Antillectual

Remember that ‘new’ Guns n’ Roses album? Not so happy how it turned out? Neither were we, and we somehow managed to link our discontent to the uprise of the economies in the Orient. Seriously though, this song is about the effects of the ever growing economies on that side of the world on the western world. To put it in Johan Cruijff’s words: “to every advantage, there is a disadvantage” (or something … ).

Our guest is Lenneke Knape. She works with bands like NOFX and Blink 182, runs Rockit Promotions, used to host “Witlof” on KinkFM and was kind enough to share some of her experience with us while we were planning the release of our album. Our appearance at the Groezrock festival earlier this year for example was largely thanks to her efforts.

Please read on, enjoy the song and feel free to share it with your friends.

Skip to: Special Guest / Lyrics / Liner Notes

Lenneke Knape says

When Antillectual approached me some time back to ask if I could help them bringing their plans to the next level I was thrilled. They’ve been around for such a long time that, if you are the least interested in punk rock music you must have been living in a cave if you haven’t heard about them yet. Obviously they are one of the most hard working bands in the scene around here. For me they are also the most political minded band I’ve ever worked with. However, don’t expect any clever lines on politics from me, I grew up on bands like Fear, Social Distortion, NOFX, Blink182 and the first band I worked with were the Vandals.

Nevertheless I have deep respect for their devotion and passion for the subject. I’d like to take advantage of this opportunity to write something to go with the release of their track “Chinese Takeover” to reach out to all of you working in the industry and all of you loving and living music, to help these guys to get their name out there, to get them booked on every stage in the entire world. They will seriously rock their hearts out.

My wish for them is that all of you will find out what I found out, which is that Antillectual is not only a very good band who produce awesome albums, care about the world, and are the sweetest guys around, mainly they are an asset to punk rock music these days and I want everybody to be aware of that.

Lyrics

Take a look at our economy
Take a look at our politics
Take a look at our morality
What a chance to progress

A Western world at sixes and sevens
Now is the time
To push over what is staggering
And welcome the new paradigm

Crisis

Opportunities for others
The orient knocking on our door
Claiming what is theirs
And a final closure of colonization

But to every advantage
There is a disadvantage
Together with their takeaway
We import and accept their standards

Chinese democracy doesn’t sound that good to me

Liner Notes

The balances in the world are shifting. The powers that were are no longer the powers that will be. In Asia there are countries whose economies are growing even faster than their population. And with their economies, their political power is increasing enormously as well. Hopefully the new balance will be a more equal balance than before, bringing wealth and freedom to regions that have been colonized and oppressed in the past.

Too much power for one country or one particular group of countries is never healthy. If the balance flips over to the other side we have to be on our toes. Because Chinese democracy is not only a terrible record. Our moral standards are not the same as other societies’ standards. We should be on the lookout for not only the economic takeover that so many people fear, but also for a moral takeover: disrespect for human and animal life and environmental abuse.
On the other hand: there is so much more we can learn and take over from the east than just their takeaway. It also is an opportunity for us to grow.

That’s it for this week’s song. We’ll be back next week with a track that was written by good old Yvo, D-beat lovers beware!

You may or may not have noticed that a few shows have disappeared from our schedule. We were supposed to play a show with our fresh label buddies Dead To Me in Luzern on october 1st. Unfortunately, Switzerland is a little too far away to just drive down and back for 1 show, and we ended up being too late to book a few shows on the way down and back. We’d really have loved to play that show, but it just didn’t work on this short notice. Many thanks go out to Alain from Sumsrecords for trying to find us shows. And don’t worry: we will come back to Switzerland. The Dead to Me show in Luzern is still happening, just not with us. To those attending the show: enjoy!

“That song with that AC/DC riff …” is the reference most used by others to describe this song. I consider that a big compliment. But this song has more, I hope. Even though it is a seemingly endless discussion, through this song we try to give the definite conclusion on eating meat and/or dairy products. Not. But maybe Marnix (CEO of the influential Dutch punk portal Punx.nl) can stir your mind.
Please read on, enjoy the song and feel free to share it with your friends.

