best of 2013 by layla gibbon

It’s hard to sum up a year in sound; there are always records I forget about by the beginning of a new year that were all I listened to for months! The trials of modern day existences wiping minds clear when it’s time to compile comprehensive list type documents. I am also doing a year end top ten in the March 2013 Maximum Rocknroll, so this one contains some music that is not all MRR-able (ie came out on labels that maybe have deals with major labels for distribution etc etc or are just not “MRR” core) at any rate, blah blah blah. You can write me at Layla at maximumrocknroll.com A lot of these are things that I just listened to repeatedly, over and over and over on the way to work, always a sign of a record that’s got what it takes to make the maniax on the bus fade away and radiate. The best thing that wasn’t music this year was LIVING BY THE BEACH. Everytime it feels like the world is rotting away from you as it revolves just go to the ocean. OK. Also this isn’t in order and I missed things out I am sure?! It’s mostly punk even tho I listened to many other sounds and ideas throughout the year. I didn’t put any reissues. Past is passed.

  Body/Head-LP

This is gonna be on a lot of people’s lists, it’s transcendent /brutal / incendiary, an easy shoe in. I had no idea this was in store after seeing them live, it’s easily the best post Sonic Youth recording, Kim is a genius and this is essential.

  Cremalleras-LP

Scrape your eyes out rawness from Mexico City; Violeta’s vocals are coal for Christmas, the music is sick and perfect. Everything about this, from the LP cover to the out for blood nature of the punk contained within made me feel alive and ready for action. http://cremalleras.bandcamp.com/album/cremalleras

  Pleasure Leftists, “Elephant Man” 45

I like how it sounds like she’s saying Arrogant Man, her voice is so cool… as distinctive an instrument as Thalia from Come/Live Skull but that sounds so corny, an instrument?! What? She doesn’t sound like Thalia. But at any rate, this record did not leave my turn table all year and they were even better live. Cleveland out of place sounds for out of place people, post-punk but not posed.

  The Nots 45 on Goner

Goner put out 3 or 4 45s a year that are essential, and this was the cream of the crop for 2013. They cite Kleenex as an influence, but it sorta reminds me of a less garage/more punk A-Lines?! But then I watched some youtubes of them playing and there were many other musical dimensions present. So good! Usually 45RPMS is more than enough for most punk acts, keep it brief, the audience needs to sleep but they don’t need you to put em to sleep ya know? But this document made me wish there were 40 more coming out ASAP. A great record and I hope they make more 7”s and go on tour and maybe play the sea cave by my house?http://soundcloud.com/gonerrecords/nots-dust-red-goner-records

  EASTLINK-WILD DOGS

I listened to the tape that this 7” (and their other one too I think?!) was culled from a million times, cutting/biting sounds from Australia that is somewhere between Chrome and the first couple Pere Ubu 45s, for some reason it made me think of a more buzz saw Total Control, with less Eno, less head music and more metal box?! Metal machine music. I don’t know it’s just good and rotten ok, I can’t wait to get the LP. Fitting end times capitalism collapse music, ironic and hateful.

  Sauna Youth-False Jesii

I don’t think any of the rest of this band’s music sounds like this at all, but this 45 is a perfect Flatmates/Shop Assistants sound and a mix tape staple for me even tho I do not care for Pissed Jeans (the a-side is a cover of one of their songs), I have never heard the original version but this version is probably way better. The b-side is fresh too. The singer’s voice is so cool.

  The new Wire LP

Someone talked about how great it was, so I listened to it at work, then immediately sent off for it. It’s great, foreboding and a record for our times.

  QUANGO-Fatality-EP

I think this is members of an old anarcho punk band (the apostles?!) and  current London act Hygiene, it’s sounds like a band that would have started after hearing Never Been in a Riot, at any rate makes me think of Mekons at the peak of their powers which is a rare feeling… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrTykvWUqC8

    COMET GAIN AVENUE GIRLS 45

  I LOVE COMET GAIN this song is so good it makes me wanna be Billy Liar and Julie Christie at the same time. Songs for soul mods and crummy punkers. Photobooth photograph fans and delinquent squinters.

