Welcome back to Sounds of the Week, here’s some of the  musical inspirations floating around in my head this past week:

I’m pretty excited about these images of forest megaphones students in Estonia built.  These have made the rounds in social media so it’s likely not new to you but I keep coming back to them visually and conceptually.  I love the idea of coming across these in the forest, as a listening device / shelter.

I also was recently listening to this fresh air interview with Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle and was really appreciating his love for metal and “satanic” music in general.  Darnielle speaks so well of how important finding “your” music is.  I was fondly remembering my days of youth, stuck in middle/high school…  finding punk and metal music was really the saving grace of those days.
I pretty much quit listening to The Mountain Goats after it became a more full on band, but I do love some of the early lo-fi recordings. This song is a great starting point if you are unfamiliar with their music:

John Darnielle’s interview had me remembering the absurdity of the Moral Majority, and the PMRC.  At least it’s easier to play recordings backwards these days. The good old PMRC led by Tipper Gore, tried to label, rate, and censor music in the mid 80’s.  There’s some great video footage of Frank Zappa,  John Denver and Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) testifying before the U.S. Senate in 1985.  Here’s Dee Snider… just him walking into testify is amazing:

Speaking of metal, I just saw MGLA from Poland play Milwaukee along with the Italian band Mortuary Drape.  MGLA appeared onstage with matching black leather jackets and black face masks, much like a black metal version of the Ramones.  They were excellent live, and so is  their newest album: