Nah, I’m not even going to try to hide the fact that this opener is political given this week’s new twist in the soap opera that is American politics. Following what some, including myself, have described as a shit show of a presidential debate where Trump demonstrated his true self (i.e. a weak insecure little man prone to lying), the news that Trump, three Republican Senators, and a number of others attending an event in the Rose garden tested positive for COVID-19 certainly was a karma twist. I note that Melania tested positive for COVID-19 as well, so maybe it isn’t true that she won’t get within 6 feet of him. Anyway…
It should not surprising to anyone that the idiot in charge gets COVID-19 at his own super spreader event. After flaunting his own department’s COVID-19 guidelines, mocking the use of mask wearing, hosting events where no one wears masks or physically distances from one another, and lets not forget spreads a shit ton of coronavirus misinformation on a daily basis, the chief architect of evil responsible for the death of more than 209,000 Americans is now feeling the virus’ effects. Given that Trump is a pathological liar, and those around him are also liars (as evidenced by the medical staff having to walk back misinformation within an hour regarding the orange idiots medical condition and treatment, it is not surprising that many see this COVID-19 incident as a political stunt to deflect from the overwhelming amount of evidence that Trump is not fit for office, dangerously incompetent, and whose continued occupancy of the office of the presidency constitutes a clear and present danger to democracy. I would venture to say that 100% of the American people are concerned about whether Trump dies. I cannot estimate that percentage secretly hope he does. However, I do know that evil does not die, so every single person who cares about America, about democracy, and about American values – honesty, decency, and justice still needs to vote to eliminate the Trump scourge as well as the Republican bootlickers who have enabled his brand of lunacy for the past 4 years. We are not perfect as a country but we can do much better than this freaking mess.
As for music, this has been a tremendous week for new releases. Episode 179 has several of them. I would venture to say that when we look back at 2020 we will find that some of the records released this year are generational. That is, they will be records that you will dig out of your collection and say, “damn this is still a ripper, isn’t it?”
Here is what you will find in Tales From The Drop Box Episode 179:
Poppy – “Khaos x4” (I Disagree)
A. Swayze & The Ghosts – “Suddenly” (Paid Salvation)
The Asteroid No. 4 – “All Mixed Up” (Northern Songs)
Bob Mould – “Next Generation” (Blue Hearts)
Knuckle Puck – “Earthquake” (20/20)
The Hunna – “Young & Faded” (I’d Rather Die Than Let You In)
The Menzingers – “Anna” (From Exile)
The Archaeas – “Lip Gloss” (The Archaeas)
Cabbage – “Get Outta My Brain” (Amanita Pantherina)
Idles – “War” (Ultra Mono)
Second Narrows – “Liquor Store” (Second Narrows)
Death Bells – “Heavenly Bodies” (New Signs Of Life)
Osees – “Rainbow” (Levitation Sessions)
Bikini Kill – ‘Rebel Girl” (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)
Pillow Queens – “Holy Show” (In Waiting)
Tales From The Drop Box Episode 179 (2020-27)
When she talks, I hear the revolution in her hips, there’s revolution when she walks, the revolution’s coming . . . I’ve memorized every single moment every fleeting passage of time the way you’d laugh and dance in the kitchen . . .
Tales From The Drop Box Episode 146 has a really good mix of juicy new music! This episode features a number of very recent releases, most from this past month. As you probably are a little worn out from Record Store Day (RSD) held on April 13, these tracks are from bands not involved in that special day, such as new Cherry Pickles, Band of Skulls, Audacity, Yawpers, Cage The Elephant, Clowns and D.O.A. Whew!
As for Record Store Day, I have found that the RSD releases, for the most part, miss the mark on bringing forth truly special offerings. The focus is clearly on reissues (although the Flaming Lips released a new album!) and this year there were very few gems to be found amidst the more than 500 releases that also justified the inflated prices. For me the following were the true gems:
Pixies front-person Frank Black reissues of his first two records ( Frank Black & Teenage Of The Year) received their first U.S. release having only appeared on CD here when initially released.
Hockey Dad reissue of their debut EP which is impossible to find in the U.S and released on “glow-in-the-dark” vinyl with a couple of bonus tracks.
UK duo Insides debut album “Euphoria” which was released in very small quantities in 1993 and trading for hundreds of $$, gets another very limited release on 2000 foil-stamped numbered copies.
Iggy Pop live show from the Hippodrome in Paris recorded September 23, 1977 during the “Lust For Life” tour is a 2LP that demonstrates Iggy at his peak in my opinion. I had a bootleg of this excellent radio show, but this is a direct master from the original 1st generation tapes is spectacular.
