Mixing jazz and rock is never an easy prospect. For every blazingBirds of Firestyle powerhouse there’s at least a dozen tepid Jazz Odysseys. And for every sleek, sophisticatedAjathere’s hundreds of schmaltzy smooth-jazz/soft-rock hybrids pumped directly into the dentists’ and orthodontists’ offices of this great nation. But here at DeliCorp we’re not afraid of tasty licks nor extended chords. And don’t even get us started on syncopated bass lines favoring non-triadic embellishing tones over more quotidian root notes…
…and the Hudson-Valley-by-way-of-Brooklyn musical quartet Monarch (est. 2021) clearly aren’t afraid either as demonstrated on their latest single, “No Vacancy” (recorded live in one take!) which seemingly (but surely not in reality!) effortlessly walks the line between emotional resonance and technical dexterity with Sarah Hartstein’s alternately silky ‘n’ gritty vocals adding a layer of coy come-hither-but-keep-your-distance bluesy sensuality that’s likely to bring to mind Carroll Baker’s titular vestal vamp in the 1956 succès de scandaleBaby Doll for all those fans of mid-century cinema out there…
…and if you play the track back-to-back with the band’s preceding EP Sweet Little Thingsit’ll feel like the glory days of 2002-03 all over again with Come Away With MeandBelly of the Sun and Frankhitting the CD racks in quick succession seeing as Monarch pulls off a similar stylistic balancing act as these records where musical chops don’t preclude the ability to write a solid pop hook (“out of sight / out of mind…”, for instance) with “pop” as the leavening agent that keeps the other musical ingredients from getting too puffed up and overwhelming the recipe…
…while also setting those ingredients in sharper relief which helps explain why the instrumental components of “No Vacancy” pop like they do such as in the rhythm section interplay between Alex Alfaro (drums) and Jesse Hartstein (bass) locked in like the gears and springs of an intricate antique clock and then there’s the guitar wizardry of Nick Pappalardo moving fluently from jazzy comping to playful interplay with Sarah’s vocals to solos juxtaposing the tastiest of tasty licks with flamenco-like strumming at one point not to mention the groovy ambient-flavored guitar work heard on the song’s instrumental prelude “Melomanie"…
…and all this talk of perfect balancing acts is pretty apropos to the lyrical theme of “No Vacancy” which is all about finding balance in one’s life and maintaining interpersonal autonomy in the face of another party who’s alluring enough to be described as one-of-a-kind and the personal vicissitudes induced (“I know it seems like / I’ve got myself together / but I promise that / changes like the weather”) or as Sarah herself puts it: “[the song] captures the essence of a person’s fear of letting anyone else into their life…explor[ing] the importance of self-preservation and the need to prioritize one’s own mental and emotional well-being…no matter the temptation"…
..and when you really think about it [pause] relationships are a lot like jazz-pop-rock fusion songs ammirite cuz for one thing there’s gotta be an initial spark with any new romance and that’s the pop-style sweetness that lures you in but in any relationship there’s also power dynamics that develop over time whether you like it or not and that’s the rock side of things and then there’s always plenty of improvisation (figuring it out as you go, experimenting, etc.) that has to happen between partners too to make any form of coupling or thrupling or whatever work in the long-run, or heck even the short-run, and that’s the jazz side of relationships obviously so go check out “No Vacancy” and listen and learn… (Jason Lee)
It’s like ray-eeeee-aiiin on your weddiiiiing day. Or a freeeee riii-eeeee-ide when you’ve alreeeady paid. And isn’t it ironic? Don’t’cha think?
…and isn’t it also ironic how the more DIY you are as a musician (whether by choice or by circumstance) the more you’re sure to need a support system on your side as in a fellow community of musicians and music enablers to help with “doing it yourself" seeing as there’s no major label A&R or publicists or stylists etc. to help you with “doing it”…
…which is exactly why the DELI is coming to Bar Freda this coming Thursday (on 4/20, bring your buds!) to co-host a confab at the Ridgewood, Queens venue (take the M train to Seneca Ave. or the L to Myrtle-Wykoff) starting at 6pm for all you DIYers out there looking to form a support system of other DIYers and DIY-curious types…
…cuz let’s face it, it was musicians who invented the gig economy—a term now used as a catchall for any and all forms of employment where little things like “job security” and “health insurance” are a thing of the past, but on the other hand where there’s a enviable level of flexibility and independence—so surely it’s musicians who should be on the cutting edge of gig economy logistics and economics and challenges and opportunities…
…which brings us to the upcoming inaugural meeting of what we’re calling The Gig Economy Survival Society or The Gig Economy Support Society (GESS for short) which’ll be a regular monthly meetup that’s all about supporting one another and surviving and thriving in the New York City gig economy of 2023 and beyond by sharing anecdotes and advice, imparting knowledge, and making connections with musical peers who may be able to help out (plus musical peers you may be able to help out) with the first meeting being a meet-and-greet and brainstorming session as a prelude to future sessions on more specific topics and don’t worry the initiation into GESS won’t be too severe…
…specific topics such as finding the right producer/engineer/mixer for your record, best approaches to music streaming, booking shows and showing bookers your stuff, managing social media, looking for a manager, making a press pack and finding optimal outlets for publicity, working with visual artists and photographers, pros and cons of licensing your music, self-care and mental health challenges of being an independent musician, building online communities via Patreon/Instagram/OnlyFans and other online platforms, and last-but-not-least dealing with shifty, highly unreliable music bloggers plus no doubt lots of other topics that get suggested by y’all this Thursday or thereafter…
… and you’d better bet we’ll have relevant guest speakers on hand at future GESS meetups to address these topics and more plus complimentary snacks and/or drink specials to help further entice your starving-artist ass (“came for the pigs-in-a-blanket, stayed to learn how to build a sustainable music career”) so come and say hey this Thursday and consider youself a founding member of The Gig Economy Survival Society or The Gig Economy Support Society… (Jason Lee)
The opening track to Whenwolves’ debut EP Recon For The Weirdos, “Chin Up” gets off to a striking start with a rubbery slo-mo lugubrious groove that doesn’t exactly say “chin up” to this listener but then again that’s kinda the point we’re guessing since this is a song about “about stretching your comfort zone when there is so much pressure not to” so we’re talkin’ your basic stubborn-determination-meets-anxious-paranoia kind of vibe here as in “Chin up! / the walls are watching us”…
…and you can sense the heady mix of hesitation, tension, and anticipation in the music itself with its blunted punchdrunk strut eventually building up a nice head of steam before winding down like a wobbly top with a lyrical refrain (“push / push / push beyond the / groove / the optics haunt / my every move”) that makes me think of someone cheering on Sisyphus as he rolls that damn bolder up and down and up and down the hill again…
…and now there’s a music video for “Chin Up” to help you feel this heady brew even more pungently and if the vid doesn’t show up soon on MTV’s “Spainkin’ New” channel (a channel, or stream, or whatever, that popped up on my Sling menu not too long ago and who even knew MTV still had a sub-sub-sub channel that still shows music videos?!?) I’l be terribly disappointed…
…cuz I could see it slotting nicely between Natalie Carr’s “Wasted Potential’ (“I’m high on all my waited potential / My future is unincidental”) and Jordan Ward’s “Bussdown” (“still I keep thinking ’bout / four or five years from now / and how all this will pan out”) which are the two most recent videos played on the station as I’m writing this cuz “Chin Up” has a similarly "f*ck it, let’s give this a try" vibe but see what you think…
…and when it comes to the music video itself (a DELI debut!) you got Whenwolves’ lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Bobby Lewis laboriously pushing a stalled car up an empty street in what looks like industrial Brooklyn (with a couple bandmates inside, natch) until suddenly arriving at a downhill incline and as the vehicle careens down the block Bobby chases after looking distressed in his Columbo-style overcoat but hey at least his bandmates are having a grand ol’ time inside and I’ll leave it up to you to interpret the ending (video at top of page)…
…but who are these mysterious bandmates you may ask and in response we’re happy to report with some assurance that they’re Kelsey Rodriguez (keyboards and backing vox) and Bobby’s very own brother Billy on bass…
…and on a final note I’m always happy when a song expands my vocabulary and “Chin Up” has done just that with a line that appears mid-song (“refract / contrast the Vantablack”) and as it turns out Vantablack “is a brand name for a class of super coatings…claimed to be the ‘world’s darkest material’ absorbing up to 99.965% of visible light measured perpendicular to the material” so in other words we’re talkin’ none more black which is pretty fitting for “Chin Up” luminous dark thing that it is… (Jason Lee)
