We've been hearing a lot in the last coupla years about this band called Fucked Up that records for Vice Records and plays on MTV. They also record wanky prog-rock tunes as a fuck you to the punk scene. Lots of people like 'em, but I'm too intellectually underdeveloped to appreciate the great things they've been doing for modern music. They almost had me for a minute there with that "Hidden World" geegaw but c'mon, man-among other fopperies, anyone who manages to use the word "chthonic" in a pop song is trying too hard. Aeschylus ya ain't, so stop smellin' yer own farts.
But back in the early '00s, there was this awesome band that also happened to be called Fucked Up that made some of the best rock 'n' roll of the decade. I saw them in the classroom at the DePaul cheesegrater in 2004, and they tore it up. A friend and I interviewed them in their van before the show and they were awesome people. Smart, too.
Anyways, "No Pasaran" was the first in a series of remarkable 7" EPs by them. Side one's a barebones, bareknuckle hardcore anthem about the CNT/FAI, and a fuck you to every asshole that called you an idealist for joining the IWW at 15. "Circling the Drain" is a dirge for anyone suffering from the terminal ennui that is postindustrial labor.
Reputable sources allege that there's a connection between the aforementioned Fucked Up and the Vice Records Fucked Up. Said sources also allege that the Vice Fucked Up is innovative and revelatory in creating a self-sustaining, spectacular hype machine and that "Hidden World" was in effect a second "My War," winnowing out the avant garde wheat from the lumpen chaff.
For my part, if I want a brilliant critique of punk rock and why it needs to be subverted from within, I'll dust off my copy of Society of the Spectacle, thank you very much.
*It appears that the 7" is out of print, but you can get all the early Fucked Up material on the "Epics in Minutes" CD over at Deranged Records *
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