Cronos Is Dead, Long Live Black Metal

By Kloghole

While in graduate school, I worked at a group home for brain-trauma injured folks. One day, one of the residents lost his cola privilege that morning. So, the guy I was working with grabs a coke, cracks it open in front of him, and then says, “Ahh, this is great. Don’t you wish you had one of these.” Not so surprisingly, the resident “had a behavior.” 

I made it through the first bit of the bible enough to get to the story of Adam and Eve. Everything is perfect, but god put some fucking fruit tree in the “garden” that they shouldn’t touch. Then tells Adam and Eve how fucking cool the fruit is (apparently satan lays it on thicker and heavier), but god also says you don’t want that shit. Unsurprisingly, Adam and Eve eat the fruit. We’re all fucked now because god didn’t know better than to leave the fucking fruit tree out of the garden. He is omniscient for christ’s sake.

So, there is no way in hell I would worship someone whose thought processes are no better than a fucking alcoholic with mental health problems who fucks with people in a group home.

By the way, I am not a satan worshiper or even remotely inclined to pray to any deity. However, if someone forced me to choose between the fucking asshole who created mosquitos, flesh eating bacteria, and butt cancer and the one who spends eternity torturing evil fuckers in hell, I think the choice is pretty fucking obvious.

The absurdity of organized religions is what makes the absurdity of Black Metal appealing. There is a bit of rebellion in that you are willing to listen to, or wear a t-shirt of, something that is associated with satanism, but it is really about the cheekiness of thumbing your nose at religion generally. 

I came to know Venom very late in the game. I was at Extreme Noise in Minneapolis flipping through the used bins. Whether I liked the album cover or SoDak handed it to me (which happens often), I cannot recall exactly how Black Metal ended up in my hands. When I played it, I got excited that a “new” band could be so fucking good. Then, I came to learn that they started in the 1980s, and I was crushed that I had missed out on them for so many years.

The screamed chorus, “Countess Bathory,” fucking rocks. Venom has very hooky chants and a leaden sound that pounds your soul. Because I had come earlier to stoner, sludge metal like Trouble, Venom sounded like a speed metal version of the dark, heavy grooves that I sought in the Mushroom River Band and others.

Obviously, “Black Metal” is a signature song, defining the genre. Some of my other favorite tunes are “Manitou,” “Live Like an Angel - Die Like a Devil,” “Welcome to Hell,” “Angel Dust,” and the ultimate track, “In League with Satan.” I cannot overstate the power of the rhythm section to drive the songs forward. They rumble, bounce, drone, and crush everything in their path. The choruses demand singing along: “Eviiiil in league with satan, Eviiiil in league with satan!” The drums (boom boom boom boom-boom) and bass / guitar (doom dada doom dada doom) are pounding along. I am not doing it justice, but it is a powerful riff and rhythm driving the whole song forward.

Over the years, I have come to understand how there are some people who see themselves as Adam and Eve. They feel vulnerable to “evil” influences from outside. At the end of the semester, I dress down for finals. One year I wore a shirt with a red pentagram of forks with the phrase, “Praise Seitan.” One of the students up front looked very concerned and asked me what the shirt meant. I told her seitan (I pronounce it “satan”) is a fake meat made from wheat. The tenseness in her face receded, and she said, “Oh.”

This is not limited to religion. I have students who, when learning new, more accurate information about how the world works, reject it. They exhibit a fear of the information as if by accepting some piece of information that disagrees with their previous stereotypes and ignorance, they may lose themselves to the spell of critical thought. Accepting that Columbus was a genocidal manic is a slippery slope to becoming an atheist, commie, transsexual. For these folks, confronting information that disagrees with their ignorant, small-minded worldview is terrifying to them - as if they are being tempted by the devil himself.

What they do not know is how utterly fucking terrifying it is to have the majority of people in society believe that some magical mystery man in the sky has any influence over their daily lives. How incredible it is to think that these folks base their actions on what they perceive as an invisible force in the ether would want them to do. For me, as an atheist, I have to live with the reality that the world’s major institutions are run by people who have the same intellectual maturity of a child who still believes in Santa Claus. What is so fucking hilarious about organized religion is that the behaviors associated with it are classified as psychosis. My guess is that the DSM somehow creates exceptions for religious practice, but the definition clearly includes talking to folks who aren’t there, listening to the advice of someone who is not there, etc.