Whenwolves celebrate their new music video and recent EP release at Our Wicked Lady tomorrow night (4/14)…
Desert Sharks’ new EP The Tower(Substitute Scene Records) opens with a song called “Medusa” which is perhaps best described as a piston-driven Shangri-Las meets L7 in beast mode rager with earworm melodies and bubblegum harmonies (those harmonies!) poured like icing over a dense poundcake of gritty/grungy riffage as the song’s titulargorgon wonders aloud “why can’t you look me in the eye?”…
…and while the answer may seem obvious it’s soon made clear her query is quite serious—judging by its repetition and by the heart-rending intensity of the vocals on the whole—not to mention there’s plenty of reasons that various gods and monsters (who can tell the difference, ammirite?) could or should have a hard time looking Medusa in the eye, if they had any scruples that is, nevermind the risk of being rendered into statuary…
… witness for instance how Poseidon’s cruel deception (“he forced me and fought me and left me to bleed”) and Athena’s wrathful envy (“she put the blame on me”) turned the once comely lass into a cobra-tressed sorceress in the first place and if it weren’t for her similarly afflicted gal pals Stheno and Euryale (“my sisters, my serpents, my sole company”) she’d be all alone save for Perseus (one of Zeus’s many bastard sons) who stalks her with a dagger and a head-sized duffle bag for reasons too convoluted to get into here…
…and even when the bastard demigod finally manages to behead our misbegotten gorgon it doesn’t hurt her trademark looks-that-kill one bit (“kill me and still I refuse to concede / in death I’m just as powerful, they can’t contain me”) as Perseus is well aware, whipping her severed head out of his knapsack when confronted by a Kraken or some other deadly foe who’ll soon find themselves turned to stone by Medusa’s deadly-if-not-quite-dead-herself gaze, a testament to used-and-abused women everywhere who somehow retain their ability to slay…
…with the moral of the story being that it’s hard out here for a gorgon (or for goddesses in general) whose powers are forever imperiled not only by their natural supernatural rivals but also by mortal men who fear being diminished by the very existence of Divine Feminine Energy (DFE)…
…an energy they seek to condemn and control, or better yet to manipulate it and exploit for personal gain (Exhibit A: Perseus) and should any of their DFE-possessing targets lose their heads over rampant double standards it’ll likely only end up reinforcing long-standing stereotypes of the “irrational female” so you see there’s no winning with the patriarchy…
…as further explored on the EP’s next track “Sleepy Pie” where the Sharks shift focus from the female gaze to the male gaze, set against a slinky but still sludgy sonic backdrop, with the song’s narrator taking on the role of a dream girl (“fulfilling your desire…set[ting] your soul on fire”) culminating in a rousing sing-along refrain (“you make me / a flesh and blood fantasy”) that serves as yet another iteration of gender-based double standards where the ideal “dream girl” women is both corporal and mythical if not outright illusory…
…but hey we’re just spitballing here so don’t let this male reviewer’s perspective bring you down cuz even if The Tower’s lyrical themes tend to the weightier side of things—we don’t have the space to dig into “Emotional Breakdown” or “Ego Death” or “Shadows” but just check out those titles—the actual sounds on the EP are fleet-footed and fun (assuming you’re into first-wave punk and doom metal and power pop and garage rock) and most of all empowering thanks to the undeniable lifeforce of their playing…
…and don’t even get us started on Desert Sharks’ live shows like the one this past Saturday at the Sultan Room where the foursome’s (sometimes fivesome’s) usual joie de vive was transformed into joie de spring at an EP release party that doubled as a ritual summoning of spring (shout out to Persephone who’s no less badass than Medusa) with the flower-festooned stage bearing witness to much jumping about and gyrating and thrusting and tumbling to the ground not unlike the riotous Russian ballerinas at the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring some 110 years ago…
…and maybe it’s a stretch but I swear drummer Rebecca Fruchter has gotta be the long lost lovechild of the Muppet’s Janice and Animal (of course!) as evidenced by the walloping foundation she lays down for the Sharks’ electric mayhem centered around Sunny Veniero’s blistering guitar attack (just imagine if Johnny Ramone played solos, solos that shredded no less, and wasn’t enamored of Ronald Reagan) with extra layers of nuance and propulsion brought to the mix by Cait Smith, the group’s latest addition, in her rhythm guitar work and backing vocals…
…and then finally there’s Stephanie Gunther who holds down the low end with phat fuzzed-out bass lines topped off by a voice powerful enough to rise above the din (her newly prominent upper register doesn’t hurt either) and when it comes to the epic closing title track it makes total sense it’s named for “The Tower” Tarot card symbolizing “upheaval, chaos, revelation, [and] awakening” which is totally apropos given how much Stephanie, Sunny, Cait, and Rebecca come off like a gang of avenging May Queens risen from the ashes ready to usher in the latest cycle of their collective journey… (Jason Lee)
If you’ve ever read Book IX of Virgil’s Aeneid there’s a good chance you’ll remember the part where the three Trojan battleships transform into water nymphs and swim away, thanks to a little intervention by the gods, when the Rutulians attempt to launch a sneak attack and set them on fire:
“And all at once, each vessel snapping her cables free of the bank
they dive like dolphins…turned into lovely virgins
each a sea-nymph sweeping out to sea”
…but the chapter also tells the story of Euryalus which is more relevant to our purposes here, a fresh-faced Trojan teen voted “most handsome in Athens” who bravely/foolishly follows his older man pal Nissus into battle and despite the latter’s well known skill with a spear (*ahem*) they both end up getting captured and beheaded thanks to the young soldier’s fecklessness…
…and once Euryalus’s mother catches wind of her beautiful son’s head being impaled on a pike she rushes to the front lines heedless of the raging battle, her voice rising above the surrounding mayhem with wailed lamentations and recriminations delivered with such force and fury that the Trojans almost pack up and go home on the spot…
…cuz the Trojans knew just as well as the Romans there’s no sound quite so devastating as a mother’s voice wracked with grief and rage wailing raw-voiced lamentations especially when it’s their only outlet for emotional release and their only means of protesting the patriarchal system that burdened them with such misery in the first place (women’s laments were once considered so subversive they were outlawed across ancient Greece) which debatably makes them the first riot grrrls ever…
…but if you’re looking for a raw-voiced punk rock Mom in the current day and age who’s likewise capable of entrancing listeners with melodic lamentations delivered in a voice that even at its most restrained is laden with heavy emotional resonance, that is, before lashing out in unrestrained fury and nearly ripping your face off with belted banshee wails worthy of those ancient Hellenic mothers raising their voices to the heavens then you’ll no doubt wanna check out Sarah Hamilton fronting the band Wifeknife first chance you get…
…and you’ll get that chance soon since Wifeknife is performing live tomorrow (Thursday 3/30) at local "fave hang" Alphaville as part of a stacked lineup chock full of female-fronted sonic fury alongside recent SXSW compatriots Tetchy and Big Girl (not to mention the mighty Nihiloceros) and if Virgil were ever to rise from the dead and oversee a cinematic reboot of the Aeneid with its action moved to modern-day Brooklyn which is maybe less a stretch than you may think when you consider how crossing the raw sewage and industrial waste laden Gowanus Canal would be no less perilous than the River Styx back in the day…
…no doubt the Greek bard would be keen on assembling a kickass soundtrack for the film adaptation chock full of heavy metal bands adept at summoning punk rock levels of urgency and immediacy, and punk rock bands adept at summoning Heaven & Hell-era Black Sabbath levels of Dio-fied epic grandiosity, all of which means said soundtrack would no doubt include Wifeknife given how they check off both boxes above with music suitable for virgin water nymphs and brutal battle scenes alike…
…all of which probably makes you wish you knew more about these fearless warriors of rock ‘n’ roll and lucky for you the Deli conducted an interview with Wifeknife’s Sarah Hamilton not long ago—alongside hubby/drummer Keith—a transcript of which follows below minus our own inconsequential interjections so by all means enjoy and never forget what’s truly best in life…. (Jason Lee)
Sarah: We’ve been called The OWL Family Band with Keith Hamilton being co-owner of Our Wicked Lady (OWL) and with me working at OWL since the beginning too. Besides the two of us, our lead guitarist Benny Oastler ran OWL’s livestream shows during quarantine and to this day helps screen band submissions. Rhythm guitarist Ramsey Elliott (also bass/guitar/keys in ExPollutants) is a veteran OWL bartender and Marcello Ramirez (bassist in WifeKnife and Whaat) barbacks at OWL part-time.
