What the Punk!?

Songs appearing in this episode:

Fleetwood Mac "Hypnotized", "Black Magic Woman" and "TUSK"

Da Smart "Walk wit me"

Nas "World's An Addiction"

Sully's solution to all of the issues discussed with Beck that face this country and others is for people to stop financially supporting corporations that control Washington- "Our greatest weapon is to do with less and not give our hard earn money to people with private agendas that are destructive to the earth, our human rights, and our minds and bodies". If lobby firms such as Venn Strategies can push laws through congress for the right amount of money and support, what chance does the average person have against giant industry such as the Sugar Lobby, Dairy Council, and Big Pharma?

Beck's familial roots go back to miners in rural Kentucky. He connects the dots between folk musicians such as Woody Guthrie in the 1940's and today's Hip Hop artists like Noname, Jamila Woods, and Nas as being the voice that truly reflects what is happening on the streets of Black America. Reflection needs a call to action or it is more of the same old, same old consumerism that currently defines our world.

Beck sounds like a socialist but what he really is, is a humanitarian. Someone who believes that practices such as redlining and the denial of a universal healthcare system is not in the best interest of society as a whole. That the greater good should be the goal. Which is fascinating that someone of the "ME ME ME" generation has so much to say about the "WE WE WE".

Five Artists, Five songs, Five Thoughts from this podcast:

Fatimah Now (Unofficial Mix Tape), Vry Blk, Cops shot the kid,

Funeral Dress, I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore

Sully talks about punk music not as a genre but as a lifestyle. A movement toward original thought and creativity fueled by a Do-it-yourself attitude. At almost 50 years old Sully is extremely candid about his failures and successes as a songwriter, tennis pro, and father of three. He struggles paycheck to paycheck to make ends meat yet still finds the time to write songs and be creative. Much in the vein of Andrew Savage's book, EVERY TOOL IS A HAMMER and Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi's pivotal works on FLOW and CREATIVITY, Sully not only looks to inspire but to explore these proposed concepts through listening and discussion and how they pertain to happiness, fulfillment, and purpose. Using Please Kill Me (the uncensored oral history of punk) by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain as his bible he reads passages from the book to shed light on the artists and mindsets that got the movement moving.

Ryan Black/Blizzle raises questions about musical fads like EMO with such bands as Dashboard Confessional and The Spill Canvas while Sully provides historical and cultural context for those fads. Sully and Black, both fans of Jazz, talk about it's influence on other musical art forms. From jazz great Ornette Coleman's song, Focus on Sanity from his album, The Shape of Jazz to Come to the Swedish hardcore punk band REFUSED's song Liberation Frequency from their album, The Shape of Punk to Come nothing is left off the table. Black's thoughtful questioning reveals his own curiosity and also shows the respect him and Sully have for music as well as one another. Much like their songwriting process for Theft To The Gallows and Black's Backbone the give and take between them is obvious and authentic.

List of songs in this episode and songs that almost made this episode:

batman theme, scrape away, mr. pharmacist, surfin' bird, night of the phantom, dirty red, we want the airwaves, kung fu girls, horizontal twist, I want to know, growing concern, old new york, rape me, francis farmer will get her revenge on seattle, fake my own death, king of contradiction, ma poubelle, rock and roll, foggy notion, friction, foxhole, turnover, waiting room, one more time, guns on the roof,