Over this past summer I lived at home in a Chicago suburb north of the city. Each morning I rode the Metra into the city for work. As the train stopped at each suburb, a flock of old pressed suits boarded with their briefcases and their coffee. They found their seats and chatted with their professional friends. By the last stops the train was full of suits chatting about finance or whatever with other suits. Sometimes they chatted with their pre-grad summer intern initiates who wore khakis and were interested in what the suits were saying. The suits were the khakis parent’s friends and were very impressed with the khakis. The culture was a distinct bubble, a cycle of nepotism that was a phenomenon to me. Except I was on the train wearing khakis and a button down going to work in the city too.
I let myself think I was different than the khakis in two ways. First, I was commuting to volunteer at a Toxicology lab that had agreed to let me hang around for the summer if I didn’t screw anything up, not interning at a finance company. Second, I would listen to Prom Queef or Gogol Bordello in my headphones loud enough to hope the person sitting next to me could make some of it out. Then I’d look around as Mary Begley preached, “I don’t think so. Get Fucked!” or Eugene Hütz pointed out the hypocrisies in American community culture. I would admire the juxtaposition of anti-establishment punk as I watched the establishment go to work.
My unearned high horse aside, I had one major epiphany during these train rides: Carleton NEEDS a Gogol Bordello cover band. If you don’t know Gogol Bordello, they are a gypsy-punk band. Frontman Eugene Hütz fled to New York from Ukraine when he was a kid. He writes songs from a unique outsider’s perspective that allows him to pick up on the stiffness in mainstream American culture. He encourages Americans to let loose and leave the pressure behind for a night. Members of the band immigrated from all over the world, giving Gogol’s sound a uniquely diverse accent with Eastern European, South American and African influences along with a diversity of perspective on the American experience. But the band’s philosophy has an important common thread: a party. Gogol Bordello puts on a show to give listeners a party… neigh to demand that listeners party. If you play accordion, electric violin, guitar, bass, or drums, learn some Gogol Covers. Then start a Gogol Bordello cover band please for everyone at Carleton’s sake.