Matthew Grimm, Earth and Fire (but not Wind), Tyler Durden, Che Guevara, Dave Stengel, D.Lee, Big Bill Haywood, Bill Neff, the Guy Under the Seats, Johnny Tightlips, Jason Berge, John of Patmos, that douche from that fucking sitcom, Mick Hargreaves, Donovan McNabb, DK, James Robinson, Baldwin IX of Flanders, the Pseudo-Baldwin, Matt Winegardner, Pornstar Raylene, Pipefitters Local 302, cymbal-banging monkey, Eric Straumanis, Milhouse’s Dad, Bender, Big Chief Lumberg, Arnoldo di Brescia, Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David, Randall Davis, Ryan Theriot, Azlea Antistia, Brian Urlacher, Hugh Thompson, Matt Azzarto, all those dames who’d make the exception for Angelina Jolie, Andres Nocioni, Smedley Butler, David Henderson, Tom Tolbert, Jeff Sale, V.
Influences
booze, Social Distortion, Bill Hicks, Henry Agard Wallace, Bender, Herbert Marcuse, Robert Penn Warren, John Sayles, Dave Alvin, Jason & the Scorchers, Cornel West, Scruffy the Cat, Jonathan Kwitney, Chomsky, Farscape, MC5, Phil Spector, that dog on the corner who tells us to do things, Salvador Allende, The Del Fuegos, pornography, Alan Moore, Sidney Lumet, David Fincher, Letters to Cleo, Tariq Ali, Siddhartha Gautama, Tuuli, Joss Whedon, anger.
"If you haven’t heard of Matthew Grimm and The Red Smear, you’re missing a great band, sort of a cross between the Clash and Wilco. They’re Iowa’s best rock’n’roll band -- intense, melodic and political . . ."DOWN WITH TYRANNY
"Me, Im gonna play the hell outta this stuff, stick it on mix CDs, blast it on my radio program, rock the tavern on my weekly DJ night and force every hard-working, beer-guzzling, non-voting dumbass friend I have to listen to every word of it. Until I hear stuff like this rammed down my ear-holes as fervently and repetitively as I currently do patriotic pabulum like Toby Keith, Pat Robertson and Bill O Fing Reilly, Ill consider it my duty as a proud, practicing, rock n roll preachin American . . ." Pulse of the Twin Cities
Blazing out of the Midwest like somebody sabotaged their van, Matthew Grimm and the Red Smear are the most blacklisted band in Iowa. Foolishly flaunting the First Amendment, the Smear plays the rock & roll music the kids love liberally peppered with obscenity, salacious inuendo and treasonous invective that has more recently proven utter and immutable truth versus dissembling propaganda of the Assholes In Charge. Matthew Grimm & the Red Smear are the enemies of all things good, pure and proper, as is in full evidence at their actual website REDSMEAR.COM, along with FREE DOWNLOADS, UNABASHED LEFTIST RANTING AND REASONED DISCOURSE WITH THOSE WHO SEND US HATE MAIL.
Former frontman of the famously obscure NYC roots rock "legends," The Hangdogs, Grimm has returned to his native Iowa, where he spends his spare nights seeding his ultimate legacy as a filthy-mouthed, prophetic barroom sage and counseling young people on their "relationships." His first post-Hangdogs record, Dawn’s Early Apocalypse, helmed by the multiplatinum producer Pete Anderson (Dwight Yoakam, Michelle Shocked, The Mavericks) and Pete Lubin, is a fistful of dynamite-packed powerpop and punky rootspop songs featuring the work of a stellar lineup of LA musicians, including Anderson, bassist Teeneage Rob Douglas (Chuck Prophet), drummer Josh Day, keyboardist Mike Murphy, guitarist Charlton Pettus (Tears for Fears) and the vocal talents of Dusty Wakeman (Yoakam) and Doug Pettibone (Lucinda Williams), as well as Iowa Smear guitarist Jason Berge.
If you’d like to see the Smear in YOUR town, yell at the people at your local PA-equipped bar to return our fucking calls and/or emails.
"When it comes to using lyrics and Web-site writings to take on right-wing politicians, the religious right, the mainstream media and others who raise his ire, Grimm has few peers. Smart and literate (a dangerous combination), Grimm also knows how to rock and twang with abandon -- an even more dangerous combination." San Antonio Express-News
"Those who like their rock n roll pretty and polite should avoid Matthew Grimm & the Red Smear, as wanton a band of aural barbarians as ever assaulted a soundboard . . . That [Grimm] couples his populist protests with a slashing wit makes it all the more imperative that the tracks on Dawns Early Apocalypse find a wider audience."Playback:StL
WHO WE’D LIKE TO DRINK WITH: Revolutionaries, dissidents, the defiant, the disenfranchised, the put-upon, downsized and mortgaged, union fucks, non-union fucks who need a union, freedom fighters, Jon Stewart, Bill Hicks, anybody who wants to meet Bill Hicks, Matt Groening, Subcomandante Marcos, Chavez, Lula, Evo, Ness, Feingold, Janine Lindemulder, Raylene, Rita Faltoyano, sluts, whores, strippers, subs, doms, earthbound angels, losers, dweebs, drunks, freaks, wretched refuse, tempest-tossed, Grangers, Wobblies, anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, non-doctrinaire socialists, non-DLC Democrats, social economists, social pariahs, the beshitted and addled children of the MTV, Rachael Leigh Cook, Jessie Fuckin Klein, all the rest of the handful of people on this spinning hunk of dirt who don’t think what they’re told, anyone who thinks what they’re told starting to feel the fist up their ass.
". . . the hardest hitting leftfielder this side of Manny Ramirez."Iowa City Press-Citizen
SNOTTY, SELF-IMPORTANT ADMONITION BEFORE YOU PRESS THE ADD BUTTON: We will most likely add you. If you’re a band, we’ll add you if we like your shit.
Matthew Grimm & the Red Smear's Friend Space (Top 16)
DANKON PRO LA ALDONO! (thanks for the add! (in esperanto)) great site. let us create a network of social change for social justice across the corporate-owned myspace universe and connect in real time and real life in the struggle on the streets.
i've had you guys on here for a while, and i never really took the time to listen to you guys. whenever i look at a video or another bands profile theres tons of other bands with their "add us" shit, and they end up sucking. you guys have kindof a country sound and i normally don't like country that much, but whatever genre you call yourselves you guys pull it off. pretty under-rated for how good you sound.
Thanks for adding me. ¶ Love, not sleep. But people hear only what they want to, so facts alone won't wake them; inspiration is needed too. ¶ This world's evils have a common root: Bullies, liars, thieves, & murderers — particularly those in public office — believe we're all separate, motivated only by self-interest, by greed & fear. They want us to share that belief; they use it to justify themselves, to manipulate us, to shape the world's political & economic systems, perpetuating lies, war, poverty. ¶ But you & I have found something better inside ourselves & our friends. It's in everyone, even tank drivers & bomber pilots, if we can just wake them; we're all one flesh & blood. Let's spread that vision, for until we do our other advances will be minor & temporary. The outcome of the ideological struggle is not yet determined, so no one can afford to be just a spectator. Join the global conversation; it empowers us all. ¶ Question authority. Keep fighting, loving, hoping, singing. Hand in hand, we may still be able to heal the world. — Love, Eric
DUDE! Nice Picador booking. Keeping busy four-stringin' back east here. Hey, can you embed the "One Big Union" and "Kill the Poor" vids in your myspace page layout? The Blaggards have juice finally to get a Smear gig or two the next time the Red one strikes eastward.
