The Auteurs' Luke Haines & R.E.M.'s Peter Buck prep 'All The Kids Are Super Bummed Out' (stream a track)

August 2, 2022

Back in 2020, former Auteurs frontman Luke Haines and former R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck teamed for the excellent Beat Poetry for Survivalists, and now they’ve announced a follow-up. The awesomely titled All The Kids Are Super Bummed Out is a double album, and will be out October 28 via Cherry Red.

Across 17 tracks, Haines and Buck attempt to find out why all the kids are super bummed out, in their own twisted, surrealist, acid-fried way. The album features regular Buck collaborators Scott McCaughey and Linda Pitmon, as well as Patti Smith Group’s Lenny Kaye. For more on the album, Haines offers this:

There are mantraps at the bottom of the garden for falling fighter pilots. Richard Dadd’s dad saw it all; Richard Dadd murdered his dad (chanted the children) then hid in the maze. Marshall Applewhite was wearing a Guy Burgess mask and trading naked videos of Anthony Blunt. (Given to him by a passing gang of apes and angels) I tuned into the sound of North Korean cheerleaders being blasted out over the speakers on the outer perimeter of the maze and found my way to the sun dial, where I would bide my time doing drawings of the flying children until the helicopter arrived. I was finally bundled inside the cockpit by a Branch Davidian. ‘We are under constant aerial attack,’ said someone claiming to be a Brigadier. ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ I said, gazing up at the embassy roof. “Are you still a psychedelic sitar casual’? said the shrouded mourner, who had spent the last half century mourning Valentino. “I will let you know,’ I shot back, and carried on drawing the flying children.

You can listen to the delightfully demented rock n roll fever dream “Psychedelic Sitar Casual,” which references Boys from Brazil and more, below.