Burn The Earth! Leave It Behind!

Pat the Bunny was a transient: a freight train hoppin', pill poppin' anarcho-punk. He was as pissed off as he was intelligent, which is to say very. Pat left his hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont as a teenager to live the life of a vagabond and share his acoustic punk rock songs with anyone who gave a shit. Pat, née Patrick Schneeweis, performed as both Johnny Hobo & the Freight Trains and Wingnut Dishwashers Union. While he has all but disappeared since entering year-long treatment for addiction, his music found its way into my life rather recently.

Burn the Earth! Leave It Behind is an album that will slowly scratch itself into your psyche, and your soul. His songs are both clairvoyant and caliginous: he expresses and articulates his anger at unjust social norms, while remaining cryptic about his own personal life. After my first listen, I felt as if I knew Pat the Anarchist. But it wasn't until my upteenth listen that I began to understand Pat the Human. An anxious, sensitive, whip-smart fuck up.

Pat's music makes me question myself, my beliefs and values. But it's also really fun and catchy as fuck. The anarchistic rantings of a homeless man never sounded so good.

Download Burn the Earth! Leave It Behind

Jihaaaaad

Andrew Jackson Jihad sound like Woody Guthrie's bastard son.
And that's a damn good thing.
AJJ play straight up folk-punk: earnest and unplugged yet gritty and raw. Its two core members, Sean Bonnette (guitar / vox) and Ben Gallaty (bass), have worked with a slew of constantly alternating musicians since the band's 2004 inception. Bonnette, who strums his acoustic axe with string-popping intensity, has a knack for writing confessional songs about his love / hate relationship with Parliament cigarettes and his antipathy towards hipsters, as well as the abusive stepdad who fucked up his childhood. He admittedly sounds a lot like the dude from Neutral Milk Hotel - which kinda make sense, considering AJJ released a pitch-perfect cover of "Two-Headed Boy". Sean's songs tightrope-walk the line between personal and political - exploring both intimate and far-reaching topics with intelligence and humor. The Arizona-based band decries Immigration SB 1070 Law on their excellent "Lady Liberty".

Needless to say: their latest release, 2009's Can't Maintain, is pretty killer.

Download their magnum opus: People Who Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World