SOUNDTRACK: ANAL TRUMP-The First 100 Songs (2018).
On Election Day 2020, what better music to listen to than Anal Trump?
Anal Trump are a grindcore act made up of Rob and Travis Trump.
The true identities of Rob and Travis Trump remain shrouded in mystery. Are they the unwanted bastard children of the Philanderer-in-Chief? Regular citizens transformed into angry mutants by the deluge of toxic waste spewing from the 45th President’s mouth? Or simply two dudes from high-profile San Diego musical acts who decided to pay tribute to grindcore pioneers Anal Cunt through the words of a man who embodies that band’s name?
Indeed, the band is made up of Rob Crow (from Pinback, Goblin Cock and a dozen other bands) and Travis Ryan, vocalist for Cattle Decapitation. They write classic grindcore songs. The longest song on this collection is 29 seconds and it feels like an epic compared to the rest, most of which are around 3 seconds.
Most of the songs have a sample of tRUMP speaking (which is certainly a turnoff) that’s usually followed by a blast of noise and inaudible growling.
The First 100 Songs produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Rob Trump, boasts a hundred songs in eleven minutes — their entire recorded output to date. From 2016’s pre-election That Makes Me Smart! EP all the way through the newer material contained in Thoughts, Prayers, and The Golden Age of Willful Ignorance, this truly exhaustive overview covers all the bases. With songs based on actual quotes by the man (“I Like The Soldiers Who DON’T Get Captured”) to creative interpretations (“My Cabinet Is Nuanced As Shit”) to Putnam-esque bon mots (“Renewable Resources Are Gay”), there’s a smorgasbord of Trumpiliciousness! According to Rob, their material has a universal appeal: “One of the things about this stuff is that, since most of it is taken right from his mouth or ideology, a Trumpster should be fine with it as much as a Bernie person would enjoy laughing at it. It’s just a mirror and that, in itself, is terrifying.”
This album can be purchased on CD (all 12 minutes of it). There’s a couple of songs where I thought I could hear lyrics, There’s a couple of songs where there was actually a melody (and one song where you could actually hear a bass line). But mostly this is just a lot of short noisy songs.
Rob and Travis Trump aren’t gonna fill your ears with talk of universal healthcare or equal voting rights or any of that socialist stuff — although they donated 100% of the proceeds from their EPs to non-profit organizations like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. They just want to point out that the most powerful man in the world is a hate-mongering clown, using shrieks and micro-riffs as their chosen vehicle. Anal Trump will soon take this show on the road with help from Justin Trump on bass and John Putin on drums, but as for their future plans? “I just want this ugly chapter of human history to finally be over.”
The best part of the album are the song titles. Because there are 100, I have put them after the body.
[WROTE: November 2, 2020] A worldwide embarrassment
Absolutely no story feels appropriate to post on Election Day, this global travesty.
When Barack Obama won all those eons ago, the world felt brighter. I recall going to the grocery store and seeing another person and we smiled at each other and acknowledged what a good day it was.
Four years ago, when tRUMP lost the election but became president because of an antiquated system that explicitly denies a democratic election, it was as if a dark cloud spewed bile all over the country. We were supposed to have our first female president. She was the most politically qualified person to run for office in my lifetime. Like her or not, she served our country admirably and was poised to break the glass ceiling that has now grown several layers thicker. (more…)
