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Fame Swoll

by The Michael Character

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mikayla
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mikayla have you heard survive? you should go hear that, right now Favorite track: Survive.
Norah (She/Her)
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Norah (She/Her) This record elegantly highlights several important issues (like most of TMC's work). Ranging in tone and topics, it has a lot of tracks that really stand out. Definitely give this a listen. Favorite track: Literally My Master's Thesis.
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1.
Safe World 02:57
I pat my pockets to see; wallet, house keys, and cell phone K, I’m good to leave my house now I touch the back of my head I don’t have a two-mirror system so I can’t see my hair back there If it feels alright, I reach for the door and go But when I leave I don’t think about the people who could hurt me The people who have hurt me The chaos outside my bedroom Oh, because I live in a safe world I live in a world that’s safe for me I live in a world that was made to be safe for people like me: People with money; men with light skin; able-bodied cis-folk who just blend in I’m not visibly queer Half my family is white I live in the heart of the empire so I’ll be alright So, Nathan is driving the car and we are going real fast down 70 Eastbound and I am Thinking about the role that the presumption of safety plays in my daily life, all the time Fear simply underpins life for so many while I rarely ever feel threatened in a serious way That’s a significant difference that I need to be mindful of To be helpful to my friends and favs I think about the function fear plays in my life: Man, I’m freaked out by spiders and afraid of heights… But no one’s gonna grab me when I’m walking down the street And I never have to reroute to protect myself from creeps, yea No one will deny my right to publicly exist No shit bag vigilante will try to sell the gun he killed me with No one’s gonna murder me while I jog in the park No cop will shoot me dead while I just sit in my car No one will assault me and then blame my clothes No imperial lackey is ever gonna blow up my house with drones No eight year old kid will ever call me “faggot!” on the street And then high-five his bigot father while I panic-smoke furiously No that’s not my life, but it is for my friends It is for many more people than it’s comfortable to acknowledge Some people live in a safe world Some people live in an unsafe world
2.
Survive 03:15
When the bombs fall, when the airstrikes get closer When the world stalls and the state pulls your choker When the chaos of the normal gets replaced with a new kind of terrible Where will you go? Where will you get food and water? How will you survive? When you leave home and you head towards the cities When uneven development leaves you with no good options Global den of thieves When the aid worker pulls you to shore ‘Cause the raft sinks from overcrowding Where will you go? Where will you get food and water? How will you survive? When you’re kicked out, when your family says “fuck it” When the shelter is scary But your safety compared to a roof in the winter is a drop in the bucket When no one will co-sign your lease ‘Cause you don’t have an income ‘Cause you don’t have a place to sleep Where will you go? Where will you get food and water? How will you survive? When the flood comes, when the coasts are submerged When emergency relief agencies collapse When there’s no more cots No more wood to burn When it’s all too much for existing structures to contain Where will we go? Where will we get food and water? How will we survive?
3.
A man named “Chick” I never knew you Raised on Liliha Street in Honolulu Territorial American of Japanese stock The generation of Inouye, Korematsu, and Kochiyama Your dad and mama managed a tofu store down the block You studied engineering at the U(niversity) of H(awaii) Until the war came Varsity Victory Volunteers (VVV) to the 442nd in your 21st year To the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Spent the war years in Chiang Kai-shek’s China doing secret shit Then off to a base on Hokkaido To screen out communist spies from POWs In Sapporo, where dad was born Then split your time between Japan and Hawaii, back and forth After Korea left the army, hey Joined the National Clandestine Service of the CIA Served as an agent for six years and then Got on Northwest Orient Airlines flight 710 Twin Cities to Miami via Chi-town (Chicago) went down In southern Indiana on the banks of the Ohio river I stood there last summer at the crash site Where they only found your finger in the wreckage that night Dad and Grandma traveled to Tell City to see you off Dad was surprised that mainland barbeque had no teriyaki sauce It does on the islands He didn’t like it, he didn’t like it I wonder what you would have made of me Scholar of radical intellectual history Just a punk rock teacher with too many degrees And conflicted feelings about my nationality You were a Cold Warrior of the first degree A hero and a patriot, we’d all agree Now your star is on the (Memorial) Wall for all to see Died March 17th, 1960, believe me If we ever got to meet I hope that you would like me If we ever got to meet I hope that you’d be proud of me I’ve got your hat and your name plate and your name I know that you and I, we’re not the same, no way Chiyoki Ikeda, rest east, okay?
4.
