What are you feeling about eating meat?
Does anyone else see this sentence every time they start a new WordPress post? Is that what we’re expected to be blogging about? Or is my laptop judging me personally? I thought I’d type it out and see if that makes it prompt me with a different question next time. I’ll let you know. I wonder how many iterations you go through before it prompts you with “Why don’t you share your thoughts on indie rap punk records or some old Grunge B-Sides? People are desperate to hear you fart on about that.”
Actually I’ve got one for ya. Bob Vylan. How great a pseudonym is Bob Vylan? That’s what I wanna blog about. Well not just how great a name he has. It’s right up there with Captain ACAB and Edward Sycophants in the pop-culture-pun-fun name game (The Saturday night gameshow that’s on TV right after the tell of captain walker).
I’m only slightly disappointed that Bob Vylan isn’t just regular Bob Dylan but with a tiny goatee like Evil Spock in old school Star Trek (or Evil Bender Flexo in Futurama, you go with what you know). Bob Vylan (real name Robert Sinnerman*) has had quite the year. He’s smashed it at Glastonbury, …Later with Jools Holland and on the live circuit. He won a MOBO (the first ever alternative music award at that show) and his stock is rising massively as a result of his ferocious punk concept album (the concept being we are at the end of the line for the current way of doing things and a disruption of change will soon wash across Westminster and all our lives who live in the UK like a tsunami) and the searing tracks on it.
The Delicate Nature creeps on with some Kim Thyall style Soundgarden dirge chords. It’s already in the neighbourhood of a Pretty Noose (see how I effortlessly weave in my Grunge B-Side Gag, Slick or what?) Bob kicks things off with a scene of urban estate kids and their run ins with the law before a chorus of “Things are changing round ‘ere” rolls over and over.
Last time Bob showed up on the EssEffTeeDees he was anthemizing in 2020 with his calling card (well to me anyway) We Live Here, which became the title track from his 2021 album. Since then he’s put out the highly acclaimed album mentioned above. Bob Vylan Presents The Price Of Life. It’s chock full of can’t look away savagery about how things are in the rougher parts of town. Edgy, jumpy and in some cases straight up threatening. After a little spoken word intro, album opener Wicked And Bad (Key lyric “Underwater movements, I’m not talking Krusty Krab, I’m Spongebob at the bank, put the money in the bag”) then the eviscerating Big Man and the visceral Take That (definitely not a cover of the title track from Jason Orange and the other fours debut album, like definitely NOT) pack a mighty one two three. The lyrical themes of one track introduce the next. A bar about
“And we can’t fight if we’re fighting our ticker, gotta stay strong, tryna live life long, plus need strength to throw Churchill in the river”
in Take That sets up an idea before Health is Wealth takes us right back to that set question from the WordPress template. Lyrics like…
“The killing of kids with £2 chicken and chips is a tactic of war, waged on the poor, Can’t save wages on slave wages, and you don’t think fresh fruit with your face on the floor, nah, you need money for the kids, rent and light plus food in the fridge”
Have got me thinking he may not be the villain at all. Bob is more a Robin than a villain. Robin of the hood. Turn Off The Radio, Censored (Interlude) and the phenomenal Phone Tap with it’s Black Mirror chorus “Alexa take me to prison” make for a phenomenal listen.
Interestingly The Delicate Nature is not on the album. It’s a standalone release. He’s a generous sort. A kind of Suffolk Based Robin Hood with a microphone and a band of merry badmen.
Steve For The Deaf 