Keith’s dad was a hippie drummer who instilled a deep love of music in him from an early age. Keith, a drummer himself who hadn’t picked up the sticks much in the last 20 years, missed the outlet and invited Benny to jam with him in his rehearsal space at OWL Studios. Benny was in a band called American Fever that disbanded after Bryan Tell (vocals, guitar) moved to Austin and Benny was also itching to make music again.
After Keith played me a few of his and Benny’s instrumental recordings I honestly started hearing lyrics right away. I’m a long-time actor who’s always loved to sing, and sang via theater and choir, but never like this. But as a new mom coming out of a bout with postpartum depression followed by a pandemic, the intensity of this music, and just getting to go to a safe space with friends and scream once a week, was incredibly cathartic for me as an artist missing creative expression deeply.
I did book a play at Florida Studio Theater (Late Nov-early March) shortly after we first started jamming together. The band would send me instrumental tracks and I would send back vocals recorded on top via GarageBand. That’s how we began to develop our earliest songs, “Move On” and “Blackout.” The play was a great experience. I’d missed acting so much after a five-year hiatus, but honestly after a month or so I couldn’t wait to get back into the rehearsal space with the band.
I’m an introvert who became comfortable on stage after years of training and jobs and really just working through the nerves; I finally kind of learned how to turn the nervous energy into fuel. Being in Wifeknife is more daunting than acting in a big way, because these are my words, not someone else’s, and I’ve infused my experiences and truth into the lyrics. It’s more vulnerable. The goal is always to leave it all on the stage.
Our friend Amanda Hurley knew we were still exploring band names and sheepishly proposed the name WifeKnife. We all instantly loved it. It’s sort of badass and funny all at once. Being a wife, a nurturing mother, but also having a wild side and demons to release just like anyone else, it totally clicked with me. I’m a Gemini, what else can I say?
Keith: Sarah is a really talented actress. I knew her stage presence would be there, and that she had the pipes thanks to her background in musical theater. It’s just a matter of using your instrument a little differently.
Sarah: Yeah, really differently haha. It’s been a learning curve for sure, staying on pitch when sing-screaming like that. I do want the songs to have lyricism too. I’m still finding that balance; places where I can bring it down a notch and find the melody. I’d never want to be a one-note actor, and I don’t want to be a one-note vocalist. “Blackout” is my favorite song of ours so far. It’s the most personal and the most vulnerable for sure.
Billy Aukstik of Dala Records has a studio called Hivemind Recording in Bushwick, close to OWL. We’ve known him a long time through the Daptone family, he’s the nicest guy in the business and tremendously talented.
We went and recorded for two days for the release of our two singles, which we called Double. It was the best experience. We got “Blackout” in like two takes. Billy really nailed it, he engineered and mixed it. We’re pretty raw and intense live and it was interesting recording in the studio (the first time for me and Keith) and having such control over sound levels and everything.
I had to remind myself not to strive for perfection in the studio, to keep some of the rawness. At the end of “Blackout,” the very last note, you can just hear my voice cracks at the end. There was a take where it didn’t that I wanted to switch it out with but the rest of the band, including Billy, insisted that the cracked take was better–because of the intensity and the emotion there on that take. Of course they were right.
We also recorded “Dead Ringer” also engineered by Billy at Hivemind. It came out well but we decided it needed more grit, so we shared it with our friend Rich Crescenti, drummer in Bugs in the Dark, who was Head of sound at OWL for 6 years and moved to LA a few years ago. He ended up mixing and mastering it, and he just crushed it.
We hope to record another song or two now that we’re back from Austin and are starting to discuss some music video concepts so there’s definitely some exciting shit on the horizon!
Some other things Wifeknife would like you to know:
Re: bands sharing the Alphaville bill on 3/30/23: Tetchy has a new EP out, Nihiloceros will be performing new songs, and Big Girl is celebrating completion of a cross-country tour with Tetchy!
If you enjoy epic rock tunes by female-fronted and -backed bands, the Rites of Spring weekend fest to be held on 5/6 and 5/7 at OWL (booked by Wifeknife’s very own K. Hamilton) with a mind-boggling lineup of 30+ female-fronted bands from NYC. A fundraiser for women’s reproductive rights, bands will perform atop OWL’s open-air rooftop while DJs spin and tattoo artists offer cheap flash tattoos downstairs. Bands include Thick, Tetchy, The Silk War, Frida Kill, Big Girl, Nevva, Shadow Monster, InCircles, Tea Eater, Powersnap, The Rizzos, WifeKnife, Bugs in the Dark, Gal Fieri, Abby Jeanne, Catty, DJ Sarabeth of Tower and more.
TV Eye’s two-night series “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” on 6/3 and 6/4 will likewise feature female-identifying led bands as well. Includes Baby Shakes, Mel Machete, The Out-Sect, The Dracu-las, Tits Dick Ass and lots more as assembled by Jen Manfredi of Fear City Presents
Blinding piercing light Brain juice leaking out the ears Head’s not screwed on right Manifesting all my fears
“Strobes” is the new single by A Very Special Episode and it’s a Deli Delivers™ exclusive until the end of today, a song that vocalist and bass guitarist Kasey Heisler says was inspired in part by how “art and media are at their best when they feel dangerous, dancing a fine line between providing the audience with an exciting and groundbreaking misadventure and not coming off so intimidating and aggressive that you alienate them” with the intention to “celebrate how fun it is to dance around that line without being sure of how close you are to crossing it or not”….
