SOUNDTRACK: DIET CIG-“Tummy Ache” (2019).
Diet Cig put on one of my favorite Tiny Desk Concerts. I am really looking forward to seeing them live. Singer/guitarist Alex Luciano has more energy than anyone I’ve seen. And drummer Noah Bowman is a perfect foil for her.
As a duo, they play simple pop punk songs that are full of energy. Their bio sums them up quite nicely.
Diet Cig are here to have fun. They’re here to tear you away from the soul-sucking sanctity of your dumpster-fire life and replace it with pop-blessed punk jams about navigating the impending doom of adulthood when all you want is to have ice-cream on your birthday.
But there’s also a deeper, more powerful fuck-you among the bangers that see Diet Cig grow into an unstoppable and inspiring force. “I’m not being dramatic, I’ve just fucking had it with the things that you say you think that I should be” spits Luciano on ‘Link in Bio’;
Over a four chord pattern, Luciano sings
Well i’m just a kid, a girl, a runt
And i’m starting to get real sick of
Trying to find my voice
Surrounded by all boys
Between verses the guitars get louder and play a slight variation before returning to verse two:
I’ve been yelling my whole life
And finally it’s time
to make my words count
In a way i haven’t quite figured outAnd i don’t need a man
To hold my hand
And that’s just something you’ll never understand x2
The end of the song shifts tone while she quietly sings
And my stomach hurts
Cause it’s hard to be a punk while wearing a skirt
Then the instrumental passage above proves to be the music for this repeated refrain/chorus. A simple, catchy and fun song with a message. Can’t wait for them to come back around.
[READ: May 11, 2019] “Assassin”
Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock
This is the story of Bayumi.
He has been down and out and living as a beggar. He’d been to prison, had no friends left and no way to make money.
He wondered how he could get out of this rut.
Then someone called out to him. The man had Bayumi follow him and then asked indifferently if he would kill al-Hagg Abd al-Samad al-Habbani.
Bayumi said he’d never killed anyone before.
So the man said then get lost. But Bayumi asked how much the man would pay. Fifty pounds.
He gave Bayumi ten pounds to start and said if al-Hagg Abd al-Samad al-Habbani wasn’t dead within a week, then Bayumi would be killed.
Bayumi spent the week living it up. Ten pounds went pretty far for him. Then he started thinking about how he would do this.
He didn’t even know the man. He took many precautions. First loudly telling everyone he was leaving town and then following al-Habbani’s movements.
Bayumi had many misgivings. al-Habbani seemed like a good man. He seemed kind and thoughtful. But the man who was paying him was something of a gangster. Why should he kill a good man for a bad man? But if he didn’t….
The day of the planned murder came and it turned out that al-Habbani was going to funeral. He seemed genuinely upset. What was the point of killing this man?
But it was that man’s life or his own.. Finally al-Habbani was alone walking down the alley.
The ending was unsatisfying because the story’s buildup was really intense but the final line was disappointing, not the least of which was because it used the word galabiya as a significant item and yet I didn’t know what that was (it a robe).
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