"Boots are marching in the snow / Shots and bombs and car alarms wailing / Underneath the subway shelter, / Wait and wait and wait and wait..."
The frantic, jumbled, rouse and ramble of "I Am One Thousand", by Portland, Oregon birthed experimental indie rock amalgam The Taxpayers, feels like the stuff of busker punk, of traffic stopping protest and of that guy who yells and flings punches at unknown monsters in the alley by the liquor store and I am more than alright with that. The sound here like a furious amalgam of artists like Jeff Rosenstock, Sparks, Los Campesinos!, Harley Poe, Japandroids, to name a few off of the top of my head, seems to lean heavily into confessional poetic blood letting, into politico punk, into what might have been called slam poetry decades ago. I reference all those bands that encompass busker punk, new wave, emo punk, art punk, indie rock in an attempt to put The Taxpayers in a figurative vinyl crate but it is hard because they are so unique. The blend of folk, chamber pop, busker punk, indie rock comes up and goes down with poetic fists flying and I love that. Songs about the macro that have a moral center are much needed at this time when, quite frankly, everything seems so very fucked up.
The lyrics, the potent discourse here by Rob Taxpayer is many so here are the lyrics so you can follow along:
Boots are marching in the snow.
Shots and bombs and car alarms wailing.
Underneath the subway shelter,
Wait and wait and wait and wait.
The bells of churches ring no more.
The rules of nations cease to matter.
Pray that the bullets all miss.
We tried to avoid this.
I am a mountain.
I am a weed.
I am one thousand.
I am so solitary.
I am on fire.
Everything is.
I breathe in the sunrise.
I live for the future.
God, machines remove the earth.
They burn the trees and eat the earth.
They gouge and thrash and slice and dig
Straight down to the bedrock.
The calls to prayer ring out no more.
The rules of conflict cease to matter.
Pray that the bullets all miss.
We tried to avoid this.
I am a mountain.
I am a weed.
I am one thousand.
I am so solitary.
I am on fire.
Everything is.
I breathe in the sunrise.
I live for the future.
Shots and bombs and car alarms wailing.
Underneath the subway shelter,
Wait and wait and wait and wait.
The bells of churches ring no more.
The rules of nations cease to matter.
Pray that the bullets all miss.
We tried to avoid this.
I am a mountain.
I am a weed.
I am one thousand.
I am so solitary.
I am on fire.
Everything is.
I breathe in the sunrise.
I live for the future.
God, machines remove the earth.
They burn the trees and eat the earth.
They gouge and thrash and slice and dig
Straight down to the bedrock.
The calls to prayer ring out no more.
The rules of conflict cease to matter.
Pray that the bullets all miss.
We tried to avoid this.
I am a mountain.
I am a weed.
I am one thousand.
I am so solitary.
I am on fire.
Everything is.
I breathe in the sunrise.
I live for the future.
Written by lead vocalist Rob Taxpayer, “I Am One Thousand” draws inspiration from his experience teaching free Adult Education night classes in his city's public school system. Rob shares a deeply personal reflection on the song, recounting how he taught students from countries ravaged by war—countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Somalia, Eritrea, Ukraine and more. Rob shares:
A few years ago, in one single class for English language learners, there were students who came from:
Afghanistan, where there is war.
Burma, where there is war.
Somalia, where there is war.
Eritrea, where there is war.
Ethiopia, where there is war.
El Salvador, where there is war.
Honduras, where there is war.
Ukraine, where there is war.
To suddenly have war thrust upon you. Unfathomable. But a reality for so many.
To be one in a thousand, one in a million, both solitary and part of an entire people.
As part of a writing assignment, we were discussing the places we come from. A student from Burma was describing escaping the violence, and feeling guilt when thinking about family and friends who were not able to leave.
At the end of the discussion, she said, “I left for my children. I live for the future.”
As I sit here writing this a few years later, now with my own child, I wonder if I would be so brave if thrown into such horrors. I hope so.
“I Am One Thousand” was written in honor of people like her: courageous and utterly human in the face of the inhumane, kind in the face of cruelty, resilient above all.
Their new album, "Circle Breaker", out on March 21 via the boundary-defying Ernest Jenning Record Co (pre-order).