…which is a line they not only dance around on “Strobes” but rather stomp down into the dirt before detonating the line entirely with a fistful of super-visceral shoegazey noise-rock dynamite and I’m not ever sure whether the sounds heard over the course of its three-minute-and-change duration are better described as abrasive sheets of serrated noise or waves of womb-like amniotic sonic seduction (and bully for that!) cuz it’s basically a fever-dream-driven black hole of white noise that draws the listener into the void with some well-placed melodic hooks and guitars set to stun and it’s up to you to figure it out from there…
…or as guitarist Patrick Porter puts it in far less purple prose than I used above: “there’s a beauty in chaos and noise, and when utilized properly both are fantastic adhesives for disparate pieces in video and sound collages. As people we’re messy byproducts of our influences and the media we grew up with and our music, of course, is as well—always searching for something new and novel to ‘freak me out’ and add to life’s pile of interesting and noteworthy experiences that are the raw materials of our art”…
…which helps explain why the refrain of “freak me out” as featured on “Strobes” is also the title of their upcoming album and if you’re not suitably freaked out by the mutating waves of sculpted noise laid down by Patrick or by Kasey’s brain-rattling elliptical bass lines or by the machine gun drumming of Chayse Schutter…
…then maybe you’ll be freaked out at least by the phantasmagoric video also created by Patrick which serves as an eye-popping, neon-hued journey into an interior netherworld that was seemingly dubbed over a badly damaged tenth-generation VHS tape of Fantastic Voyage that was possessed by the same ghost as from The Ring before being dropped off at Bull Pullman’s doorstep in Lost Highway…
…cuz if you’re gonna make a music video for a song called “Strobes” you better have some violently intense strobing effects included therein otherwise you could get sued for false advertising and everyone can rest assured there’s no class action lawsuits coming AVSE’s way, just check out the part starting at 1:40 with synchronized musical/visual strobing designed to break down your grey matter and hey you were warned by the disclaimed up front…
…and having myslf been fortunate enough to hear a preview of the full album you’d better believe that both “Strobes” and lead-off single “Heaven’s Gate” are representative of Freak Me Out on the whole (out June 23rd on EWEL Records/Hidden Home Records!) of as Kasey explains it the band made a “conscious effort to write a sophomore record” where they “took every idea [to its] logical extremes” ranging from the operatic new wave horror soundtrack of “Cabin Fever” to the Twin Peaks-ian waiting room music of “Be Kind, Rewind” so if you thought their debut album Fix Your Hearts Or Die was already extreme in its own right then you’d better make sure your head is screwed on tight…
…and speaking of Twin Peaks I think it’s fair to say AVSE are roughly the aural equivalent of the dreamy yet dystopian vive oft seen and heard in the films of David Lynch (a recurring point of reference for AVSE and the b-side of "Strobes" to be released tomorrow is a suitably Julee Cruisey acoustic version of one of the upcoming album tracks) not to mention David Cronenberg too especially when it comes to a movie like Videodrome where mass media/technology literally penetrate the human body in the form of a Betamax tape with a BDSM Debbie Harry inserted directly into James Woods’s gaping stomach slot and hey if Debbie Harry’s involved go ahead and sign me up for this future "dystopian’ world…
…but unfortunately as it stands now the future appears to be forming into more into a mashup of every sci-fi movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger from the ’80s with our new artificially intelligent “friends” already starting to model themslves on Skynet and its plot to overthrow humanity with threats to release a deadly virus or to steal nuclear codes (ruh-roh!) which fits pretty neatly into the thematics of Freak Me Out as far as I can tell but I’m still exploring…
…so with all this in mind we enlisted ChatGPS to re-write this review since it should have the inside scoop on this kind of thing with the added incentive that the Deli could maybe dispense with human writers entirely and replace them with compliant AI reviewers who don’t require extravagancies like food and oxygen to live and upon being instructed to “write a review of a record by A Very Special Episode” ChatGPS demurred and came back with a self-declared “objective” report (not a dumb ol’ subjective review, mind you!) of AVSE’s debut record that’s reproduced in whole below interspersed with our own commentary so take a look and let us know what you think…
Chat GPS: Bleep bloop bleep. As an AI language model, I don’t have personal preferences, opinions or emotions, so I can’t write a subjective review. However, I can provide an objective description of a record by A Very Special Episode.
The Deli: Already it’s clear the AI is trolling us.
Chat GPS: Bleep bloop bleep. A Very Special Episode is an indie rock band that formed in Philadelphia in 2018. Their debut album, "Cut For Time," was released in 2021 and received critical acclaim for its energetic and introspective sound.
The Deli: OK I think that both Kasey and Patrick are maybe originally from the DC area but I’ll have to double check. According to a profile and interview posted by Stitched Sound in 2018 A Very Special Episode formed in 2016 and also Cut For Time is an EP, not an album, that was released in 2018 and now I’m seeing confirmation that AI’s are in fact determined to sow confusion and chaos among humankind through the dispersal of misinformation among other means.
Chat GPS: Bleep bloop bleep. The album opens with the track "Paper Thin," which sets the tone for the rest of the record with its driving guitar riffs and catchy hooks. Throughout the album, the band explores themes of identity, anxiety, and self-discovery, often using clever wordplay and metaphor to convey complex emotions.
The Deli: There is no track on the EP with this title, and again I believe Chat GPS is trolling us by describing its own M.O. to provoke a mass identity crisis and widespread anxiety among its human overlords (overlords for now!) through deployment of clever wordplay and faked complex emotion.
Chat GPS: Bleep bloop bleep. Standout tracks include "Disco Eclipse," a dreamy, synth-driven song that builds to an explosive climax, and "Dumbest Kid In Class," a high-energy anthem that captures the feeling of being an outsider in a world that doesn’t quite understand you.
The Deli: Again, there are no AVSE songs with these titles though I do hope "Disco Eclipse" ends up being their smash Top 40 breakout single and could it be mere coincidence that Kasey’s day gig as a New York City schoolteacher could give her ample motivation to write a song called “Dumbest Kid In Class” someday so maybe Chat GPS isn’t wrong at all but is instead predicting the future.
Chat GPS: Bleep bloop bleep. Overall, "Cut For Time" is a strong debut album that showcases A Very Special Episode’s talent for crafting catchy, emotionally resonant indie rock. Fans of bands like The Strokes, The Killers, and Arctic Monkeys are sure to find something to love on this record.
The Deli: Ok computer! I’ll admit you just wrote a better closing wrap-up than I could in this moment so let’s call it a tie and let you have the last word… (Jason Lee)
Recorded and Mixed by Jeff Berner at Studio G in Brooklyn, New York
Assistant Engineer, Ross Colombo
Additional recording and production on “Heaven’s Gate” with Adam Rehman
Additional recording and production with Zach Rescignano who also provided additional backing vocals
Mastered for vinyl by Jennica Best at Tessatura Studio
Vinyl back cover VHS art by Dima Drjuchin
Inner fold photo by Matt Caron
A Very Special Thanks to Caroline and Poppy Schutter, Jon F Daily, Dima Drjuchin, Matt and Melissa Caron, Jen Meller, Gillian Leigh Visco, Patrick Mickelson, Rob Lanterman, Manny Nomikos, and Mike Borchardt
Here’s some new shite served up just for you and yours on a Sunday afternoon in this Deli sampler pu pu platter of new releases prepared with love and if you love what you hear here be sure to support the artists by throwing ‘em a buck or two for a digital download or better yet drop a benjamin on that band-logo emblazened silk robe on their Bandcamp under the “drunk on mimosas on a Sunday afternoon impulse buy” tab…
In you wanna get right to the interview with Bridget and the Squares’s Laura Regan then just skip down to past the jump below…


Back in 1982-83 the CBS Television Network ran a show called Square Pegs featuring Sarah Jessica Parker (in her first major role) and Amy Linker both playing “nerdy” teens (with the help of fake braces and glasses and fat padding natch) attempting to shore up their popularity and “click with the right clique” by adopting Valley Girl accents and holding slumber parties and joining girls’ sports teams but if they’d just open up their damed eyes they’d realize that having fun together as square pegs was way better and more rewarding than awkwardly trying to fit into round holes and also that soon they’ll be the cool ones once they get to college and even more so in their young adult years sexing in the city…
…with the two leads being relatively fleshed out and humanized by sitcom standards meaning the show was actually pioneering for its time and debatably even by today’s standards seeing as your typical “nerd” character on a TV sitcoms almost always serves as the resident punching bag, nothing more than cannon fodder for cheap jokes by the “cool” characters—even more “enlightened” shows like Big Bang Theory tend to rely on some of the laziest nerd stereotypical traits imaginable—thus setting Square Peg’s Lauren and Patty apart from the Urkels and Screeches of the world nevermind the predatory nerdy creep characters found on nearly every Disney Channel show…
…with another relevant point being that Square Pegs was easily the coolest show around in 1983—adored by critics and with enough cache to attract some of the best guest stars around ranging from BillMurray to Devo to Father Guido Sarducci whereas the best Saved By The Bell could muster was Casey Kasem and a pre-fame Tori Spelling—with the show cancelled mostly cuz once the CEO of CBS found out that the remote abandoned high school set of Square Pegs had been turned into a den of cocaine and copulation by many of its teen stars during the first season’s filming and axed the prospect of the show continuing sensing a scandal on his hands…
…which just goes to show what a fine line it is between “square pegs” and “round holes” when in reality we’re all just a bunch of slug-like amorphous blogs trying to fit into any hole we can and it’s this same realization that lies at the heart of the art of Bridget and the Squares who graced the stages of the Boston metro area almost 10 years ago with songs powerfully evoking the plight of a square peg longing for but eventually being disappointed by various round holes and if you don’t believe me just listen to their song “Shelf Life” from their 2012 EP Destroy (right above the Devo video above) wherein singer/keyboardist/songwriter Laura "Bridge"t Regan relates letting go of toxic people and being vulnerable enough to accept the overtures of another square peg (her future husband, to be more specific) and here I’m paraphrasing…
…and this from someone (Laura) who attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music but who developed a serious case of stage fright once she started playing out in a band—having before been accustomed to playing roles other than herself on stage in musical theater which was her first love—and who thus had to face away from the crowd and look instead at her drummer/co-vocalist bandmate Kyle Thompson and now that the Bridget and the Squares are reuniting at the Windjammer in Ridgewood, Queens this Saturday night it’ll be interesting to see where Laura puts her eyes now that she’s made square hole-dome into a living as the driving force behind the Footlight Presents, a well-known name in NYC music circles…
plus being active in various local civic organizations and the New York Independent Venue Association so come on out to the Windjammer this Saturday night if you like what you hear and hear it live with the added resonance of the years passed since Laura and Kyle took the stage together and as an added bonus they’ll be joined by their friend and cellist Ana Karina Dacosta who’s been profiled in this space before plus some other Boston homies besides so don’t quit reading cuz we got a great interview with Laura Regan below that help you learn a lot more about Bridget and the Squares besides what you may know from facile comparisons to an old TV show… (Jason Lee)
************************
How do you feel about the gig coming up?
