From the ancient Greeks to medieval court jesters to modern late night talk show hosts, taking comedic jabs at those in power can be as persuasive as a sword. Retired legendary rodeo clown and now musical satirist Sloppy Scales has assembled a world-class band of musicians to create his debut album This Machine Mocks Fascists: The Sloppy Scales Songbook that's released today. It's a hilarious Latin countrypolitan blues-rock bulldogging of America’s far-right politics. It’s refreshingly incendiary in its raw condemnation of injustice.
Sloppy Scales has traveled the world, but now calls Atlanta his home. He’s a great songwriter, but terrible musician (hence his name). So he assembled a crack team of diverse musicians to record the album, the majority of whom make up the band Guilherme Shakespeare, the house band of Atlanta venue Buteco – known for its Latin music and Brazilian cuisine. Players include Rafael Pereira (Janelle Monae, PJ Morton), Guilherme Shakespeare (Rock*A*Teens, Os Ossos), Daniel Wytanis (Ghost-Note, KEM), Cleidinilson “Chocolate” Costa, and singers Mr. Maph, Skye Doughty, Natalye Woodson, and Bret Busch whose last album (with most of this crew) found praise at PopMatters, American Songwriter, No Depression and more.
This Machine Mocks Fascists is modern sad-clown music. It mirrors the humanist perspective of Woody Guthrie, while charting Sloppy Scales’ whimsically tragic biographical odyssey to this collection of songs. And, in equal parts, it’s a scathing and inflammatory takedown of radically conservative, bigoted and ultra-nationalist politics. He takes particular aim at Donald J. Trump, the MAGA movement, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, and the racist, xenophobic and fear-mongering elements that have become the norm in our modern politics.
The album kicks off with the dreamy folk “I Shagged a MAGA,” with its landscape of lap steel, cello, light drums and Alison Krauss-esque vocals. It’s a comedic Americana tale of a drunken one-night-stand with a border guard MAGA member in Texas, a state with oppressively restrictive reproductive rights laws. The song ends as our protagonist-turned-medical tourist heads off to Canada, where women’s bodily integrity is protected. Its ridiculously over-the-top description of the tryst is entangled with the humorously oddball juxtaposition of confronting the real-life horror that is the aftermath of the Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs. Wade. “But the Supreme Court / Will not support / The greater good or Planned Parenthood / My right to choose has been refused,” she sings.
In the swanky Chicago blues song "Trump," Sloppy Scales throws verbal haymakers at the former president. It’s a fun yet aggressive lampooning knock-out of the former president through Frank Sinatra horns and Dean Martin attitude – singing, “Just a mean old man with tiny tiny hands,” before criticizing his history of sexual assault, stealing state secrets, trying to overthrow the 2020 election, and his general attacks against non-white immigrants.
Sloppy Scales set out to make a record that’s a celebration of multiculturalism, civil rights, and fundamental fairness. The lewd and playful "Republicans" holds a mirror up to the political party that capitalizes on racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic rhetoric. Sloppy Scales delivers this disturbing message through music that dives into Latin and Caribbean roots percussion and horns, while being vocally explicit about this side’s hatred of multiculturalism, while creating division and social strife. It’s sung like a school alma mater song, or like members of a secret lodge, from the perspective of white nationalists setting up a Trump rally. It demonstrates the absurdity of some people’s morally reprehensible ideologies, particularly with the far-right’s reactionary and white nationalist movements who are lock-step with the MAGA republican party. It’s a song that cuts to the heart of what they actually stand for: a corrupt and incompetent government, white nationalism, anti-intellectualism and entitlement as they sing, “We collect guns for protection / And if we lose the next election / We’ll stage a bloody insurrection / It's an expression of patriotism.” On paper none of this sounds funny at all, but Sloppy Scales does what clowns do best and treats this content as the outrageous buffoonery it is.
The calypso-inspired, gospel-soul track "Sweet Baby Jesus" gives the vibe of a re-discovered 45 rpm rock n’ roll single from the 1950s with its heavy Latin percussion, festive horns and vocal harmonies. It’s a song that’s making fun of the human condition, while reflecting on the choices we make until we’re on our knees praying for forgiveness. This is Sloppy Scales appealing for mercy after a lifetime of breaking commandments. “Sweet baby Jesus / I’mma need that forgiveness when you’re grown,” he sings, cementing his place as a classic satirist. Here he is, pleading to a baby who couldn’t possibly comprehend what he’s asking. As we’re all sinners prone to temptation, is this going to be the next Christmas time hit?
Sloppy Scales comes from entertainment royalty as the grandson of Hee-Haw and Grand Ole Opry cornball legend Minnie Pearl and one of Mexico’s greatest comedians, and 1940s filmmaking pioneer, Cantinflas. The influence of his grandmother had a significant impact on Sloppy Scales’ musical and comical tendencies. His grandparents’ alternatingly irreverent and homespun sense of humor left Sloppy Scales with a sharp-tongued but whimsical style steeped in cowboy chords, Afro-Latin syncopation and the rebellious spirit of his adolescent garage bands.
