Every time i make the decision to record music- whether originals or covers- i learn something new every time.

It SHOULD be that anyone who plays music on some spectrum of regularity can be called a musician. Despite the deep love i have for playing music, the intrusive thoughts and imposter syndrome i have will not let me do that. And while i don’t necessarily call myself as such; i certainly do share similar sentiments as those who are. Once you begin to play with, again, any sense of regularity, you begin to hear music differently.

i’ve always been attracted to certain chords (without having necessarily known what they were), or massively off time signatures. There have always been bands who stayed with me because of this; however, anyone who knows me well enough also knows that that the lyrics are a priority for me… You could be the greatest musician, but if the messages you’re putting out into the universe don’t resonate with me (sociopolitically or otherwise), it’s gonna be much more difficult for me to listen to (or enjoy) the music.

Some of the music i enjoy listening to would be consider ‘noise’ in some circles. i don’t get upset, because there’s plenty of music for everyone; we are not all going to love the same things. For me though, some of the ‘noisiest’ music makes the most sense in this chaotic world. Some of the ‘noisiest’ sounds connect to other movements in art, such as surrealism, poetry, and anti fascist organizing.
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Of course, one of the most well-known bands to eschew ‘beautiful sounds’ in favor of sonically matching the world’s absurdities is Napalm Death, one of my all-time favorite bands (granted, i have a lot of all-time favorite bands, but Napalm Death is one of them). Formed in 1981 in the West Midlands, UK; they are still creating- and sound as amazing as ever.

i have never thought about covering Napalm Death because again, i’m not THAT good. Part of doing Prosthetics And Drumstick Unite! though, is about exploring different ways i could interpret music, in spite of my limited playing abilities. It is about challenging myself every step of the way, mistakes and all. It is about the journey, whether or not i’m ‘good enough’ to be called a musician.

And having fun in the process.

So i said ‘why not?’ to covering Napalm Death.

There were several songs i wanted to cover, but i narrowed it down to three, and made it a mini medley, to match the energy of their catalog of short songs- they have a 5-minute track here and there, but overall, their songs tend to range from one to two minutes on average.

Of course (as a wink and a nod of course) i started off with ‘You Suffer’, which was once given an entry in the Guinness Book Of World Records for being the shortest song of all time (at 1.3 seconds); in this day and age of the internet’s relative ubiquitousness, the song has been seen as akin to a meme to some, as opposed to a portion of a whole theme of addressing injustices, which we saw with the band’s first album Scum, released in 1987, where ‘You Suffer’ is on. In other cases, it’s being discussed with the same weight as one would discuss philosophy. In fact, Benjamin Myers considers the song to be “one of the most important musical works of the 20th century”:

“If Scum represented creative conflicts – two bands operating under one name – then ‘You Suffer’ takes the idea of misery and anguish and chisels it down to something pure. It asks a question that could be posed to anyone who is acting upon a similar need to express, expel and expunge, or suffers from mental health problems, or is simply a human being acutely aware of their place in a chaotic world.”

Considered to be the ‘Godfathers of Grindcore’ (but of course expanding their sound over the years; they are most likely the most well known of their peers, and proof, despite all of the UK’s countless problems, bands such as Napalm Death could get exposure on television and never compromise their music, or beliefs. Punk culture has seeped its way into the mainstream in one way or another- there were shows such as Never Mind The Buzzcocks (despite it not being ‘punk’ in and of itself), so it’s not surprising to me that the band would be on a show like Skins, where in 2011 they performed at the famed Bristol Bierkeller, which has now since closed since 2018.

(Some folks may also be old enough to remember the infamous epilepsy-inducing segment of the Craig Charles-hosted ‘What’s that Noise’ kids show on the BBC in 1989, where the band made a guest appearance during the From Enslavement To Obliteration era.)

On Skins, the show (or gig, if you’re in the UK) was dated for Thursday, October 10; and yes, while there certainly are people who considered them to be sellouts for doing this, it’s very clear they’re not since, again, no significant values have been compromised. (Were there people who considered them to be sellouts in 1989?) i personally think it’s great that young people could be exposed to music which allows for questioning so much we’ve been conditioned to accept. The song they performed was the second song i covered for the medley, ‘Strong-Arm’.

