b.y.o.k.

"B.Y.O.K" (a.k.a. "Bring Your Own Koolaid") is a name drop a minute. Hugo Ball; André Breton; Jim Jones (clearly the Rev. and not the rapper from the mention of Guyana and the "kool aid*" of the title's "k"); rock & cultural critic Greil Marcus; All Music Guide contributor Heather Phares; an oblique reference to Elvis Costello ("South America is coming into style" being a lyric from his "Less Than Zero"); an overt reference to Marshall McLuhan ("The Medium is the Massage" being the famously misprinted title to the book McLuhan developed with Quentin Fiore); and a mocking (?) reference to Lincoln Beachey, flying ace. Is this an attempt to create a secret history as in Marcus's Lipstick Traces? A new country as in Jones' Guyanese utopia? Is this the pure pyschic automatism of Breton? An anti-art sound poem a lá Ball? Is it a tacit critique of the rock song or of the punk song structure (it calls attention to its own form with the mentions of McLuhan and dramatic irony and its almost taunting claims that Marcus will inscribe a history of the band and that Phares will deign to review the song)? It's impossible to know for sure.

The song barrages the listener with so many images so quickly that it almost dares the audience to try to interpret the meaning. Is the song self deprecating, self aggrandizing, is it a critique of rock star posturing, or is it just English Graduate student pretense?

What is clear is that the barrages evolved over time.  The earliest recording of the song (performed live in the KDVS recording studio) mentions only Jones, Marcus, and Phares.  The song is a much simpler equation of rock star posturing and the tribal atrocity of Jonestown.  In its early form the song retains much of its punch, but the didactic lyrical conceit lends a self righteous tone -- even as the band attempts to undercut this tone with detached irony.  I think we can agree that a message "rock stars are bad" is heavy handed.  And while we may never agree what the final version of the song with its ensemble cast of characters means, we can see the band masterfully transcend the trap of the moralizing rock lyric.  Does the song ultimately work?  It's impossible to decide.  One person may have trouble agreeing even with herself whether the song succeeds or means anything.

--Lester Fangs, Crust Magazine 2013

[*The Jonestown massacre was perpetrated with the knock-off brand Flavor Aid not Kool-aid, but, in fairness to the Quilters, it has become common parlance to note that someone who seems wholly indoctrinated by an ideology has "drunk the Kool-Aid."]