The best way to get to know Sloppy Scales is through his song “Cantinflas.” Sloppy Scales’ grandfather brought him along to a circus casting call when he was just five years old, and he got bit by the showbiz bug. He went home and practiced singing, dancing, acrobatics and music. He eventually made a name for himself as a rodeo clown working Wild West shows. Before his death, Cantinflas told Sloppy Scales that he should use his talents to, “Invent melodies and words to satirize the politically corrupt and the morally bankrupt. Sure beats a bull horn in the gut.”
The egalitarian story "Brown Clowns Need Not Apply" combines Sloppy Scales hillbilly heritage of Americana acoustic guitar, Northeastern Brazilian baião beats, and his Mexican roots of mariachi horns. Here he tells the humorous tale of his rambling tour of rejection from rodeo clown jobs, despite his proven elite clowning prowess. He encountered the same discrimination faced by circus performers, vaudevillians and other carnies of color for millenia. He found himself relegated to janitorial positions until the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission intervened and shut down that job site, later converting it to a Mexican cantina. Sloppy Scales rose to prominence as a world-renowned rodeo clown and circus-arts performer. His employment challenges were among the first incidents that led to his involvement in the fight for civil rights.
The classic country song "That’s My Ex-Wife’s New Sex Life" is a melancholy old-time waltz that comes across like a tragic hymn. The sad clowning of Sloppy Scales has never felt more sad-clown than this. It tells the tale of Sloppy Scales’ now ex-wife's pilgrimage from religious near-asexual, to their divorce, to her becoming a sexually liberated woman who doesn’t shy away from live-streamed group sex. The song itself recognizes that it’s “rude, crude and socially unacceptable,” followed by Sloppy Scales’ meek apology as he dolefully follows her unfolding story of amorous triumphs from afar.
With a wink to Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year,” the ragtime folk-punk ditty "When I Was 13" rolls over you like a whimsical hillbilly samba punctuated with mariachi horns. Here he contrasts his comparatively low-tech Gen X youth with that of Gen Z’s tech-savant future. As a middle-aged retired rodeo clown turned political satirist, he’s simply fascinated with self-driving cars, GPS systems and the sheer computing power of modern phones. “A Game Boy was my computer,” he sings with the mentality of a cane waving crank yelling for the kids to get off his lawn.
The album is bookended with “I Shagged a MAGA (reprise),” a reimagining of the song through Tina Turner-esqe rock n’ roll sass, and smashed through a filter of Prince-inspired techo-rock. “And now I’m pregnant with an ultra-right wing infant / I shagged a MAGA / Now my tum-tum-tummy has a lump / A cellular clump,” she sings before the song explodes into a wailing guitar solo. The song takes the serious issues of racism surrounding border security and women’s rights and turns them into a song who’s foundation is so tragic that we just need to laugh. Sloppy Scales is here to release the tension brought on by a fear-mongering and occasionally insurrectionist faction of American politics that continues to be terrifying to a large swath of the population.
Sloppy Scales is a concerned rodeo clown who fights for civil rights through satirical songcraft, and relishes roasting any and all authority with his biting humor. He embraces musical cultures across continents to poke fun at white supremacist ideologies. He exposes its absurdities and injustice through the richness of multiculturalism. Even his band is made up of black, brown, white, queer, female, male, people – the lovely diaspora of Earth converging to create art. This Machine Mocks Fascists: The Sloppy Scales Songbook will certainly delight the already initiated, but this record has the potential to wake people up to the fascistic plans of the oligarchic elites and racist ideologues who’d rather watch this country burn than allow its cultural diversity to thrive. Sloppy Scales is already midway through writing his follow-up album Sloppy Seconds. Stay tuned!
TRACK LIST:
01 - I Shagged a MAGA
02 - When I Was 13
03 - Sweet Baby Jesus
04 - That’s My Ex-Wife’s New Sex Life
05 - Republicans
06 - Brown Clowns Need Not Apply
07 - Cantinflas
08 - Trump
09 - I Shagged a MAGA (reprise)
ALBUM CREDITS
Written by: Sloppy Scales
Produced by: Guilherme Shakespeare
Mixed and Mastered by: Spencer Willis
Bret Busch - Vocals (lead on “When I Was 13,” “That’s My Ex-Wife’s New Sex Life”)
Cleidinilson “Chocolate” Costa - bass, keys
Daniel Wytanis - trombone, trumpet, keys
Guilherme Shakespeare - guitar, vocals (lead on “Cantinflas”)
Lauren Gracco - vocals (lead on “When I Was 13,” “That’s My Ex-Wife’s New Sex Life”)
Marla Feeney - strings, saxophone
Matthew Wauchope - keys
Mr. Maph - vocals (lead on “Sweet Baby Jesus,” “Republicans,” “Brown Clowns Need Not Apply,” “Trump”)
Natalye Woodson - vocals (lead on “I Shagged a MAGA (reprise),” “Trump”)
Rafael Pereira - drums and percussion
Skye Doughty - vocals (lead on “I Shagged a MAGA”)
Steve Cunningham - steel guitar
