Henry Clay People :: "25 For The Rest Of Our Lives"

"We're never gonna settle down/we never settled for anything," scream the Henry Clay People in the middle and then again, louder, at the end of latest single, "25 For The Rest Of Our Lives." Lyrically, the song is one of those old never-grow-up, die-before-I-grow-old narratives, only here and now the age of the protagonists shifts. It long seemed that teenagers held the monopoly on counter-culture; you were 18 and refused to become your father, an old and losing battle. In an era of unprecedented unemployment for the American post-adolescent, an era where this demographic has been more than encouraged to never grow out of an infantilized, perma-teenage state, the teenager has become infinite. Henry Clay People, a band who do blue-collar confessional music for the mouths and tastes of upper-middle class kids, resolve to stay, well, the title says it. Those in search of greater generational clarity can turn toward the chunky guitar line and see more clearly both the malaise and reclamation project that is the specific challenge of babies born under Reagan.

Turf War :: "For The Last Time"

Scuzzy rock and roll never seems to go out entirely of fashion, like brick architecture on American college campuses or suit jackets for dinner. But, Georgians, in geography not style, Turf War spit a no-nonsense version of rock that has largely been cannibalized in independent music by something allegedly more esoteric or thoughtful or market-driven. This type of unfiltered, whiskey on a sore throat, frustrated, splitting the seams music is only kept alive by bands like Dead Confederate and Henry Clay People. Suitably, Turf War called their record, Years Of Living Dangerously, and "For The Last Time" serves as a shout-along statement of existential reality. The chorus figures as a churning and depressing resolution to never get this hard up again. The final lyrics: "Now I'm goin' home" paired with the earlier "I'm runnin' out of the man in me" reflect an exasperation, we presume, perhaps stereotypically, from late nights, cigarettes and enough downers to pacify a small island nation. If this is hard living, we also presume there is no way that Turf War is serious about walking away from it. Especially not if we all scream-count "one, two, three, four!" into the final chorus.

 Listen :: Turf War - "For The Last Time"