Name: Wake Up or Be Captured by Pete Gioconda
Duration: 2 min 56 s
Description: The unseen forces controlling our perception, which leave us "dreaming of money gods", form the subject of this anti-materialist song ... Late 1950s rockabilly rhythm. Lyrics that reference the John Carpenter film "They Live" and the inorganic beings of Carlos Castaneda books.

credit to Robin for guitar input and Bilbo Baggins for the lyrics

Fireside

Game Of Chess (Demo)

Fusion of rock, pop, post-punk, with hip-hop beat. Fairly deadpan delivery. Subject - a waste of life.

Save Your Dreams EP

Buy track on Bandcamp

Lazybones

This is a play on words about things you shouldn't smoke :)

Feel free to look me up on Facebook or Twitter-

Fb- Slightly offensive Steve
Twitter - @Slightlyoffensi

Joanna (By Slightly Offensive Steve)

So the wreckers are going to Mars / To drive around and suck things up
Trading in green trees and grass / For a hell of red dust ...

Fiery and topical single, defying the doom – about the failed conquest of Mars.

Leaving Earth a burned out wreck – where are our rulers leading us?  Do we want to trade the trees for a land without sea?

Musical influences could be Clash-ish poignancy, Dylan-ish structure, Pistols-ish guitars, Pogues/Levellers-ish beat …

“The Time of Great Waste is a rather fine song.”
– BBC Radio Bristol Introducing

“If ever there was a lyric that summed up the 20th/21st centuries: The Time of Great Waste should be a song everyone knows.”
– Nomenclature Standard

The Time of Great Waste

Short Instrumental with a yearning feel, a reprise of the melody of Molly G.

Golly Gee

“She wears her love just like a mask / As brittle as candy . . .”

“This music is the sort to get you bopping joyfully without even realising it. Loads of cheeky lyrics and strutting guitars. It could have been made yesterday, five years ago or ten years ago . . . music that any girl in a flowery dress with a ’60s haircut is bound to love – one for the students.” – Scout at Besonic

Darkened Images

A nighttime song in ¾ time. Elements of folk-rock, listless harmonica break and sounds of an alien. Maybe Dylan and Pogues influences.

Alien Cat Lover

Uplifting melodic and visual song, psychedelic-folk-rock. 
“The cities of illusion are in chaos / Waiting for restoration at the brink of holocaust . . .”

We Are Real EP

Learning to See

Mysterious vision – elements of folk-rock and rhythm and blues, albeit not your usual flavours. “And when the stars come down to slumber / I will calculate your elusive number . . .”

Eyes

The unseen forces controlling our perception, which leave us "dreaming of money gods", form the subject of this anti-materialist song ... Late 1950s rockabilly rhythm. Lyrics that reference the John Carpenter film "They Live" and the inorganic beings of Carlos Castaneda books.

Up You

Wake Up or Be Captured

PETE GIOCONDA is a unique, edgy singer, a protest poet with penchant for historical reference. This mix of punk attitude and psychedelic-folk feel teases the audience to see through new eyes ... like a Johnny Rotten (who hasn’t slept in four days) meets Times They Are a-Changin’-era Dylan and strolls into Cat Power’s bedroom for consolation.

Out now on Bandcamp -
* THE TIME OF GREAT WASTE (single)
* WE ARE REAL EP (5 tracks)
* SAVE YOUR DREAMS EP (6 tracks)

Later in 2025 -
* UP YOU (album of 14 tracks)

Pete Gioconda's songs are fused from new wave, pop and folk/rock influences, mingling poetic lyrics with a punk attitude and playful unpretentiousness. Youthful songs of mischief, desire, loss and sadness, plus transcendent perceptions.

Pete has taken the empty culture of materialism and is attempting to untangle it. His song “Hey You, Out with Shopping Bags” acquired new meaning in the wake of 2011 looting. Shadow shopping. The unseen forces which control our perception, which leave us “dreaming of money gods”, form the subject of “Wake Up or Be Captured”. “In one sense, 1970s punk had it easy,” Pete comments. “All it had to do was attack nice fluffy hippies. It’s much harder now, because mainstream youth culture is filled with aggressive patsies of consumerism. Being aggressive back doesn’t work. I’ve tried. It just makes minds smaller.”

“Some people make shopping mall music. Big, calm, blandly elegant. Somewhere to pass the time and feel comfortable. Pete does not make that kind of music. He makes the music of cobblestone streets, winding alleys, shady lanes. Dimly lit bars. The music of cold, still dawns. Of desolate, wild country.” - Nomenclature Standard

Pete’s poetic style is influenced by the freedom he found hitching and wandering in his 20s, and by his love of classic literature. His aim is to merge story, theatre and poetry with his music and songs. In 2008, Pete performed many Bristol-written songs live on BBC3 TV’s “Upstaged”, as guest of performance artist/musician Badgertrap.

Wake Up or Be Captured

Pete Gioconda

Related tracks