Review Summary: Property is robbery!
Singer/songwriter/hobo/anarchist Pat the Bunny is the man behind Wingnut Dishwashers Union. He plays folk punk, hitchhikes to his own shows (or used to), probably helps in the community garden and definitely doesn’t go to work or the bank unless, of course, he plans on robbing it. While in his previous work in Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains he wrote songs that made you want to shoot dope and drink yourself to death, The Wingnut Dishwashers Union material is much less depressing and focuses on a more positive anarchic vision. Pat, with enthusiasm, helps you see his world, post-revolution, where every neighbor gets along, there was no need for law enforcement, politicians, lawyers and every night the entire city went out and danced in the street. Folk + punk + anarchy =
Reinventing Axl Rose right? No, you can tell what Pat the Bunny is saying. You could get drunk with your friends listening to
Reinventing Axl Roseand sing along to its energetic choruses, but
Burn the Earth, Leave it Behind is one you’ll be singing along to when you get drunk by yourself. Pat pushes his smoke and alcohol worn throat to its maximum, honestly detailing his feelings and opinions which you’ll fall for in an instant with his unabashed view of the world and himself.
On
Burn the Earth, Leave it Behind, Pat has taken his dirty folk songs, notched up the production a little and inserted more instruments. Besides dashes of fiddle, harmonica and piano, probably half of the songs use drums and electric guitars, used minimally, and are effective in driving the songs forward adding an anthemic quality to several tracks. The production perfectly straddles the line between sounding crisp and sounding raw enough where you can hear his lisp and hear his fingers plucking the strings on the acoustic guitar he probably just borrowed from some 17 year old punk. This all makes for a more improved Wingnut album, but none of that *** really matters. As soon as he starts strumming on “Proudhon in Manhattan” you can just tell Pat is about to kick some ass. Then his sexy voice pipes in and the super catchy verse about taping the holes in his shoes and filling the holes in his thought process when he speaks with expletives begins and then ends with him yelling “…As if the world wasn’t gonna end and I admire his strength!” By now you are already a Wingnut Dishwashers Fan. Every other line is gold and every song could stand on its own above the rest of the folk punk scene.
Besides the last song, Burn the Earth, Leave it Behind is at it’s best when Pat is strumming fast and the emotion in his singing and strained shouting seems almost to great for the conduit supplied by his voice. “*** *** Up!” is the anarchic theme song to end all and has some awesome WOOOOAAAAAOOOO’s…I really love WOOOAAAAOOOAAAOO’s. “Urine Speaks Louder Than Words” is catchier than the clap at Charlie Sheen’s house party and proportionally even more uplifting and witty. Hearing Pat sing as genuinely as imagineable “I WAS BORN TO BE LIVING I WAS BORN TO BE SINGING I WAS BORN TO BE FIGHTING” will instantly make you a better person. “My Idea of Fun” closes the album and is perhaps the greatest song ever written to fall under the Folk Punk umbrella. Pat slows it down and bitch slaps your soul. He puts an image of a new world into your brain where good people live without being bothered and without bothering anyone because crooked corporations, crooked cops, crooked bosses and politicians don’t have to exist because, well, I’ll just quote the man’s call to anarchy himself,
“cause our friends, they are enough
and our neighbors are enough
and finally we’re enough
please help me be, please help me be enough”
