Music

Crushed velvet and bell bottoms are bringing rock back in 2014

by Josiah Hughes

Each Friday on Garbage Day, we rummage through pop culture’s trash cans and pick the week’s most disgusting item to keep forever. This week, we look at how rock ‘n’ roll came back from the dead—only to be murdered again.

 

Remember last week, when I said rappin’ bad boy Ronnie Radke would always rise to the top of the trash heap so long as he kept releasing music? Welp, I can only assume that emo cretin read my column (or, if he can’t actually read, had one of his hair-straightener interns read it to him) and rose to the challenge, because he’s already back with another song.

Last week’s “Stupid Boy” sampled Drake’s “5am in Toronto” (and, as a friend pointed out, I completely missed the “Radke” / “Drake” anagram, meaning I should be fired immediately). Now, he’s potentially playing on the Nothing Was the Same theme by titling his new song “Never the Same.”

“This song is dedicated to all those critics. All those social sites. All you wifi gangsters.” Ronnie Radke dedicated his new song to me! “Talk shit about this, fucking bitch.”

Okay! Atop a budget haunted house beat, Radke actually somehow delivers his least embarrassing rap song. Mostly because he just raps really fast and tones down the bullshit a little bit. That’s not to say it’s good—he still offers up cringeworthy similes (see: “hot like Arizona”) and there’s plenty of misogyny. Also, he says “gimme a break, gimme a break, gimme a break like that Kit Kat bar.”

Still, there’s something comforting and borderline heartwarming about this hard-rockin’ emo dweeb, in his utterly awkward staccato delivery, repeating the line “I don’t give a fuck, bro” over and over again. You do you, bro.

Outside of the Radke world, sometimes (read as: very, very often), spotting garbage is as easy as reading a press release. This week I got a handful of spam emails that I saved for this very reason.

First up, I got an email encouraging me to check out the “Post-Apocalypitic Gypsy Punk” of a band called Nostalghia. Their email’s intro offers up a nice lil endorsement, pointing out that the band had “early fans that run the gamut from Skrillex to Marilyn Manson, The Orb to Gogol Bordello, Amy Lee and Terry Balsamo of Evanescence, producer/film composer Tyler Bates, System of a Down’s Serj Tankian and Slayer’s Dave Lombardo.”

The band’s got an album on the way, though the video linked in the email is actually four years old.

I take issue with the band calling themselves “post-apocalyptic,” as this song gives me deep, convulsive embarrassment chills to the point where I genuinely believe that the apocalypse is happening all around me. The hushed, trembling vocals pile affectations on top of affectations, to the point where they sound like a young child whispering faerie tales (no, not “fairy tales”… people like this spell it “faerie”).

After some creaking gypsy singing, the frontwoman breaks into a shriek and the drums come in. It’s some harsh, disturbing piano pop perfect for your local experimental dance troupe or immersive community theatre production, also known as easy listening for artsy granola types. One thing’s for sure—they chose the right moniker, as Nosthalgia fills me with a deep, longing sadness as I yearn for a different time and place. One where anything but Nosthalgia’s playing.

I also got an email about this being “The Year Rock Returns.” The only thing worse than fighting to keep rock ‘n’ roll alive, in fact, are those who’re constantly promising to bring it back. I’m so confused! Is rock ‘n’ roll still alive and well, or is it currently gone, and that’s why this is the the year rock returns? Where is rock ‘n’ roll?

If you ask me, rock ‘n’ roll’d be better off if we took it out back, let it enjoy one last jack and coke, and put it to rest once and for all, Old Yeller style. But many would disagree with me. Among them, a band called Silvertung.

“Baltimore’s Silvertung is kickin’ ass and making new fans everywhere they go,” the press release reads. “Currently on the road with Saving Abel, have played with Godsmack, Disturbed, Staind, POD, Papa Roach, Shinedown, Slipknot and more!!”

Fuck. Yes. A quick Google image search reveals that these guys are awesome rockers who aren’t afraid to pose with babes, perform at cockfights or showcase their sensitive side.

The band’s main press photo is, ultimately, a piping hot stew of bad choices. A garbage gumbo, or junk jumbalaya, if you will. First of all, from the shitty floor laminate to the wall to the guyliner to the myriad outfits and accessories, every single thing looks like it’s made of velvet. I had to check my computer screen resolution to see if “crushed velvet” was switched on.

The outfits themselves are audacious, to say the least; four men in head-to-toe Las Vegas. The first guy looks like Criss Angel celebrating casual Friday at his first-ever menial office job. You’re really going to need to tone it down next Friday, bro. Then there’s the thinly-goateed human hankerchief, whose wearing two wallet chains, a fresh pair of Chucks and, most notably, black bell bottoms with button flares. At last, a genius denim daddy combined the discomfort of button flies with the dated look of flared jeans. Up next is Paul Scheer’s character on The League, followed by an elvish Guitar Center employee. In other words, rock ‘n’ fuckin’ roll is back, baybee.

The press release promises that Silvertung’s “Coming Alive” is “impacting” on January 21. A quick search reveals that the single has, in fact, been quietly on YouTube since September of 2013.

To say that Silvertung is bringing rock back here is really doing “Coming Alive” a disservice. In fact, the band kill rock ‘n’ roll dead, bury it in the ground, piss on its grave and then resurrect it from the dead in some unholy zombie tale. The song’s got it all, from driving, palm-muted chugs to over-the-top, chord-filled riffing.

And those lyrics, oh those lyrics. Opening with some timeless prose, the band’s singer grunts, “I’ve been pissed off, bitched at, never been bitch slapped.” He sings about how the week is dragging on, and he’s tired of punching the clock. I feel you buddy. Then, the chorus cuts the time in half and the yarling harmonies squeeze out the phrase “I’m coming aliiiive.” And so is rock. Rock is coming alive. But it never went anywhere. But it’s back to life. But it’s immortal. But it’s dead.