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Sunny Ali & The Kid
The original idea behind The Sindicate has evolved since our first show put Britny Rose and I into chaotic planning mode for the weekend of September 11, 2009. Since we’re all up in Spring’s business now, I thought it’s time to go through where we’ve been so far and have some quality story time. Well we started as co-hosts and built a makeshift production team out of Madison, Wisconsin. The band we interviewed first joined us from Boston after they came to record at studio Britny Rose owns in town over the summer.
It was a coincidence that Muslim punk and the anniversary of September 11th were related to one degree or another from the start, even if in many people and punks minds it wouldn’t be at all. Not that the significance was lost on us either but we totally ignored it in the conversations before game time. In fact, we thought it was a little funny in an absurd way. We all worked hard to come up with something interesting and new instead and anyway, I ended up having to reschedule the show for the next weekend. If you want to know the reason, the elevator key didn’t work en route to the station. Oops indeed.
The radio show has always lacked focus but for good reasons. We had to think local, simple, and just go for it in the moment. It never mattered where our heads were at because we all agreed the Sindicate could be more than just a crazy idea. We knew bridging the artist and audience began at home and the genesis that happens in a studio with bands we love and court online. The live show at the station was the start of a story both Britny and I weaved after each show and piece together from personal experiences. The significance didn’t measure up to a national disaster but neither could the story be stopped by a logistical hiccup like that first week.
We’ve covered Houston’s hip-hop scene since then, followed taqwacore bands on a roadtrip across the US, and inspired local and visiting musicians in Madison to speak up about what the local scene is missing. The show went international for a while and somehow still made sense to others. Even if all it took was time for the sincerity to come across loud and clear on air, the shock that it actually did was genuine and awesome.
Around the new year, our guests this week were just calling the band official and have since given Sunny Ali and The Kid a new sound that’s hard to put your finger on. Is it country? Is it punk? Is it more experimental? To be honest, I don’t know what psychedelic means to you but yeah, it’s that to me. We made this one up as we went along and anyone who listens to the interview will probably be able to tell right away. Have a listen to the show for yourself and tell us your opinion of the music here or shoot a tweet my way.
I started to play around with ideas to bring people together when blogging became a part of life. I have since brought in my bastardized artistic side for The Sinner’s Club collage, zine, and bootleg. The collage was created during a late night collaging session and inspired by photos from old pop culture magazines my local tea dealer was going to throw away. Kurt Cobain, street art, and promo materials we brought back from the roadtrip to Sundance 2010 last January somehow fit together.
The Sinner’s Club was intended to have a healthy mix of the early influence religion played in taqwacore and the real sense of sincerity between a group of friends. If you look at the Sindicate crew of artists, listeners, and hosts, there will be some inevitable confusion over what punk means and whether or not the club is held together by one religion or atheism or labeled a new brand is another question all together. We decided to cope with the differences, make sense of our crazy idea, and not ignore the real difficulties that happened along the way.
Every spontaneous and sometimes absurd connection comes from a funny coincidence and even our mistakes has been worthwhile. Britny and I do dance around any deadline after the radio show to post the show online and this guy took a week while I tried to hit two birds with one stone here. You see, I’m also turning 25 this month and still haven’t had a radio show on the “punk” subject means for me so it’s been time well spent putting together a show on the subject for next week.When Britny Rose and I started the Sindicate, thirteen years of pop music had passed by and songs weren’t blowing me away anymore. Even when Lady Gaga did, there wasn’t any magic that wasn’t out in the open for the whole world to gawk over and no story left for the media to chase. The only underground music I knew before my homecoming to Wisconsin came from the Rhymesayers entertainment company based in the Midwest. A friend back in Philly dated some guy who sent Atmosphere’s Lucy Ford from the twin cities and I figure there’s no reason not to find more in other places.
Britny has moved around musically but settled on one band as the best music in history. Nirvana. She has her own reasons.
Hip-hop and punk were the two directions we could agree upon and started with guests who fell somewhere in-between. We’ve covered what underground meant and had to choose one of the Rhymesayers crew to interview. We chose Eyedea (of Eyedea and Abilities) over others for the intensity and talked about hardcore music across the genres. He grew up a metal head and found a hip-hop schtick that pushed me to find the music we want with new shows with the artists down the pipelines we started down. Even though hip-hop and punk combo isn’t popular enough to find or anywhere in Wisconsin, The Sindicate has come back around and almost hit the target a couple of times.
Until we hit the target, we know this sounds like crazy talk but the music is awesome. I wish I could make this up but can’t, not even the goth country taqwacore interview with someone who went to the same high school outside Philly. If people don’t think this is crazy, welcome to The Sindicate, and congrats on being a little whacked too. The secret is out and we’re looking everywhere before each show and jumping on interviews as they come up. You’ve been warned, intertubes.
There’s not much else out there as original as the Sunny Ali & The Kid. I like how their performance is like catching cowboy punks in action before some classic novel was written about them and feeling like it’s okay I just read the Cliff’s Notes back in school. The only hype these guys need comes from what they made. Maybe the folklore will come later on or maybe it won’t. I’m plugging the band either way.
There’s a chance the playlist balances the extremes, like Pantera and Shania Twain, well enough to let Sunny Ali & The Kid get their music into your head. The songs reminds me of firewater, stories, and bonfires I grew up around when the family spent summers in Wisconsin. Now it’s just a dream of what farm psychedelic would’ve become if cowboys were still around to sing about it.
Thanks to Facebook, I accidentally walked right into the fire. The Muslim Punk Foundation Hassan talks about on air was created on MySpace to start promoting some of the same punk bands we have here. Without all the themes and big ideas, the Sindicate could be called similar to what he built. If I’m wrong, stop me before someone else gets hurt, but there’s no better way to jump into the country, punk, psychedelic sound they have than feet first. Check the band out on Myspace and follow their updates on Twitter for more.Our first show ever was with The Kominas. You can check out the newest episode of KTV for more with Sunny Ali & The Kid and The Kominas in Philadelphia and listen for “Walqueda Superstore” in the playlist this week.
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Playlist:
- Cowboys Do More Dope by Dimebag from Pantera and David Allan Coe
- Jackson by Johnny Cash with June Carter
- Becuz by Sonic Youth
- Fuck Me by Sunny Ali & The Kid
- Try Harder by Sunny Ali & The Kid
- Mrs. Butterworth by Nirvana
- Walqueda Superstore by The Kominas
- Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes
- Shooting Star by Bad Fire
- Broken Face by The Pixies
- Well It’s True That We Love One Another by The White Stripes
- Tiny Cities Made of Ashes by Modest Mouse
- What a Woman Wants by Shania Twain
