Wingnut Dishwasher's Union: Inspiration

One of my biggest inspirations has always been music. I don’t think there’s any medium that can capture the sense of feeling and emotion quite like it. A perfect example of this is Wingnut Dishwasher’s Union (formerly known as Johnny hobo and the freight trains) which is essentially a one man acoustic punk rock band and is, to me, some of the best music I have ever heard.

The lyrics have ranged from depressingly apathetic to playful and positive songs about being a teenage drug addict to revolution. The thing that strikes me the most is the honesty and intelligence in them. I personally love the older songs when he was playing as Johnny Hobo and the Freight trains. These songs have such a feeling of hopelessness to them, still, there’s some optimism trying to break through. A good example is the chorus to the harmony parking lot song with goes “Here's to the rubble. A brick through every window, a casket buried six feet deep for everybody's heroes. Here's to our lives being meaningless and how beautiful it is because freedom doesn't have a purpose.”

The more recent albums have been much more positive which is a nice change of pace. A personal favorite is “Jesus does the dishes” which is partly about how cleaning up after yourself is one of the basic idea’s behind anarchism with lyrics like “If we can't live without dishwashers, how could we live without cops? And so you're asking me, who does the dishes after the revolution? Well, we do our own dishes now; we'll do our own dishes then.”

The other thing that draws me to this music is the intensity of it. I can’t think of another solo acoustic act with as much energy, emotion and passion in it. Every time I put it one I feel like I want to either get up and dance or learn how to play guitar and belt them out at the top of my lungs.

I don’t know. It might sound horrible to you. The recordings are generally pretty rough and the singing might be a bit too much for someone who’s not accustomed to at least a little punk. The truth is that this is the kind of music that reminds me what it’s like to be alive and how great that really is. After listening to any of the albums all I want to do is sit down and write comics. This music inspires me to want to be able to write and draw comics that have as much energy, passion and are as emotionally resonating to someone else as these songs have been to me.

In any case, check em out if you’re interested. you can find most of the music here.