar.
Everyone here is so high on mushrooms that they will never be able to devote all of their attention to bullying you. And once you settle in and go from microdosing to macrodosing, perhaps the divine psilocybin gods will inform you of the One True Pronunciation of Seattle’s finest drone metal act that no mortal has yet known.
Beautiful, rustic Greene County in Pennsylvania’s southwestern corner has only received new music up to the year 1992, so no one there is aware of Sunn O))) yet. Hell, you could go and start placing bets with people that a band called “Sunn O)))” will become one of the progenitors of a burgeoning style of metal and make yourself a cool $20. Keep reading The Hard Times for more financial advice.
Stone Mountain is the home of Kenneth Parcell, subject of long-running documentary “30 Rock.” Based on his accounts of Stone Mountain, anything beyond the most fundamentalist Christianity is banned; you will never run into another fan of Southern Lord Records around here. It’s probably illegal to even say that record label’s name out loud.
Austin’s population in the year 2024 is almost entirely full of posers, so “Sunn Ohhhhhh” is actually one of the many correct ways to say the doom/drone act’s name there. Enjoy your Tesla factory dorks.
If you watch any film noir from the 1950s, the antihero protagonist is usually trying to escape the law by going to Mexico to start a new life because no one knows them there. 2024’s version of this is moving to Ohio. You have no friends in Ohio and none of your old friends will visit you here. You deserve Ohio and Ohio deserves you.