Black Metal and the genres of “satanic” musical traditions tend to poke at these contradictions and terrifying realities of religious extremism. My guess is that some satanic references in music are less informed or serious than others, but remember that, as Slayer screams, “god hates us all.”

Satan is scary. He is meant to be a warning. However, I see the story a little differently. Given the reality that we live every day, an omniscient, omnipotent entity should be able to design a reality free of daily suffering. The natural world is full of pain, suffering, death, and horror. Anyone who believes in their heart of hearts that a divine entity willingly created such tragedy as an unavoidable fact of life has got some serious mental health problems. If they “blame” the misery on satan, they still forget the fact that their “god” is all powerful, e.g., is too fucking lazy or uncaring to do anything about it.

Venom and other death metal/satanic artists wallow in this misery, rub it in your face, and celebrate it. Metal generally is the release of the dark emotions that permeate us. Black Metal allows us to resonate for a while, get some shit out, and let shit go. While I never saw Venom live, metal shows used to leave me exhausted and invigorated at the same time.

I do not know much about Cronos or the history of Venom generally, but I am saddened that we lost this artist. We always lose potential for more music or that one new song that really hits home. I would say something about looking forward to seeing him in hell, but I think the world we are living in is the closest that anyone will come to hell. However, if I am wrong, Cronos, tell satan that I am coming for the punk-ass bitch who burned my brother and sister alive.

Sweet Dreams Motherfuckers.

What I Love About the Black Hills

By HinckleyHadAVision

A friend asked, “Please tell me what you love about the Black Hills?” 

The moss in Botany Canyon, the ice in Ice Cave, the pale yellow light after a thunderstorm at Ranch-A, tiger lilies, kayaking Dark Canyon, ice skating Spring Creek, the strawberries on Flag Mountain, the sunset from Warren Peak that makes a Bighorns silhouette, really ripe chokecherries, the little piece of 1868 Treaty land my family is squatting on, catching trout with your bare hands, the smell of an old cabin, coyotes howling, getting stuck in the mud with Jerry Harp, skiing Custer Peak, watching the moon rise from Railroad Buttes, lady slipper orchids, rolling a four wheeler, building an ice block castle, the colored walls of Calico Canyon, the Rock Maze as a kid in the late 1970s before it was trashed, Inyan Kara, Ryan’s Wiggle, Vern Kraemer taking off, the French Creek Narrows, skinny dipping in Cold Brook Reservoir, Moon, the view while climbing Devils Tower in autumn, a nighttime walk along Castle Creek, the old switchbacks in Vanocker Canyon, ice walking, raspberries at the Bighorn Sheep Sanctuary in the rain, What the Hell Lake in Wind Cave, the eastern most extent of aspen, the western most extent of birch, a ponderosa too big to hug, inner tubing Boxelder Creek, ice skating the Cheyenne River, sneaking in and exploring Galena Mine as a kid, the boat inside the Alabaster Mine, the wind at Jasper Cave, a motorbike over the Piedmont Fire Trail, a mountain bike ride down Tinton Trail, a unicycle ride on the Bone Collector, the knife edge meander in Elk Creek, the early spring ice in Sunday Gulch, wild plums, a full moon paddle on Deerfield Lake, Classic Crack, hunting for morels, 11th Hour Gulch, fishing on Lower Spring Creek with Grandpa Brown, Six Mile Road, Ice Climbing at Community Caves, Cold Brook Canyon, friends around a fire, the Moonshine Gulch Saloon, climbing the Conn Diagonal, getting chased into the Cheyenne River by wild horses, driving a VW bus on Castle Peak Road, an inversion that leaves only the peaks above the fog, bicycling Spearfish Canyon, cliff jumping, cutting an ice hole and polar bearing Sheridan Lake, hearing a mountain lion scream, The Sheep Mountain Table slot canyons, in fact the entire South Unit of the Badlands…and more to come…

What Do You Want to Watch Tonight?

