FEELING A LITTLE ALIENATED FROM THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION?  We're here to help.  This is the part of the website where you get to go backstage, discover lyrics and setlists scribbed on little scraps of paper, and get right inside the minds, bodies and sweat stains of the Consumer Goods as they truly are.  It's just like that dream that Comrade Rutherford had, where he was suddenly thrust into the role of lead singer of the Consumer Goods, but he didn't know any of the words... only now, you'll never have that problem.  Which is good, because in the aforementioned dream, Shipley reamed the good comrade out after the show and told him to 'learn the fucking words,' which is exactly the sort of thing he would do, knowing him.  So it's all here for you, although really, you could just as easily listen on our myspace.  But then you wouldn't be able to read the words as you were singing them, and you would have to do that thing where you sort of mouth the words so it looks like you know them, and then just chime in on obvious words like "love" and "you" and "imperialist bastard."  The choice is yours - either way, we hope the experience will bring you one step closer to the revolutionary way.

THE ANTI-IMPERIAL CABARET Tyler Shipley - singing, guitars, harmonica, melodica Ryan McVeigh - bass, singing, guitars, percussion, production Matt Hildebrand - drums, percussion Matt McLennan - guitars Ian Jeffrey - guitars, keyboards Andrew Workman - percussion, singing, the clap Ken Phillips - singing, the clap Billy Western - pedal steel Mat Klachefsky - trombones, keyboards (All words by Tyler Shipley) Day Job at the DND (Department of National Defense):  well i need a short haired girl and i need some therepy, and i need some mid-tempo rock 'n' roll as i go to work for the DND... where i'll be making plans to orchestrate the overthrow of some state i don't know.  well i get a decent wage and everyone looks up to me and i feel OK about myself some of the time as i go to work for the DND... where i'll be making plans to orchestrate the overthrow of some state i don't know.  if we blow off your arms or legs it's for democratic aims. Aliens Have Feelings Too:  every day i read the things they say about me: "illegal and alien, they steal our jobs and money."  stupid fucks - they don't know how much they're not paying us.  it's not enough that we clean up your shit and pee, cos while you're shaming us and calling us names we're inexpensive inputs for your middle-class products (even though we'll never try them cos we can't afford to buy them.)  i used to want to kill you, but now i don't have the energy.  you'll get yours someday and i'll get what's coming to me. Matt Said I'd Get Mangled And Gods Damn He Was Right:  i'm jealous of the sky cos it can't be bought and sold.  i'm jealous of the lies cos they never get old.  i'm jealous of the truth cos it does not exist.  i'm jealous of the rich cos they've got nothing to resist.  and all of the time i'm wasting on my own hoping that you die alone.  i'm jealous of your mind cos it's out of my control.  i'm jealous of the night cos it's so goddam cold.  i wish that i could float without a rubber ring.  i'm jealous of a stone cos it don't feel a thing.  and all of the time i'm wasting on my own hoping that you die alone.  i take my pills, i swallow them whole.  i lay in bed, i try to let go.  chain reactors and thinking patterns and why do i have to hold closer, tighter, like a cigarette lighter, always ready to explode.  gimme back my head.  gimme back my head. Ideology of Improvement:  a three o' clock date with a therapist i hate fixin' shit i didn't think was broke.  but nothing gets good - i don't get over it like i should - so what say we celebrate the taking of this earth from the folks who got here first cos we really turned things around (chopping up the land so white men in wigs could take a stand about their private, stolen, property.)  but why should they complain?  hell, it's too late!  we came!  and we even let a few of them live!  may even come a day when we don't make 'em feel ashamed for thinking "this land is ours, we never gave up this land when we signed those treaties."  every day i get sober, i get a little bit older, and it gets harder to laugh.  i'm so commercialized that i don't even think twice about a bottle of water and a private golf course and a bus shack made so the walls don't reach the pavement so the folks inside sleeping there at night get so fucking cold that they'll change their mind, i suppose, and stop 'choosing' not to have a home.  "they say we have freedom of assembly, they say we have these fundamental rights and freedoms.  