While i don’t agree that you can negotiate with an oppressor; on an interpersonal level i concur with the song’s lyrics: “Spare the rod and you’ll arise… A strong-arm is for bleak times/But talk it through, gain insight.”

The final part of the medley is my favorite Napalm Death song, ‘Smash A Single Digit’ off of my favorite album of theirs, Apex Predator – Easy Meat. Vocalist Barney Greenway describes the album as being the “foundation as recognizing human beings as human beings, as opposed to objects of productivity, or objects of profitability.” The album was also, in part, created in memory of those who perished in the 2013 Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh. 1,134 people died as a result of structural failure and abysmal working conditions. The song (co-written by Greenway and bassist Shane Embury) is, in line with the album’s theme, decisively about labor exploitation and wage slavery.

Given my limitations, i took a few liberties with the arrangement: Besides the obvious usage of melodica, a major chord or two snuck in there… defeating the purpose of Napalm Death’s long held musical tradition i suppose. i’m also not as good of a screamer as Barney, Lee Dorrian, John Cooke or anyone else who’s done vocals (lead or background) for the band, so i hope things aren’t too bad.

Here, i do attempts at screaming, plus i’m playing a melodica, a desk, tambourine, and bass.

The next song i’m covering is a song beloved by Napalm Death (as they’ve covered it every time i’ve seen them (the first time being 1996); it is also a song which is quite timely, since we’re in an environment (once again) where people openly share the sentiment that punk and goth scenes hold spaces for right wingerism; in fact, there is this idea that ‘conservatism is punk’, despite people who hold this view tend to espouse status quo positions.

‘Nazi Punk Fuck Off’ (by the Dead Kennedys; written by Jello Biafra) called this very sentiment to question: “You ain’t hardcore ’cause you spike your hair/when a jock still lives inside your head”, and “When you ape the cops it ain’t Anarchy.”

As Biafra once said at a show (before ripping into the song), “If you’re no different from your parents, what are you rebelling against anyway? You’re fittin’ in.” The closing line of these very people “being the first to go” if something were to go down is quite fitting to this day as well, as you have many toxic ‘chronically online’ individuals feel safety in their echo chambers; however, when faced with consequences (by whatever means) of the outside world- or if asked to perform the roles they supposedly idealize, they lack accountability, and blame others for their inability to perform up to task. When one’s primary means of communication is online, there’s more of a propensity to react, as opposed to respond.

The In God We Trust, Inc. EP was reportedly the band’s response to the hardcore records being produced around the time. The first DKs album i ever heard was their first- Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables, and i truly enjoyed the experimentation and odd time signatures (largely due to Carlo Cadona/6025), the jazz-inspired riffs, the social commentary and the surrealist collage art (primarily by Winston Smith). It was also the first record i ever purchased off the Alternative Tentacles (AT) label, and i fell in love with watching that Vampire Bat go round in circles ever since. In God We Trust, Inc. (originally released as ‘Virus 5’ on AT) still shared some of those elements (again, partly due to 6025, who was very much gone from the band by that point); but instead of mid tempo anthems, they opted largely for speed- and it worked.

Speaking of Cadona; it’s fairly ironic that his one contribution to In God We Trust, Inc. was the opening song, ‘Religious Vomit’, when in later years he reportedly became quite religious.

(And yes, i know that Jello lost the rights to releasing any subsequent DK reissues as a result of the lawsuit which happened between him and the rest of the band; still, there’s nothing like playing these records, and watching the bat go round and round.)

While Napalm Death’s cover is perhaps the most well-known among them; i stayed a bit truer to the original, except i played the melodica on it. i also played bass, a desk, a cardboard box, and a tambourine. i did the vocals in one take- a VERY rare thing- and i like how it sounded, even if i messed up.

In God We Trust, Inc. is one of the records which taught me how to sing quick vocals… D.R.I.’s Violent Pacification EP (as well as the Dirty Rotten EP) also initially taught me.

In terms of bands, when i was coming up D.R.I. was always one of my favorites because of their massively strange time signatures. A lot of times, when people do things like that, it’s because they hear those patterns in their heads, as opposed to being traditionally educated on how to construct a 5/4 or 7/4 signature. Don Van Vliet (fka Captain Beefheart) would be the biggest example of this.

