Punknews.org Reviews the Lose The Tude 7-Inch

A Columbus-based writer under the name 'OverDefined' contributed a review of the Lose The Tude 7-inch to Punknews.org.

IMHO, regarding Lose The Tude as 'jokey hardcore' is a critical misapprehension. Lose The Tude is less a joke band and more of a 'serious-joke' band. That is to say, Lose The Tude is self-aware; recognizing the problematic dictatorial style and unalloyed masculinity present in hardcore, Lose The Tude adopts the same rhetorical strategy but inverts it on its head to say, 'the emperor has no clothes' - serious techniques are used for unserious purposes, the voice of confidence is used to voice doubt and what is often an unsafe, exclusive show environment is hopefully turned into an inclusive one. But even with the play of meaning that Lose The Tude is engaged in to question how hardcore is 'performed,' Lose The Tude's lyrics and political aims are strictly earnest and honestly expressed. So Lose The Tude should instead be viewed as self-reflexive and working on more layers than easily come across - remember, the band was initially started as a response to the conservative hardcore culture popular in Columbus in 2006/2007: CCHC, et al. There is a large component of performative criticism in the songs and on-stage style of Lose The Tude, and while humor is certainly a tactic used to convey that criticism, I would hesitate to call it a 'joke.'

MONSTER HOUSE YARD SALE 6/5/2010

Entrepreneurship is the rumored heart and soul of the capitalist enterprise and therefore the ostensible lifeblood of our nation.

The "yard sale," as it is popularly known, is a reenactment and metaphor, based in nostalgia, for an utopian (as in no place) American entrepreneurship/citizenship.

We can think of the yard sale as saying, "Yes, I am American - I have a yard, my own piece of America. And I have objects, objects which I am free to include in the free-market."

It is in the hollow and temporary union of these two drives - economic and political, free-market and "free personhood," that we can understand what Americans think it means to be "American" - even as the true foundation of the American economy in the 21st century belies the notion that the individual has any agency in its machinations.

What we are selling and where after "The Jump."