  VIXENS-LP

ALL GIRL HC FROM CANADA!!!!! It’s the best. The tape is my tape of the century, and the LP took a while to grow, but it planted its seeds and my brain got rotten from em; if you like the song explode by void, and have a brain send off for this.

  Stillsuit LP

DUH!

  PANG-45

All girl group from Oakland who broke up before I saw them or knew of their existence; this 45 rules but I made someone send me their unreleased songs and they are SO GOOD TOO and it makes me sad that this great band dissipated before I got to truly obsess over them! The song Young Professionals sort of reminds me of post-Eno nervous art punk music, it isn’t on the 45 of course, but the songs on the record are great in a UV RACE sort of manner. I mean they just rule and they should at least do a tape discography?! http://pangbandsf.bandcamp.com/http://pangbandsf.bandcamp.com/

  The Courtneys-LP

The guy that put this out sent me an email saying I would like it and he was SO RIGHT; as soon as I heard it I immediately emailed the music editor at Rookie mag and told her teenage girls must know about this band, she agreed and made another million converts! Three women from Canada who simultaneously channel the Clean and Look Blue Goes Purple making rambunctious music for summer all year round adventures. Plaintive and dorky, hilarious and true, once you get hooked (some of my friends have been slow converts for some CRAZY reason) you can’t stop singing random lines… Driving to Santa Cruz along the PCH blasting this and looking out at the ocean reinforced how much I love this band! They are great live too. I really need a copy of their first tape if anyone has one…

  Bleached-LP

I know a few people that were disappointed with Bleached after the force and genius that was Mika Miko, and I think it’s not fair to compare. Bleached are for fans of the Zeros / Go Gos / Ramones / early Bangles etc, perfect LA music, and yeah they wanna make it and are sorta corny, but so were the Go Gos… It’s pop music! It’s just good eating greasy food as the sun sets over the ocean sounds, which is a hard sound to master; there are so many terrible terrible post-Burger Records acts littering highways and dollar bins with tired “beach” dreck. The Clavin sisters write great catchy pop music, and this record is all kicks (I will admit to skippin past some of the syrupy ballads)

  La Luz-It’s Alive

I am putting La Luz next to the Courtneys and Bleached I guess because they are all guilty of having tapes on Burger!? Not that that's a crime. At any rate I love all three. Tobi wrote about La Luz last year and I just didn’t quite get it. The same thing happened with me and the Vivian Girls, it took me until they pretty much weren’t a band anymore to like them! But this time it was a faster process, I got a promo copy of their record and suddenly couldn’t stop listening to it. Everyday on the way to work, while serving customers at work…  As someone who hears all the stuff that gets sent to MRR for review every month I get to listen to all the trends in elmo grind / fonzie sock hop jive / trip crust etc etc, and one thing that is apparent is that the kids LOVE the post Ty Segall/Burger Records  “California Surf  Pebbles Lite” sound. There are so many bands! Most of them unmemorable and as gimmicky as one of those post Jan and Dean surfploitation acts tin pan alley turned out… The garage reviewers grumble about the wimpy music on the constant. Well, I was ready to lump La Luz in with these unlucky hucksters, girl group meets surf music and all, but it was soon apparent that I was addicted to listening to their LP. I mean I love girl groups and certain surf sounds so… I guess I am writing an essay for this one because it’s a current obsession?! They are incredible musicians, the guitar playing is insane, like a session musician from 1964, the singing is silky/doom laden with perfect girl group harmonies, but none of it comes over as sickly and twee and gross and affected. They write great songs, lyrically and structurally, which makes me think that the difference between all the tired acts and this is simply being good at what you do. There is a darkness to their sound that in places reminded me of Quix*o*tic, I think that’s partially because of the echo-y guitar though. It’s very cinematic and the snippets of the lyrics that I can make out are sort of cool and unnerving. Watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRIt3aDX7-k and listen to It’s Alive ok. Also I need their first tape too if anyone’s holdin!