but when we try to exercise them, this is what happens - they arrest our people, they handcuff them, they pepper spray them, they throw them in jail... and then the kill 'em!" Hockey Night in Afghanada:  fuck don cherry!  there, i said it.  how long are we gonna let it be okay to turn hockey skates into recruitment gates for the army?  'beautiful boys' on the screen, white faces shaved so smooth and clean - noble hearts in the noble arts of war and occupation.  there's nothing about pucks in nets, skates on ice, sticks on skin that says "it's okay if some brown person loses a limb."  there's nothing about ron maclean, the CBC, hits from behind that say "it's alright to bomb a few foreigners from the sky."  fuck the anthems that celebrate the ass we kick on a foreign stage - the only leaf i see is losing 6-3 and that's fine with me, oh i know... it seems a harmless thing as we stand and sing, but in afghanada it's another thing.  there's no peace to keep when you ride up in a jeep and you blow the bleep out of some children. there's nothing about pucks in nets, skates on ice, sticks on skin that says "it's okay if some brown person loses a limb."  there's nothing about ron maclean, the CBC, hits from behind that say "it's alright to bomb a few foreigners from the sky."  Serve and Protect, Uh!:  i give my taser a woman's name.  i call that bitch 'veronica.'  and if you step out of line again, my ronnie's gonna send one hundred fucking volts through your skull, uh!  oh yeah!  oh yeah!  oh yeah!  oh yeah!  i like to stroke my taser at night, so i can trust her when the shit goes down.  imagine if some kid tried to read without his library card... my ronnie snaps in line, sends a shock into his spine, and it gets me hard.  oh yeah!  oh yeah!  oh yeah!  oh yeah!  i'm such a big, big man and i do it cos i can, yeah, i do it cos i can.  no, no, that's wrong, just wait.  i'm just keeping people safe.  yeah, i'm keeping people safe. The Lord's Not On My Side:  snow is falling down on this suburb of a middle class town and the TV is off so the world is nowhere to be found.  and that's just as well, you see, cos i'm tired of the misery.  if a bomb goes off in the desert and i'm not there, well, it doesn't make a sound.  and your hands in my hands make everything else so abstract.  and i drink imported chai tea cos i don't believe in fair-trade coffee, and my back is really sore so patting some more won't do anything for me.  but a fire would be nice... here's a newspaper picture of condoleeza rice asking god to forgive all the terrorists, without a hint of irony.  but the lord's not on my side, so you don't have to fear for your life.  and it's so hard to fix everything, so i'm fixing a song to sing, to inspire someone else. The Terminator Rules:  well i'm moving to a town where the faucet water's brown, and you can stand in the center and look all the way around and not a single blade of grass is pokin' through the broken ground.  every mornin' i wake up and cross the valley in a broken bus, for the old, fat, white men who piss on us if we don't keep their gardens greener than the sneer on a hundred bucks.  oh god, it's good to be in the land of the free!  cos i don't need my dignity - the impoverished-alien-scapegoat's life for me!  oh the terminator rules for the folks with swimming pools.  and our overcrowded schools have more metal-detecting tools than textbooks.  oh god, it's good to be in the land of the free!  cos i don't need my dignity - the impoverished-alien-scapegoat's life for me! Back of a Bank Letter:  putting prints up on the wall of my apartment on the tenth floor of a building in toronto.  far away from the fights and the resistance that i wish i could stand beside instead of always being so fucking useless.  i write these words on the back of a letter from the bank which i'm so powerfully opposed.  see, i can tell you what they're doing with my money in argentina and i don't like it.  but i'm still sitting, self-absorbed and paralysed.  what's the matter?  am i spoiling your night?  cos i'm guilty of inaction and you know i'm right?  and if i'm right about me i'm probably right about you - what are you gonna do?  what are you gonna do?  why don't you tear me to pieces?  why don't you step on my teeth?  why don't you fuck all of my friends where everybody can see?  why don't you see?  why don't you see? The Ungrateful Volcano:  the ungrateful volcano spits on the hand the frees it from it's backwards tranquility - we land upon and seize it.  the ungrateful volcano expodes in shards of metal fear.  it simmers in resistance that civilizing eyes can't hear.  the ungrateful volcano should be shitting down your throat to stem the flow of freedom you deliver with a lock-n-load.  the ungrateful volcano would like to thank sir winston churchill the brave for gassing folk who refused to pay for services he never gave.

