The new album from The Margaret Hooligans is out now and it is a masterclass on drumming. “Turntable Tribulations” is filled with amazing The Who inspired drum beats, as well as high-gained electric ukulele riffs.
OUT NOW!
What’s going on everybody! Welcome back to this humble blog. It’s your boy, MadZen, and today we finally can enjoy this brand-new album that shines thanks to its amazing drumming. Brought to us by the American duo, The Margaret Hooligans, this album is their latest work of art with themes that deal with different aspects of interacting in a virtual world. Let’s get to it!
After their latest releases, Pete and Roger and Feedback, most of you already know who The Margaret Hooligans are, but if you don’t just know that they are a drums and electric ukulele duo from USA, created by Meg and Mr. Strontium. Heavily inspired by The Who’s Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey’s legendary friendship, The Margaret Hooligans create Garage Rock music with an explosive and chaotic attitude.
“Turntable Tribulations” is the culmination of months of work, and an acute representation of how modern life (social media, music business) affects artists in their everyday life. With new songs like “Bippity Boppity”, a track that analyses the negative aspects of performing constantly for the seemingly insatiable beast that is social media, and “Red Rider”, a nod to the fairytale of little Red Riding Hood, but spun to reflect our crazy dystopia of late, Meg and Strontium project their revelry against such social establishments and attack them with a good dose of unconformity.
With tracks where beat and riffs combine in a quirky and electric way, like “Good Morning Micro Man”, the duo addresses also the never-ending chase of money and wealth, making use of the story of a Silicon Valley billionaire who micro doses LSD “to divine what fund to hedge.” Also, opening track “Oh Lord Hit It”, is a song about a drunken dilettante housewife who can’t seem to get it together and whom the band dedicated to Sue Ellen Ewing, the wife of TV show Dallas’s J.R. Ewing.
As mentioned before, what stands out more about this album is the amazing drumming capabilities of Strontium. With a mood, groove, and swing heavily inspired by Keith Moon (The Who), the energy and swing of the drums within the tracks are really something to contemplate and appreciate. Also, there’s a selection of recurrent percussions that add a lot of movement to the table.
The final track, and The Margaret Hooligan’s proudest achievement off to date, presents a mini rock opera called “Psycho Diapers”. This song comes with four chapters strung together by fake commercial jingles. It chronicles the story of a despotic man child, unloved by his rich, busy family, shuttled off to boarding school where he learns to wheel and deal to rise to the upper political echelons, only to be brought down when he crosses the wrong group and they use his attraction to their female leader as a foil for his social demise.
“I had been working on a musical that never came to fruition before teaming up with Strontium to create The Margaret Hooligans, so I had a desire to see if we could write a mini rock opera […] Psycho Diapers was a kind of challenge for ourselves, in that we admire The Who’s A Quick One While He’s Away and of course, Tommy. The legend is that Kit Lambert had told Pete Townshend to write a mini rock opera and when Townshend questioned him about how to do that, he said, just string three songs together. We had a number of pieces of songs that we didn’t think could be developed into separate songs we were happy with, but when we put them together, this entire story emerged. The second act or scene of Psycho Diapers is the only piece of music we have worked on that was from the old musical. Bringing that piece in brought the whole story together, as it gave the song a focus that it was previously lacking. To date, it is one of our proudest accomplishments.” – The Margaret Hooligans
Surely unique, and with a strong love for freedom in structure, “Turntable Tribulations” takes our modern days and transforms them into a cathartic, percussive experience that shreds away all sense of modernization with an unapologetic belligerence.
LISTNE NOW!
Turntable Tribulations will be available on all streaming platforms, the band’s website and Bandcamp on Friday, October 21st. Pre-orders of the digital and physical CD are currently available on both platforms.
All songs on Turntable Tribulations were recorded in the basement of Piety Street Publishing, mixed and mastered by Jon Huxtable of Smallfish Recordings, and was produced by Mr. Strontium.
Don’t forget to support this project and to follow on Instagram, Facebook, SoundCloud, YouTube, and Spotify. You can also visit their official website. If you enjoy their music and are able to provide monetary support, you might consider downloading it on Bandcamp.
It also helps to stream and share their music; you can obviously find it in the following Playlists: Less Than 1,000 Followers, Fresh Singles, Indie Only, Alterindie State Of Mind, Female Rising Stars, Sickest & Dopest, Only Punk, Unknown But Essentials! And Long, Long, Long Songs.
Remember that you can always find me here Linktree MadZen for all my social media and collaborations.
P.S. If you enjoy discovering new artists and fresh new music you can subscribe to this blog Less Than 1,000 Followers and follow the Playlist with all the artists that we have presented here!
This coverage was created via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
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