Welcome to Max and the Marginalized's page/blog, etc. We are a political band in Los Angeles. We write and record a new song every week (as of this writing we've been doing this for 32 weeks straight), always about something that week which we find worthy of our protestations. All the songs are available for download right here.

The idea is simple, really. How can bands claiming to want to make a difference write a song about, say, ending the war and then hold on to it to make a perfectly polished recording of it for their album which will come out in a year, secretly and shamefully hoping the war lasts until then so their song, marketed properly, will still be relevant?

We don't have any interest in that. We write songs about things that are happening now, record them, and release them with the hopes that they can be a small part of a big conversation that leads to real progress.

All of our songs appear on The Huffington Post with little blogs accompanying them explaining what they are about. Those can be found right here. We are also on MySpace like every other band in the universe, but are trying to move the operation to the non-Murdoch world at our Facebook Page.

Lineup: Max Bernstein - guitar + vocals. Dave Watrous - Bass. Jon Ryggy - Drums. Our friend Max Waker is a recording engineer and makes cartoons.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Go make your living, boy. I'll go on fighting.

Since we're a tiny, tiny band that doesn't get a whole lot of action on our MySpace, blog, or really anywhere, the little correspondence we get resonates a lot. There's a comment on our MySpace that someone left the other day that said that the songs were great but it's time to stop and pick the best ones because the Bush years are over.

I hope he's right, but let's take a quick look at the elephant in the living room shitting in the corner, shall we? John McCain is running on the very same failed policies of the Bush years. Yeah, he believes in global warming. If that's what passes for progress when we are at a war that has killed over 4,000 troops, not counting suicides of returning vets, which are estimated well into the hundreds, perhaps the thousands.

The Straight Talk Express is a Trojan Horse, and one that I unfortunately believe is going to be very hard to stop - what talents we have are best served doing what little three dudes with instruments can do to place the tiniest of screws in the tires. Heaven knows it isn't much, but with a very popular Republican running on the same policies of his predecessor, an abortion ban on the ballot in South Dakota (you'll be hearing about this from us on Thursday), close congressional and Senate elections that could give us a veto-proof majority, and a lack of care for Veterans that may unfortunately last long after this election no matter who wins, I would say that the Bush years and whatever aftershocks we'll face from them are not over, and won't be for a long time. When they are, maybe we'll stop and pick the best ones.

I'm too tired to proofread, I just got home from seeing the almighty Leatherface and haven't gotten that sweaty at a show I wasn't playing since I was 20. Nite!


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