HAPPY BIDET (2007) Matt Hildebrand - Drums, Percussion Ian Jeffrey - Guitars, Keyboards Michael Kirkpatrick - Artworks and Ideas Matt McLennan - Guitars, Vocals, Q-Chords, Guitars, Bassi Ryan McVeigh - Production, Bassi, Guitars, Vocals, E-Bows, Brilliance Kevin Scott - Accordians Tyler Shipley - Vocals, Guitars, Pianos, Organs, Harmonicas, Accordians Billy Western - Pedal Steel (All words by Tyler Shipley.) Lullaby for Things Breaking:     it's a kinda home in a city known for the tallest compass alive.  and i use it when i can't find a friend to direct me at the end of the night.  and the stars aren't bright, but the satelites are watching me sleep.  ticking their way to world war three. Rovie Wade:     i'm sorry sister, but the times are changin' and rovie wade has been rearranging the comfy chairs on the supreme court benches and filling them with anti-woman wenches now.  and i don't care what they say in the court, your body's nobody's body but yours and i don't care what the say in the press, killing ain't so bad cos in iraq, it's the best!  let's put some ovaries on george bush junior, cos i'm sure he'd love to walk a mile in your shoes.  and when he's carrying a little cheney, he will be singing the back-alley coat-hanger blues.  and i don't care what they say in the court, your body's nobody's body but yours and i don't care what they say in the church, if killing is so wrong why did god give us george the first? Happy Bidet (Let the Balled Eagle Soar): a bathroom stall is not so bad, if you had to choose places to be had.  after fifty-seven christmas holidays, you've never seen such happy (bi)days.  oh america, exalt!  the eagle got balled.  oh i know it hurts a little bit (maybe more the pride?  from the smell of it?) a patriot shouldn't be so soft.  oh you got fucked in the ashcroft.  oh america, exalt!  the eagle got balled. Gunboat Diplomacy: you're like the guys with the gunboat eyes singing 'we won't hurt you if you realise that we're only here to help.'  take your gunboats, your gunboats home.  parked in the harbour you're watching over, i feel you staring, i swear i'm no revolutionary pinko commie trash.  take your gunboats, your gunboats home.  you came invited but not this way.  would you turn around and sail as far away as your steam-powered engines and modern inventions will go?  take your gunboats, your gunboats home. Kiss Army: an army of kisses fell down on you and i was the general leading the assault.  but failing to capture your critical organs cos you were enraptured with someone less important.  the warmest november forever and ever is the perfect setting for second efforts.  cos if at first you fail miserably, second failures don't feel so shitty. Eat A Dick, Cheney: did your mom not love you enough, donald rumsfeld?  did your daddy call you a 'fuck,' richard cheney?  i wish i could give you the love they never did.  maybe you'd stop bombing the fuck out of everything.  did you cry yourself to sleep, colin powell?  cos even when you played along you still got excluded.  i wish i could tell you that you're an important black politician.  but you are whiter than the spark of my car ignition.  was it hard to be the failure, george the second?  all those expectations you never lived up to.  i wish i could hold your hand and tell you everything's gonna be alright.  you need protection from the world even though that's not what it looks like.  but i've got nothing left to give to you and yours.  i put it all into these words and these chords.  we'll be laughing at your expense when you're dead and gone.  cos revolution's gonna hurt, but not for very long. Looking for Love (While) In(vading) The Muslim World: drink up, drink up.  it's the only thing i can think of.  to not go out and make love to someone i don't know.  after all its just a heart that i've been taking apart.  when rhyming is so hard, there's no rhyming in a life of art.  don't look back, look back.  no, no, no, it's not that bad.  still.  don't look back.  after all, it's just the past, haunting me like a gas mask i wore with you in iraq.  i smiled at you and you smiled back.  hammurabi was killed in missile blast.  and a truck bomb was a wedding crashed.  and i kissed you and you squeezed my ass.  after all these are just words that nobody has ever heard.  so nobody is getting hurt. Sun, Oh Sun!: sun, oh sun! i love it when you shine.  you warm my heart with your ultraviolet light.  you warm my friends and the family i come from.  you warm my heart for my ultraviolet love.  but sun, oh sun, tell me why you've been spotted in the arab sky?  the NSA's been tracking all your rays and terrorists don't even like sunny days.  and they ain't gonna get any anyways.  sun, oh sun!  i know you're meaning well.  but sun, times are complicated and it would do you well to drop all of this socialist bullshit and look out for yourself, cos even if you're with us you might still be against us and we won't hesitate to send you to a sunny day in hell but sun, oh sun, tell me why you've been spotted in the arab sky?  you know that i can't help you if you won't try, just tell them you got lost, even if that's a lie.  and i sure hope you can explain what you were doing in cuba, china, korea, panama, vietnam, haiti, venezuela, zimbabwe... Buyer Beware Blues: young man, leave your prairie heart back home cos you know it don't go for much around here.  you won't get much more than a ten from the pawn shop man.  this ain't no place for a boy with a pretty face, you know you're only gonna be a bit of fun.  so don't talk in rhymes and don't trust anyone.  