A day ahead of the release on EWEL Records, Jon F. Daily of the Brooklyn band gives us a track-by-track breakdown of the high-energy “anti-authority, anti-status quo” album
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It’s not very rock ‘n’ roll to admit this, but I’m… I’m kind of a Good Kid.
I don’t syphon my neighbors’ wifi, I never top off my Diet Coke when the free-refill policy isn’t explicitly stated and I call my mom pretty much every day (sometimes twice!) I’m a poser in a (p)leather jacket and aside from jaywalking and hitting the occasional joint (DO THE KIDS STILL CALL THEM JOINTS??), I’m generally a rule-following, law-abiding, pretty square citizen.
But that doesn’t mean I have to listen like it.
A month and a half after premiering the band’s last single, “Fun Police,” I’m currently living my rebel-without-a-cause dreams vicariously via Careful On Your Way Out—the very rad, very new “anti-authority, anti-status quo” record from The Black Black, which I’m beyond pumped to premiere here!
Out tomorrow on EWEL Records, Careful On Your Way Out is a tight, energy-packed album featuring eight perfect stick-it-to-the man anthems calling out society and social media., consumerism and complacency, disregard for the environment and for each other.
Along with some sweet, sweet stream action, ahead of the record’s release, I’m also stoked to present track notes from the band’s Jon F. Daily, who offered some insight into the songs + some thought starters that are def going to double as journal prompts as I make a conscious effort to get bad to, if not the bone, at least, like, whatever’s under the epidermis.
CAREFUL ON YOUR WAY OUT—TRACK BY TRACK:
“Satisfaction”
“If you spend your life chasing after the values that society tells you to, how do you feel when you get them? Are you satisfied?”
“Careful On Your Way Out”
“Do the people and the institutions that you were taught to value and hold sacred actually hold up to the ideals that you were taught to hold as sacred? How do you reconcile that disconnect?”
[Note from Sam: Watch the music video here!]
“Pedestrians Walk At Their Own Pace”
“Why doesn’t the status quo care more about our environment and the damage that we are doing to it? Aren’t they concerned about the problems that we are starting to see and concerned for how much worse it will be for future generations? Maybe they don’t care because it serves their needs for now, and they know that if they accumulate enough now, they can insulate themselves and their family from these problems that will end up killing off huge populations of the poor.”
“Fun Police”
“Are the rules in place really there to help us all get along, or are they designed to keep the have nots down, while the haves aren’t actually accountable to them? And are you enforcing these rules at the same time that you are being repressed by them?”
“Enemies”
“Have you become comfortably numb to the status quo of the world? Are you living your own life, or are you paying someone else to get your kicks for you, and are you waiting for someone else to fix the problems that you see in the world?”
“2kool2dance”
“Are you so afraid of upsetting the apple cart that you are unwilling to be yourself? Are you so uncomfortable with expressing yourself that you’d rather hide behind a screen? It’s certainly understandable when we live in a society that is as judgmental as ours.”
“Burn Burn”
“Our society is out of control with runaway consumerism and the moral guideposts of the past are no match. We can see the cliff ahead, but we’ve lost control of the ship and even though there’s time to steer away from it, we just can’t bring ourselves to do it. What will history say about us?”
“Vansanity”
“We live with the notion that we should take all that we can while we can as long as it falls within the law. We’ve lost the ability to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, and instead just follow the rules that tell us that we need to get while the getting is good. Because no one will take care of anyone else so you better have all that you need (and more, just to be really safe). We’ve forgotten that we are all one family, and that we should be caring for everyone in the same way that we care for our immediate family. But the man continues to distract us by telling us that we are not one family and that our differences are something we need to protect from each other and that we need to take as much as possible inorder to preserve Us over Them. But there is no Them; we are all Us.”
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Bad boys, good guys, great music. (And some pure fuckin’ poetry.)
Be sure to cop a copy of Careful On Your Way Out when it drops tomorrow, and don’t miss the chance to catch the band liiiiive from the internet when they take the stage at EWEL for a BandNada show this Saturday! See you (sort of) there—
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Follow The Black Black at @theblackblackmusic, buy their music at theblackblack.bandcamp.com and add them to your Spotify playlists,
Feature image (provided by the band): Jen Meller