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justmysicklypride · 6 years ago

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P-P-P-Play that shit: ptv analysis - Part 2

Hi what’s up everyone and welcome to this week’s pew news. This is a continuation of my last post where I pretty much summed up Pierce The Veil’s career from the beginning to present and gave an overview of their rise and downfall. You can check it out here, but if you already know about everything or have read it already then feel free to ignore it. In any case, I was originally gonna make these two posts as one but ran out of room bc who the hell would read that much text in a blog post (me) so here you go - part two of this fucking conspiracy theory because I didn’t even get to share any of my thoughts in the last one. (I also forgot to put headers with each new topic smh apologies to the English language)

Edit: it’s been fucking eons since I wrote the last one/started writing this one like legit I even changed my user. The reason why this has been put off for so long will be explained later but yh smh

Gigantic obligatory disclaimer: Everything that I will discuss whether it be in this post or my last, or any future posts that relate to this subject IS NOT going to touch on the subject of the “sexual relations with a minor” incident in itself. I will not go into detail about my own views on this specific matter as there is literally no way to win because whatever I say could be taken out of context by literally anyone. That being said, I do not condone pedophilia, I do not condone sexual harassment or rape, and I do not undermine the importance of consent. I respect the laws of different states, as I know they vary with time and place, and I understand that everyone has their own opinions and I do not wish to impose my own onto others.

In regards to this, however, I do have to acknowledge that I, first and foremost, do not think that Mike Fuentes is innocent, and I strongly believe that how the band handled this situation was just plain terrible, but I do also have to acknowledge the fact that this situation is to stay between the accuser and the victim, as well as their respective legal teams and that I should not go nosedive headfirst into anything like this when it does not directly affect or require my judgement as a necessity, lest I face any legalities or blacklash as a result. Furthermore, everything that I will be talking about are conspiracies only and I do not in any way assume or imply that any of this is true.

In other words, I don’t mean to offend anyone but if you end up getting offended then that’s on you, not me. Let’s begin.

Introduction

The points that I am trying to highlight in this essay post is, in simple words, that Pierce The Veil’s... well, everything, comes off as kind of a conspiracy, almost, to me. I have had these thoughts for a long-ish time, and so this post is basically me finally making a post that covers all things that I have been thinking of in the past. Unlike my previous post, this one is a lot less fact-based and a lot more opinionated, so if you’re not into that, then that’s fair. Otherwise, I will be discussing the following things (in this order): the topic of kellic, Misadventures, and the accusation + response.

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Ship Them Together And Call It Lemonade

I refer to my last post and assume that everyone understands how “kellic” came to be and what it means. To summarise to the bare minimum best of my abilities, it’s the ship name of Vic Fuentes and Kellin Quinn, aka what people call it when someone wants or is keen on the idea of these two frontmen having an affair with each other in a (typically) fictional setting. It happens all the time, especially in this day and age where you can easily just find someone with the same obsession as you with a click of a button. That’s why King For A Day, and inadvertently Collide With The Sky, became such a huge success. It appealed to the right demographic of teenagers and tweens who were ecstatic at the prospect of shipping, and went on to achieve even more impressive feats following that. How you ask? Well, by going on a tour around the world of course. Together. Playing shows every night that ends with one of them literally carrying the other off the stage. Gotta give the people what they want, hey?

I have a strong belief that the key to success is through beating the system at its own game. In this case, the game is simple - get fans, get money. Unfortunately, as we all know, getting fame isn’t as easy as simply earning it through grit and determination. To achieve fame, one must find a way to do something at the right time in the right way so that people will notice. If one person does, and your fire doesn’t die out right away, then you’ve got yourself a forest fire. Then later on, all you gotta do is keep this forrest fire going, but assuming that there isn’t someone standing on the other side with the whole fire department’s resources in tow, then the only thing stopping this fire is itself, because with all things in life, fire dies out, and fame stops accumulating after a while if nothing is done about it. Humans need entertainment. If something starts to fail to pique their interests, then they move on. That’s why YouTubers are required to change up their content every now and again in order to try and relight that spark they once had, and even then there’s a good chance that they won’t.

I was originally going to write another blog essay about this whole YouTube analogy thing but quickly realised that for one, I don’t have time bc I’m getting my ass fucked by university on a daily basis; and that for another, there’s most likely a billion other videos or essays about this topic as is, so I’ll just link one or two of them here. I haven’t watched them all yet or I don’t remember much of them, but all they do is pretty much summarise up stuff like how YouTubers become successful and their downfalls and all that, and even though they kinda focus on a specific person or group of people, I feel like it could be generalised.

Even without the YouTube metaphor, we know shipping works. It is evident in multiple works across various media that giving the fans what they want is often what gives these people their continued success, such as Dan Howell and Phil Lester, who have all but stopped trying to create their own individual branding (save for their separate merch stores that are probably there just to get more people to buy their overpriced clothing), and who at this point have become such an overused example that I actually hesitated writing that. Why do you think movies and shows and cartoons mostly have a romantic subplot? Romance is an essential trope in literature and easily one of the most popular genre out there for various reasons. According to a Bustle article written in 2016, romance often gives the readers a sense of hope or gives them a way to live out their fantasies in the easiest way possible, and while this may not apply to everyone, (personally I’m not a romance fan much at all but I can appreciate good literature), it’s hard to deny the phrase “sex sells”.