Joe Strummer EP containing two tracks ‘Forbidden City (Demo)’ and ‘Cool Impossible’ recorded at Rockfield Studio in 1993. This is a follow up to the excellent ‘Joe Strummer 001’ which was the first compilation to span the entirety of Strummer’s recording career outside of his recordings with The Clash featuring remastered and unreleased recordings from the 101ers, The Mescaleros, solo albums, soundtracks, and rarities.
Ramones special RSD releases continue again this year with the first vinyl release of Live At The Palladium, New York, NY (12/31/79). This show first appeared on CD only as part of the Road To Ruin 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. This recording of the Ramones entire 1979 New Year’s Eve concert, was mixed live by Ed Stasium and broadcast on WNEW-FM with audio sourced from Tommy Ramone’s original cassette soundboard recording.
There were also some other recordings of note including live shows by the Blasters and Matthew Sweet, Green Day’s show from Woodstock 1994 gets a polishing and release, and Idles’ Meat and Meta EPs are released on vinyl for the first time. Hopefully record company greed will not prevail and they will truly try to find a balance that justifies the inflated prices for these releases.
So, what about Episode 146, you ask? You are going to smile as you listen because the songs are so good! I promise you!
Here is what you’ll find in Episode 146:
Cherry Pickles – “Let’s Be Bad” (Cherry Pickles Will Harden Your Nipples)
Colly – “You” (I Can’t Sleep At Night)
Band of Skulls – “Cool Your Battles” (Love Is All You Love)
Audacity – “Red Rum” (Bewildered Heart EP)
Yawpers – “Forgiveness Through Pain” (Human Question)
Ages & Ages – “Needle and Thread” (Me You They We)
The Foreign Resort – “Send Your Heart To The Riot” (Outnumbered)
Martha – “Curly & Raquel” (Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart)
The Thlyds – “Pure Pop Single” (The Great British Fuck Off”
Kakkmaddafakka – “Runaway Girl” (Diplomacy)
Cage The Elephant – “Broken Boy” (Social Cues)
Arre! Arre! – “All Time Low” (Tell Me All About Them)
Clowns – “Soul For Sale” (Nature/Nurture)
D.O.A. – “The Enemy (Demo)” (1978)
PassCode – “Ray” (Clarity)
I was burned by the cold kiss of a vampire I was bit by the whisper of a soft liar
any good friend of yours is a good friend of mine . . . 親しんだ矛盾取り出して
投げつけて 引き剥がして give me the time of my life, right now…
Let us all take a moment to regain our composure. Things will get better. The playlist I have created for Tales From The Drop Box Episode 118 is calculated to brighten your day! Truly, this episode is mostly filled with sunshine. As you know, there is always a little darkness in these podcasts, but as I hope you will discover, this episode is filled primarily with sunny and bright indie pop and punk pop music. I should also probably note that Episode 118 is also mostly filled with a solid bunch of very new releases including the latest from Idles, Menace Beach and The Primals.
Now, I digress. Rather than weigh in on the clowns chasing their own tails in the current NYT Op-ed administration crisis ( which would be an easy target, unless you already had deduced that General Kelly was the primary author of what is a composite work), I thought this week, I would focus on an issue that may be significantly more consequential to America. The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In case you were not keeping track as to the happenings of the inquisition of the candidate for the Supreme Court, I was particularly taken with one aspect of those hearings. Sure, there is a ton of posturing, and Kavanaugh has revealed little in not answering any questions as to cases that might come before him as a judge. However, one small bit of testimony gave me pause as to whether Judge Brett Kavanaugh is actually qualified to be a justice on the Supreme Court. I think Kavanaugh is willing to disregard facts in reaching decisions which he believes are against his value system. That is, I believe Kavanaugh’s bias interferes with his ability to serve. We all have biases. The problem with Kavanaugh’s bias is that he is willing to create “facts” in order to confirm his bias. i.e. recognize as statement as a fact when no evidence exists supporting that fact.
During his testimony Kavanaugh referred to some forms of birth control as “abortion-inducing drugs.” You might think this statement is relatively innocuous. Certainly not a statement that should disqualify a candidate for the Supreme Court. Regardless of your views on abortion – pro-life or pro-choice, the adoptive use of this phrase reveals a complete disregard for science and fact based inquiry and portends, perhaps, that as a Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh will decide cases not on fact but on his beliefs. This is dangerous because it requires transforming his opinion as to what he believes to be true into a fact to be relied upon in reaching a decision. There is not one bit of scientific support for his statement that some forms of birth control induce abortions. None.
