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Danbert Nobacon

Check out the new track by Danbert of Chumbawamba- it's about how much he hates Koch industries!

Today, we are ultra-psyched to debut the new tune by Danbert Nobacon, one of the founding members of Chumbawamba! his new album is out Wednesday!

You all know Danbert- he has been an anarcho-punk icon for years- Chumba had like 117 songs about corporate greed (mostly set to dance beats), Chumba supported the coal miners and fought back against Thatcher, during the massive 1984-5 strike, he dumped water on the head of the deputy Prime minister at an awards ceremony, and he is a nice guy. Well, his brand new, massive, double LP, Kochtopus's Garden—Now that's What I Call Capitalism—The Musical, might be his punkest record yet.

The record is set in the future and is about two robots running around an America, now controlled by “Dark Money Anon,” as they question the basic flawed premises and inherent contradictions of everyday capitalism that is eating the planet. It is also kind of funny. The new single, which is the album's title track, is heavy duty…

Danbert has a lot to say on the tune:"Long time, multi-billionaire Charles ‘dark money’ Koch, the 23rd richest man in the world is neither the first nor the last, in a long line of ‘dirty oil,’ ‘garbage crude,’ robber baron industrial extractivists who have benefitted from the pillage of the planet to the detriment of everyone else. Nor is he the only one who, by hook, or by hydrocarbon crook, to use a relatively tiny part of his exorbitant wealth, to concoct a version of American free market fundamentalism to justify and to protect the business privilege of the industrial scale dumping of greenhouse gases (and a whole host of other toxins) into the atmosphere, free of charge.

He is, however, the most adept at organizing his fellow centi-millionaires and billionaires, to join him in financing such ideologically toxic free malarketry. He is the Wichita dark wizard of dark money. And in so doing, whilst magnifying its reach many times over, he has added layers of libertarian economic extremism, embedding it as the dominant invasive species of narrative, that has become the cancer at the heart of the American condition. The tok-space has dubbed this process the ‘millions-into-billions’ koch-math. Not least, by hosting twice annual war-chest-filling-donor-summits, Koch has been able to redirect the ‘chump change,’ donations of his rich pals—chump change to them being a few hundred thousand dollars, or even a million or two, each—into an unprecedentedly weaponized and aggressive defense of business privilege. And in return, the donors can expect an ongoing war of attrition against taxes on the rich, against costly regulations on business, and against any money being spent by government to help ordinary Americans, generating savings and perks for them that can be measured in the billions of dollars.

The Cato Institute think-tank, one of many, co-founded and heavily sponsored down the years by Charles Koch, hosted what has since been recognized as the first climate denial conference back in 1991. Around this same time, and predating the rhetoric and town hall busting methods of the Tea Party by almost two decades, by deploying groups like Citizens for a Sound Economy, to agitate against taxes and government spending, Koch evolved what Lee Fang called “the cutthroat tactics … anything-goes approach,” that would infect the Republican party and voter base alike. Meanwhile, by pioneering newly vicious attack ads targeted at wavering Republicans and/or primarying them from the right, Koch would begin to exert a grip on the Republican party and seed the thru lines to the Trump MAGA extremism which dominates the GOP today. And when necessary the same tactics would be deployed against corporate Democrats. Not least, Koch has overseen the defeat of attempts by Clinton-Gore to tax carbon, and Obama-Biden to ‘cap and trade’ carbon, whilst flipping the entire Republican Party into the party of climate deniers.

Like a corporate Jekyll and Hyde, on the one invisible hand, Koch has outwardly projected a libertarian belief in the unadulterated free market as the natural and best mechanism for a healthy and free society. On the other invisible hand, the really invisible one, he has deployed his vast wherewithal to working away in the dark, to manipulate the market every which way and mold it to best serve the bottom line of Koch Industries, the well-being of everyone else, and the planet itself, be damned."

Danbert's new album is out on Wednesday. It's a masterpiece. You'll be able to pick it up here and you can check out the new single below, right now!