  GOOD THROB-45

Watching this band play was one of the highlights of the year, real John Brannon style HC frontperson style from Ellie, this record is for fans of No Trend and hardcore and Honey Bane, reckless, fuck you, intelligence, vengeful feminists out for blood FOR LIFE! Good Throb are the best. The end.

  EX-CON-Cuda 45

Out for blood and vengeance; rudimentary destruction that I couldn’t stop listening to, Australian snipers summoning a sort of Babes in Toyland Royal Trux pummel.

  http://excon.bandcamp.com/

  Life Stinks 45

I know the LP has gotten a lot of props but I haven’t gotten a copy yet, and anyway this is the perfect format for their sound. 45RPM! Just a great punk record. If you like music from Cleveland OH from say, 1975-1981 you will want to use this to dig yr own grave. Free with every copy.

  ALSO: Veronica Falls LP / UNA BESTIA INCONTROLABLE-LP  / HOAX LP / LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS 45 / SHIRTLESS THUGS TAPE / PRIESTS TAPE

  LATE ENTRIES: Household LP / Angie LP

  EXCITED FOR IN 2014: spider and the webs, hysterics, La Misma, Ivy, Family Outing, Failed Mutation, Frau, In School…

P.S. add CRAZY BAND LP and SHOPPING LP to my almost made it section!

Punk Comics History by Janelle Hessig

From the Punk Comics Issue of MRR magazine

Janelle Hessig on Shawn Kerri:

She was as prolific as these other more notorious artists and, for me personally, her art resonated more with the things that I like best about punk — action, humor, and being a fucked up kid. So, why isn’t Shawn more well known? One possible contributing factor to her lack of recognition could be that she didn’t fight tooth and nail over copyrights. Around 1986, when the Circle Jerks began pining for mainstream success, their agent and record label decided that they owned the rights to the skanking kid image and shouldn’t pay Shawn. Rather than deal with legal battles and mangled friendships, she just let it go and signed the rights over to Keith Morris. The current day skank kid is a bastardized commercial version of her original art.

Interview with Marissa Magic

marissa magic is a writer (deep suburbia, FAB, MRR) and scream-y punk rock girl noise maker (awesomes, the punks, the divine feud) from the bay area. she used to live in olympia and now she lives in san francisco. this interview took place via email. i asked her about her current writing projects, feminism, punk, noise and what bay area bands she is excited about right now...i miss having her in olympia but there's a lot of cool stuff happening where she's at right now. here is what she has to say about it:



What writing projects you are involved in right now?

my most consistent writing thing right now is MRR. I do music and zine reviews, the occasional column and the occasional interview. I'm a writer for the bumpidee reader but haven't posted in a while, I am slowly working on another epic zine that's going to be similar to Deep Suburbia but it's going to be called Endless Bummer. I write for a literary zine called Deep Leap that comes out occasionally. Oh! and I am working on a script for a riot grrl zombie movie with my friend Gentry McShane.

How do you approach writing for MRR?

For the most part I do reviews. Cissie says I always reference the 90's. It's true. I can be kind of harsh and sarcastic but really, they sent their record for review and I review it. For interviews I tend to just try to talk about the things I want to read about. For the most part I don't really care about tour shenanigans and songwriting process, I wanna know if punk and politics work together, I want to know what the DIY community a band is a part of is up to, I wanna know about their thoughts on feminism and queer issues and class issues and race issues. These are the things I find most interesting to read about. When I write columns it tends to come from just talking about punk and feminism with Layla, and I'll make a point or explain one of my theories on something and she'll ask me to make it into a column. In all of this I also try to write like I talk.

What are some of the ideas behind Deep Suburbia?

The core of Deep Suburbia for me was a way to validate my writing for myself. Like most girls I constantly question whether my opinions are valid and that's such bullshit. There's something about having a physical document of your ideas, something you give to your friends and sell at shows and leave at libraries - there's something about that that makes your thoughts feel really real and worthwhile and important. It was also a document of being 25 and not only having grown up in suburbia but a lot of it was written when I was living at my parents house in suburbia for 6 months when I was 25. My long term plan for it is to write one every five years, and at some point after a couple cycles of that compiling them all into one document. A big theme for me when I was writing it was not only trying to prove to myself that my opinions were valid, but also to try to document how my theories and ideas would change and be different as I got older. The essays are basically my ideas about the world, society and my community when I was 25. To come up with the different subjects I mostly just did a lot of jotting down random ideas and then just writing more and more about those ideas everyday.