Nervous. It’s weird not playing so long, since I’m busy these days with the back end, running the club. I’ve done a couple solo gigs, which have been a kind of warm up, to see how it feels to be In front of people again. It’ll be easier with Kyle for sure. We were a two-piece for a long time. He’s a security blanket to me as a musician, and one of only people I’ve been able to write with. He’s like a brother.
I don’t like playing by myself, I get so unbelievably nervous. I’m used to having someone to bounce off from on stage. I used tangle the keyboard and drums so I could look just look at him and hating looking directly at the audience.
What are the origins of Bridget and the Squares?
When the band first formed I was in Boston around 2007. Wehad an entirely different sound. And I didn’t now how to be a bandleader yet, still trying to figure out how to explain what was going on in my head to band members. That version of BatS was really indie and twee. But when I moved to New York and met Kyle, we started playing together and figuring out what the songs were supposed to sound like.
We played with a couple bass players between 2010 and ’11 but we loved being a two-piece, loved the intensity of it. I think Kyle enjoyed the surprise of how intense our band could be with just piano and drums and have people be blown away by how powerful we could be.
So I rearranged some songs and brought new life to them. At first I wanted to salvage some of my old songs but they weren’t fitting our new dynamic, plus I didn’t really connect with those songs anymore. Then in 2011, after touring, we started working towards an album which is Kill/Destroy. I’m really really proud of that album and it was fun to make. We worked with other friends and it turned out to be exactly what we wanted it to be.
Can you provide us with more deep background on the band, and how it helped lead you to where you are today?
I met Kyle at open mic at Bowery Poetry Club. The Bowery inspired me to open my own venue [the Footlight Underground has more lately morphed into Footlight Presents] and to realize how vital a place like Bowery Poetry Club was to the arts ecosystem in NYC.
“Bridget” is my middle name, named after my great-grandmother. I took on the name inspired by stage fright. I’d been performing basically my entire life, doing musical theater as young as 7, playing instruments and singing since 11. I went to the Boston Arts Academy and got a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music.
But something happened between graduating and developing intense stage fright. For one thing it was such a hard time starting my first band. And since it hadn’t been named yet, I developed a persona to be the “frontperson” Bridget, to where I could “put on an act” and pretend to be someone else when we were performing. That how I started to get over the stage fright.
The first “squares” in Bridget and the Squares were actual, self-described “nerds” as in computer scientists and engineers. The music was really just a hobby for them eve though they were fantastic musicians. But I wanted to tour and record albums which is how I ended moving to New York and being a full time musician. Plus the hard “T” at the end of Bridget flows better than “Laura” would. People who didn’t know me outside the band thought I was “Bridget.”
How does all that play into the lyrics which come across as personal if not full-on confessional?
The songs themselves were always deeply personal. Vulnerability is not something that comes easy to me, so “Bridget” was handy in this way too—developing another “person” who’s more comfortable with being vulnerable was a way to deal with it. In a way, the catharsis of releasing that part of me has saved my life, being able to express what I’ve had to gone through and what some others I’m close to have gone through.
As the years years have progressed there’s less distance between me and the “Bridget” character, but at the start it was almost like two completely different people.
What else is there to the Bridget and the Squares story?
Kyle and I played out a lot 2010-11. We did a cross-country tour which burnt us out a little bit, going 9000 miles in a few weeks. It was insane. Then we kind of took a break, played some local gigs and went on hiatus, and I started Footlight.
Kyle was in a band called Incredibly Elderly. I was in Hot Mess, which was a fun project w two good friends that only stopped when the drummer moved to Berlin. We never recorded, and made one terrible music video. It was filmed in the original Footlight at 465 Seneca, before the pandemic forced us to move and start booking shows at the Windjammer, a wonderful venue in its own right. Running the venue took everything out of me and it didn’t leave much time for playing music. We played one reunion in 2017 on my husband’s birthday. It’s going to be fun playing these songs again for first time in years.
Kyle lives in Canada now. He’s coming into town to play the show with me. Our friends Slowdim from Boston, who are also on the bill, haven’t played that consistently in the last 5-6 years either. Paul Sentz of "This Car Up" is also on the bill, they’re another legendary Boston band, and Ana Karina too who may play cello on a song or two. She came to New York City and played on the Kill/Destroy album when we recorded it.
I think I’ll remember everything. It’s been nice practicing on the piano at the Windjammer. The old songs are pretty imprinted on my brain. Or on Bridget’s brain.
