Philly anarcho-punk / folk troubadours Mischief Brew celebrate their fifteenth
year not with a champagne toast, but by barreling into the bar and
slamming down This Is Not For Children, their fourth studio album and
debut on Alternative Tentacles Records. Recorded at Permanent Hearing
Damage by Steve Roche—who recorded many of the band’s early releases
including Songs From Under the Sink—it breathes and bleeds a tough spirit
that could only have been born in the streets, bars and empty warehouses of
Philadelphia, PA.
These ten songs plow forward, picking up where The Stone Operation left
off in 2011, but with less of the chaotic ornamentation that one might classify
as “Gypsy-punk” or “pirate folk.” Quite simply, these were written in a South
Philly garage with three instruments, and for the most part, that’s all that was
needed to complete them. Sure, there’s a little acoustic guitar, violin, junk
percussion and even glockenspiel… but at its heart, this is a punk album.
Mischief Brew lyrics have always been a carnival funhouse. Here once
again, everyday idioms and images are cleverly twisted and turned into songs
about gentrification, workers’ rights, squatting, baseball, drinking, growing
up, and horror movies—finishing up with a heartfelt tribute to lost friends.
Tracks like “City of Black Fridays,” a rousing working class acoustic anthem,
“Lancaster Avenue Blues,” which points the finger at real estate developers
renaming neighborhoods to encourage gentrification, and their ode to
their home state called “O, Pennsyltucky!” which was released in October,
with a video shot in the near-ghost town of Centralia, PA, while anthracite
coal fires burned underground, all contribute to the American-Gothic theme
that permeates This Is Not For Children.
The Pogues and Tom Waits influences have always been present in
Mischief Brew records, but this time, there is a wider cap-tipping to the likes
of New Model Army, The Replacements, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Bad Religion,
Bedlam Rovers, Flux of Pink Indians, as well as other mid-’80s UK anarchopunk
like Thatcher on Acid and Political Asylum. However, perhaps the
greatest influence is the band’s own fair city of Philadelphia. While The
Stone Operation took listeners everywhere from Dallas to Paris to Nevada
City to Romania, This Is Not For Children hunkers down at a dive bar around
the corner from the practice space, with all the collected stories from the
road, and decides that Philly, despite its ups and downs, is inseparable from
Mischief Brew. It’s an old-school town, rough-and-tumble, and may not
be as glamorous or expensive or championship-laden as its richer, younger
Northeastern siblings. But as it’s sung in “City of Black Fridays”: “We are
beaten, full of crow, but I know I’d never call another home ‘home’.”
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