Given that, you’d think that any company with half a brain would learn to exploit it, but for some reason this wasn’t the case in Pierce The Veil’s management, and no matter how I look at it, I can’t really see the reason why. It’s not like the band members are uncomfortable with the ship - Jaime Preciado has been seen kissing Vic Fuentes on stage (not on the lips guys chill) (I had forgotten how fucking difficult it takes to find this one specific clip so here’s a couple different fuenciado pictures instead to make up for it smfh), and Vic Fuentes has mentioned kellic in a live stream once jokingly - and Kellin Quinn is notoriously known for being completely okay with it (so long as he doesn’t have to look at it), so just what is the reason?

This Ain’t A Hiatus, It’s A Goddamned Arms Race

I’d be lying if I didn’t miss all the memes that all stemmed from the Pierce The Veil boys not being able to release an album when they’d promised, before postponing said album yet again and disappearing off of the face of the earth digitally for another year or two, giving them a total of four years as their unofficial, unannounced hiatus. For this, I have several questions.

We all know Vic Fuentes loves taking his sweet ass time releasing music - he’s admitted to remaking his first album a second time before releasing it, as stated an interview a couple years back - but you can’t honestly tell me their management just let them get away with it. Sure, through this time they’ve been pushing out new merch to no end, but something tells me that this giant gap they’ve wedged between the new album and Collide With The Sky isn’t gonna be good publicity, despite all the memes that’ve sprouted from it. There’s been fans who stopped taking interest in this band because of it, as well as fans who have just gotten fed up with having to wait so long. They scrapped a whole completed album in the process of creating Misadventures too, and while it’s not uncommon for bands to throw away near-completed ideas at whim, it’s also not unlikely for there to be some external factors or reasoning behind why they did it. Could it be that the album they threw away stayed too close to their roots and management or some other person told the band to start again, so that they can create something more appealing to this day and age? Or could it be something else that is hard to see at face-value?

You’ll Never Get Ahold Of Me Now

Finally, I’m gonna address the overdue elephant in the room. If you want to read the full thing, here it is because I’m tired of having to reiterate what happened. Mike Fuentes received a sexual allegation by some girl(s) and the band released a shitty statement that has since gotten deleted - that’s the general gist of it.

Like I said, it’s been literal months (or weeks idk my perception of time is severely fucked) since I actually started making this post so literally no one cares anymore, but regardless of what past me has promised or written down, I’m not going to be discussing the allegation in itself, but rather what and/or how the band and their subsequent management has handled it, in that they handled it so bad that I honestly can’t believe they did it like that.

Edit: I wasn’t gonna bother finding another copy of the statement bc no one’s gonna give a shit but then I’d be doing some baseless shit and I honestly can’t stand people who half ass these things, despite my growing urge to do the same thing, so here’s the statement.

For starters, who the hell waits one whole month before releasing a statement? From what I can remember, their excuse was allegedly that pretty much management forbade them to talk or make a statement about it earlier for... reasons? (Just realised I don’t actually have the source for this so idk take it with a grain of salt I guess because I was sure I had read this somewhere but I can’t back it up.)

That’s not even the worst part, either. The statement itself gave zero closure to literally everything. Yes, they acknowledged the allegation, but that’s just about as far as they went. The whole point of a statement is to clear things up, whether the accuser was right or wrong, and what steps will be taken from there, whether an apology is to be issued or not. No shit you know about the incident, who in the fandom wouldn’t? Instead pointing out the straight up obvious, what they should’ve done was 1) not waited an entire fucking month before talking about it, most likely hoping the whole thing to blow over by then and 2) actually talked about the incident in their statement instead of tiptoeing around the subject like some sort of time bomb ready to go off. There is no right or wrong answer, because literally all they had to do was tell the truth - as in write down a statement from Mike (not the whole fucking band mind you) about his take on the whole thing or get him to say what had happened from his point of view. Then resolve it privately with your legal team and whatnot if they really feel the need. Hell, all he needed to do was apologise. Whether something like that classifies as assault or rape or whatever is up to you but the fact of the matter is that she’s underaged at that point in time. Even if she was fully aware of the risks and whatnot and gave legitimate consent, under the eyes of the law and pretty much 80% of the people reacting to this incident, it will be deemed illegal and inappropriate behaviour. All these people had to do was literally just be open and honest about it regardless of whatever the hell happened, because this is all happening on a public platform where everyone can see/read it to their hearts’ content. Viewers can’t judge or make a decision to support or not support you if you don’t tell them your side of the story, so for the love of god, why the hell didn’t they?