Amiri Baraka in Cuba ‘All these young guys down here, they took power, they just did it, guns in hand’ Robert F. Williams in his big straw hat Came to see the land where racism was falling back A ripe 25, a riper 36 both embraced radical politics Wouldn’t get their heads beat in Rejected unilateral non-violence Both took to the black revolution: A Third World people colonized by the Red, White, and Blue Which Harold Cruse and John Henrik Clarke thought too But with a more robust theorization They were way more impressed with Castro’s land reform Than his proclamations of eradicating racial discrimination But all four took a nod from Frantz Fanon And saw black freedom as a decolonizing process, partially thanks to Cuba (But only partially thanks to Cuba!) Fast forward to 1967 Honorary Prime Minister of the BPP (Black Panther Party for Self Defense) And former SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) chairman Stokely Carmichael called for Black Power In a book of the same name that posited how The state built an internal colony Which precluded the achievement of substantive racial equality Meanwhile Baraka promoted black arts Cultural self-determination To cultivate a counterhegemonic identity to precede the black political nation Casa de las Americas and ICAIC (Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematograficos) in Cuba did the same thing It’d be hard to draw a causal link But the similarities are more compelling than you’d think But over the years it became very clear that socialist reforms had not unmade Cuba’s racial oppression But the general consensus among the top brass was to say “No Way!” Thus pushing (American) black radical activists away from the Castro regime in significant numbers Baraka and Angela Davis stayed But (Robert F.) Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and (Stokely) Carmichael went the other way But all told this whole generation of thinkers shared some critical paradigms Black Third World identity The internal colony (Black) Nationalism And state violence
5.
Frat house on Ashford Street I heard a bro say gleefully “I’m going down to the bar Gonna fuck whatever bitch” Yadda yadda then I stopped listening I’ve been walking quickly past the same place for eight years And always the same shit I’d really like to end it Start thinking like the (Black) Panthers did, yea! Start a feminist posse Hang in Allston with our weapons drawn when the predators go prowling Let’s show them what ‘collective self-defense’ means When the powers that be won’t keep safe our streets: Rich kid rapist, GET ON THE PAVEMENT Let my friends walk without hesitation ‘Cause you’ll be accountable when we’re out to roam Yea your reign of goddamn terror will come home
6.
Two millenials sit Hole-in-the-wall, hype restaurant Hole-in-the-Waldorf Astoria prices Food like: What the natives really eat! Conversation like: Sitcoms taught me how to speak! Always on camera, always on phone One talks about student loans, the other replies Roth IRA … We are adults, we know what a Roth IRA is We listened to that wiz kid friend, that older colleague That online article that taught us what a Roth IRA was all those days ago “Contributions not tax-deductible but upon withdrawal no taxes yo!” But did that other table hear us though? Did they hear me say Roth IRA? I'll bet they are impressed; we are impressive; we are adults We worked for this tabbouleh Drop hints to wealthy family— “Need to buy that condo now, need some help for payments down, Need to generate greater wealth across generations!” well… What else would you be if you were me? With privilege, money, health, and greed? Don’t sit in judgement, please, and don't moan all, "police & poverty" We worked for this tabbouleh Drop hints to friends and family We are adults, we are 'real,' we are adults, we are 'real,' We are adults, we are ‘real’ These are the dumb things that keep our minds at ease When full tummies, weed, and high salaries don't quite cut it… …Emotional rut in… …Just not feeling like myself today… Perhaps my golden throne could use a memory foam cushion? …Better text Mom.
7.
You own a house and take care of a baby I've got 72 likes on a Facebook post I'm hanging out with undergrads on a Friday night like I'm not 27 Past the point of "oh my gosh, my friend got married!" To the point of "all my goddamn friends are married..." I've been in clean work-out clothes Alone in my apartment, sitting in the dark on a Wednesday Scrolling through my contacts, wondering where a friend is I don't wanna spend my late 20s watching Netflix I'm trying to get Fame Swoll now don't wanna drag ten people to some shitty bar show downtown Cup or cone at JP Licks with Rena after dinner Or on the road eating rest stop pizza on I-80 in the summer I remember where I'm at And remember I'm not jazzed about it Cause I might spend the next year living worse off than the last one And I might not enjoy my job as much as I do now And I might waste a decade chasing meaningless credentials I might wind up feeling lower than I have since college Shit that's a scary thought So now I live in a 9x8 foot room I've got them non-linearity of progress blues I wanna live better by the metrics that mean something to me I need degrees, I need prestige, I need famous friends who say hi to me I crave that elitist bullshit that makes me feel superior I need it But you can't chase that shit forever Eventually we wake the fuck up or we settle on our own terms I've got this false credibility my scene points bought me but I'm not really smarter than anybody else And when you root your sense of self in the power you've garnered You shackle happiness to hierarchical garbage And I know I'm not some punk seventeen year old with a chip on my shoulder I'm lazy and bored and ten years older Ten years.

about

This is the ninth TMC record which is sort of nuts.
These songs were written between August of 2016 and May of 2017.


