I coincidentally discovered Dealers of God when we both happened to simultaneously release experimental hip hop albums on New Year’s Day, 2021. After looking at some beginning yearly listening logs on RateYourMusic that mentioned my album, I kept seeing this esoteric, haunting, fucked up image of Jackie Chan, the cover for their debut album “Visions of Fuel”. Intrigued by the nearly 50 genre tags it had on its release page, I started playing the album on Bandcamp during a Covid-era workout in my backyard shed.
From the beginning, my virgin ears had no clue what they were hearing. Samples faded in and out with impunity, leading to shoegazey synths, delayed chants, the odd mention of smoking something, and the ambient popping of beer can tabs. On the 6 and a half minute “The Value of Beer”, a stream of consciousness discussing topics from Obama’s prolific drone usage and fishing with one’s father to the pros and cons of excessive crack and beer consumption is rapped haphazardly over a shimmering goulash of reverberated guitars, horns, piano, and Michael Gira’s baritone. And this was just the 3rd track of this 2 hour deep dive into the psychological underpinnings of the average Australian.
I almost tapped out when I reached a 25 minute song called Alien Meth that samples both Viper and Michael Richard’s infamous apology, among other random shit I couldn’t ID. But when I heard the prophetic refrain of “3000 years ago Bill Clinton killed me”, finally it all made sense. I stopped resisting and listened to the whole thing, immersing myself in this gravity-agnostic world of intergalactic crime fueled by every drug taken simultaneously. Who wouldn’t want to live in a reality where you can buy Kevin Rudd on the dark web if you pay enough?
On the Dealers’ follow-up LP, "Dealer’s Choice", their songwriting became more grandiose and psychedelic, and the line between shitpost and art became even murkier. “Fields are Burning” is so layered and ethereal that an inattentive listener may not even notice that the titular fields consist of marijuana plants, whose conflagration gets the Dealers crew “completely fucking roasted”. Similarly, the mesmerizing, tribal beat of “Back through the East” made it take a few listens for me to discern its interpolations of Unkle Adams bars about NFTs. The serenity and beauty of the music makes the utterly hilarious lyrics feel less like purposefully funny one-liners and more like messages from a bizarre, hazy dimension of utter consumption.
The Dealers have just released a new EP titled "Bill Clinton Flesh Humanoid Skeleton", exposing the truth of our 42nd president. You can listen to it at all the links below.
2: Intac
Author: Evil Joe
Date: 10/2/24
“I know we work / For Mr. Krabs / For forty years / And then we die”
My boy recently got fired for no reason after a month and a half at his first office job out of college. He spent months trying to get that shit and he was hourly so he didn't even get severance. #PrayForHim.
I bring this up to illustrate that being a normal human being involved in the American corporate world is a wholly dehumanizing and often surreal experience. I didn’t understand this until I started working this year. I have a "good" job (i.e. pays well and probably won't fire me anytime soon) but when I really sit down and think about it, my time at "work" is difficult to stomach: the utter banality, the shockingly infectious nature of implicitly enforced compliance, the seeming perfection with which a veneer of objectivity is maintained by a host of 30 somethings playing the part of “totally normal office worker” in unison, despite ostensibly knowing and understanding the tangible harm our organization and others like it do to the world, which they admire daily as they commute through the post-apocalyptic wasteland their utter disregard has created in the once beautiful San Francisco…
Clearly I am a Radiohead fan. But it’s pretty funny to me that Thom Yorke has never worked an office job in his life and OK Computer was written by a bunch of guys that had the privilege of doing music for a living. Clearly there’s room for actual day jobbers who are unlucky enough to play music “for fun” to expand on the Sunday Scaries.
Into this niche steps Intac, a Boston-based group who style themselves as a “music business” corporation.
Decap played a show with them and Me in Capris in a craft brewery in the suburbs of Boston, for some reason. That was my first time hearing their music, and it truly felt like Intac was the missing link in that room, combining veiled black comedic quips about life, love, and the predatory nature of capitalism with polished, catchy songwriting. When I first heard that Mr Krabs line I quoted earlier (from the track “Kill the Warden”), I knew we were kindred spirits.
Intac’s lineup is… well… unique in the sense that I only saw one person with an actual instrument on stage. The other member seemed dedicated solely to triggering non-sequitur samples, making comments about the world of business, and dancing with a computer on his head. They also had a guy doing visuals using a camera pointed towards the crowd which definitely added to the WTF-factor.
Despite being on levels of irony that would make Norm MacDonald blush, Intac’s music is genuine and emotional in its own way. While their new single “Money” might seem zany on the surface with its double tracked southern drawl and muffled airhorns, there is something deeply disaffected about the way the singer nonchalantly croons “you can go to work / you can go to war / you can go forever / and never know what for”. While many acts love to wallow in this kind of dread, Intac’s winks of nihilism are served atop pristine, Just Plain Fun™ indie rock riffs, creating an irresistible contrast that made me an instant fan.
Potential shareholders should be aware… based on my independent research, Intac is cooking up a country classic and rumor reads they’ll have an album out soon…
Check them out at the links below if you're lit like that
1: WTF is this?
Author: Evil Joe
Date: 9/21/24
Evil Gang is the most evil corporation on planet earth. We throw evil shows and write evil words. We produce evil merchandise and promote evil music for a roster of evil bands. 'Nuff said.
On this blog we will be writing about cool small bands that deserve more attention every week or so. For now, feel free to explore our evil site...