The statement was filled with bullshit about how they love the fans and all that shit, and honestly my thoughts can be accurately summed up in this video right here. So much backlash could have potentially been avoided had they just told it as it is, because now all we have is a vague ass response that gives no closure and tell us nothing as to whether Mike actually did it or not, because in the statement he manage to spout some bullshit about how he’s “never intentionally manipulated or abused anyone in [his] life” and that he’s just a ball of empathy which at first glance could suggest he at least thinks he’s innocent, but then they go on to say how Mike’s taking a temporary leave from the band for, you guessed it, absolutely no reason. At least, no reason that they’ve given us (what else is new) (I’m becoming more petty as the night drags on it’s literally 1am). Honestly, .@piercetheveil, please tell me why the honest to god fuck did you have him leave just after suggesting that he might be innocent? I know the world isn’t black and white but when you’re making a stance and defending yourself or admitting to something, it really is - black and white that is. Either you’re innocent or believe that you’re innocent and stand your ground by not leaving the band, or you admit that you are guilty, in which case your leaving of the band would actually feel justified, because now it’s like you’re gonna come back as well, so what does that even mean? Mike isn’t gone indefinitely, he hasn’t pleaded guilty or innocent, and now the band is telling us they love us? Fuck out of here with that bullshit.

Yes, I support the band’s decision to pull out of the All Time Low tour and to not have Mike out there in case fans feel threatened or unsafe or whatnot, but if you’re pleading innocent, then honestly the whole band should’ve just said “hey we’re gonna go on hiatus for a while until our legal team’s finished with taking care of everything”, and not just said hey guys we’re gonna kick him out because he may or may not have done something that we’re not gonna tell you because we’re shady fuckers like that. I know they are on hiatus right now, but at the “start”, they only said that Mike would be withdrawing temporarily or whatever so it’s kind of like, okay? Sure? It’s a right mess I assure you. Honestly, throughout this whole incident, it was this statement part that made me really fed up with this band. My interest in them had died down significantly from since I hit fifteen all those three years ago, and right now when I dug up an old iPod shuffle to bring with me to university to save my phone battery throughout the day, I can honestly say that I won’t be adding any Pierce The Veil songs onto it anytime soon unless I get peer pressured to. Personally, I feel like that’s kind of the mentality of a lot of had-been Pierce The Veil fans, too.

That’s Great And All But What’s Your Point?

Pierce The Veil’s management sucks ass.

There’s no easy, lawsuit-prone way for me to say it but, and this is just a conspiracy theory I swear to god if I get the fucking ASIS kicking down my door in the middle of the night you better read the fucking disclaimer, there’s obviously some shady shit going on in there no matter what way you slice it. Either they’re sabotaging Pierce The Veil’s success or whether it’s all some big confusion or misunderstanding, or if they’re just plain dumb, we can all agree that this whole thing - the kellic fan service, album making, allegations and subsequent statements - should’ve and could’ve been handled a hell of a lot more gracefully and professionally. Believe it or not, waiting until things blow over is frankly just childish and solves literally nothing, so either they can pull their act together quickly with this next “special secret” album to redeem what little quality/dignity they have left, or they can just fade away into irrelevancy and become a band that no one cares about anymore.

History repeats itself. This band is quickly becoming just another Leafyishere, and as ominous as that sounds, it’s honestly not unlikely at this point. I am intrigued as to where they go from here, because if they manage to breakthrough again, then I would be very surprised given their current situation. I want to know how they choose to handle this - whether it’ll be the same or not, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Thank you so much if you read through this honestly like I am beyond happy that this is fucking over because I have a bunch of non-band related post essays I’ve been meaning to post but this one’s been nagging at the back of my mind for the past few months or however long it’s been. I’ve clocked in at around past 3k words for this one, and none of this is edited because I’m honestly so done with this you don’t understand. Like I said before, this took ages because I was gonna make another post talking about other shit that relates to this before realising that there’s way too many people that’ve addressed the whole YouTube thing so me doing it would literally be pointless, and even though no one really reads this shit, as big of a nerd as I am, I do enjoy writing bullshit because maybe then I’ll stop ranting to my friends and family about topics they don’t care about.

Regardless, that’s it for this two parter thing, and until next time or whatever.

Catch’ya x

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sosation · 3 years ago

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Volume is Power

The following is a transcript of my "Audio Liner Notes" for Volume is Power, the album I released earlier this year under the project titled Temporal Distortions.

The album can be purchased for free on my bandcamp here: https://temporaldistortions.bandcamp.com/

and it is available on all streaming services:

-https://open.spotify.com/album/3983Bepp9uxIv1pb9qaEwY?si=qWpTAozTS2ujMQ79R_FZZg&utm_source=copy-link

-https://music.apple.com/us/album/volume-is-power/1557283830?uo=4

and music videos are up on the Local Famous Records Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRIjOlGfx0M

Volume is Power

Transcript of Audio Liner Notes and Recommended Readings

Hi. My name is Anthony Sosa and you have just listened to Volume is Power. I hope you enjoyed it. I began actively writing for this record in December of 2019. Some of the musical ideas were written in previous bands going back as far as 2009 and others were written after I had started working on the record. As you know, 2020 was an insane year. So, as you can imagine, it affected the writing and conception of what we were working on. When I began writing lyrics it was the middle of the democratic primaries for President. I was a Bernie Sanders volunteer. I wanted to talk about issues in the US and around the world. But then COVID happened and George Floyd happened, and I had to talk about those things as well--If anything, to document this moment in time. Honestly, those events backed up what I already wanted to say with this record: Our system is broken.