Skip to: Special Guest / Lyrics / Liner Notes

Marnix says

Even though I have quite a lot of friends who uphold the vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, I’ve always been a real omnivore. That doesn’t mean I don’t eat vegetarian or vegan food, but hardly ever out of my own considerations. When I was on tour with Antillectual – Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal with the mighty Pieter Petit – I didn’t eat any meat for two weeks or so without giving it any thought whatsoever. After the tour I decided to stop eating meat during weekdays and try and eat less meat in the weekends.

Typical for the new Antillectual songs is that they’re a lot more catchy than the old ones. ‘Some of My Best Friends Are Meat Eaters’ was one of those new songs that immediately kinda stuck in my head. The song is, at least as I see it, about (meat) consumption and not pretending you’re a better person because you don’t eat meat even though it’s a respectable decision. It has always been typical for the lyrical content to have a certain message and this song has at least reached one person to take a more positive stance in life.

Lyrics

“It’s dead already”
“As if you make a difference”
“You don’t know what you’re missing”
“It’s in our nature”

Inconsistency galore
Bullfights nay, slaughtering OK?
Double standards the norm
Fur pelts nay, leather jackets OK?

Let’s get this done
Take the next step, emancipate
Beware of sliding scales and slippery slopes
Pamela Anderson, Weird Al Yankovic, Hitler and Meatloaf can’t be wrong
Join the club, enter our sky box

Moral crusaders
Shout down to the plebs
A call to morality, the always effective
“It’s in your own best interest”

Somewhere halfway it’s me
Climbing the slope
Together with the rest of us
So far to go

Join the club

Liner Notes

This is an ode to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. This is not about vegetarians being “better” than meat eaters or vegans being better than vegetarians. This is not meant to be another brick on the endless wall that some people build up in the annoying discussion between the pros and cons of using animal products. Making the choice to become vegetarian/vegan should be a personal choice, made by someone himself, coming from one’s own insights. But if someone makes that choice I think that is praiseworthy. A conscious choice to increase the quality of animals’ lives is a good choice. So are vegetarians/vegans better people than meat-eaters? Nope, but I do think they made a better choice in their lives.

Apologies to all feminists, Germans and to people with a sense of humor and musical taste for referring to Pamela Anderson, Weird Al Yankovic, Hitler and Meatloaf. All for better lives of animals. In our quest to insult as many people as possible: Chinese people are up next week.

Since we posted that song with Chris Hannah, there’s been quite some buzz around the online punk community. First of all, a lot of great responses ranging from “holy shit” and “awesome” to “why hadn’t I ever heard about this band?” (us, not Propagandhi). Secondly, quite some Propagandhi adepts decided to check out our music. Thanks for that! Besides all that, there’s also been quite some discussion. On our own site, on Propagandhi’s facebook page, on punknews.org and their own podcast.

Feel free to check out the song and an excerpt from the punknews podcast:

The song

The podcast

Anywho, we’re flattered to hear so much discussion about this song going on, and we’d like to clarify some misunderstandings about it’s contents.

This song is partly about skate culture indeed. But the skate culture is an example of (or a metaphor for, if you wish) subculture and counter culture in general, including the punk/hardcore scene. These cultures came into existence because people didn’t feel welcome or didn’t want to participate in mainstream sports or culture. So indeed, this song is about distinction rather than unity. But that can be a good thing! Second; the fact that subcultures partly exist by the grace of gadgets, fashion items and other commodities doesn’t mean that this is desirable nor that subcultures can not exist without them. That’s too easy and fatalist in my opinion. It’s not a given and we can change it if we want.

The new anti-squatting law will become active on October 1st, next Friday. To “celebrate” that, there will be a “Nood Kraakt Wet” demonstration in Nijmegen on October 2nd, next Saturday. The demonstration will start at 1300h at the Joris Ivensplein in Nijmegen. Bring your mom, pets and carnavalskrakers. Former and current (and future?) Antillectual members will be present, for the CAUSE!

More info can be found here (Dutch & English).

Kraken gaat door!