You can already find stories trying to limit the harm created by Kavanaugh’s use of the term. (See Contraception Confusion: Judge Kavanaugh and Priests for Life.) Although, various commentators are currently engaged in some debate about what precisely Kavanaugh was testifying to at that time he responded with abortion-inducing drugs, the use is consistent with Kavanaugh’s dissenting opinion in the case Priests for Life v. DEPT. OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERV’S, 808 F.3d 1 (2015). The reference was given in response to Ted Cruz’s questions about the case. My impression of his testimony was that he was not discussing it from the litigant’s viewpoint, but rather my impression was that Kavanaugh has adopted the litigation position of Priest’s For Life, a pro life advocacy group who, along with a number of other groups including Catholic hospitals, clinics, universities, schools, and social services, challenged the contraceptive mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act on religious liberty grounds.
Why do I believe my impression is valid? An examination of the case itself lends support that Kavanaugh adopted Priest’s For Life’s position. Kavanaugh, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc wrote:
In my respectful view, the panel opinion misapplies the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and contradicts the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., ___ U.S. ___, 134 S.Ct. 2751, 189 L.Ed.2d 675 (2014), Wheaton College v. Burwell, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S.Ct. 2806, 189 L.Ed.2d 856 (2014), and Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Sebelius, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S.Ct. 1022, 187 L.Ed.2d 867 (2014). I would grant rehearing en banc and rule for the plaintiff religious organizations. (Id. at 14. (emphasis added).)
Kavanagh’s dissent is lengthy and worth the read because his reading of the religious freedom cases cited above weighs very heavily in protecting religious freedom (I believe a good thing) but, if Kavanaugh’s opinion was the law of the land, it would alter the carefully constructed balance between individual rights and a religious organization’s ability to interfere with those individual rights. Further, Kavanaugh wrote that HHS mandate would “substantially burden the religious organizations’ exercise of religion” (i.e. filing a form) and that “requiring the religious organizations to submit this form is not the Government’s least restrictive means of furthering its interest in facilitating access to contraception for the organizations’ employees.” This is where the rubber meets the proverbial road. One way of altering the balance between individual rights and freedom of religion is to impose limits on an individual’s right of access. What has become obvious in the wake of Roe v. Wade, is that for anti-abortion advocates, the best way to limit access to abortions is to impose governmental restrictions making it more difficult to obtain access, such as requiring hallways in clinics to be 8 feet wide (about double the width of a traditional office hallway. See Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 136 S. Ct. 2292 (2016) (striking down primarily two portions of Texas HB-2 (1) the “admitting privileges requirement” provides that a “physician performing or inducing an abortion … must, on the date [of service], have active admitting privileges at a hospital … located not further than 30 miles from the” abortion facility and (2) the “surgical-center requirement” requires an “abortion facility” to meet the “minimum standards … for ambulatory surgical centers” under Texas law).
The erosion of various individual rights is perhaps is a discussion left best for another day. In the context of this post, Kavanaugh’s use of the phrase “abortion-inducing drugs” represents Kavanaugh’s shorthand for a position he has already adopted, i.e. a belief that there are forms of contraception that induce abortions. This is a reiteration of a pro-life belief that a fertilized egg is a person and that disrupting a fertilized egg’s ability to attach to the uterus is abortion which is “the moral equivalent of homicide.”
This “belief” has no scientific support. None. Kavanaugh’s adoption of the phrase is troubling because it represents an uniformed view of how birth control operates to prevent pregnancy and more distressingly is further stated as a “fact.” The law depends on actual facts and if a “belief” is declared a fact, then Kavanaugh should not be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, because a holder of this lifetime appointment should not be able to create facts from his beliefs to decide cases and controversies.
Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, America needs judges who rely on facts not on alternate facts. We have Trump to rely upon for those already.
Here is what you’ll find in Episode #118:
Best Coast – “When I’m With You” (Best Kids)
Big Mouthers – “Stupid War” (Wishes)
Fourbanger – “Get Back Up” (Never Let Go)
Me & Marie – “Sad Song To Dance” (Double Purpose)
The Over Unders – “ One Fine Day” (One Fine Day)
Vacationer – “Magnetism” (Mindset)
Chistophe Deschamps – “This Is Time For Love” (Flower Power)
Railway Gamblers – “Save Me” (Lover)
Menace Beach – “Mutator” (Black Rainbow Sound)
Idles – “I’m Scum” (Joy As An Act of Resistance)
The Primals – “Dead Predators” (All Love Is True Love)
Woolen Men – “Shadowline” (Post)
Mowgli’s – “I Feel Good About This” (I Was Starting To Wonder)
The Jags – “Back Of My Hand” ( Back of My Hand b/w Double Vision 7’’)
Bad Moves – “One Thing” (Tell No One)
The world is lazy but you and me we’re just crazy so when I’m with you, I have fun … you’re not unreadable, you’re not unbeatable, I know just what you are, don’t push your luck too far you’re not untouchable, not just another girl