just keep yourself to yourself if your selfish heart wants to survive.  you're bound to get stung if you stick around the hive.  so let's take a train back to where you don't have to buyer beware.  cos i'm tired of watching you watching the sunrise over these big city lights. Mafeking Shithouse: i'll take a bouchee or two.  that'll leave six or seven for you.  old rhodes comin down the hill.  to civilize the uncivilizable.  i remember a matador.  i was looking for the door to the shithouse burning down.  in this shithouse shithole town.  there's no gold up in these hills.  but we'll mine the fuck out of them still.  this old town's growin young.  with every new single teenage mom.  i remember a matador.  i was looking for the door to the shithouse burning down.  in this shithouse shithole town.  your eyes are growing white.  that's all that i can see.  remember, praise the lord while you're butchering me. Plastic Glasses and Click Tracks: you're not like the puzzles i come from, they were simple and strong.  your plastic glasses cover the eyes that complicate these songs.  so remove the fingers from those lips that tell some truth and some lies.  and say something that i can't understand that i can overanalyze.  if this big city is going to eat me, i hope you're gonna be its teeth.  rip out my eyeballs so i can't see all the ways its carrying on without me. Lebanong Song: lebanon, lebanon.  don't look away, cos it will be gone.  killing in the name of god.  his name is god!  it sounds so good!  it sounds so good, in so many languages!  so use it when you need something like water in the desert or oil in the sand.  MPI tells me there's no good excuses for speeding.  i know it looks good on the poster but it's rather misleading, cos if god don't mind taking the hit, for the guns and the tanks and the bombs and the shit well i'm sure he won't mind taking the blame for my speeding ticket.  lebanon, lebanon.  don't look away cos it will be gone. Let's Have Another Round of Applause for the American Empire!: And The Final Word is Yours, Sam Katz:    i'm breathing your air, sam katz.  and by the time we've forgotten your name, my second tongue will grow and so will my seventh toe.  i know, it't not easy running a city, a business and a baseball team today.  and so it's probably best to kill some people with your poisin spray, they're only gonna protest the city summit anyway.  i'm laughing my ass off, sam.  at those hippies in wolseley taking a stand.  banjo-pickin' on the front porch, patchoulie-stinkin' up the town.  sam, get the cannons, let's take 'em down!  let's take 'em down!  i know, it's not easy running a city, a business and a baseball team today.  and so, it's probably best to kill some people with your poisin spray, they're only gonna protest the private garbage company anyways.  i know, it's so hard to run a city and a baseball team today.  and so, i think it's best to kill some people with your poisin spray.  who needs the charging-bison-hating hippies anyway?

POP GOES THE PIGDOG!  (2006) Chris Hiebert - Drums, Handclaps, Vocals Ian Jeffrey - Guitars, Handclaps, Vocals Ryan McVeigh - Production, Vocals Ken Phillips - Bassi, Handclaps, Vocals Allison Shevernoha - Keyboards, Vocals, Handclaps Tyler Shipley - Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Handclaps, Artwork Gareth Williams - Vocals (All words by Tyler Shipley.) Christmas in Camden:      Revolution is no Tea Party: C'est La Vie Westerne: London Bombs: Babylong Song: Cars for Cogs:     it's america, and i'm on my own.  i don't own a gun and i love my home.  and i pray to god that the tigers win and the kids come home from the war we're in.  it's america and i lost my job at the factory making cars for cogs.  but i ain't so mad cos i understand they're just cutting cost, they don't need my hands.  it's america but you wouldn't know from the way it is and the way it goes.  not a hurricane or a terrorist just to fuck it up oh fuck this. Red Water: Adam Smith: Good Thing (For Bourgeois Nationalism): Ghost of a Suicide Bomber: Failing Me: Sounds of Other Languages: Taiping Riverboat: Captain, Oh Captain: Eaten on You:     the wolf in the trees is following me, i see his eyes, they're glowing green.  and to the left is see the stars reflecting in the reservoirs.  the only sound out here is me, the crunching leaves beneath my feet.  it's getting late, i wanna run, but it's so hard with legs gone numb.  but i have to get home tonight, cos i've got things to say to you.  you never gave up on me so i won't get eaten on you.  mind made up, i start to go a little faster through the snow.  now i'm afraid, truth be told, not of the wolf but of the cold.  but i have to get home tonight cos i've got things to say to you.  you never gave up on me.  so i won't get frozen on you.  i have to get home tonight cos i've got things to say to you.  you never gave up on me, so i won't get frozen on you.  i won't get frozen on you.  i won't get eaten on you.