“America is a pyramid scheme, and you are not at the top”
Only a few albums breathe life into you with the first line of Dead pioneers The album of the same name is a firework of loud music and indigenous politics; the debut release of the performance artist and singer Greg Deal with his powerful guitar band Josh Rivera And Abe Brennandrummer Shane Zweygardt and bassist Lee Tesche. This is a stunning calling card that clocks in at less than 30 minutes and takes your breath away with the sheer volume of thoughts, concepts and humor. It’s a furious collage of spoken word, punk posturing and TED Talk that proclaims, “We were punk first.”
Gregg Deal says: “Although early punk may not have been talking about us specifically, the overall feeling is the same. But when we talk about individuality, personal identity, and wearing things that go against mainstream styles or mores in what we call the United States of America and Canada? Yes, we were the first to do it. The first mohawks. The first fights. The first disenfranchisement.”
One of the most striking features of the album is that it both raises questions and provokes a smile; “Bad Indian” is the most outstanding example (you can find the video at the bottom of the article). It is about “the Euro attitude“Arrogance of people who”so sure about their place in the universe, their place in the world, their place in the eyes of Godthat they impose the usual stereotypes on Native Americans, such as that of the “savage” or the fact that they have an Indian name like “Red Eagle or Two Rivers“ The song continues: “A woman once asked me my Indian name and I said, “My name is Greg.”“, before reaching a crescendo of outrage with “You speak really well for a Native American, an Indian, a savage, a heathen, a prairie nigger, a godless heathen”. “Prairie N*gger” beeped and I wondered if this had been forced on the artist, so I asked the question and got this answer from Gregg Deal:
“The ‘bleep’ remains. While perhaps distracting in musical composition and singing, this word has a history that requires a certain level of recognition and persistence. While it is a word used toward me as an indigenous person of the North American continent, it is not my word. I use it here simply to illustrate the problematic racial slurs that have been hurled at me throughout my life, while also acknowledging the fact that despite the racial intersections, while this slur is real, it nonetheless did not originate with me or my people. It is simply not my right to use another person’s racial slur, a word that has been used to oppress for hundreds of years, openly and freely without any kind of censorship. While the ‘bleep’ may be unwelcome to you, the word itself is even more unwelcome to those who have faced it in the past.“(See the video for ‘Bad Indian’ at the bottom of this review.)
Deal may be the lyricist and mouthpiece, but the band wrote the songs together, and he says: “We are united in everything we do. Our process is one of unity and without ego. Of course, I wouldn’t be here without them. The shared vision is of utmost importance for the whole thing to work properly.”
Balancing everything so that the words don’t get lost in the force of the background music is a tricky balancing act, but for Dead Pioneers it seems to come naturally. The music is not just responsive, but woven together at an atomic level. There’s the feedback and powerful antiphony of “Tired,” perfect dissonant chords on “The Punchline,” extraordinary bass and drum syncopation on “Rage,” and the smooth propulsion of “Bad Indian,” with both “Rage” and “Bad Indian” delivering pyroclastic bursts of punk energy. If Deal is the arc light, then the band is the generator that keeps its beam burning brightly.
Each listen to this short but powerful album gives you a contact rush, a dopamine rush that is electrifying, but ultimately it’s the words that stick with you. I almost peppered the review with quotes, but there’s no substitute for the listener hearing most of them for the first time. Dead pioneers challenges ideals and misconceptions with humor, blunt truths and biting irony, like this section from “Political Song,”
“The white people with the tiki torches are asking you to pick a side because everything is black and white and the grey areas don’t matter. Heaven forbid we share space, resources and ideas, that would be communist in nature and I get that that’s against nature but three cheers to the train wreck of late capitalism, it’s okay if everything dies as long as it dies under my boot.”
Although Gregg Deals “Cheekbones are not high enough“ and his “Surname is not a sentence“Dead Pioneers have given us an instant classic. For the first 22 minutes of every school day, this album should be played loudly while the teacher hands out the lyric sheet.
Dead Pioneers social networks: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram
Rating of Paul F Cook
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