Can you describe the Awesomes band concept for our readers?

awesomes started out as mainly being about subverting female stereotypes. At this point that explanation seems kind of simple. We have different performances that we do before each set, like we have one where we dress up in work out gear and do aerobics to "let's get physical" by olivia newton john, during it we have mcdonalds burgers that are filled with fake blood that we chew on and spit at each other and rub on ourselves, and then we play, basically being about body image and consumerism, kind of playing with a theme of bulimia and the image of the all american burger and then making it really foul and animalistic. Another thing we do is put black tape over our nipples and then hand out toy squirt guns to the audience filled with fake blood, then they shoot at us, which is just a comment on mainstream medias habit of censoring sex and controlling women's bodies but not really censoring violence. As for the actual set we're usually wearing weird skimpy outfits, and if we're not we usually end up in our underwear, we're covered with something - sometimes blood, sometimes chocolate or whatever and then we're performing. We're making ourselves incredibly vulnerable but the music that we play and our stage presence is extremely aggressive. And then all our set up is is drums and a ton of effects pedals, things that I feel are traditionally kind of male things in music, you know we're not playing keyboards or a tambourine. It's fucking with the idea of what it is to be a woman not only as a performer and as a musician, but just in general what it means to be a woman in american society.

Do you think there is a feminist noise scene right now?

There are definitely feminists who play noise - I hesitate to call it a scene because that implies community, which I don't feel that feminist noise makers are very united and/or supportive of each other. I know some other feminists who play noise and there are definitely some ladies doing rad things like marlo eggplant doing a three cd ladies in noise comp or anna oxygen doing her performance/noise group or sharon cheslow doing sonic tryptych. I guess in reality is I don't feel like it's cohesive scene. I know people here and there but I don't feel like I'm part of a community which is a bummer. Though the other day awesomes played a show with schwule and american splits - mostly ladies, mostly POC's, mostly queer, mostly feminist bands and I felt like I was part of something really awesome, it was a fundraiser for girls rock camp. That was inspiring. I guess I just wish that would happen more and there would be more idea sharing and collaboration within that.

Who are some of your favorite women in noise?

I kind of feel like a lot of women just have this different way of approaching music and approaching art that comes off as noise but I always just think of it as really weird and noise-y punk, but when I think of noise I usually just think of one dude twiddling nobs. anyways- some noise ladies whose music I like - viki, MOM, stuff that azita is/has been involved in, metalux, inca ore, u.s. girls, magik markers (though I didn't like balf quarry), soft shoulder (I don't think the girl is in it anymore though), Marlo Eggplant, Pauline Oliveros, anything that erika anderson does, Bonnie Mercer...

What bay area bands are you really excited about right now and why?



Schwule are great, they are these three really radical ladies that play this really off-kilter hyper punk with weird instrumentation and lots of effects, they do weird skits too. American splits are really rad, my friend described them as drugs at the disco, basically super minimal disco and my friend meals sings like something between yoko ono and a valley girl and it's amazing.

TITS are really good, it's like five girls that play this super doomy metal drone and they all chant lyrics together. No babies are always exciting, kandis(drummer in my band) just joined them, they got kicked out of a bar show they were supposed to play at the other night so they played in the parking lot with the guitarists playing trumpet and clarinet and the singer running through the crowd and screaming, it was really exhilarating. The dudes from long legged woman started a new band that I'm not sure what its called but it's amazing doomy chaos. I just got dadfags record for review at maximum, realized it was an amazing mix of 90's girl indie rock and no-wave. brotman and short are completely amazing two dude darkwave! The dudes from that are in another band called base of bass thats super heavy and exciting, they run the vocals through this crazy speaker that is the size of a person and the singer wears it on his shoulder. Grass widow is good. Rank/xerox are really good, they have a split tape with grass widow thats super awesome. Shannon and the clams are a good time. and of course I love hunx and his punx and younger lovers!!! Those are the bands I am excited about like right at this moment.