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Bootlicker

Bootlicker: “Red Serge”

Bootlicker have released a new song called “Red Serge”. The song is off their upcoming album 1000 Yd. Stare which will be out on May 17 via Neon Taste Records and Static Shock Records. Bootlicker related their collection of EPs Lick The Boot, Lose Your Teeth in 2022 and released their self-titled album in 2021. Check out the song below.

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Navel Gazing for April 28, 2024

Navel Gazing for April 28, 2024

Welcome to Navel Gazing, the Punknews.org commenter community's weekly symposium, therapy session, and back-alley knife-fight. Chime in below with your latest playlists, record store finds, online time wasters, and site feedback.

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Dillinger Four

Dillinger Four in the studio (but no more info than that)

Dillinger Four have released a vague update. The band has posted a recent picture of the group in the studio. They did not release any other information or even that more information is in the works. Never the less, these types of posts usually precede more information regarding a band's new material- that being said, none of that is actually confirmed. We'll keep you updated.

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Check out the new track by Small!

Check out the new track by Small!

Today, we are psyched to debut the new track by Small!
Atlanta's Small make crunchy, loud kinda grungy music about banging and being miserable. Their new tune, "KMS-TV" opens with a metal worthy stomp before the band breaks down into a Nirvana-meets-Jesus and Mary Chain smash. It's loud and buzzy and freaky.

Speaking to Punknews, the band's Samm Severin said “A lot of our songs are about fucking but this one isn’t. This song is not for the lovers, it’s for the lovers who got stuck being loners."

Fight Your Way Inside Me is out June 14 and you can pre-order it here! Meanwhile, check out the new tune below, right now!

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Jeff Rosenstock

Jeff Rosenstock latest artist to drop off of Booze Cruise Festival

Jeff Rosenstock is the latest artist to drop off of German music festival Booze Cruise. He released a statement on Instagram which reads,

”After a lot of thought and offline conversations, we will not be playing this years Booze Cruise. I'm deeply sorry to anyone who was looking forward to seeing us. Free Palestine and stop using our tax dollars to fund fascism and genocide instead of health care.”

This follows the organizer of the festival being accused of being a Zionist to which the organizer responded with a statement on Instagram earlier this month (April 15) that reads in part,

” Like many Jews and citizens of Israel, I do not support the current Israeli government, nor do I have any knowledge about Israel's settlement plans. The pacifist optimist in me would love to see two peaceful states, Hamas incarcerated, Netanjahu out of office, and Palestinians free to travel, work, and love whomever they choose.

So, if you hold a different viewpoint on the existence of Israel, Booze Cruise might not be the festival you want to attend this summer. If you believe that shouting "from the river…" is an acceptable statement, it’s not, in fact it is a crime according to German law. If you post terms like "i$rael", "z!onist", "gen0cide", then fuck all the way off already. If you wish to discuss this further, feel free to reach out.”

Toodles and the Hectic Party dropped off the festival on April 15 with a statement on Twitter that reads in part,

”We’re no longer playing Booze Cruise in Hamburg or going to Germany next month. If you don’t believe in the liberation of Palestine, don’t book our band, don’t listen to our music, don’t come to our shows”.

Teenage Halloween dropped off the festival on April 16 with a statement on Twitter reading,

”Teenage Halloween has decided to drop off of Booze Cruise. We’ll also be unable to fulfill any other planned EU dates. We hope to be back to the EU as soon as we can. Thank you for understanding”.

You can see all the posts in full below.

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Fishbone

Fishbone fractures, only Angelo and Chris Dowd still in the band

In a large feature at Q, it has been revealed that Fishbone has fractured. According to founding member Chris Dowd, working with fellow founding member Norwood Fisher became untenable as Fisher attempted to take total control of the band. After months of letters between the two sides (Down and singer Angelo Moore on one side, Fisher and co-founder Walter Kibby on the other), the band fractured. The article was not exactly clear on why Moore and Dowd remained in the band while Fisher and Kibby left (as opposed to visa-versa, considering the article pitches Dowd as having control over the group) but the band issued a somewhat vague statement that you can read below. Interestingly, Dowd did somewhat suggest that he hopes everyone can reconcile in the future.

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