Cheekface – I Don’t Work Here
Cheekface are rolling through Podium singles at a steady clip, and “I Don’t Work Here” is the fourth. The Los Angeles trio of Greg Katz, Amanda Tannen, and Mark “Echo” Edwards release on July 28, self-released as everything they do. Produced and mixed by Eric Palmquist at Palmquist Studios in Los Angeles, mastered by David Kutch — the same team behind Black Site (W13) and MFT (W18).
The lyrics run through two verses of scattershot political image-making — geography as construct, parasites, burning flags, Andrew Cuomo, a couple of Noahs on the arc — then break into a spoken-word section that does exactly what the title promises: a flat refusal, read like a store policy, covering everything from piss tests to broken ICEE machines to Prop 65 warnings. The song’s trick is that the absurdist inventory and the genuinely political images feed the same feeling: disengagement as a reasonable response to an unreasonable situation. Katz has been circling this territory across the Podium run, and it fits.
What gets me here is how well that spoken section lands. It could easily tip into a comedy bit, but the deadpan delivery keeps it grounded, and by the time it ends you’ve accepted the narrator’s terms completely.
Podium also features contributions from Teddy Roxpin (Mac Miller collaborator), Jer Hunter of Skatune Network, and Elise Okusami of Oceanator.