Sonically, Volume is Power has a lot of specific influences that influenced specific songs. For each track I tried to lean into whatever influences were present at the time and treat each piece almost as a genre study, though the genres span a narrow spectrum along the “rock” continuum. Time -- was, and will continue to be, an important aspect of the project. Temporal Distortions are happening all around us all the time. This record is essentially a series of distortions, or songs, that span, temporally, from the mid 1990’s to the late 2000’s. There are also audio clips from the 1950’s and 60’s as well as from this historic summer of 2020. Songs from my past still inspire me in the present to create an album for the future which is now here. Now, this album will exist in the past for me but for you this is your present. Maybe, if I did my job right, and you are so inclined, it will inspire you to create something in your future.

I had intended to make this album available for free everywhere, but youtube and bandcamp are the only platforms where I can achieve that. You can always email [email protected] and we will send you a free digital copy.

In this Audio Liner Notes track I intend to give credit to all of the amazing artists who helped me create this record. I am honored and privileged to know and have the pleasure of working with so many amazing people and to all of you thank you for giving me your time and energy. Chief among these is Dale Brunson, my colleague and compatriot. I met Dale in 2009 when he was playing in Werewolf Therewolf and I was playing in Housefire and The Raven Charter. We’ve been friends ever since and in 2012 we started a Top 40 cover band called Sweetmeat who is still together as of this recording. Dale mixed and co-produced this record with me and without his patience, insight and guidance this record would have been impossible. I definitely threw him some curveballs throughout this process and he has handled all of it graciously.

I, now, am going to give a track by track breakdown of the record but I am not trying to spend too much time explaining or discussing lyrics. Those are for you to interpret how you will. I’m not great at insinuation, anyway, so I’m sure you get the point. I’d rather discuss the people on the tracks and the musical influences behind them. So:

Track 1 is titled Our Streets and begins with the voice of Rod “Teddy” Smith whom I met on the streets of Fort Worth during the protests this May-July. Rod and I, as well as Defense Attorney Michael Campbell, Christopher Rose and my wife, Amber, started a non-profit organization in the wake of these protests called The Justice Reform League with the goal of advocating for evidence based socio-economic and criminal justice policies at the municipal, state and federal levels and to empower impacted communities through civic education. I, personally, believe that there needs to be more effort put toward educating our community on how local politics actually works, how it impacts us, and how we can get involved and change things. So that is what we are trying to do. I also feel that music, or art in general, can be an educator and is one of the reasons I was inspired to write this record.

In regards to the opening clip with Rod, I actually have hours of footage from weeks of protests in May and June but this clip stuck out to me particularly because it evokes Fort Worth and the particular sentiment I was wanting to express with this record. The piano was played by me, recorded here at my house. At the end of the track are protest chants from one of the larger protest-days this past summer here in Fort Worth. My wife, Amber, and I marched for about 3 weeks before actually beginning to organize. On those later days of the protests I started carrying a battery powered PA speaker on my back in a doggie backpack with a mic and using that for chants and to further project those giving speeches. The album cover is a photo by local photographer Zach Burns capturing me doing just that. Zach being another awesome person I met this past summer. Before I move on, the real first voice (and last) you hear on the album, and multiple times throughout, is of Jordan Buckly of Every Time I Die- my favorite band. Early in the pandemic I paid Jordan $30 on Cameo to say “Temporal Distortions” and to “purchase” a shitty riff idea. I didn’t use the riff, it was god awful like he said, but I made some clips of him because it made me smile.

Track 2 is Daring Bravely.

This song was intended to be a The Raven Charter song and was introduced to the band near the very end of our time together. For those who don’t know, The Raven Charter is the most serious project I have ever been a part of. It was the most important thing in my life for many years. I am not going to use this time to give a history lesson on TRC, though that would be fun. Go check out our stuff if you’re into Prog Rock. So this thing kicked around on my hard drive since 2015, I recorded multiple demos with guitar, bass and drums, over the years and finally settled on a bridge. I didn’t actually write the lyrics until I began working on this album proper in Dec of 2019.

I had the awesome pleasure of doing this song with my boys Daniel Baskind and Erik Stolpe of TRC. Daniel wrote a beautiful solo for this track. It was exactly the energy the song needed and also sounds quintessential Daniel. As I stated at the beginning, I was leaning into the genre for each track and the genre on this track was “Ravencharter” and Daniel nailed it. And Erik, I truly feel, did an amazing job in making this song more than it was. The orchestration and production aspects of his writing for this track are spot on. He really got the vibe I was going for and took it even further. It was great to get to work with both of them again to recreate some of that magic we used to make. The audio clips are from Dr. Brené Brown and her TED Talk “The Power of Vulnerability” from Jan 3, 2011. Funny story about that. When my wife Amber and I first saw Brené’s TED Talks we really enjoyed the concepts she covered. We both came away from watching those remembering the phrase “Daring Bravely,” which is why I named the song that. I like those two words together and the concept they elicit. However, when researching for these Liner Notes I discovered that all along she was saying “Daring Greatly.” She even has a book with that title. So, we’ve been saying it wrong the whole time. Regardless, I prefer “Daring Bravely” because it requires bravery and courage to dare greatly and have confidence and believe in yourself. So be brave. Dare Bravely.

Track 3 is titled Division of Labor.

What radicalized me? Working in the service industry and learning history. This song is essentially an amalgamation of that. The line in the bridge is an Oscar Wilde quote. This was just a rando idea on the guitar that I recorded into my phone on new year's day 2019. Musically, the main guitar riff seemed to me Every Time I Die influenced but when I put drums and bass to it it ended up sounding more like At the Drive In or something, to me. My demo leaned into that a lot more than the finished product. This song definitely ended up in a different place than when I started working on it which is always fun and surprising. Workers rights are very important to me and I tried to put that into this song.

