AMERICAN CULTURE - Hey Brother, It's Been a While
You don’t need to be super plugged in to realize that Denver, Colorado has been having a moment in the last few years. A lot of it revolves around the label Convulse Records (GEL, MSPAINT, MILITARIE GUN…) and that scene birthed some awesome bands such as PUBLIC OPINION, DIRECT THREAT, CANDY APPLE and now AMERICAN CULTURE.
The album opens with local ambient-pop artist MIDWIFE, whose ethereal vocals are unmistakable, featured prominently on the song. A surprising choice and not her only appearance on the record. Anything that’s outside the box in Punk is often referred to as ambitious or pompous (I gave up trying to defend FUCKED UP), and this record doesn’t feel like that, but is definitely taking you in unexpected places. While rooted in Punk, AMERICAN CULTURE takes musical cues from lower-tiered Britpop (I love THE BOO RADLEYS personally) and 70’s powerpop. The latter I’m not as well-versed in but I could definitely see scrawny dudes in button-up shirts playing these riffs on weirdly-shaped guitars with much less gusto. Instead, the band brings sort of a slacker vibe thanks to the storytelling-like delivery of the vocals. And Frankly, the songs have no business being this good. The main point of reference for me would be a sobered-up THE STONE ROSES, but I feel like anybody into current bands like YOUNG GUV or HOTLINE TNT could easily get into this record. Perfect driving music in my opinion.
I haven’t dived into the concept of the record too much but it seems to revolve around one of the members having some sort of breakdown, going off the grid; and how his sudden disappearance and later resurfacing impacted his life and the people around him.
A member of the band brought me a copy to the show when my band played Denver, CO a couple weeks ago. I didn’t know the details of the story behind the record until reading the insert and it gives the record a lot of context. I thought I’d share it here:
If you had told me a year ago that in the Fall of 2023 we would be wrapping up a new American Culture album I wouldn't have believed you and honestly you wouldn't have been able to tell me because I was one of the countless homeless addicts in Las Vegas, stealing beer to sell on the strip and panhandling for drug money, sleeping in the network of tunnels beneath the city. To the public I was "missing". To my family and friends I was assumed lost to my addiction and feared dead from overdose/worse.
I'd struggled with heroin addiction for a little more than the 9 years I've been in this band. For much of the last decade I lived a double life; months of using— then cleaning up to go on tour with as many as 8 different bands in a year. Playing/throwing shows- then using in the down time. I thought I could control it and vowed to never let it get in the way of music.
That vow was broken during the COVID lockdowns when I was cutoff from the punk/DIY community that l'd dedicated almost 20 years of my life to, that I'd relied on to keep me sane, that was the lifeboat preventing me from drowning in my addiction. In its absence I relapsed after a decent stretch of being clean. Without shows/tours/band practice I sunk deeper than ever before. By the time concerts started happening again I was using IV fentanyl and dealing to support my habit.
Things got messy. My friends and family were scared. In May of 2022 | ended up in detox in California. To say the least, it didn't stick. I was out of money so my dealer out there fronted me a large quantity of drugs to drive back to Denver and sell. I stopped in Vegas for what was supposed to be one night. That night I was robbed at gunpoint. For the next few days I was held against my will in a sketchy motel at the end of the strip. My car was impounded. I was assaulted. My music gear and everything else was stolen or lost. Unable to wrap my head around losing virtually everything I owned, exhausted, ashamed— I gave up. It seemed inevitable to me that the rest of my life would revolve around using.
After three months of searching (and grieving what should have been an inevitable loss) my family and Chris got lucky and received a lead on my location. Two nights after Halloween 2022, I heard from someone I knew on the streets that my parents were there looking for me. By that point, in addition to a life threatening addiction, I was in a wheelchair, had sepsis, covid, and nerve damage in my hand. I was close to death— Circling the drain. The next morning I borrowed a phone in the lobby of the Venetian Hotel and Casino. 24 hours later I was headed to my parents house. That was November 3rd 2022. I've been clean since November 8th '22. In February, Chris, who along with Lucas and Scott had assumed I was dead and spent the summer grieving, flew out to visit me. To see a ghost— "Hey brother, it's been a while". That week we wrote two of the songs on this album. This album contains lyrics inspired by what I experienced before and after I got back from Vegas (on tracks like 'Body Double' and 'Survive'), as well as Chris's experience not knowing if I was dead/alive and coming to terms with what happened (on tracks like 'LostPuppy' and 'Human Kindness').
Moments of this record offer a glimpse at the ugly world of addiction/crime/homelessness, an all-too-common facet of 'American Culture' today. However, what this album represents to me is something much less common, something beautiful— the end of an extremely dark chapter of my life and (thanks to the patience and support of my family and friends, my bandmates and the DIY/punk community) a new beginning.
- Michael Stein
Released on Convulse Records. Listen here: https://convulserecords.bandcamp.com/album/hey-brother-its-been-a-while
duskbringer
by Nab