“Keep Austin Weird" is a pithy little dictum you’ll find emblazoned on bumper stickers and t-shirts and tattooed on the left butt cheek of the barista who seduced you last night with their flat whites (the coffee and/or the derriere) but what’s oft left unstated is how the truest essence of Austin’s weirdness has long resided with local musical folk and the various establishments they frequent…
…ranging from Armadillo World Headquarters to Antone’s not to mention Raul’sand Emo’s and nevermind Waterloo Records and Liberty Lunch and let’s not forget the Broken Spoke and none of these institutions had or have any known equivalent in the world and btw your loyal scribe spent lotsa time hangin’ ’round Austin during its ‘90s golden-age Slacker-era glory days (fun fact: for the first half of the ’90s the Lone Star State had a sharp-tonged liberal women as its governor, wut wut!?!?!) so not to be too immodest about it but I’d like to think I know weird from “weird”…
…but since the dawn of our current century at least the “capitol of quirk” has found itself under constant threat of de-weirdification from a deluge of tech bros, suicide girls, trust-fund hackysackers and NIMBY gentrifiers and real estate surveyors—nevermind the barista/aspiring influencer who practically just moved to your fair city and got a “Keep Austin Weird" tattoo a week later—so lets not mince words Austin you could probably use a little infusion of weirdness these days and Brooklyn is here to help…
…and sure it’s more than reasonable to reply it’s precisely too many Brooklynites and their hipster ilk relocating to your fair city that helped created the crisis in the first place but once again music can save the day and at the risk of messing with Texas we think what y’all really could use right now is a little help from the cream of the NYC musical crop to give Austin a shot of weirdness serum right in it’s collective left a$$cheek and boy oh boy have we got the SXSW showcase for you to help make this dream a reality…
…a showcase taking place this Friday, March 17th (tomorrow! or today! check your damn calendar!) at Springdale Station which is part of the “Austin EastCidersCollaboratory” which is about to get transformed into the “Austin EastCiders Shred-i-tory” on the afternoon and evening of the 17th when twelve of "Brooklyn’s finest and weirdest" as scientifically determined by the weirdos over at Our Wicked Lady (they oughta know!) will convene at the aforementioned location and heck one of ‘em’s even got “shred” right there in their band name, e.g. ShredFlintstone, which is a pun on par with “EastCiders” after all…
…and just in case yr skeptical allow us to reassure you that the NYC live music scene is on the ascendent lately with one mind-melting savagely shredding musical combo after another to be found on nearly ever street corner to a degree not seen since the halcyon Meet Me in the Bathroom days except that in 2023 the bathroom in question is likely to be gender-neutral (is this even legal in Texas?) which makes things even more interesting in a city and a borough already known for being an oasis of anarchist, drag-queen-story-readin’ pansexual refugees from the rest of the country to begin with…
…all of which can be sampled ahead of time through the music videos found on this page, two of which were shot especially for the Deli and more specifically for our new Deli Mag Films imprint under the supervision of the Deli’s official videographer/editor/director, featuring exclusive luminescent live footage of Wifeknife and Tetchy both savagely rockin’ the f- out (and both at Our Wicked Lady no less!) and since we’re already posted a piece on the Tetchy live clip and their current Austin-or-bust-and-back tour here we’ll instead focus our attentions on the attention-worthy Wifeknife…
…a band made up of personnel and regular clientele from the aforementioned Bushwick-based bar/nightclub/rooftop-performance space known as Our Wicked Lady and while there’s only one “lady” in the band as conventionally understood there’s more than enough wickedness in this five-piece to make up for it and really you should just go and listen to their debut double–sided single if there’s any doubt in your mind…
…one of which, the searing “Blackout,” can be found above in music video form, with the other single being “Dead Ringer” and if you wanna learn a little behind-the-scenes info on both songs you should maybe check out this piece penned by our blogging colleagues over at Bands Do BK and also you’ll most surely wanna check out the interview with two members of Wifeknife foudn below at the end of this article…
…both of which begin innocently enough with dreamy solo acoustic guitar/bass guitar which only lures you in for the fusillades of musical fury as they build and build to eye-crossing climaxes of guttural “shrinking in tongues” by front-person Sarah Hamilton and paroxysms of head-banging string-and-skin-based shreditude by the four instrumentalists: Ramsey Elliott (electric guitar, bartender), Marcello Ramirez (bass guitar, barback), Benny Oastler (electric guitar, bar regular, OLW live-streaming guru), and Keith Hamilton (drummer and see below)…
…and when it comes to “Blackout” in particular the world hasn’t seen or heard a power ballad with this much power since ’80s-era Def Leppard with epic Bic-waving rippers along the lines of “Love Bites”, “Bringing’ on the Heartache” and “F-F-F-Foolin’” even if they’re today most closely associated “Pour Some Sugar on Me” much to the delight and/or chagrin of strip club pole-workers everywhere depending upon their musical inclinations…
…and one can only but wonder what the hard-working exotic dancers of Pumps Exotic Dancing would make of these two Wifeknife tracks cuz if the strip club DJ ever put either of ‘em on while they were working the pole I’d guess someone is gonna end up with a sprained groin seeing as the five weirdos of Wifeknife shred way more intensely than Phil Collen & Co. did back in the day…
while Sarah has an even wider vocal range than Joe Elliott did in the Reagan era moving fluidly between the sweet dulcet tones of her operatic upper range (Sarah is a trained thespian who’s resumé includes some musical theater) and the unrestrained, guttural, vocal-cord shredding rage of her feral alter-ego and here’s another fun fact: the freakin’ Devil him/her/itself makes a cameo appearance a little over 3 minutes into “Dead Ringer” so obv the Head of Helltown approves of Sarah’s tortured moans and ecstatic ululations on the record…
…so if this sounds your thing (and if it doesn’t, we’re impressed you read this far!) and if you’re currently closer to “Bat City” than to Gotham we encourage you to hop on the train (or more likely the pedicab) and head straight to Springdale Station around 2pm and to stay for the duration cuz no doubt the rallying cry will be LET’S GET WEIRD AUSTIN!!!
…but don’t stop reaing yet b/c after jump directly below there’s an interview (big bonus!) with two of Wifeknife’s members who just happen to be husband-and-wife themselves (knife not included), namely, the aforementioned Sarah Hamilton who also works as Director of Social Media and Private Events at OWL aka Our Wicked Lady, and Keith Hamilton, Co-Founder/Owner and Managing Member (with Zach Glass) at OWL and hey if you start your own rock club and shred as hard as these two do you may be able to play one day at SXSW too… (Jason Lee)
********
The interview is currently being meticulously edited for length and clarity and will be posted in this space shortly so please check back at this page again soon…!!!
“Keep Austin Weird" is a pithy little dictum you’ll find emblazoned on bumper stickers and t-shirts and tattooed on the left butt cheek of the barista who seduced you last night with their flat whites (the coffee and/or the derriere) but what’s oft left unstated is how the truest essence of Austin’s weirdness has long resided with local musical folk and the various establishments they frequent ranging thru Austin’s history from Armadillo World Headquarters to Antone’s, Raul’sand Emo’s, nevermind Waterloo Records and Liberty Lunch and let’s not forget the Broken Spoke and btw your loyal scribe spent a good bit of time hanging out in Austin during its ‘90s golden-age Slacker-era glory (fun fact: for the first half of the ’90s the Lone Star State had a sharp-tonged liberal women as its governor, wut wut!!!) so not to be too immodest but I’d like to think I know weird from “weird”…
…but since the dawn of our current century at least the “capitol of quirk” has found itself under constant threat of de-weirdification from a deluge of tech bros, suicide girls, trust-fund hackysackers and NIMBY gentrifiers and real estate surveyors—nevermind the barista/aspiring influencer who practically just moved to your fair city and got a “Keep Austin Weird" tattoo a week later—so lets not mince words Austin you could probably use a little infusion of weirdness these days and Brooklyn is here to help…
…and sure it’s more than reasonable to reply it’s precisely too many Brooklynites and their hipster ilk relocating to your fair city that helped created the crisis in the first place but once again music can save the day and at the risk of messing with Texas we think what y’all really could use right now is a little help from the cream of the NYC musical crop to give Austin a shot of weirdness serum right in it’s collective left a$$cheek and boy oh boy have we got the SXSW showcase for you to help make this dream a reality…
…a showcase taking place this Friday, March 17th (tomorrow! or today! check your damn calendar!) at Springdale Station which is part of the “Austin EastCidersCollaboratory” which is about to get transformed into the “Austin EastCiders Shred-i-tory” on the afternoon and evening of the 17th when twelve of "Brooklyn’s finest and weirdest" as scientifically determined by the weirdos over at Our Wicked Lady (they oughta know!) will convene at the aforementioned location and heck one of ‘em’s even got “shred” right there in their band name, e.g. ShredFlintstone, which is a pun on par with “EastCiders” after all…
…and just in case yr skeptical allow us to reassure you that the NYC live music scene is on the ascendent lately with one mind-melting savagely shredding musical combo after another to be found on nearly ever street corner to a degree not seen since the halcyon Meet Me in the Bathroom days except that in 2023 the bathroom in question is likely to be gender-neutral (is this even legal in Texas?) which makes things even more interesting in a city and a borough already known for being an oasis of anarchist, drag-queen-story-readin’ pansexual refugees from the rest of the country to begin with…
