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Staying Awake

from Help by Help

/
  • Streaming + Download

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  • Bush Shirt
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    Printed in our shitty basement on the finest 50/50 blend Gildan brand t-shirts pennies can buy, these shirts are safe for work.

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    This is a CD of our six song debut self-titled EP. We made the CD's and packaging at home.

    Help is the frenzied sound of a broken and collapsing society.

    In a world beset with anti-human reactions to daily struggles, Help responds with ways to dismantle evil machines and systems: Remove fear from decision making. Act in defiant joy. Refuse to dominate others. Do not hoard the gifts of the universe. The future is uncertain. Ends don’t justify means. Solidarity now. “If Ram Dass says: Be Here Now, I say Class War Now,” says drummer Bim Ditson, “Because ‘here’ is becoming more and more unlivable with every millionaire, much less billionaire.“

    “Meditation is cool though, actually.” He adds.

    It is this pro-human mindset that brought Help band-mates Ryan Neighbors (Guitar/vocals), Boone Howard (bass vocals), and Bim Ditson (drums) together. All three had spent the last decade or so in other, perhaps more restrained, bands. Ditson with grinding indie rockers And And And, Neighbors with alt-pop dynamos Portugal. The Man and with his electronic project Hustle and Drone, Boone Howard with his band of the same name and the psych-leaning The We Shared Milk. With Help, they are retrieving punk roots each member had put down in their teens. They are ripping the seams back open to see what’s really inside. “Everyone is angry,” says Neighbors, “Make some art about it.”

    So they did. The trio holed up for two blood-soaked days at The Map Room studio in their hometown of Portland, OR with producer Sonny DiPerri (Portugal. The Man, Animal Collective, Protomartyr, Emma Ruth Rundle) whose unblinking production captures the band’s urgency without taming their ferocity. The resulting EP is a mere six songs but each one cuts like a power-saw with the safety off. Bruised and gnarled there’s an unfiltered sense of humanity, pain, solidarity, and even optimism. This is the plain justice of anarchy.

    The recordings come with a layer of sweat and volume that hammers the point deeper, and there’s a bent-nail feeling that’s just as good onstage. “Playing live in this band is a revelation…” Howard says, “[I’m] used to fronting bands of my own, I’m learning how rewarding it is to sit back and complement these other guys whether accenting the kick and snare while locking in with Bim or just solidifying the melodic structure of the songs through Ryan’s completely unhinged guitar playing.”

    Help refuses to bow to a world where the counterculture has been nullified by corporatism and surveillance capitalism. “Now is the time for a sound saying: ‘Fuck this shit!’” Neighbors insists, “When The Donald became POTUS I heard a few people say; at least we will get some good punk rock records coming out. Well, I haven’t heard one yet, so here is ours.”

    Help is the band Portland needs right now. Fuck it, it’s the band the whole world could use a heavy dose of if we want to climb out of the dark ages of greed and into the next century of mutual aid and collaborative self-directed communities of creativity.


    All songs written by:

    Bim Ditson

    Ryan Neighbors

    Boone Howard


    Produced, Engineered and Mixed by: Sonny DiPerri

    Mastering by: Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters

    Recorded live at The Map Room in Portland, OR

    Includes unlimited streaming of Help via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 5 days
    edition of 50 

      $10 USD or more 

     

  • S/T EP
    Cassette + Digital Album

    This is a cassette tape of our debut EP. The same six songs on both sides.

    Help is the frenzied sound of a broken and collapsing society.

    In a world beset with anti-human reactions to daily struggles, Help responds with ways to dismantle evil machines and systems: Remove fear from decision making. Act in defiant joy. Refuse to dominate others. Do not hoard the gifts of the universe. The future is uncertain. Ends don’t justify means. Solidarity now. “If Ram Dass says: Be Here Now, I say Class War Now,” says drummer Bim Ditson, “Because ‘here’ is becoming more and more unlivable with every millionaire, much less billionaire.“

    “Meditation is cool though, actually.” He adds.

    It is this pro-human mindset that brought Help band-mates Ryan Neighbors (Guitar/vocals), Boone Howard (bass vocals), and Bim Ditson (drums) together. All three had spent the last decade or so in other, perhaps more restrained, bands. Ditson with grinding indie rockers And And And, Neighbors with alt-pop dynamos Portugal. The Man and with his electronic project Hustle and Drone, Boone Howard with his band of the same name and the psych-leaning The We Shared Milk. With Help, they are retrieving punk roots each member had put down in their teens. They are ripping the seams back open to see what’s really inside. “Everyone is angry,” says Neighbors, “Make some art about it.”

    So they did. The trio holed up for two blood-soaked days at The Map Room studio in their hometown of Portland, OR with producer Sonny DiPerri (Portugal. The Man, Animal Collective, Protomartyr, Emma Ruth Rundle) whose unblinking production captures the band’s urgency without taming their ferocity. The resulting EP is a mere six songs but each one cuts like a power-saw with the safety off. Bruised and gnarled there’s an unfiltered sense of humanity, pain, solidarity, and even optimism. This is the plain justice of anarchy.

    The recordings come with a layer of sweat and volume that hammers the point deeper, and there’s a bent-nail feeling that’s just as good onstage. “Playing live in this band is a revelation…” Howard says, “[I’m] used to fronting bands of my own, I’m learning how rewarding it is to sit back and complement these other guys whether accenting the kick and snare while locking in with Bim or just solidifying the melodic structure of the songs through Ryan’s completely unhinged guitar playing.”

    Help refuses to bow to a world where the counterculture has been nullified by corporatism and surveillance capitalism. “Now is the time for a sound saying: ‘Fuck this shit!’” Neighbors insists, “When The Donald became POTUS I heard a few people say; at least we will get some good punk rock records coming out. Well, I haven’t heard one yet, so here is ours.”

    Help is the band Portland needs right now. Fuck it, it’s the band the whole world could use a heavy dose of if we want to climb out of the dark ages of greed and into the next century of mutual aid and collaborative self-directed communities of creativity.


    All songs written by:

    Bim Ditson

    Ryan Neighbors

    Boone Howard


    Produced, Engineered and Mixed by: Sonny DiPerri

    Mastering by: Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters

    Recorded live at The Map Room in Portland, OR

    Includes unlimited streaming of Help via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more

    Sold Out

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 3 Help releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of 2053, Help, and The Devil is a Snake/Pennies on the Ground. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

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lyrics

We can feel all the gunshots pull us away
Vanity gets more pricey every day
It's all the same it's not a tame tame thing
It's not a game it's a blame thing

Would you say that you're staying awake?
Would you say that you're okay?

People living in the sticks just hammering nails
Feed a family of six not find a holy grail
It's all the same it's not a tame tame thing
It's not a game it's a blame thing

Would you say that you're staying awake?
Would you say that you're okay?

credits

from Help, track released July 12, 2019
Written by:
Bim Ditson
Ryan Neighbors
Boone Howard

Produced, Engineered and Mixed by: Sonny DiPerri
Mastering by: Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters
Recorded live at The Map Room in Portland, OR

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Help

Help is a noise punk band. Remove fear from decision making. Act in defiant joy. Refuse to dominate others. Do not hoard the gifts of the universe. The future is uncertain. Ends don’t justify means. Solidarity now. Class war now.


Members:
Morty (Bass)
Ryan Neighbors (Guitar, Vocals)
Bim Ditson (Drums)
... more

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