By Chastity Morgan

I recently saw Backrooms, Kane Parson’s directorial debut starring Chiwetel Ejofor (Clark) and Renate Reinsve (Dr. Mary). Backrooms is a psychological thriller set in the late 1990s. The main character, Clark, is an unfulfilled furniture store owner and divorcee who is working through his resentments with life with Dr. Mary. One night, Clark finds an invisible door in the basement wall of his furniture store. He embarks on an eerie journey through endless backrooms filled with stuff and distorted creatures that he refers to as “everything that once was.” Clark thinks of the space as “memories” that become distorted the longer they stay in the backrooms.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what Kane Parsons was thinking when he wrote a script about the vintage 1990s. Are backrooms where we hold our individual traumas? Is it the place in our minds where we recreate our memories, hoping that one day we will finally “just be okay” with the events of our past that continue to haunt us? Or are backrooms literal spaces where outdated materials like VCRs, floppy disks, answering machines, and Walkman’s are stored until some hipster finds them? I took a latter approach to the film. If you asked me what’s in my backrooms, I would say movies. I realize movies aren’t a thing of the past per se, but streaming has made the movie experience substantially different.

For as long as I can remember, movies have been at the center of my life. My earliest movie memory is of when my sister would babysit me, and I would get to watch a back-to-back screening of Howard the Duck and Pee Wee’s Great Adventure. Then on most Sundays, I would go to my grandparents’ house for our Sunday routine. My grandmother would drag my grandfather and me to church where he would fall sleep, and I would bite my nails until they bled. But I would slug through the homily because I knew I would be rewarded with a warm apple pie from McDonald’s and a movie. Most of the movies we saw were G or PG, until 2004 when my grandparents took me (their 20-year-old granddaughter) to see Meet the Fockers, which was much more risqué than the prequel Meet the Parents. I left the theater with a mortified grandmother who looked at me with the sweetest eyes and said, “I’m sorry I took you to such a dirty movie.” 

My father was less prudish about movies, that was until I got older. I didn’t think twice when he took 7-year-old me to see Point Break and made me close my eyes during the naked fight scene with Julia Michaels and Keanu Reeves. This all changed though on one fateful night when I came home from college for a visit and my mother was working a night game at the Giants AT&T Park (now Oracle). When she worked late, my father and I would rent a movie from Blockbuster. We went to the video store and perused the shop for what felt like forever. Finally, I said to him, “Hey, my friend said he watched a good movie called Sleeping Dogs Lie.” We went over to the Indy section and read the VHS case, “A woman has a dark secret that she discloses to her fiancé.” I mean, okay, how bad could the secret be? 

The opening scene of Sleeping Dogs Lie is of Amy (Melinda Page) spitting into a bathroom sink. The screen pans out to a dog rolling on his back, and Amy saying, “That’s right, I blew my dog.” I sat next to my dad in silence staring at the TV screen. I couldn’t even make eye contact with the guy. As I sat there listening to Amy talk about the size of her dog’s dick, I started giving myself a pep talk, “You’re 22 years old. You’re a mature adult. You can watch a sex scene in a movie with your dad without it being awkward.” Now when I was a teen my rebellious move was to run out of the room, but in my 20s it was to stay right where I was. Finally, my father paused the movie and said, “Go to your room.” I thankfully left as he finished the movie. When I asked him how it was, he said, “What kind of sick fucking friends do you have?” I immediately called Jeremy who recommended the movie. I told him about what happened. As he laughed, he said, “I didn’t think you were going to watch it with your dad. That’s disgusting.” 

Movies weren’t just a part of my family life; they bonded me and my friends. In high school, my friend Vanessa and I would reiterate movie lines to each other and guess the film. In college, I met Amy who I was roommates with until she graduated from Humboldt and moved away. We were connected at the hip. We walked to school together. During long breaks between classes, we would watch movies in the library cubbies that were equipped with a 14-inch screen and headphones. We especially loved the foreign films—Deepa Mehta’s films Fire, Water, and Earth and Pedro Almodovar’s, All About My Mother and Volver. Then we walked home together and made sure to stop by Spotlight Theater where we would chat with the movie clerks Nick and Steph who would guide us toward their favorite new releases. This was our 4-year routine, and I loved it.

Just last week, a judge allowed Paramount Skydance to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery. For those of you who may not know, the merger was initially stalled because of violations concerning antitrust laws. Just because the merger is allowed to go through, it is still problematic for bringing CNN and CBS under one corporate umbrella. But what is more frightening is what will happen to the movie theater. Apparently, Paramount has agreed to release at least 30 films a year in theaters for the next 5 years. I hope they follow through.

The movie experience is already so much more individual than it once was. I miss wandering through a movie rental store with 20 other strangers on a Friday night rather than sitting on my couch doomscrolling through the endless supply of movies, most of which I never even heard of. I miss watching a movie with 30 strangers and hearing the social commentary as I leave the theater. I miss the collective laughs, jump scares, and the crowd warning Sidney Prescott to go out the front door instead of running up the stairs. Most importantly, I don’t know if there’s enough space in my backrooms for movie theaters. It’s already cluttered with VCRs, VHSs, and DVDs (I never got into the Blue Ray craze).

If you’re looking for some good films and don’t want to waste your time wading through garbage, here’s some must see recent movies in no specific order:

Sirat (2025)

The Weight (2026)

Godzilla Minus One (2021)

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

Friendship (2024)

The Power of the Dog (2021)

Obsession (2025)

The Brutalist (2024)

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2025)

Sing Sing (2024)

 

A Song, a Car, a Friend

By SoDak

New Model Army’s 

“Green and Grey” 

reminds me of moments

when I felt untethered,

swerving through the hills,

in Andy’s Ford Tempo,

traveling down Highway 44,

on the first spring day,

with the windows open

to welcome the wind.

Revisiting Richard Dawson’s 2020

By Jack Rafferty

Richard Dawson’s 2020, released in 2019, was one of my favorite albums of that year. This was my introduction to Dawson, and from the first notes of the first track I was enthralled. His specific and wholly unique take on progressive folk, with its juxtaposition of discordance with some of the most profoundly sad melodies I’ve heard, and sharp lyrical critique of capitalism from a modern standpoint that does not feel forced in any way, keeps me returning to it often. 

His vocal style is very much his own and is simultaneously beautiful and crushing. The only somewhat comparative artist I can think of is Junior Brother, though more melodic. They both have this quality of sounding like a wounded creature at times, which lends itself aptly to the topics they are addressing. Coupled with a style of guitar playing that is very harsh at times (sometimes he plucks the strings so hard I anticipate them to break), and other times tragic and gentle, this album stands out, and I have not heard anything else quite like it. 

While there is quite a diversity of topics covered on this album, the throughline is the tragedy of loneliness, alienation, and exploitation that persists to this day, and the varied ways that it manifests in our lives in this age. His album, Peasant (2017), which was released right before 2020 approaches similar themes, though with a focus on medieval peasantry. These albums pair well together, as they both focus on oppressed classes of peoples in specific epochs struggling against prevailing modes of production and class relations. 

The first track, “Civil Servant,” is a good example of the divergence of sound that 2020 is making from its predecessor. The opening notes are brash, jarring, and repetitious, almost machine-like, which is fitting given the thematic focus of this album being set in modern times. This theme of mechanical noise grappling with the soaring, sad melodies fits very well with Dawson’s larger narrative of human struggle as appendages to the machine of capital. The first lyrics give a taste of what is to come, in terms of depicting the drudgery the working class must endure in this society,

Open your eyes, time to wake up

Shit, shower, brush your teeth, drain your cup

Wolf down a bowl of Ready-Brek

Fasten a tie around your neck

All over the city we arise, arise

For a job we despise, despise, despise.

Toward the end of the song, in what are some of the most crushing lines on the album, Dawson illustrates the persisting mental toll of social work under a capitalist society, saying that “in my bed, I can hear the strangled voices of all the people I’ve failed, I’ve failed, I’ve failed.” I think it is interesting that Dawson’s pronunciation of “I’ve failed” also sounds somewhat like “I’ve held,” which just enhances its sorrowful quality. I could honestly write a whole review about this song alone, but I will move on for the reader’s sake.

