Pickles

When The Meat Beetles found out about Laura Bush's claim that no one has suffered more than she and W have over the Iraq war, they were apoplectic. The nerve of this sorry excuse for a human being to say such a thing. What has she sacrificed? What does she even know about suffering (besides, what she has learned about suffering from being married into the Bush family)?
Once the Sloptops got over their hissy fit, they realized that there was plenty of fodder for audio collage in the insane rantings of The First "Lady". And is she on drugs or just naturally out of touch with reality?
The picture below was added as a mere suggestion that there may be--just may be--some who have suffered more than she and W have as a result of his choice to go to war.

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Smoked Children

In 1994 The Meat Beetles got their first computer, an Apple LC475. It wasn't much by today's standards--a whopping 160 Meg hard drive, 32 Mb of memory, and 8-bit sound. But nothing would ever again be the same for the Sloptops. This was one of the first pieces they created with their new digital tool. The samples used include a caller to a radio talk show, incensed by the bombing of Iraq, Carroll O'Connor (aka Archie Bunker), and Hollywood director, Cecil B. DeMille. Also putting in a guest appearance at the end is none other than Franklin Roosevelt. Grilled millionaires indeed!
meanwhile, the smoking of Iraqi children continues!

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Death And Hell In A Yellow Submarine

Once again The Meat Beetles explore social views on rock music. This time the vocal chores are handled by Elizabeth Claire Prophet, doomsday cult leader, and Ronald Reagan, the object of worship for the Republican hate/death/fear cult. It was a match made in Purgatory! Also featured are other members of Prophet's cult, a network news interviewer (don't know who), and a cute but naïve hippy with a cute but naïve view of a future that would never come.


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HelloHaloHairdoHell

Another "turn on the TV and record whatever is on" piece from 1987. This time what was on was a sermon from Jimmy Swaggart. These were dark days for the christianist extremist movement. Only weeks after this was recorded Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker had their fall from grace (or whatever it was they fell from), and only a year or so later Swaggart himself would be caught with a prostitute.
Lots of harsh noises in this one and two out-of-sync cheapo keyboard drum patterns. Those were interesting times!

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Fear Up

Of all the "guest vocalists" who have collaborated with The Meat Beetles, the Sloptops all agree on one favorite: George W. Bush. There are two reasons for this, both having to do with Bush's monumental stupidity. First, every time the guy opens his mouth in public something choice is bound to come out; phrase after phrase that just screams "Sample me!" Second, because Bush is utterly incapable of uttering more than five or six words in one go without pausing to think what the next five or six are going to be, there are lots of pauses in his speeches. This is particularly handy when clipping samples out of a large .aiff file.
All of the snippets used here came from two different appearances--his address to the graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy (May 23, 2007) and a press conference (May 24, 2007). The Meat Beetles got into a friendly debate over which incident represented an all-time low in presidential appearances--using a graduation ceremony to make lame excuses for a failed, amoral foreign policy, or threatening the children of reporters. However, The Meat Beetles quickly came to realize that with well over a year left of this "presidency" Bush is bound to sink even lower.
By the way, lest you feel TOO sorry for the reporters whose children were threatened, it should be pointed out that "David" is none other than Dave Gregory of NBC. Yes, the same Dave Gregory who prostituted himself by dancing with Karl Rove (the most despicable blob of protoplasm currently oozing across the surface of the planet) at the recent White House Press Corps dinner. Hopefully Gregory now sees that, even when you suck up to these creeps, they will turn on you like vipers if it suits their purpose. Wait until you see what they will do to David Petraeus when "his" plan for the troop surge in Iraq goes belly up!


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