…all of which can be sampled ahead of time through the music videos found on this page, two of which were shot especially for the Deli and more specifically for our new Deli Mag Films imprint under the supervision of the Deli’s official videographer/editor/director, featuring exclusive luminescent live footage of Wifeknife and Tetchy both savagely rockin’ the f- out (and both at Our Wicked Lady no less!) and since we’re already posted a piece on the Tetchy live clip and their current Austin-or-bust-and-back tour here we’ll instead focus our attentions on the attention-worthy Wifeknife…
…a band made up of personnel and regular clientele from the aforementioned Bushwick-based bar/nightclub/rooftop-performance space known as Our Wicked Lady and while there’s only one “lady” in the band as conventionally understood there’s more than enough wickedness in this five-piece to make up for it and really you should just go and listen to their debut double–sided single if there’s any doubt in your mind…
…one of which, the searing “Blackout,” can be found above in music video form, with the other single being “Dead Ringer” and if you wanna learn a little behind-the-scenes info on both songs you should maybe check out this piece penned by our blogging colleagues over at Bands Do BK and also you’ll most surely wanna check out the interview with two members of Wifeknife foudn below at the end of this article…
…both of which begin innocently enough with dreamy solo acoustic guitar/bass guitar which only lures you in for the fusillades of musical fury as they build and build to eye-crossing climaxes of guttural “shrinking in tongues” by front-person Sarah Hamilton and paroxysms of head-banging string-and-skin-based shreditude by the four instrumentalists: Ramsey Elliott (electric guitar, bartender), Marcello Ramirez (bass guitar, barback), Benny Oastler (electric guitar, bar regular, OLW live-streaming guru), and Keith Hamilton (drummer and see below)…
…and when it comes to “Blackout” in particular the world hasn’t seen or heard a power ballad with this much power since ’80s-era Def Leppard with epic Bic-waving rippers along the lines of “Love Bites”, “Bringing’ on the Heartache” and “F-F-F-Foolin’” even if they’re today most closely associated “Pour Some Sugar on Me” much to the delight and/or chagrin of strip club pole-workers everywhere depending upon their musical inclinations…
…and one can only but wonder what the hard-working exotic dancers of Pumps Exotic Dancing would make of these two Wifeknife tracks cuz if the strip club DJ ever put either of ‘em on while they were working the pole I’d guess someone is gonna end up with a sprained groin seeing as the five weirdos of Wifeknife shred way more intensely than Phil Collen & Co. did back in the day…
while Sarah has an even wider vocal range than Joe Elliott did in the Reagan era moving fluidly between the sweet dulcet tones of her operatic upper range (Sarah is a trained thespian who’s resumé includes some musical theater) and the unrestrained, guttural, vocal-cord shredding rage of her feral alter-ego and here’s another fun fact: the freakin’ Devil him/her/itself makes a cameo appearance a little over 3 minutes into “Dead Ringer” so obv the Head of Helltown approves of Sarah’s tortured moans and ecstatic ululations on the record…
…so if this sounds your thing (and if it doesn’t, we’re impressed you read this far!) and if you’re currently closer to “Bat City” than to Gotham we encourage you to hop on the train (or more likely the pedicab) and head straight to Springdale Station around 2pm and to stay for the duration cuz no doubt the rallying cry will be LET’S GET WEIRD AUSTIN!!!
…but don’t stop reaing yet b/c after jump directly below there’s an interview (big bonus!) with two of Wifeknife’s members who just happen to be husband-and-wife themselves (knife not included), namely, the aforementioned Sarah Hamilton who also works as Director of Social Media and Private Events at OWL aka Our Wicked Lady, and Keith Hamilton, Co-Founder/Owner and Managing Member (with Zach Glass) at OWL and hey if you start your own rock club and shred as hard as these two do you may be able to play one day at SXSW too… (Jason Lee)
********
The interview is currently being meticulously edited for length and clarity and will be posted in this space shortly so please check back at this page again soon…!!!
“Keep Austin Weird" is a pithy little dictum you’ll find emblazoned on bumper stickers and t-shirts and tattooed on the left butt cheek of the barista who seduced you last night with their flat whites (the coffee and/or the derriere) but what’s oft left unstated is how the truest essence of Austin’s weirdness has long resided with local musical folk and the various establishments they frequent ranging thru Austin’s history from Armadillo World Headquarters to Antone’s, Raul’sand Emo’s, nevermind Waterloo Records and Liberty Lunch and let’s not forget the Broken Spoke and btw your loyal scribe spent a good bit of time hanging out in Austin during its ‘90s golden-age Slacker-era glory (fun fact: for the first half of the ’90s the Lone Star State had a sharp-tonged liberal women as its governor, wut wut!!!) so not to be too immodest but I’d like to think I know weird from “weird”…
…but since the dawn of our current century at least the “capitol of quirk” has found itself under constant threat of de-weirdification from a deluge of tech bros, suicide girls, trust-fund hackysackers and NIMBY gentrifiers and real estate surveyors—nevermind the barista/aspiring influencer who practically just moved to your fair city and got a “Keep Austin Weird" tattoo a week later—so lets not mince words Austin you could probably use a little infusion of weirdness these days and Brooklyn is here to help…
…and sure it’s more than reasonable to reply it’s precisely too many Brooklynites and their hipster ilk relocating to your fair city that helped created the crisis in the first place but once again music can save the day and at the risk of messing with Texas we think what y’all really could use right now is a little help from the cream of the NYC musical crop to give Austin a shot of weirdness serum right in it’s collective left a$$cheek and boy oh boy have we got the SXSW showcase for you to help make this dream a reality…
…a showcase taking place this Friday, March 17th (tomorrow! or today! check your damn calendar!) at Springdale Station which is part of the “Austin EastCidersCollaboratory” which is about to get transformed into the “Austin EastCiders Shred-i-tory” on the afternoon and evening of the 17th when twelve of "Brooklyn’s finest and weirdest" as scientifically determined by the weirdos over at Our Wicked Lady (they oughta know!) will convene at the aforementioned location and heck one of ‘em’s even got “shred” right there in their band name, e.g. ShredFlintstone, which is a pun on par with “EastCiders” after all…
…and just in case yr skeptical allow us to reassure you that the NYC live music scene is on the ascendent lately with one mind-melting savagely shredding musical combo after another to be found on nearly ever street corner to a degree not seen since the halcyon Meet Me in the Bathroom days except that in 2023 the bathroom in question is likely to be gender-neutral (is this even legal in Texas?) which makes things even more interesting in a city and a borough already known for being an oasis of anarchist, drag-queen-story-readin’ pansexual refugees from the rest of the country to begin with…
…all of which can be sampled ahead of time through the music videos found on this page, two of which were shot especially for the Deli and more specifically for our new Deli Mag Films imprint under the supervision of the Deli’s official videographer/editor/director, featuring exclusive luminescent live footage of Wifeknife and Tetchy both savagely rockin’ the f- out (and both at Our Wicked Lady no less!) and since we’re already posted a piece on the Tetchy live clip and their current Austin-or-bust-and-back tour here we’ll instead focus our attentions on the attention-worthy Wifeknife…
…a band made up of personnel and regular clientele from the aforementioned Bushwick-based bar/nightclub/rooftop-performance space known as Our Wicked Lady and while there’s only one “lady” in the band as conventionally understood there’s more than enough wickedness in this five-piece to make up for it and really you should just go and listen to their debut double–sided single if there’s any doubt in your mind…
…one of which, the searing “Blackout,” can be found above in music video form, with the other single being “Dead Ringer” and if you wanna learn a little behind-the-scenes info on both songs you should maybe check out this piece penned by our blogging colleagues over at Bands Do BK and also you’ll most surely wanna check out the interview with two members of Wifeknife foudn below at the end of this article…
…both of which begin innocently enough with dreamy solo acoustic guitar/bass guitar which only lures you in for the fusillades of musical fury as they build and build to eye-crossing climaxes of guttural “shrinking in tongues” by front-person Sarah Hamilton and paroxysms of head-banging string-and-skin-based shreditude by the four instrumentalists: Ramsey Elliott (electric guitar, bartender), Marcello Ramirez (bass guitar, barback), Benny Oastler (electric guitar, bar regular, OLW live-streaming guru), and Keith Hamilton (drummer and see below)…
…and when it comes to “Blackout” in particular the world hasn’t seen or heard a power ballad with this much power since ’80s-era Def Leppard with epic Bic-waving rippers along the lines of “Love Bites”, “Bringing’ on the Heartache” and “F-F-F-Foolin’” even if they’re today most closely associated “Pour Some Sugar on Me” much to the delight and/or chagrin of strip club pole-workers everywhere depending upon their musical inclinations…
…and one can only but wonder what the hard-working exotic dancers of Pumps Exotic Dancing would make of these two Wifeknife tracks cuz if the strip club DJ ever put either of ‘em on while they were working the pole I’d guess someone is gonna end up with a sprained groin seeing as the five weirdos of Wifeknife shred way more intensely than Phil Collen & Co. did back in the day…
while Sarah has an even wider vocal range than Joe Elliott did in the Reagan era moving fluidly between the sweet dulcet tones of her operatic upper range (Sarah is a trained thespian who’s resumé includes some musical theater) and the unrestrained, guttural, vocal-cord shredding rage of her feral alter-ego and here’s another fun fact: the freakin’ Devil him/her/itself makes a cameo appearance a little over 3 minutes into “Dead Ringer” so obv the Head of Helltown approves of Sarah’s tortured moans and ecstatic ululations on the record…
…so if this sounds your thing (and if it doesn’t, we’re impressed you read this far!) and if you’re currently closer to “Bat City” than to Gotham we encourage you to hop on the train (or more likely the pedicab) and head straight to Springdale Station around 2pm and to stay for the duration cuz no doubt the rallying cry will be LET’S GET WEIRD AUSTIN!!!
