- I’m excited to be moving to the SF/Bay Area soon for a lot of reasons.
- One of them is that I get to spend all day hanging out with COMMANDO (that’s how this works, right?)
The band has released a new single “Diet Soda” and, like most of their songs, there most definitely is a story behind this one, which COMMANDO kindly shares with us in the info on the Bandcamp page:
The lyrics for Diet Soda were written following conversations Juba Kalamka had with Lynnee Breedlove around issues of aging as punk and hip hop musicians in a context where dialogues on long term queer and/or POC health imperatives are often waylaid by simple day-to-day survival concerns.
Juba was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes in 2011 after exhibiting symptoms that overlapped his other chronic health conditions. As an invisibly disabled person he thought it would be cool to contextualize some of the dark humor of his elder family members around this common condition ( referred to as “The Sugar” or “The ‘Bētēs” in African American Vernacular English [AAVE]) in a cheeky ‘rage against the dying light’. The song also represents a confrontation of the very real fears of his future and seemingly inevitable consequences of the disease despite the h
The song is out now via Kill Rock Stars, so enjoy a “Diet Soda” below, and and visit COMMANDO on their Bandcamp or Spotify for more.
the white drew carey (aka – Jeff Sorley) is the founder and head editor of TGEFM. He’s lived (outside of) Chicago, Madison WI, (ugh) Penn State, Lyon FR, Oxford UK, central New Jersey, and now within earshot of SFO in the Bay Area. When not scouring the web for more great bands and labels to post about, he also spends time drawing (mostly) silly sci-fi and anime stuff under the name Asplenia Studios.
