HUNGER ANTHEM ~ CELEBRATING NEED LOUD & SOFT

If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

~ Elizabeth Bishop from the poem At the Fishhouses

A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.

To do something very common, in my own way.

~ Adrienne Rich (author of A Dream Of A Common Language) from the poem A Valediction Forbidding Mourning


Hunger Anthem is stark in it's tinsel thin rock songs, and naked-to-the-bone folk rock lyricism. Need seeps out through every line. Brendan J. Vaganek's lines to time tap into the unrequited love of communication and the dream of a common language. He sends out clusters of meaning in phrases like tiny hammers hurled through the "your violence of underrated silence" despite the prevailing "crisis of confidence" to all us folk "banished unto the earth." He has seen the present and it doesn't work. He may be a kin to Sonic Youth. The music matches the message with crisp pop rock power chords recorded XTC thin like early Pete Townsend on a Marshall with a busted bass knob. Each rock song feels like a demo chopping chords on tuned telephone wires beaten with a restless pick. The folk rock songs bare all simple as Seeger with a tension in the sweet and sour descriptions full of pop glitz and hurt into poetry. The surprise filling to this Horehound Drop of a confection is hope itself unspoken. Must be more or there wouldn't be any point in pointing. Taken as a whole, Hunger Anthem is an album in search of a common language. Maybe you can't buy a ticket to the future, but it comes up like a second chance every day. Take a look at those significant new purchases in your arsenal of things to fix the emptiness. Ask the repeated broken question of the album: "What were you thinking now?"

Maybe it's a coincidence, but I hear a direct voice on Hunger Anthem close to what I hear on my new copy of Gang of Four's Entertainment!. I bought that treasured import this week at the Sidewinder coffee shop from the stack just about to be sold at Shake-It to fund a move outa town. Now that's a band Kurt Cobain praised, but who maybe didn't get played on your Clear Channel radio. Hunger Anthem and Gang of Four seem to speak directly to the listener like a plea for reason. And their message is often that something missing in the lyric. Comparisons are the bleakest form of review, but there's something in the language and pared down feeling shared by Entertainment! and Hunger Anthem, and that's high praise. A critique on culture you can dance to is worth my buck any day. It's not a lyric style chosen on advice from A&R men and marketing managers. Once in a while it's good to choose a record that feels like it was sung off a college ruled page alone in a studio. Fact is, every CD is just somebody with a pen and a pick too dissatisfied to stay quiet and play along with what they hear on their TVs. Just some guy with something to say is all it ever is.

Cut to the acoustic message songs and you'll hear a voice sincere as Pete Seeger's crying out for some sort of clean communication in a dumbed by screens. Brendan felt his way through these songs with a English major's sense of cracked meaning. I'm anxious for the state of man listening to this album, though every song is set in the comfortable nouveau pop or acoustic folk rock. This album sounds homemade. This album is personal enough to feel like Brendan is just a guy with a need to tell his story loud with loner's look on why things don't work. Green Day used to sound like that.

The name Hunger Anthem sets the tone as the songbook of a man concerned with what merchandise and common wisdom we need to feel free, which stuff can't help us. That band name is a celebration of the hungry consumer half-life learned from ruthless admen selling the idea of satisfaction stamped on brand name happiness. This music here is a hollow bucket for the emptiness left at the bottom of the box we live in and a hidden pointer to the hope might be the prize if we could find it. Listening alone in a room increases my dissatisfaction with post-free Amerikan excuses for bad behavior and pabulum spouting advice mongers from the White House and the House of Oprah, whichever may be more powerful. The language of this album recognizes the necessity of absurd and oxymoronic speech to power. This album is a story worth telling not the least for its open-hearted malcontented charm. The intended audience are all those of us banished unto the earth. Feels like that to me.


THE SONGS:



1. A SPECIAL UNDOING
(by

J.Vaganek)

cracking the ice from a harsh winter
setting my sights into spring
what in the world can I tell you about this
I don't remember a thing
mercury eyes and neck high up in need
make the necessary incision please
do you need me to wait out here all night
underneath all the July Christmas lights
evidently and irrationally
a special undoing left here just for me
I hold the key to an unlocked door
there is a secret inside
I will enter it I'll offer my hand out
then I'll blow this world open wide
a tornado of misplaced energy
nothing is difficult as simplicity
I could tell you everything is just fine
but I don't have the heart to lie tonight
I can see all the holes happiness brings
I confess without giving up a thing
I am a threat unglued
I am undead to you
I am a lie untrue
I see it through and through



2. CHALK OUTLINE
(by

J.Vaganek)

this is a crisis of confidence
these are the dimensions of hope
this is my head down in earnest prayer
inside a punch drunk jugular daymare
I carry the cross made by my own mistakes
I'll open my ears to what you have to say
forgive you because you know not what you do
harlots in handshakes
maggots in milkshakes
second and third takes
just can't get this right
a seeker of faith in a bloody fistfight
I'm starving for you so I took a big bite
you don't even know that I'm thinking of you
comical romantic
left of the Atlantic
I'm doing odd time outside this chalk outline



3. DESIRE
(by

J.Vaganek)

I don't think I mistook you for another
don't believe that would ever come to be
when I need you I know where I can look for you
when you need me you know just where I'll be
why don't you tell me what you really want
why don't you tell me what you really need
here is your chance to bear the wrecking ball
here is your chance to damage all that you desire




4. UNDERRATED SILENCE
(by

J.Vaganek)

