SOUNDTRACK: THICK-5 Years Behind (2020).
Thick is a trio from New York. They have been releasing music since 2016, and this is their first full length. All three band members sing and they play a classic punk lineup of guitars, bass and drums. Thick almost describes their sound–it’s not all that thick, but it’s in the area of thickness. This is a poppy punk album. It’s full of attitude and feminism–terrific lyrics and great hooks.
“5 Years Behind” has a ringing, catchy opening riff and a wicked solo all supporting a singalong punky chorus. “Sleeping Through the Weekend” opens with crashing drums from Shari Page and a wicked bass line from Kate Black. Bright guitars from Nikki Sisti round out the song which is just brimming with terrific harmonies. I really like the unexpected middle section where things slow down and the band adds four thumping notes at the end of each line.
“Bumming Me Out” is a largely slower song but with some excellent crashing moments. And the lyrics–simple but totally effective
Never knew I’d be so tired
Fighting for what I believe
Try to take it al in stride
Sometimes it just feels like
Everything that I see is
Bumming Me Out
This song and others clearly address the moment and the administration. As does “Fake News.” A blistering 49 seconds of whiplash which deals more with social media than the idiot who uses it so much.
“Home” opens with another catchy riff and a great slow/fast dynamic. But it’s not a verse/chorus slow/fast, it’s slow at the beginning of the veres with a double time drum and vocals at the end of it.
This all leads up to “Mansplain,” which opens with a series of quotes from men about “girls” in rock. Hearing it all together should really bring home just how much sexism there still is in the industry. It packs a wallop in just over two minutes and is crazy catchy to boot.
“WHUB” stands for where have you been which has a fun song along chorus. I love when there’s another vocal line underneath the chorus singing counterpoint, and this song does that perfectly. “Won’t Back Down” is a little slower, but it has some outstanding harmonies. The way the vocal melody plays off the guitar and the way the harmonies interplay with each other is just perfect to me. I really love this song. And the lyrics are simple but powerful too, with a crunchy noisy ending.
“Can’t Be Friends” has a fun sing along melody right from the get go. It’s followed by the screaming punk of the 90 second “Your Mom,” which still manages to have a catchy chorus.
“Party With Me” starts as a quiet almost lullaby-ish song (despite the lyrics “take your clothes off and party with me”). But it’s a false opening because after the first verse the song takes off in classic poppy punk fashion.
The disc ends with “Secret Track” which I assume is not the title of the song (I’m guessing it’s either “Stop Screaming in My Face” or “Don’t Wanna Hear It”). I really like the opening guitar which is slightly dissonant in the melody and the call and response vocals are a nice nod to Sleater-Kinney.
This is a fantastic album, with the only bad thing about it being that it barely lasts 30 minutes. But really, that’s a perfect length for a punk album vecause you can listen to it again and again.
[READ: October 10, 2020] “Not Throwing Away My Yacht”
Ishmael Reed wrote a two-act play called The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda. It is a response to Hamilton which Miranda based on the biography by Ron Chernow. The biography (and the musical) white wash a lot of Hamilton’s life, and this play is there to bring up the people whose lives were excluded from the story.
In the play, the spirits of Native American an enslaved Black people whose stories were omitted from the book interact with Miranda and Chernow. But in this excerpt, Miranda confront Chernow about the information he left out.
Miranda is mad that Chernow lied about the maltreatment of slaves by the Schuyler family. They had (and abused) slaves for 150 years.
Chernow says that he was confined to 800 pages–he had to be selective about what he kept in.
Miranda counters that Chernow left out the information that would tarnish his heroes.
Chernow argues that he won the Pulitzer Prize; he’s not a liar. And how dare Miranda complain to him now?
Chernow says in the book that they might have owned slaves. Besides, does Miranda think that Hamilton would have gotten the support from The Rockefeller Foundation and Disney if the musical was advocating revolution? Do you think I could get bestsellers, and awards if I told the truth?
Miranda pushes back but Chernow says
Look, Lin, we have a good hustle going for us. We’re both getting rich…. Why are you making such a fuss about these trivial matters? They all owned slaves.
Then he gets personal:
Plus, you’re making sixty times as much as the actors–why not share more money with them? You’re lucky the bass is so loud that it drowns out your trite lyrics.
I’m a little annoyed that people are mad at Hamilton for not including details about slavery. I don’t know Miranda’s motive, but I suspect that wasn’t the point of the story. I don’t think it glosses over the fact that they owned slaves, because it does mention it. You can’t complain about a piece of art for what it doesn’t do, if that’s not what it was trying to do. Write your own art that compensates for what Hamiltion failed to do. And that’s what Reed is doing here.
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I’ve been a fan of New York band Thick for a few years (since I head about them on NPR). I’ve been wanting to see them live for a while. I had a chance in 2021, but that show was scheduled against something else I wanted to do.
