Chip Away

Sick Of It All frontman Lou Koller succumbed to esophageal cancer the other day.

This relatively esoteric event likely means nothing to the 99% of you who are non-fans of the admittedly niche genre of music called New York hardcore (NYHC) — never a mainstream cultural force even in its heyday thirty years ago and certainly not one now.

If you’ll indulge my parochial interests for the briefest moment, I’ll bring it home to the ethos at the core of Armageddon Prose.

I discovered Sick Of It All whilst rummaging through my father’s effects in his basement as a young teenager.

It wasn’t the band’s fine musicianship that impressed me — the guitar work is mostly three chords — nor their political insights, which aren’t particularly penetrating; rather, its calling card is the burning rage at the absolute state of the world.

Anyone who has devoted time and energy to analyzing the nonstop deluge of dispiriting news with a hope for a better world, only to see it ostensibly further and further decay at an ever-increasing clip, will be familiar with the creeping feeling that everything is fucked beyond redemption.

Hence the term “blackpill,” and the ceaseless debates in dissident media about whether the ship sinking is a foregone conclusion and we should all head for the hills and bunker down for the impending apocalypse.

Martin Luther King Jr. infamously quipped that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” a quote that Barack Obama has often cynically parroted in order to placate his base while appearing lofty-minded, after it became obvious to anyone paying attention that he was merely yet another in a long line of uniparty corporate stooges.

The theory about the arc-bending is lacking, though.

“Bend,” in that iteration, is a transitive verb; someone or something has to do the bending.

Someone has to chip away at The Bastards and their machinations, or that moral arc bends whatever way they bend it.

Which brings us back to Sick Of It All and an inspirational little ditty of theirs called “Chip Away” that seems apropos to Lou’s life and death, as well as the general current political climate rife with nihilistic despair.

“Growing up not, not growing old
The feeling is still the same
Over the years we’ve seen our peers
Get jaded and turn away
The next generation’s here
And we’re ready to pick up the pace
Side by side we wave the flag
Of discontent in their face

We might never change the world
At least we’ve had our say
The wheel’s been set in motion
As we slowly chip away”

I have often lamented the sad, brokeback state of punk rock post-COVID.

But, as a standout exception, while other bands were kicking unvaxxed members out and requiring attendees show their papers (vaccine passports) like the Gestapo just to get into their shows, Sick Of It All was among the few bands that took the red pill.

A last little ditty I’d like to leave you with, also apropos to our time on this, the eve of World War III, is called “Call to Arms,” the central message of which is borderline autistic in its simplicity, delivered with Sick Of It All’s quintessentially no-frills anti-poetry:

“Another cause, heed the call
Everybody rally ‘round
Don’t contemplate if it’s right
Just follow the crowd
But don’t you dare disagree
‘Cause they’ll question your loyalty
Their idea of comradery is to heed their call to arms…
So go ahead, keep your rules
I’ll choose my own wars
Your accusations and harsh words can’t do me any harm
‘Cause i don’t believe in blind loyalty
That’s just mob mentality
I will answer what’s right for me
And not your call to arms”

Cheers to those of us who choose our own wars.

Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (now available in paperback), is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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