Track 4 is Pay for your own Exploitation.

This is another relatively recent idea recorded into my phone on the acoustic in October 2019. I remember when I did it because my friend and fellow musician/producer Randall C. Bradley from Delta Sound Studios came over and before we could even really greet each other I had to stop and say “hold on I have to record this idea before I forget.” It kinda had an Aerosmith vibe to me when I put it all together in the demo process for the record. Like 90’s Aerosmith. I dunno. I guess really the 90’s are smeared all over this album. Another temporal distortion. And then from the bridge on it goes all ETID. The “sex organs of the machine world” line at the beginning of the song is a Marshall McLuhan quote. The bridge vocals “Politics is war without bloodshed. War is politics with bloodshed,” I heard from Adolf Reed Jr. but I don’t know if he was quoting someone else.

I had the pleasure of working with Double Bear on this song - my Local Famous Records brethren. The gang vocals in the song are myself, Michael Garcia, Brandon Tyner, Garrett Bond, Matt Bardwell, Glenn Wallace, and Dale Brunson and we’re having a lot of fun, if you can’t tell. It makes me happy that we got to work together on this project and I imagine there will be more collabs down the road.

Track 5 is We Make the Past.

This song is essentially a Bush song, or was when I wrote it. Very Pixies influenced. Dale’s production took this a lot further than I imagined in the best way possible. I also showed up to the studio thinking my lyrics were finished but realized I was missing a second verse. The demo version was just like a minute and a half and I extrapolated the rest and got it wrong. Once that started I essentially re-wrote all the lyrics on the spot. The lyrics are meant to be scattered and random, like Gavin Rossdales’, though they come from a book by the late Hatian anthropologist and historian Michel-Rolp Trouillot. Bush was one of my favorite bands growing up in the mid-late 90’s and early oughts. I’ve always liked their raw energy and lyrical strangeness. (The same could be said for my love of The Mars Volta.) So this was my homage to Gavin, Nigel, Dave and Robin and shitty guitar playing. Also, I pronounced “His-tor-icity” wrong. I said histori-ocity and I don’t know why I didn't notice it until really late in the process. Same with “commodozation” instead of “commoditization” Oh well. Making up words is fun too.

Track 6 is Serve-Us Industry. This song was fun. It originally was going to be a new Huffer song. I had the pleasure of being a part of Huffer from 2015-2018 with Chea Cueavas and Jeremy Nelson, and we were working on a new album in 2017. Between Chea and myself we had about 10-13 ideas kicking around. This was one of the ones I had thrown out there. To me it had a Foo Fighters vibe, which makes sense because Chea and I were also playing in The Foo, our Foo Fighters cover band, a lot around that time. I just thought it would be fun to sing about all the mistakes that happen while working in the service industry and having to deal with customers. These lyrics made me laugh and sometimes that’s all you can do.

Track 7 is an interlude titled Employer vs Employee. This is a clip of David Griscom from the Michael Brooks Show episode 145 - Police & the ANC & We Need a Liberation Theology ft. William Shoki & Ronan Burtenshaw recorded on June 23, 2020. I really enjoy David and even though at the time of recording he has been living in Brooklyn for several years he has never forgotten Texas. His insight on economic issues and worker’s rights is immensely important. The underlying music on this track is just myself playing bass and guitar. A bass riff I had laying around for almost a decade.

The Michael Brooks Show has greatly impacted and influenced my life since I became a Patron in Dec of 2019. I wanted to take what was I learning from Michael, David and Matt and their guests and put it into music. Since Michael’s passing in July 2020, David and Matt Lech have gone on to create their own show Left Reckoning. Check them out for leftist theory and international news and analysis regarding the global left. As Americans, we all need a lot more international and historical perspectives.

Track 8 is titled Class Struggle.

This song was influenced by Silverchair's 1997 and 1999 albums Freakshow and Neon Ballroom. At least that’s kinda what I was going for tonally. The quote being shouted by Karl Marx from his Communist Manifesto, with a slight edit. In hindsight I probably should have use “their” instead of “his or her,” but it was an effort to use more inclusive language. I feel like most people hearing this will know that that was Marx, but if you don’t now you do. This track was originally written and proposed to Huffer as an idea in July 2017 but didn’t make it further than that. Dale plays the double stops in the middle of the song.

I suppose I should take this moment to say that this album is my first lyrical endeavor. I have written personal things in the past but never anything for any of the various bands and projects that I have been a part of, save one short lived hip-hop project back in 2010 I did with Aaron Anderson which was never released. So any idea that I “proposed” to any previous band was just music not lyrics. When trying to decide what to write lyrics about it became clear to me that politics and history was what I felt I needed to talk about. As a History teacher, and someone who studied history at the graduate level, I understand that not everyone learns history by reading historical monographs--but rather through pop-culture. So this is my contribution to pop-culture and I hope some people do learn some things by listening to this. And perhaps, then inspired to do some of their own research.

Track 9 is the Stoop Romans interlude.