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/album/circle-breaker
https://www.instagram.com/the_taxpayers/
https://www.facebook.com/thetaxpayers/
https://www.thetaxpayersband.com/
After a multi-year hiatus, long-running experimental punk band The Taxpayers are back and ready to make their mark once again. Formed in Portland, Oregon in 2007, The Taxpayers have been known for their genre-bending, DIY punk sound and their ability to push musical boundaries. Following a series of critically acclaimed albums, including 2012’s concept album God, Forgive These Bastards and their last full-length release Big Delusion Factory (2016), the band is thrilled to announce the release of their highly anticipated new album, Circle Breaker, out on March 21 via the boundary-defying Ernest Jenning Record Co (pre-order).
The Taxpayers have been busy during their time away, selling out shows across the U.S. and headlining festivals in Australia. Their upcoming album Circle Breaker marks a bold new chapter in their musical evolution.
In anticipation of the album, The Taxpayers have released two new singles, “Circle Protector”and “Evil Everywhere” along with accomanying music videos. Both tracks are available streaming now on YouTube and all streaming platforms for any playlist shares.
“Think of how much the world has changed since we released our last album,” says Rob Taxpayer, the band’s lead vocalist and principal songwriter. “It seemed appropriate to do something completely different.”
The album’s lead single “Circle Protector,” draws on deeply personal experiences, including a tragic event that profoundly impacted Rob Taxpayer. Reflecting on the moment, Rob shares:
“The day before ‘Circle Protector’ was written, I ran into my friends Katie and Will, who were loading an amp into the back of a car about a block from my house. They were heading to a house show in the next neighborhood over. ‘You should come,’ they said. But me and Elise had free tickets to see the stage adaptation of Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill and babysitters for our six-month-old (our first date night in months). So we hopped back on our bikes and told them to have fun. ‘Maybe we’ll stop by after the musical.’
“I found out the next day that there had been a shooting at that house show. Some random guys had wandered in thinking it was a house party, tried to hit on a few people who weren’t interested, and opened fire on their way out. An old friend had been killed, a victim of a stray bullet.
“I learned about this as I held my sleeping baby in my arms, grappling with the fact that my friend had been murdered a handful of blocks from where my baby slept. That night, I lit a bundle of old dried lemongrass and walked a protective circle around my home.”
The song “Circle Protector” encapsulates the emotional weight of this experience while embodying the band's continued exploration of complex themes and evolving sound.
The track “Evil Everywhere” is another deeply personal reflection on the state of the world today. Rob continues:
“With all the compounding murders and suicides and just general death that the band had been experiencing leading up to this album, I often find myself thinking about the word ‘evil’ and what it means. Is it an action, a choice, some unconquerable element of existence, a seed, just another thing that happens? Do we learn from the past or intentionally drown it out in order to just fucking get by? What direction leads away from it? What prevails in its face? The songs on this album ended up being, in some sense, an attempt to grapple with those questions.”
The band’s album Circle Breaker moves from the quasi-religious vocal harmonies of “Circle Protector” to the electro-funk of the furious “Evil Everywhere.” There’s chaotic punk (“I Am One Thousand,” “Nightmarish Population”), stripped back heartbreak (“Nobody is a Lost Cause”, “Empty Shed”), and genre spanning epics (“At War With the Dogcatchers”, “Everything Will Be Different”). Perhaps most surprising of all, at least for a mildly nihilistic punk band, are the songs of love and hope (“Naked Trees”, “Future Island”, “Outline of Your Blood.”)
“These are songs about circles, and they're the most personal songs we've ever shared,” says Rob. “The amount of death and birth we experienced prior to and during the making of this album - the violent deaths of friends and family members, the births of our children…it's been a journey for us.”
That journey is illustrated by the simple, provocative album art: a tree stump with new growth, created collaboratively by band members Nasrene Taxpayer, Rob Taxpayer, and artist Shauna Corinne Murray.
“Just as we began working on this album, our guitar player Andrew had a family member gunned down and murdered at a park near his home,” says Rob. “The next day, the city came and cut down the cherry tree in front of his house. A week or two later, Andrew texted me a picture: the gnarled stump of the cherry tree had sprouted new growth. A new tree being born from the old.”
When taken as a whole, the results of Circle Breaker are staggering; at once furious, heartbreaking, contemplative, joyous, and moving.
The Taxpayers have announced a series of midwest shows in support of Circle Breaker this spring in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit, along with summer shows on the east and west coast.
The Taxpayers, folk rock, indie rock, storytelling, rustic, raw, emotional, "I Am One Thousand" (Official Video), lead vocalist Rob Taxpayer, Portland Oregon, band, collaborative indie band,
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