by Nick Hanover
For the past couple weeks, you may have noticed Austin music is dealing with more alt-right idiots than normal. As much as these goons like to talk up free speech and their right to offend, though, you can usually count on certain subjects and voices driving them into a handwringing frenzy. So in order to help you drive out any infestation in your vicinity, we’ve compiled 9 songs that will undoubtedly piss off the Western chauvinists screaming “I’m not owned!” in your mentions.
Sailor Poon “White Male Meltdown”
What It Is: A sinister psych-punk freakout that pairs a brilliantly acidic spoken word verse with a cacophonous, nearly avant-garde chorus
Why They’ll Hate It: Using the phrase “white male” in an even remotely negative sense tends to make western chauvinists foam at the mouth instantly, so throwing “meltdown” in the mix is guaranteed to but the brilliance of “White Male Meltdown” is how Billie Buck hangs mansplainers with their own rope, skewering their habit of giving unsolicited advice to women musicians about their own music after sets, their refusal to believe in the wage gap and their belief that women’s bodies exist solely for them to oggle and comment on. It all leads up to the titular white male meltdown, brought to life through whiny voices and moshing instruments with Billie delivering the kiss off immediately after: “Oh, I’m sorry, did I hurt your feelings?”
BLXPLTN “Blood on the Sand”
What It Is: A raging anti-military industrial complex electro punk anthem that will have any righteous mob singing along
Why They’ll Hate It: Just the very notion of Afropunk tends to piss off the alt-right, but beyond that “Blood on the Sand” begins by reappropriating military marching calls and never lets up from there, with its singalong chorus pummeling listeners with reminders of how complicit we all are in American imperialism, asking you if you see the blood that’s on all our hands. Plus, there’s that cover art of Trump snorting the blood of his enemies.
Christeene “Butt Muscle”
What It Is: Quite possibly the freakiest dance track ever put to tape
Why They’ll Hate It: There’s nothing more laughable than a generic artist like Ty Richards talking up how “dangerous” and “offensive” he is while operating in the same city as Christeene, who identifies as a “a human pissoir of raw unabashed sexuality” and may as well be the synth punk G.G. Allin. “Butt Muscle” is the apotheosis of Christeene’s sewer sex sound, a sonic representation of every deranged thing conservatives imagine happens behind queer doors. But what makes it truly dangerous to those types of thinkers is that Christeene not only refuses to take any shame whatsoever in all that filth and perversion, she revels in it and forces them to watch her get off. Next time your bigoted uncle comes over for a family dinner, put on the “Butt Muscle” video and watch as his brains leak out of his ears.
Blastfamous USA “Air Raid on America”
What It Is: The catchiest revolutionary manifesto since Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
Why They’ll Hate It: The alt-right has a heart attack whenever a football player takes a knee, so Zeale’s list of instructions in Blastfamous USA’s “Air Raid on America” has a good chance of resulting in some Scanners-like headaches when pointed their way. Over a futuristic klaxon call beat from NGHT HCKLRS, Zeale rattles off suggestions for what you can do “to make the empire fall,” and almost none of them fit under that mythical “polite protest” the oppressed are always supposed to adhere to. The most benign involves telling corporations to “find a dick they can suck,” but Zeale also makes it clear that if they build a wall around America we should “blow that shit up.” Oh, and if you’re wondering if Zeale thinks it’s okay to punch Nazis, the answer is a definitive yes.
Dicks “No Nazi’s Friend”
What It Is: A bluesy punk classic that shows how little some things have changed in the last thirty years
Why They’ll Hate It: The Dicks and their immortal frontman Gary Floyd never shied away from lyrically attacking bigots weaseling their way into the punk scene and making it clear they’d be happy to make the attacks physical too, if it came down to it. “No Nazi’s Friend” confronts skinheads with their dumb uniforms and assholery and equates them to the racist police the band constantly tore apart in their songs. And then it ends with the menacing warning that if skinheads don’t stop with their racist slurs, their friends might just find them dead.
Capitalist Kids “Gender Binary Bop”
What It Is: Pop punk masquerading a complex and progressive message
Why They’ll Hate It: They’ll have the pogoing song stuck in their heads before they’ve even realized what it’s saying because underneath its distorted ’50s rock facade, “Gender Binary Bop” is a big ol’ fuck you to people who insist there are only two genders. Opening with the lines “You look at gender as an average of a set/Regrettably you’re often gonna wind up upset/’cause sexuality’s a spectrum, there are so many shades/Not everybody fits your little black and white cage,” the song culminates in the demand that you “let people be themselves and let them live their own lives,” while also chastising regressive thinkers for being so childish they need to run back to their pops.
Clit Eastwood “Dirty Hairy Pussy”
What It Is: A furious power violence track that wreaks more havoc in less than a minute than most people accomplish in a lifetime
Why They’ll Hate It: Few things piss off western chauvinists more than unflinching women weaponizing the words and phrases used against them. From their name to their choice in song titles, Clit Eastwood are as bold as they come, standing out in the bro-heavy power violence scene with their self-awareness and fearlessness. “Dirty Hairy Pussy” is a classic example of this, with frontwoman Ryoko growling the title over and over while her band destroys their instruments. Put this on loop for an hour and you’ll clear out your alt-right infestation in no time, and probably the rest of your neighborhood.
The Stains “John Wayne was a Nazi”
Why They’ll Hate It: Is there any bigger icon of toxic American masculinity than John Wayne? The quintessential cowboy has long been held up as the kind of stoic, slab jawed manhood boys should aspire to be and that’s exactly what Millions of Dead Cops precursor the Stains were confronting on their single “John Wayne was a Nazi.” More graphic and fantastical than Public Enemy’s later John Wayne slapdown in “Fight the Power,” this track paints a portrait of Wayne as a psychopath who “liked to play SS” and kept a picture of a young Adolf Hitler in his cowboy vest. But the sharpest moment comes in the chorus, as it reminds everyone that now Wayne’s dead and “life evens the score,” and that in the end Wayne was “just another pawn for the capitalist whore.”
Two Nice Girls “I Spent My Last Ten Dollars (On Birth Control and Beer)”
Why They’ll Hate It: Western chauvinists can’t stand the notion that women don’t give a fuck about or need them, and Two Nice Girls’ classic “I Spent My Last Ten Dollars (On Birth Control and Beer)” satirizes the idea that what any woman needs is a man in her life. Initially, the song’s protagonist is getting by just fine, only needing a “feminine touch,” but then one day a man named Lester comes into her life and soon everything goes to shit with the aid of a few too many rum and cokes. “The love of a strong hairy man has turned my head, I fear/And made me spend my last ten dollars on birth control and beer” goes the chorus, with a later verse explaining “Of course for a woman to love a man/She must also love to booze,” and that the chief excitement that comes from dating a man instead of a woman is the need to get abortions as a result of “sperm gone awry.” It’s the rare country song Valerie Solanas would celebrate.
Nick Hanover got his degree from Disneyland, but he’s the last of the secret agents and he’s your man. Which is to say you can find his particular style of espionage here at Ovrld as well as Loser City, where he mostly writes about comics. You can also flip through his archives at Comics Bulletin, which he is formerly the Co-Managing Editor of, and Spectrum Culture, where he contributed literally hundreds of pieces for a few years. Or if you feel particularly adventurous, you can always witness his odd .gif battles with his friends and enemies on twitter: @Nick_Hanover