SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Drummer Brent Englewood of local punk band Crows and Ravens was uncharacteristically dejected after dropping one of his sticks while performing in front of a packed house on Saturday night, multiple cringed sources report.
“I….I…I’m not sure what happened,” a clearly distraught Englewood explained. “The place was packed, the energy was high and the entire crowd was loving every minute of it. Then it happened: I went for a very simple fill during our fourth song and next thing I know, the stick in my dominant hand went hurling across the stage and into the audience. The worst part is that I forgot to bring a backup pair, so I was forced to play the rest of the set with only one stick. I’m strongly considering entering the witness protection program or something to save face.”
Englewood’s girlfriend Mary Stonold noticed an immediate change in his behavior since the incident.
“Our relationship just hasn’t been the same,” Stonold said. “Whenever we go out to dinner, he just does this 1000-yard stare with his head down, directly into his food. I tell him it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, and that it happens to a lot of drummers. He even wears drumming gloves 24/7 now ‘just in case.’ I almost got him back from his depression before he accidentally dropped one of his chopsticks while eating sushi last night. He may never return to normal now.”
Music historian Todd Burke noted other musicians who found themselves in embarrassing situations on stage.
“Since its inception, rock and roll has been littered with onstage blunders,” Burke explained. “The standard for embarrassing mishaps was set pretty high in the early days. When Chuck Berry played ‘American Bandstand’ for the first time, he was rip-roaring through his performance up until the minute he did his first duck walk. He went scooting across the stage and all of a sudden, BAM! Blew out a knee right on American TV. His career somehow still took off even after that egregious gaffe.”
At press time, Englewood decided to duct tape his drumsticks to his hands during performances, which helped him maintain full control of them a good 75% of the time.
“Bedtime for Democracy” is the best effort in giving up that the band could muster at the time. Which is why the court case most closely associated with the album was actually a simple slip and fall case in which frontman Jello Biafra, fully racked up with a neck brace and only one crutch, hobbled out of the studio on the last day of recording. The singer claims to have tripped over a slice of loose carpeting in the booth, and that’s why this album blows.
Alright, alright, we all know about the penis lawsuit. The PMRC shit their collective khakis over the “Frankenchrist” album art. But did you know that the band was later sued again over the dick poster, this time by Tipper Gore alone. Apparently she eventually grew quite fond of the boner cavalcade after many a late night studying it over and over again at PMRC headquarters, and decided to sue the band again for, as it states in the court transcript, “opening [her] eyes to a bright and frightening world of sexual possibilities [she] never would have known otherwise.” In this context, it really adds new meaning to the lyric “invasion of the beef patrol.”
This runner-up of a record saw the band gettin dragged to court by the Peace Corps of all fucking things. This was because at the time recently passed legislation required all publicly distributed images of horrific global conflicts, famine and humanitarian disasters were required by law to be accompanied by an official Peace Corps “But We Tried” sticker. It’s unclear whether the band did not include this sticker as a protest or if someone at Alternative Tentacles just kinda forgot to throw it on there.
“Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables” has all of DK’s best stuff. “Kill the Poor,” “Let’s Lynch the Landlord,” “California uber Alles,” fucking “Holiday In Cambodia” – it’s all there. What’s also there is the class action suit that was filed by Chiquita for defamation. The banana juggernaut claimed the band was slandering the quality of their produce “gratuitously and consistently.” Frankly we have no idea where they got that impression, but still, a judge found in favor of Chiquita and forced the band to pay out $479 million dollars for hurting the multi-billion dollar corporation’s feelings.
This cover album came out when Streetlight Manifesto was vying to be released from their totally not predatory contract with Victory Records. The plan was to release like 9 of these things as they ran out the required number of albums on their record contract. We’re still waiting on 8 of ’em. In the meantime, this record is full of obscure, interesting, and unexpected covers that are a really fun listen, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the band’s original material.
Remember when Streetlight was attempting to finish out their record contract with cover albums? Well, Victory Records wasn’t exactly into that so the band went back to finish their obligatory 5th album on the label with original material. “The Hands That Thieve” (I wonder where they got the idea for that title) is a perfect encapsulation of what Streetlight Manifesto does: write catchy, genre-defying sing-a-long anthems at blistering speed. After the album was released, the band was free to go from their contract and- oh wait, no. Victory decided the cover album didn’t count towards their contract, and when the band refused to make more music for them, Victory sued Streetlight for a million dollars and refused to release this record. While you can stream the record anywhere now, for quite some time after its “release” you could only pirate the record, which was heavily encouraged by the band.
Ahh, what a classic. “Keasbey Nights” is, of course, the record that singer/songwriter Tomas Kalnoky made with his previous band, Catch 22. It was going to be re-released by the label under the name “Streetlight Manifesto” but the band decided to pay out of pocket to re-record it for the release. These are the same amazing songs that many have argued launched the “4th Wave” of ska. While some believe the songs on this record don’t have the same heart as the original, they are performed much tighter, plus this album includes Jim Conti’s God-tier backing vocals.
After quitting Catch 22 five years prior, Tomas Kalnoky returned to music with a new band and this album. Streetlight Manifesto took the next-level-ska sound Toh-Kay created on “Keasbey Nights” and refined it into the signature sound this band has been known for since. These songs are much darker than Keasbey and the passion behind them is clear with every note and lyric. One could argue that this is their best record and we’d say that’s fair but you’re also a hipster who only likes “their older stuff.”
This is Streetlight Manifesto’s epic masterpiece about life and death and the beyond. The songs manage to be catchy earworms despite the epic length and sheer number of sections and riffs in each song. The production is uncanny and the rhythm section of Chris Thatcher and Pete McCullough is worth focusing on for entire listens of this record.