The next song, “The Queen’s Head,” is largely a commentary on rampant anti-immigrant sentiments, which the ruling class cultivates and uses to create antagonism within the working class. Dawson doesn’t mince words in his presentation of these topics, which this stanza highlights well, discussing the interpretation of a flood event,

There’s a crowd gathered ‘round the fat-headed butcher

Who’s back on his soap box again

Bemoaning the lack of adequate flood defences

Somehow putting it down to “an insurge

Of benefit-scrounging immigrants.” 

The powerful short refrain “how little we are (clung to the rivers edge/in the mouth of the world)” in the context of worsening climate disasters is in a sense an acknowledgement that humans do not stand above nature, dominating over it, but rather exist within it, and are bound to its laws. It reminds me of Frederick Engels’s notion of the futility of the conquest of nature, “Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature—but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.” Dawson laments with his aforementioned line about the hubristic fallacy that capitalist society believes itself to be in control of nature and impervious to the ramifications of prioritizing accumulation above all else. 

The fourth track, “Jogging,” talks more about mental health and disenfranchisement of workers, exploring how empty consumerism and escapism are sometimes the only ways that people cope with the material conditions they live in,

Recently I’ve been struggling with anxiety

To the point I find it hard to leave the flat

The days drain away, scouring eBay

Or looking on Zoopla at houses where I’ll never live.

The song then goes on to discuss how being recommended physical activity leads to him jogging “hundreds of miles going nowhere,” with a robotic voice in the background repeating the word “jogging” over and over, a tactic that is utilized later in the album as well. I love this, as it works to convey the ways in which everything in our lives, even our physical activity outside of work, is something prescribed to us to “fix” an ill that is systemic, and becomes not a source of genuine pleasure, but a task to complete like all else under this system. It is merely a method of maintaining the potential labor power in bodies to then be used up as much as possible for the sake of accumulation of capital. 

This is followed by further commentary on discrimination toward immigrant populations and the ways in which the system enables and perpetuates this,

There’s a Kurdish family on the ground floor

Had a brick put through their kitchen window

The police know who did this, still they do nothing

It’s lonely up here in Middle-England.

There is a line not long after this that says, “I feel the atmosphere/‘Round here is growing nastier/People don’t smile anymore.” I think this ties in well with the narrative of mental health under capitalism being rooted not only in our exploitation, but in our separation from one another, in our loneliness and our division. 

I will skip a few tracks to focus on one of my favorites on the album, “Fulfillment Centre.” This is a perfect distillation of the conditions of the modern-day worker in an Amazon so-called “fulfillment” center. Bringing back repetition as a theme, the song merely begins with Dawson reiterating “over and over and over and over, again and again and again and again and again,” which wonderfully illustrates the focus of this song being the type of division of labor that exists as a worker in an Amazon warehouse doing the same tedious, redundant tasks all day. 

This is followed by the same robotic voice showcased earlier, stating “five hundred units per hour, hour after hour after hour, please adjust your packing rate accordingly,” which perfectly encapsulates the feeling of some dystopian AI supervisor, omnipresent over the workers, constantly analyzing and appraising their productivity. The robotic voice continues soon after in the same repetitious cadence, “increase productivity, increase productivity, increase productivity!” which feels as though it would be at home depicting some oppressive institution on Pink Floyd’s The Wall, as though it could be transitioning from a supervisor shouting over young children toiling in a factory of Victorian London to a lifeless red eye, staring out over the floor of an Amazon warehouse. We then get the worker’s perspective, discussing the cheap commodities they are forced to package to scrounge what subsistence they can, and the conditions they face doing so,

Bedding and power tools, tablets and football shirts

Perfume and Blu-Ray discs, jewelry and dehumidifiers.

I am desperate for the toilet

But if I go, I’ll miss my targets

All I can do is pee in a bottle

They treat us like animals here.