What are some of your favorite things that happened in music in the past 5 years?
the feminist takeover of MRR (still going), the bus that has shows here,
being in all girl bands, teaching myself guitar and drums, watching the gossip get famous, Lady Gaga (I don't really like her music but her presence in mainstream media blows my mind!), everything that veronica ortuno does, the rad almost all-lady punk show in olympia, getting involved in girls rock camp, the solo show I played in portland where colin self unplugged all of his equipment midway through his set and he just spoke to the audience in a normal way and everyone was completely silent and mesmorized, feeling like part of the punk scene here but feeling like I still have my northwest membership.

How do you see the future of women in punk/noise/underground whatever?

I don't know. I have fantasies of all these girls who go to rock camp starting noise punk bands and RAGING. I wanna see more ladies playing music that rages and that has a point and a message. I hope for it. I'm kind of cynical. I want to have some level of feeling safe going to shows.

How do you see the future of punk/noise/underground/independent culture and feminism? More specifically, does punk etc have anything to offer feminism?

I think feminism has far more to offer punk then punk to feminism. I guess I was involved in feminist stuff for a long time but I didn't fully connect with it until it was in a punk context. But other than that in general I feel like the punk scene (here at least) is kind of highschool-ish. Theres dumb jocks who say dick shit to me, I mainly hang out with the weirdo stoner kids, theres lots of girls who are really concerned about being fat and unattractive and they're not really involved with making music or art, they're just hanging out with their jock boyfriends. My point is is that I feel like feminism is a way of calling that kind of shit out. feminism is a vehicle to say you guys are living your life basically in the same way that those assholes do. why? In some ways I feel like punk without feminism is just dudes drinking mass amounts and singing songs about fucking girls. Feminism forces the question of how are you going to live your life differently? what do you want? how will you get it? how can you help others around you?



discography:

2005
the punkssssss - thank you for the alternative rock - 5RC

2006
Punksssss - live cassette - 777 was 666
Marissa Magic - fuck off fer sure like totally - bumpidee
punxxxxxxx - unanimous bangers - 5RC

2007
Marissa Magic - abeyance - self-released

2008
The Divine Feud - drum machine demos - self released
Marissa Magic - vocal fuck place - self released
ladyz in noize - 3 marissa magic tracks - spleen coffin

2009
awesomes - "we don't put out" - self released

marissa and me, back in the day:

Narduar vs. Mika Miko

Turboslut Broke Up

The July '09 ish of MRR also features an interview with Turboslut, an all-female (I think) hardcore band from DC who just BROKE UP. too bad every band that could possibly fit this description breaks up before they tour the west coast...to be fair, most DC bands are like this. I think the 'kids' there have a lot of pressure to get their shit together and turn careerist...or maybe that's a generalization that is unfair to apply here but seems to be part of it for a lot of groups...Joaquin just asked me if I'm still mad I never saw Gray Matter in concert! I think he's making fun of me now.

Anyhow, here is a live song from Turboslut (it's too dark to see) and maybe you'll get to hear some of their recordings if you dig (drink) deep (it's just a taste and it might not come this way again...)



P.S. Whatever happened to Chris Bald?

The Libyans-Welcome to the Neighborhood

from their interview in the July '09 issue of MRR:

LIZ (SINGER): I GOT INTO PUNK BECAUSE I DIDN'T FIT IN WITH THE MAINSTREAM AND I WANTED THEM TO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. THE LAST THING I WANTED TO DO WAS DRAW MORE ATTENTION TO MYSELF BY HAVING CRAZY HAIR OR CLOTHES. SO I GUESS I FIT IN WITH OTHER PUNKS WHO HAVE THIS SAME ATTITUDE. IT'S ABOUT HOW YOU LIVE, NOT HOW YOU LOOK.