I live in an imperfect world
with all the little boys and girls
so noisy and confusing
I dove into a black hole
of leprosy broken glass
and cut up the skin on my feet
disease of a honey cloud
the color of chardonnay
the grip of a long forgotten handshake
interrupted vagrancy
be careful that they can't see
your violence of underrated silence
I'm looking for a place to stay
a place we can sit and talk
and stare at the cracked ceiling
I called you from a payphone
as usual you weren't home
so I hung up and walked away




5. GRETCHEN
(by

J.Vaganek)

it's ok gretchen
you made a connection
you gave it a chance
and that was all you could do
yesterday felt bad
it kind of made you mad
to see all the white coats looking in at you
they're taking their notes
and they're making their jokes man
but I know you better
why have you gone away
is it them or is it you
when we were eight
you were the sun in my world
you were so cool for a girl
and that was all that we knew
now it's so different
we both have our own ways
we both have our own days
and not enough time
is it them or is it you
you just can't really dress up like the devil
go to church and shoot your gun right at the priest
tell me how tell me why you ever did it
was it something that you had to get across
and what were you thinking of
it's ok gretchen
you made a connection
you gave it a chance
and that was all you could do
one day you'll get by
you'll sit down and think back
I need you to do that
don't forget about me




6. MANTLE MATCHES
(by

J.Vaganek)

late at night I was sitting here reading
about parasites and their habits of feeding
suddenly the light that kept my page lit
flickered off and left me in the darkness
to fumble around for a candle
and matches I left on the mantle the other day
the hours went by and I started to get cold
I put on a sweatshirt and two pairs of socks
I heard the phone ring but I couldn't see it
by the time I got there the ringing had stopped
I wondered if it was you calling
as I was tripping up and falling on my chair
it got so dark
I got so sleepy
wearing a hat now under the blankets
trapped in a room I can see my breath in
if you were here we would have so much fun
I'd tell you a good horror story
and embellish all of the gory details too
I wondered if it was you calling
as I was tripping up and falling on my chair




7. COLOR
(by

J.Vaganek)

coloring books are neat but I'm never satisfied
underneath an old tree in a storm of friendly smiles
I try to fill the page with a jumbo box of crayons
I'll trade you for a red one I got too many blues
I bought two of them
and set one on the top shelf
for when I see things differently sometime
grass in a tint of purple wind in a shade of black
I lent out all my oranges and now I miss the bitter skin
square beneath my circle underneath my feet
I can't help myself from thinking coloring books are neat
if it's not too late and you think you can come over
I'll share a page with you and who knows maybe two
I don't even mind if you go way out of the lines
as long as it comes out the way you need it to be
I bought two of them
and set one on the top shelf
for when I see things differently
color how you want
spit or use a paintbrush
I know you see things differently than me




8. NOVEMBER
(by

J.Vaganek)

what good has come from this
this decaying truckload of memories
I sit in this room for hours
with two dozen dead flowers
and I wish I could remember
what carried me through this November
I'll leave your place at the table
as long as I can stand it
and tonight I'll sleep once again
and dream of earthquakes and tornados
and I'll wake up in the morning
with another life left behind
far off in the distance
just waiting there for me to find




9. TEN TO ZERO
(by

J.Vaganek)

smashing my head to the floor
bleaching my bloodshot eyes
decay in the name of the father
I don't know why I even bother
raising the dead on the last day
I wonder how but he won't say
turn all the water into wine
so I can be drunk all of the time
take me from ten to zero
and when we collide hold on tight
the giver will give the mender will mend
the taker will take as a means to an end
I talk to myself all the time now
got into the straitjacket somehow
I'll stare at the wall in the meantime
until I can breathe in the sunshine




10. EMPTY GLASS
(by

J.Vaganek)

another hopeless afternoon
and I sit here by myself
empty heart and a bottle of vodka
empty glass cause I can't live without you
so what if I'm much too high
so what if I lose control
so what if I can't pretend
do you think you're helping me
with your frigid axe of kindness
on a shoestring masquerade
holier than your sacred blindness
so what if I can't pretend myself to you today
so what if I don't care
so what if I've been there
so what if I can't crawl back from this dismay
another hopeless
another endless
another weightless
I can't take this
I won't do this
it's just the way it is you say
but I say that it's just the way it ends


11. WORM
(by

J.Vaganek)

I'll never cry at your funeral
even though I thought I knew you well
I listen to bugs on my windowsill
I am a square and you are a circular peg
turning my back I say go your way
don't worry about all of the accidents
there isn't a thing that you can do about
happening things
even when they happen to you
be careful wishing well
to all of your neighbors doomed to hell
seal up the garage start up the old car
I go too far
you have a skull I have a wooden bat
don't get me wrong I wouldn't dream of that
or maybe I would
so maybe you should leave me alone
you are a bird and I am a dirty worm
cut me apart and watch all my pieces squirm
here is a hook hanging from the back of my neck




12. FOUR WALLS
(by

J.Vaganek)

my illusion doesn't live here anymore
I threw it down the stairs and locked the cellar door
so the dogs rip it apart
there is something that I meant to say to you
I can't remember now it must be all the glue that I sniffed
when I was growing up
from the heights of mountain whites
the air that cradles me is quite elusive
trinity blasphemy
but either way the words are quite conclusive
now I've come to take the burden of this task
coincidentally it's funny you should ask
a broken fall is all that we can expect
I forgot to lock the door the other day
I was robbed and left with nothing but the paint that I applied
on the four walls around me




13. ERASE
(by