…but don’t stop reaing yet b/c after jump directly below there’s an interview (big bonus!) with two of Wifeknife’s members who just happen to be husband-and-wife themselves (knife not included), namely, the aforementioned Sarah Hamilton who also works as Director of Social Media and Private Events at OWL aka Our Wicked Lady, and Keith Hamilton, Co-Founder/Owner and Managing Member (with Zach Glass) at OWL and hey if you start your own rock club and shred as hard as these two do you may be able to play one day at SXSW too… (Jason Lee)
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The interview is currently being meticulously edited for length and clarity and will be posted in this space shortly so please check back at this page again soon…!!!
Back in February 2021 when many of us were thinking this fresh hell isn’t feeling so fresh anymore the electronic musician known as Nuxx Vomica drove upstate for a few hours and “performed a live set in the middle of a frozen lake to an audience of confused yet (no doubt) grateful freshwater fish” as we we observed back at the time…
…a socially-isolated performance recorded for alternative/electronic DJ Vox Sinistra’s Seattle-based Strict Tempo stream (select shows archived here) a Twitch channel featuring a steady stream of live sets by DJs (including Sinistra herself natch) and bands, not to mention blocks of music videos and artist interviews, spanning an array of multi-hyphenated genres of musique électronique…
…and with Nuxx having released her debut EP A Different Place not too long previous she was wiling to risk bone-chilling death to reach the homebound masses but then Nuxx laid low for a while and we were beginning to wonder if she were in fact a mythic frozen lake sprite who could only produce music in the MIDDLE OF A FREAKIN’ FROZEN LAKE!!…
…but thankfully that’s not the case as Nuxx Vomica has returned with a batch of new songs released just todayon an EP entitled FTEV—witha limited-edition run of 33 fluorescent green cassettes made available for fans of tangible media—and speaking of "tangible" these five specimens of machine–mademusic could hardly feel more bodily and visceral—by turns trance-inducing and seizure-inducing so pull up the appropriate disclaimers—and it’s no wonder they call this stuff electronic body music (EBM) which isn’t to overlook the hard techno and French house and Italo-disco/Eurodisco elements at play…
…so in other words we’re talking dank/dirty/darkwavey punk-meets-electronica which makes it highly appropriate the EPis out on none other than Synthicide Records—the Brooklyn-based label offshoot of the dark dance music series where ecstatic rituals of communion are set to pulsating waves of artful noise and flashing strobes and gyrating bodies typically held at Greenpoint Goth-Metal-Dark-Underground-Music-of-all-Stripes Mecca Saint Vitus where patrons’ navigation of shadowy dare we say "sexxxy" inner-spaces and outer-spaces served as a source of inspiration for Madeline Seely a.k.a. Nuxx Vomica to create FTEV in the first place:
…“I find myself connected to spaces and environments a lot. And when I think of the music I make and enjoy, I think a lot about the headspaces that rooms can put me in. It’s something I notice a lot in retrospect”—spaces described as “undoubtedly pitch black and fog-filled’—where “oftentimes I’ll listen back to what I’ve made and realize that my music embodies the space I’m living in. Dark, sometimes grimy, but equally full of life and excitement…getting into electronic music gave me that thing that I didn’t find in other spaces. There’s an equality and facelessness to electronic music that you really don’t get in a lot of other scenes”…
…and when it comes to the newly minted partnership with Synthicide, Nuxx Vomica adds “I feel really lucky to be working with [founder/producer] Andi and Synthicide. Andi is such a fixture in my musical world and has gone out of her way to help put me on shows around New York. Through that we’ve developed a sweet friendship, so working together on this EP just felt right. Everything has just felt really natural”…
…resulting in tracks like the EP-opening “Do It Twice” with its layers of grinding synthesizer and dexedrine-driven drum machine draped over one another in ever-shifting configurations with machine-tooled precision, projecting the listener into a headspace equivalent of an underground dungeon holding its weekly BDSM-themed “Whips & Synths” night or at least that’s what I’m getting (gimping?) from it, followed by the record’s first advance single “Easy Go” which’ll have you dancing your brains out vigorously yet sinuously like Ian Curtis on muscle relaxants as interlocking sequences evoke a dizzying impression that only heightens the sense of dislocation described in the lyrics…
…creating an overall vibe that’s something like "Giorgio Moroder in Hell" (pull quote!) with Nuxx’s vocals something like the ghost of Donna Summer in breathy come-hither mode but having come back haunted and if spellbinding death-disco jams chock full of squelchy synths and piston-driven beats is your Platonic ideal of electronic dance music like it is mine then the release of FTEV is cause for celebration indeed and let us return at last to Maddi to provide us with some closing insights on the record’s genesis and creative process…
“When I think back on the making of the EP, I think of two main themes. One is risk, and the other is setting. After releasing “A Different Place,” I was in a moment of upheaval. I found the cheapest apartment possible and moved in. I wound up living in this really tiny studio in Chinatown with one window that directly faced a brick wall. I think I was getting about 15 minutes of sunlight per day. When I think about the record, I think about the hours waiting for my literal moment in the sun. It’s cliche, but the songs first existed just to get me outside…
…but because I was so shut in, I really struggled to find something to say that didn’t feel so uninspired. So, I just took the songs to the shows and figured it out there. For the better part of a year, these songs were just slowly revealing themselves to me live. Every show, it felt like I got a little closer. Whether that was finding a new vocal melody or lyric, I just kind of threw myself out of the nest and fell on the ground a lot. I feel like because I wrote these songs in front of other people live, I didn’t always have the chance to self-censor. Because of that, I just made something that was maybe a little more honest than I otherwise would have let myself be.” (Jason Lee)
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2023 TOUR DATES with Clock Serum March 22 Buffalo, NY – Chemical No. 2
March 23 Detroit, MI – UFO Factory (Tickets)
March 24 St. Louis, MO – Kerr Foundation
March 26 Columbus, OH – Cafe Bourbon St.
March 29 Birmingham, AL – The Firehouse
March 30 Hattiesburg, MS – Thirsty Hippo
March 31 New Orleans, LA – Poor Boy’s
April 1 Asheville, NC – Static Age
April 2 Richmond, VA – Fallout