To add all of this to the military band precision of Eric Brecht and Felix Griffin’s drumming on those earlier records, matching the frantic energy of Kurt Brecht’s vocals contributed to expanding my mind at how experimental punk and hardcore could be…. Not to mention, of course, bands like the Meat Puppets, the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü and so many others did this for me as well.

i’ve covered D.R.I. two other times here- once in the very first post i did, and the other sometime last year: ‘Mad Man’ and ‘Draft Me’ (one of my all-time favorite D.R.I. songs), respectfully.

For this post, i decided to cover ‘To Open Closed Doors’ (another one of my all-time favorites), from Violent Pacification. Amazingly (and surprisingly), it is a song i have seen covered by… literally no one else. A song that reads more as an existential crisis than their usual social commentary, this is one of the songs i was certainly thinking about when talking about appreciating the construction of music, the more you play it. i always hear the song start on a different count than i think they actually intend for it to be, and covering it helps to better understand where they were perhaps intending to go.

For this cover i played, bass, a cardboard box (and a desk), tambourine and melodica. And of course, vocals.

The final cover of the day is of a band absolutely loved by deep music lovers (including myself)- and despite albums that ended up on the charts, are still deemed obscure in the larger scheme of things: XTC.

‘Living Through Another Cuba’ (from the 1980 album Black Sea and written by Andy Partridge) will continually be a timeless song as long as the ravages of US imperialism and waves of Red Scare-era tactics and sentiments persist. If i recall it was the first XTC song i ever heard, as it was included on Life In The European Theatre, an anti-nukes awareness compilation released in 1982 on Elektra Records. i instantly fell in love with the song. The compilation also featured Bad Manners, The Clash, the Au Pairs, Peter Gabriel, Echo & The Bunnymen, and The Doors.

‘Living Through Another Cuba’ directly references what is known as ‘the Cuban Missile Crisis’, which occurred in October 1962 (and not 1961, as the song states in error). While the US deployed nuclear weapons throughout the UK (among other places), the Soviet Union deployed them in Cuba, leading to conflict between the US and the Soviets- of course this would not be the last time these conflicts would occur. While i’m not particularly advocating for nuclear weapons here, it’s very clear that the US is okay with either they or countries they are aligned with to have them, but no one else. Partridge describes the song as being “total nuclear-war paranoia. That, and the uselessness of England – this completely and utterly useless little country whose significance in the world ended at the First World War.”

The US’s antagonistic relationship toward Cuba goes way back though: Lestor Mallory- the assistant Secretary Of State of Inter-American Affairs, produced a memo on April 6,1960 memo in which the objective was to ensure “The Decline and Fall of (Fidel) Castro”:

“The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.

If the above are accepted or cannot be successfully countered, it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.

If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government.”

Just like France never forgave the people of Haiti for liberating themselves in 1804, the US continues to bestow collective punishment onto the people of Cuba to this very day (via the blockade as directed by the Mallory memo), for liberating themselves and ending the dictatorial rule of US-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

While the song espouses a fear of an all-out nuclear war; the song could also well be about the US’s desire to eradicate any semblance of socialism or anti-colonial movements around the globe.

Beside its primary message, covering the song had me thinking of something else. While i love writing and creating music (and arranging these covers in my own way); similar to Andy Partridge, i don’t necessarily want to perform them. i’ve been in quite a few bands in my lifetime (and have performed on stage with said bands), but the stage is not where i want to be at this point.

i don’t mind doing the occasional performance (maybe once or twice a year), but i am perfectly happy watching my friends and favorite bands do the thing they love (and learn about some new bands in turn). i do not know if this perspective changed for me post accident, or if it was merely the passage of time.

Nevertheless, i (again) enjoy writing and creating music, and challenging myself by learning to play covers of songs i never dreamed i would be able to attempt. It’s obviously not as good as the originals; however, i hope these songs put a smile on someone’s face, and make their day better.

For this cover i played guitar, bass, desk, cowbell, claves, tambourine, melodica, handclaps and… vocals. i messed up a few times, but that’s part of the journey. i also changed the date to better reflect the accuracy of events, and updated a couple of lyrics. In terms of the arrangement, i was slightly inspired by an amped up interpretation by Underground System.

Also… Don’t mind my bad British accent…