These are 2 clips from two different performances of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The first is from the 1970 film and the second, I believe, is from the 1953 production. I got them from youtube and you ideally, got this for free, so hopefully no harm no foul. The piano is a repetition of the piano at the beginning of the album. And these clips, to me, summed up the sentiment of many in America in 2020.

That is another thing I want to take a moment to say. The creation of this record and the method of its release is a statement. I do not want to profit from this. That is not why I made it. I made it for the message and I want this message spread as much as possible and the best way to do that is to make it free. So it was a labor of love and I tried to reject the capitalistic game of “the hustle” that most musicians, and artists, are forced to play with their creations as much as possible. It is my gift to you and example that things can be done differently.

Track 10 is Imperialism get Fucking Bent.

Soooo I was reading a lot of Noam Chomsky at the time, what can I say. If you don’t know who that is look him up. He is an important intellectual whose perspectives on recent American history and economics are invaluable. This song was heavily influenced by ETID, though a lot more simple, and was written on the guitar in 2018.

Initially, when I began writing lyrics I wrote stuff about Magic the Gathering, of which I am an avid Commander player, at least before the pandemic. But the tone of the song didn’t match the lyrics so I scrapped them and started over. The clip in the middle of the song I got from the Congressional Dish Podcast hosted by Jen Briney, of who I am a Patron. She got it from the Senate Hearing: United States Strategy in Afghanistan, United States Senate Armed Services Committee, February 11, 2020. The two men speaking are Sen. Angus King (Maine) and Jack Keane: Chairman of the Institute for The Study of War who was appointed by John McCain when he was Chairman to the Congressional Committee on the National Defense Strategy.

If you want to know what congress is up to, which you should, then you should listen to that podcast, it is invaluable. The point of the clip is to demonstrate that these men acknowledge that we will be at war “indefinitely.” They said the quiet part out loud in an untelevised hearing of which at the end of they say essentially “let's not discuss this again publicly.” I’m not a journalist but this is me trying to do my part of getting this information out there. We, the American People, shouldn’t want “preventative war,” eternal war. IMO we should want no war unless all other options have been exhausted. Take those trillions of dollars of our money and give it back to us in the form of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and free college. Then there will be plenty of money left over to rebuild our infrastructure and provide Universal Basic Income. I believe a healthy and educated populus is crucial to a democracy. We need that in America, desperately. And it would be a lot easier to pay for all of that if we weren’t in Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And that is just for drone strikes. The U.S. military currently operates in 40% of the world’s nations including most of Africa and Central Asia. Check out the Smithsonian Magazine website for info on this. And read Chomsky. Book Recommendations are at the end.

Track 11 is Ka’s Dance. This is a straight up Stephen King love song. He wrote all the words and it’s the 2nd, 5th, and 8th stanzas from Song of Susannah, the 6th book in the Dark Tower series. The clip is from the audiobook narrated by George Guidall (gwidell). This song was another one that was influenced by ETID. Energetically, it reminds me of Jefferson Colby--the band I was in with Matt and Danny Mabe from 2010-2013. Those two have absolutely influenced the way I play and view music, as well as their father Mark Mabe-who taught me how to play bass. Anyway, that is a story for another day, I hope to collaborate with them again in the future. The clip at the end is Captain Janeway and Chekote from Star Trek Voyager.

Track 12 is You Opened My Eyes. I had the honor and the privilege of working with 3 amazing artists on this song: Tornup, Chill, and Canyon Kafer. Christopher Hill, AKA Chill, and I have known each other for years via Dale Brunson and we briefly worked together on a collaborative musician lottery competition thing titled DIG back in 2017 that never happened. I have always wanted to record with him and had a lot of fun doing so. He is one of the best drummers I know and his pocket gave this song the life it needed. Torry Finley AKA Tornup and I met on the streets this past summer of 2020 during the protests and I heard him speak at the public speaking event we held at Trinity Park-- and he moved me. Eventually, we started talking music and I found out he is a fellow musician and bass player as well, I thought “I definitely want to collaborate with this dude.” Fortunately, this opportunity presented itself and, as I am sure you can tell, this song wouldn’t be what it is without him. He performed the first verse. Canyon performed the sick bass solo before the final chorus and I am truly humbled and grateful to have all of these guys on this album.

Track 13 is Fight the Hegemony. This is by far the heaviest track on the album and I essentially shout out some of my influences in the lyrics. Thrice, Glassjaw, and The Used, Dream Theater, Cohoeed and Cambria and other early-mid 2000’s bands still have a big influence on me. My friend and colleague Chris Musso performed the drums on this track. Chris and I played together in Silverlode in 2004 and in The Raven Charter from 2005-2008. We still play together in the aforementioned Sweetmeat, with Dale, and I am super happy to get another opportunity to collaborate together again. As I mentioned earlier, I volunteered and canvassed for Bernie Sanders during the Democratic Primaries in 2020 and the lyrics in this song were inspired by his movement. Now that I am writing these Liner Notes in early 2021 I want to take a moment to reiterate and clarify-- in the wake of the attempted insurrection on January 6th--this song is NOT aiming to inspire violence nor an overthrow of the system by using violence. It is crystal clear to me now how people can read into things and take what they will. These lyrics are about the Bernie Sanders movement. Period.

