Juneteenth and Bandcamp

Picture of Envy from Bandcamp

By now, I think you know where we stand on Bandcamp Friday's, as well as with Black Lives Matter (spoiler: we're for 'em). Hopefully, you also know that June 19th is the latest occasion where Bandcamp is donating their fees towards a progressive charity. From midnight Friday to midnight Saturday, Pacific time, 100% of Bandcamp's share of sales will be donated to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The LDF serves as the lead legal advocate for civil and human rights in this country, providing people of all colors with equality and justice before the bar. If you can't cosign that, I don't know what to do with you.

Now, I don't need any great excuse to go shopping for music, but this is a great way to assuage your anxiety about where your money's going when you buy something. There are a HUGE number of labels and artists who are donating a portion or all of their profits from sales on Juneteenth. Here's what I have on my list to pick up:

I've been holding off on buying the new Envy double LP, "The Fallen Crimson", since it came out in February. There's no particular reason; it just keeps falling off my radar every time I go to buy a record. I've been jamming it a lot via the Bandcamp streamer for the past two weeks, and now seems to be a perfectly cromulent time to pick it up. If you're uninitiated, Envy are a Tokyo-based post-hardcore/screamo band who have been making music for 28 years. Now I feel REALLY fucking old. As they've continued to progress as a band, they've moved further towards a post-rock sound, while maintaining their hardcore roots. Their American label, Temporary Residence Ltd., is donating 100% of their revenue from digital sales to The Black Art Futures, The Conscious Kid, and Black Girls Code. 

Suicide Squeeze Records here in Seattle is also kicking their share of profits to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. That's a perfectly good excuse for me to pre-order the new L.A. Witch record, "Play With Fire", that's due out in August. As of this writing, there are still copies available of the limited-to-500 splatter vinyl, as well as the limited-to-250 cassette. If you're into Paisley Underground sounds, or a band like the Gun Club...well, L.A. Witch is the stylistic descendent of those 80s Los Angeles jams.

Pax Aeternum Digital, Brent Eyestone's digital-only label, is donating all proceeds to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I've been a NAMI member for the past year, and, up until the coronavirus hit, I was a regular attendee in one of the local peer support groups. NAMI's mission is to destigmatize people with mental illness, as well as offer support and guidance to both the mentally ill and their support networks. It's a great cause. I will be picking up the 2017 digital release of Apartment 213's "Cleveland Power Violence". I snagged this from Blogged & Quartered when it was an active blog, and now's my chance to pay for it.

The big news the day before Juneteenth was that Björk and the newly-renamed One Little Independent have added her entire studio catalog to the Bandcamp platform. Not only that, but all proceeds during Juneteenth will be donated to Black Lives Matter UK. I've never really written about Björk, but her art (and let's make no mistake: she's no mere singer) has been a constant influence in my life going back to "Debut". "Homogenic" remains one of my desert island records, and while I'm not AS into her more recent records, I'm always going to check them out. Fun trivia fact: this is now the second time Björk has been a label mate with Crass. Now you know!

So let's end with Crass, shall we? It's "odd" to me how much of their work resonates with me now. "Penis Envy" might be one of the most apropos records for the times we're currently living through. I've been thinking a lot of these lines from "Yes Sir, I Will":

Those of us who stand out against the status quo
Do so against all odds.
We cling so closely together
Because we have little other than ourselves.
Critics say that it's just punk rock or that we're just naive anarchists.
They hope to discredit us with their labels and definitions.
Throughout history societies have condemned those who are later celebrated as heroes,
In so many bourgeois homes Van Gogh's sunflowers radiate from the walls,
Yet he lived in utter misery, condemned by those very same people.

We are not so alone in our anger and protest anymore, are we? I'd say their entire catalog is worth owning, although don't expect a "Do They Owe Us a Living"-type sing-along in their later records. The OLI reissues that have been coming out over the past year are pretty awesome; there are some minor artwork changes from the old Crass/Southern releases, but are 100% worth owning.

In addition to these, go ahead and revisit my earlier Bandcamp posts: despite COVID-19, people are making some amazing music in 2020. I'd also suggest snagging a copy of the new Asshole Parade demo, Coriky's debut LP, and the newest SOUL GLO track, assuming you haven't already. Have fun, drop some bread, support some good causes!