Thank you SO VERY MUCH for listening.
Get in touch if you want to chat or hang out or set up a show or whatever -- the.michael.character@gmail.com

credits

released October 6, 2017

All songs written by James Ikeda
Acoustic Guitar, Lead Vocals, & Xylophone – James Ikeda
Drums & Bass – Laura “Larz” Brogan
Lead Guitar & Piano – John Muccino
Squad Vox – Catherine Conley, Fenn “Uber-it-to-the-recording-sess-from-work-during-lunch” Macon, Karbia Yuan
Baby Keyboard Thing in “Safe World” – Steve “Sleeve” Miller
Backup Vocals in “Fame Swoll” – Cameron LeViere

Recorded, Produced, Mixed, & Mastered by Ben Greer of Sun Brewed Records & State Forest

Recorded at Julie’s Architectural GuestSuite in Wilmington, VT (acoustic guitar and lead vocals) & at Half Sour’s practice space (drums) --thanks Zoe & Matt!-- & at Ben’s practice space (squad vox & xylophone) & at Ben’s house (bass) & at John’s house (lead guitar) & at Steve’s house (Baby Keyboard Thing) & at a studio in Pittsburgh (Cam’s vocals).

Album Art by the inimitable Louis Roe, my dearest LilBroBro who means the world to me

MAJOR thanks to Nina Corcoran and DigBoston for premiering the album!

Thanks to all of the folks who are on the record (specifically John for being a dear old homie who is consistently SO supportive of my art and for convincing me to make the record full band, Larz for making musical miracles in no time at all and for being the goddamn best at everything and also for being a long-time and enthusiastic supporter of TMC as a project, Catherine & Fenn & Karbia for showing up in Allston to record squad vox with virtually no notice, Steve for being a stalwart friend and artist of the highest caliber without whom I’d have stopped having fun years ago and who I think of often but rarely call, which is on me, and Cameron for teaching me how to live better EVERY time we talk and for providing an inspirational example in so many ways--On a side note, Steve and Cam are two of the best songwriters out there and every time they show me their new songs I am blown away and want to write more and therefore know I'm strapped into this whole diy artist game at least another year. I hope that either we never stop pushing each other or that we all stop together haha)

Further thanks...to Zoe & Matt from Half Sour for letting us use their space and for helping set up the drum mics, to Chris Comer for basically everything even though he wasn’t directly involved in the making of this record (I owe him EVERYTHING), to Carmen & Alysha in goddamn CANADA for being wicked cool and enduring the long drive from Toronto to Pittsburgh with me back in June, to Gregory McKillop for their enthusiastic support and inspiration over the years, to Anna O’Connell & Louis Roe & Conor Hennessy for touring with me last summer in support of this record (and for putting up with more of my shit than anyone else…for real…), to anyone who has booked me a show or come to a show or sang along or critiqued a song or let me sleep at their house on tour, to Rachel Silverman who I am SO lucky to have met through this project, to the San Antonio crew for taking me to Jims, to Jason Kaminski for being a solid homie who I care about dearly, to Ori Nevo just for BEING, to Christian Latham for being reliably sweet and helpful, to Charley Gibson for reliably heckling me at my shows (ostensibly from a place of love), to Christine Henderson for reliably heckling my life generally (ostensibly from a place of love), to Jenn and Paul and Elise and Arianna and Kelly and Ryan and all the other OG BV homies for being a continual light in the world and in my life, to the whole Bummer City Open Mic crew (Matt & Luna & all y'all), to the Cuttlefish & BBV crew, to the 'fellas' aka Zach & Matt, to all of my tour homies across America and a smattering of other places, AND TO BEN GREER for putting up with my shit, knowing when it’s time to stop trying to get the perfect take, being impossibly patient, and being willing to invest so much time over so many months to make this THIRD TMC record with me. There’s a million more people to mention but my back hurts and I need to get up from the computer and go outside or whatever.

Shout out to the Wheelhouse Diner in Quincy and Steve's in Allston.
Also, shout out to the Glenville Stops. Best bar in Boston.

Sup, Nora. <3 Also, shout out to Troll 2 and Sidney Gish for being the best of the best.

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The Michael Character Boston, Massachusetts

It's political music, whatever. Based in Boston, MA. Absolutely willing to drive very far to play for you and five of your vaguely alternative friends in your combination kitchen/laundry room. Hit me up. I'm fully serious.

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