Track 14 is Simp for the System (Free Market Capitalism Love Song). This is another one of those songs that, musically, was originally written for Huffer, well the bass part anyway. Chea and Jeremy, both had written completely different stuff but I didn’t want to rip them off so I rewrote it and made it as emo as possible. Brand New, was the band I had in mind, circa Deja Entendu. The lyrics are a joke. I was laughing out loud when I wrote them. I had considered just making it instrumental because for the longest time I couldn’t think of any lyrics to go with it. I didn’t want to do “real” emo but I couldn't think of anything else. Then I was like “ well, often these emo songs were about a girl. What if the girl wasn’t a girl but a system that people simp for all the time?” Ta-da. It was actually Dale who suggested the “Hey girl…” rant in the bridge and I think he was onto something. I hope you thought it was as funny as I did.

Track 15 is Cold War Nostalgia. This song is the oldest one on the record and has gone through the most changes- creating nostalgia for me on multiple levels. I wrote the original version in 2009 for my band Housefire. That version was more upbeat and the main verse riff was a dotted 8th note delay melody...very 2009… and Housefire broke up before it was properly recorded. I really liked the song and re-worked it several times on my own over 7 or 8 years until Huffer began working on our new record. I rewrote the track again to be more “Huffer'' sounding by making the bass carry the melody in the verses rather than the guitar. I also slowed it down quite a bit and went for a more rough sound (thinking Refused-esque) rather than polished, uber-compressed late 2000’s scene music. Chea and Jeremy weren’t that into it, and honestly even with the changes it didn’t sound like Huffer so we dropped it. Then, I picked it up again when I started working on this record and tried to put some words to it, and it has now become this sprawling lengthy piece. The original version was a tad over the 3 minute mark and it is now close to 7.

Lyrics were difficult at first. But because the song, for me, was oozing with nostalgia it seemed like a good topic to start with. I had written a paper in my final semester of Grad school in 2018 for a transnational history class about the Cold War- my area of study for my history degree. That paper is my proudest academic achievement to date, titled “National Narratives in Post Cold War America and the Former U.S.S.R.'' and was about the stories we tell ourselves. The ones we tell ourselves at the interpersonal level and the ones our culture, society and leaders tell us at the macro level--and how the totalitarian can affect those stories. This looked at Nostalgia of the Cold War and how that nostalgia is different for the US and the former Soviet states. All the lyrics from this song are taken from that paper- particularly from certain quotes that I quoted throughout. The first verse, starting with “Nostalgia then…” is either Olga Shevchnko or Maya Nadkarni (both are cited) in 2013 from Kevin Platt’s article “Russian Empire of Post-Socialist Nostalgia and Soviet Retro at the New Wave Competition” published in the Russian Review issue 72 no 3. The second verses’ “Does human nature undergo a true change in the cauldron of totalitarian violence?” is from a book titled “Life and Fate” by Vassilli Grossman-- an epic novel about Stalin written in 1960 from someone who lived under him. The only reason it was published was because a friend of Grossman smuggled a copy out of the USSR into the west. One of the few published examples from that period of people questioning the totalitarian state from the inside.

I encourage anyone interested in the full paper to read it, it can be found on my Tumblr blog- Sosations Transmissions.

Now, you may notice that there is phenomenal guitar playing on this track. That is the work of my very good friend Glenn Wallace. Glenn is one of the best guitarists I know. He and I met back in 2004 via Daniel Baskind, Erik Stolpe and Chris Musso from Silverlode and The Raven Charter. The only time we have had the pleasure of playing, or sharing the stage together was in Housefire, so I was thrilled when he agreed to do this song. Glenn was our 3rd and final lead guitarist in the band before we broke up, (following Eddie Delgado and Dusty Brooks). There actually is a video on youtube of one show we played at The Boiler Room in Denton from mid-late 2009. Getting him on this track was something that I had been thinking about for a while but the opportunity finally arose when Glenn, Dale and myself, along with the Double Bear guys: Michael Garcia, Brandon Tyner, Garrett Bond and Matt Bardwell, as well as Erik Stolpe and the resourceful Tanner Hux, decided to start our own record label: Local Famous Records. Now that this relationship has solidified you can expect much more collaboration from all of us as well as more records like this one. Starting a record label with friends has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life and I highly recommend that you try it.

Track 16 is “Be ruthless with institutions, be kind to each other” - is the final track on the album and is a brief quote from the late Michael Brooks from his talk at Harvard University titled: “Michael Brooks MLK Jr. and Love and Power | Class Warfare | Harvard” from the Harvard College YDSA youtube page, recorded on Feb 1st. 2020. I had written a blog about Michael’s passing and how important he was to me personally and to the progressive movement in America today and in the world , and it can be read at the aforementioned Tumblr. I had set this clip aside to put on this record back in May or June of 2020 but after Michael’s passing in July it became clear to me that I would close the record with this sentiment. “Be ruthless with institutions, be kind to each other” is an affirmation I will carry with me for the rest of my life and I will proselytize this message wherever I go. Humans over entities. Always. “The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over all laws and institutions.” As far as the music for this track, it was just me pulling something out of my ass to go under the quote and I did it in one take, on an untuned shitty acoustic (for those familiar, the one from high school and college with the Albino squirrel sticker on it.) I recorded the guitar without any accompaniment into a handheld recording device and just got really lucky that it was an appropriate length. I was going for a Dashboard Confessional vibe and I think I got it.