This is followed by a guitar solo that feels both mechanical and demented, as though it were embodying the deranged scene these workers are forced to endure, and the deep stress and discomfort of their bodies and minds. Dawson gives an example of how these workers are brought to their limit, where they have breakdowns, and the ways in which the inhumanity of this system simply ignores such distress, and only steps in to neutralize it when it becomes an inhibitor to the process of production.

A gentleman who spoke little English

Started to scream at the top of his lungs

No one could understand what he was getting at

Everyone stared ahead and kept working until

Someone came from on high to escort him from the building.

The song ends with this cry of exhaustion and plea for something better,

There’s nothing left of me by the time I shuffle homeward

On the early morning train

To eat a little breakfast and sleep a while

Before it starts again

There’s more, there has to be

More to life than killing yourself to survive.

Finally, I will discuss the closing track, which takes a first person look at the plight of the unhoused. The title illustrates the way life is so coldly disregarded under this system, with the image of a dead dog in an alleyway atop a pile of burst trash bags, with the poignant line “dead dog in an alleyway, dreaming of home.” Dawson then goes on to detail the abuse that those who have to live on the streets endure, crying out for help to a culture and a world that seemingly doesn’t give a shit about them, and has forsaken them, since they are deemed worthless for not sacrificing every waking moment producing surplus value. 

In the moment just before I awake to a savage kicking

Blows rain down upon me through the blackness of my sleeping bag

Help me, help me, please help me

Won’t you please help me?

Anyone?

This is followed by the contrast of the pleasant lives privileged people live within immediate proximity of those suffering in the streets. 

You can hear the families chatter with each swing of the door

Music, tinkling cutlery, and the laughter of the little ones.

I especially love the chorus to this song, accurately signifying so much that is wrong with this late-stage capitalist society in just four lines, from infrastructure to addiction and the ever-present brutality of the police state,

Over there in the labyrinth of neon

You can hear the voices lift through the icy air

Hooting and projectile vomiting

And the distant sound of sirens.

Overall, 2020 remains one of my favorite albums of recent years. While his more recent releases have been brilliant in their own way, none of them have really captured me like this one has. The sound here is both grand and stripped back, mechanical yet tender and human, unsettling and powerful. I still have much more to say about it as a whole, but I will resist the temptation to make this piece any longer than it already is. If you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly recommend doing so.

Soundtrack for a Few Shows During a Hot Summer

By Jack Stephen

A vignette: I am driving east on I-76 in a raging downpour. I am running late to my show in Flemming, Colorado. I am supposed to be there by 7 PM, because the show starts at 7:30. I should probably slow down a bit, but I’m pushing it because I don’t want to be late. I haven’t worked with this producer before and want to make a good impression. I am white knuckling it, gripping the steering wheel. The windshield wipers are on full. I start to come out of the storm. I am in the middle of eastern Colorado about an hour from the Nebraska border. I take a right and start heading down a country road. I come to a stop sign—only one in town—right by the grain silo. I make a left, and KiKi’s Bar and Grill is right there. I park across the street at the post office. I run into the bar. I see my buddy, the opener for the show. Out of breath, I say, “Hey, I made it.” He responded, “You made it in plenty of time, our call time is 7:30 and the show doesn’t start until 8:00.”

What would have been a good song as I rolled into Flemming? “Welcome to the Boomtown” by David & David.

This is a quintessential 1980s track. It should have got a bit more airplay even though it did crack the Top 40. This song, which lays bare the underbelly of the Ronald Reagan years, had some really cool guitar work and a slick production. I would have liked to hear more from David & David, but sadly this “one hit wonder” was the peak of their success. The song opens with these great lines, “Mrs. Christina drives a 944, satisfaction oozes from her pores.” This was supposed to be about as good as it got in the 1980s or so we thought.  

The show went great. I did about seventeen minutes, which was the longest amount of time I have done to date. The producer was pleased, which was good to hear. Even more satisfying, one of the older locals told me as she was leaving, “I had never been to a comedy show before, what a good time.” I was glad it wasn’t a disappointment. 

What song did I play driving home? “Little Birdie” by Vince Guaraldi.