So that is Volume is Power. Thank you to everyone who helped me create this thing and to those who supported me along the way. I am forever grateful.

Thank you to my wife, Amber, for without her this would not be possible. You are my superhero-bird-watcher, my anchor, my guiding light, my soulmate. Thank you for inspiring me to dare bravely.

Thank you to my parents for allowing me to follow my dreams and drop out of college to pursue a career in music. I know it didn’t make you happy at the time but you believed in me anyway. And thanks for not saying “I told you so” when I decided to go back to school 3 years later.

Thank you to my brother David for all the love and support over the years. For your artistic contribution on Daring Bravely. And for always having the courage to be you.

Thank you to Samantha, Lauren and Matt, for being so supportive all these years. I couldn’t ask for a better step-family.

Thank you to Dale for making this record happen, putting all the work into it that you did, and for putting up with my bullshit.

Thank you to every musician I have had the pleasure of playing with, on or off the stage.

Thank you to Aaron Anderson, Jason Dixon, Andrew Del Real and Anthony Davis for being the first band of dudes I got to do real shit with.

Thank you to the Silverlode/Solace Prime/ The Raven Charter guys: Daniel Baskind, Erik Stolpe, Brandon and Garrett Bond, Brian Christie, Chris Musso, Stephen Thacker, and Brandon Bailey. You guys are my brothers.

Thank you to the guys in Dreams Like Fire, who I only had a brief stint with in 2007 but learned so much from: Alan Mabe, Dathan Martin, Ryan Moody, and Kyle Istook.

Thank you to the Mabe Family for treating me like family and for--literally--teaching me how to rock: Mark Mabe, Matt Mabe, Danny Mabe, Chris Mabe and the beloved Terri Mabe.

Thank you to Chea and Jeremy from Huffer for bringing me into your lives and music. I am so glad we got to do what we did.

Thank you to Neal Todnem and Justin Jordan for being awesome roommates and apart of memories that I will always cherish and for our Tsegull Tsunami.

Thank you to Ben Napier for being a good friend, and at times mentor, and for asking me to be your Bogus “Green Day” cover band. I appreciate our time together.

Thank you to Ansley Dougherty, Nick Wittwer and Scott White for making our rage Against the Machine cover band a real thing, even if only for 2 practices. And to Scott for being my headbang partner at our The Foo and the Kombucha Mushroom people shows. And for trusting me to record some of your demos.

Thank you to Randall Bradley for being such a good friend. I value our talks and our jams and always look forward to hearing that you are in town from Argentina. Your perspective is unique and important.

Thank you to Cody Lee and the 27’s for involving me in your record and to Jaryth Webber for being a badass academic colleague, a badass musician, and for introducing me to Congressional Dish.

Thank you to Ben C Jones for the opportunity to work together on your music.

Thank you to Daniel Kunda for the opportunity to be apart of what you’re creating and for, at times, letting me be your sensei. Your future is bright.

Thank you to Chill, Torry Finley and Canyon Kafer for taking You Opened My Eyes above and beyond where I possibly ever could have. I hope we can do it more in the future.

Thank you to all my Local Famous brothers: Dale, Garrett, Michael, Brandon, Glenn, Matt, Erik and Tanner, for believing in this thing with me and making it a reality.

Thank you to Collin Porter for being a good friend and letting me bounce creative and political ideas off you. I truly value our conversations.

Thank you to Ryan Smith for always being a good friend and for our jammy jams.

Thank you to the bands that invited any of my bands on the road with them over the years--you guys helped make my dreams a reality: Matt and Mike LoCoco, and Danny Borja from Transit Method in Austin; Nick Barton, Trey Landis, and Justin Huggins from Sleepwalking Home in Tulsa, and Johnny Hawkins, Mark Vollelunga, and Daniel Oliver from San Antonio’s Nothingmore. The memories I have from those shows and trips are truly priceless and I am thankful to have those experiences to look back on.

Thank you to Dr. Johnny Stein, Dr. Joyce Goldberg, Dr. Christopher Morris, Dr. Patryk Babiracki, and Dr. Andrew Milson at the University of Texas at Arlington for greatly influencing my historical knowledge and thought that has influenced the making of this record.

Thank you to all co-founders of The Justice Reform League: Amber, Christopher Rose, Rod Smith, and Michael Campbell. And to Thomas Moore from no Sleep till Justice. I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to start a nonprofit with and I look forward to our future.

Thank you to Michael Brooks, Hank and John Green, Dr. Cornel West, Slavoj Žižek, Dr. Kevin Dunn, Dr. Richard Wolff, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Fred Hampton, Rita Starpattern and Edward Snowden for being my exemplars, always daring bravely and inspiring me to do the same.

And thank YOU for taking the time to listen to the songs, and this Audio Liner Notes track. If you are unfamiliar with any of the influences I have mentioned over the course of this I encourage you to go listen. And if those bands resonate with you, find out who influenced them- you’ll find more awesome music, more temporal distortions, if you will. I hope you find some inspiration to create your own work, whatever that may be, and to put it out into the world.

Dare Bravely. Salut.

Anthony Sosa

12-6-2020

(Updated 2-6-2021)