Vince Guaraldi really owes something to Charles Schultz. Or maybe Charles Schultz really owes something to Vince. Tough to say? I read the biography Schultz, written by David Michaelis, and it was a comprehensive read. Schultz always wanted to be a cartoonist, and he ended up making that dream a reality by taking it to the stratosphere. He became probably the most well-known cartoonist to this day. An early struggle, as the book notes, was that newspaper editors were confused because a great number of his strips never ended with a punch line. Often, Charlie Brown was hanging his head with a passing comment and sometimes it would be a “SIGH.” It ended up not mattering, people grew to love the Peanuts strip and its cast of characters. Things really elevated when the family dog Snoopy became a lead character. There were strips showing Snoopy not really doing a whole lot, except for maybe indulging his Red Barron fantasies, but the masses were entranced—see the MetLife blimp. Having Vince do the music was an exceptional choice. He was a fairly well-known San Francisco jazz musician when the producer of the Peanuts holiday specials sought him out to compose a score. He relied heavily on the Fender electric piano, which had such a cool sound. My favorite track, the super funky “Little Birdie,” was featured the Thanksgiving special. The lyric repeated in my mind: “Little Birdie, why do you fly upside down?”

The Semifinals 1

After months of waiting, the night has finally arrived: the New Faces semifinals at Comedy Works. I was ready. I had a lot of support for this, as my family and friends equaled ten guests in the audience. I said “Hey” to everyone and ate a burger. Afterwards, I just walked around downtown Denver by myself rather than making small talk with my well-wishers. I envisioned things going well and they did. I went up seventh and had a solid set. Unfortunately, I did not advance. The competition was really tough. The finalist crushed as did most of the other comics. Everyone had fun, and I enjoyed it as well. The host, a highly respected pro comic, said he liked my pauses and delivery; he told me to stay with it. Nice, this was the compliment I have been waiting for. The jokes need work, but its good work, fun work. I am lucky to have it as work. 

What song did I remember listening to on the drive back? “Los Otros Yo” by Patricia Brennan. 

I don’t know anything about this artist except that the internet tells me she is a professor of the vibraphone at the Manhattan School of Music. As they used to say, put that in your pipe and smoke it. The vibraphone is quite a bit underrated and underused. This song does it justice with a heavy deep groove. It’s kind of like a cross between Weather Report and Sun Ra with a bit of Santana thrown in? Whatever the genre, this song is pretty badass.

The Semifinals 2

Just a week and a half later, I’m back performing at Comedy Works, the south club for my second attempt in the semifinals. I felt much more relaxed for some reason, maybe because I didn’t have any friends or family in attendance or maybe because the pressure has eased a bit. The south club is quite a bit different from downtown—a bit more suburban, a bit more stodgy. I drew number 2, not the best place in a 12-person lineup, but not the worst. More daunting, I was following the winner from semifinal 1. Before I went up he said, “Get excited, you got this.” I mixed up my set a bit, which in retrospect maybe wasn’t the best idea, seeing how almost everyone else did their same set from last time. I wanted to stretch myself and see how some different jokes would play. Overall, I felt good about my set. There were some lulls, but it helped to be more relaxed and work in some off-the-cuff comments. Moments like that can really connect you to an audience. All the comics crushed. I didn’t feel like I had much of a shot, but did it matter? I was in the room and on the stage with the other semifinalists. And while I didn’t advance, I had leveled up.   

What song was in my head after I wrote this? “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” by the Smiths.

I am pretty sure the first CD I ever had was the epic compilation album Louder Than Bombs by the Smiths. It was influential as to how I would learn to appreciate music. I was especially struck with how the Smiths felt like they were speaking to me in my teen angst. What an incredible band! I was doing some research on the Smiths in my The Essential Album Guide book by Gary Graff and Daniel Durchholz, and they remarked how the Smiths were a band who didn’t fit in? While I might agree, it’s important to note there were many bands of their era who didn’t fit in—see David Bowie, The The, or going back a bit further The Doors. Nevertheless, the Smiths, song after song, put it all together. When I was younger, I played Louder Than Bombs on repeat and got a Morrissey T shirt to wear around. The Smiths always remind me that you can still be a badass, even if you don’t fit in.