—–> LISTEN TO WAKE OF MODERN LIFE HERE <—–

 Dear Banshee don’t want you to know the origin of their name—in fact it’s a running joke inside the band to assiduously avoid doing so even tho’ they often get asked to—and hey I don’t blame them…

…seeing as the Bay Area collective make music that’s been described as “haunting, hypnotizing, mesmerizing, lush, moody, introspective, and dreamlike” which are all words used in a single recent review of “Rehoboam” and not wrongly either, the lead-off single to the band’s sophomore album Wake of Modern Life (check out the video above directed by bDwS made entirely with recycled/repurposed materials which we’ll soon see is a fitting visual correlate to this record) and there’s no better way to undercut the “haunting” quality of something than by trying to logically explain it which is basically what happens at the end of every M. Night Shyamalan movie and every episode of Scooby Doo…

…but imagine if every episode of Scooby Doo ended not with unmasking the villain of the week (e.g., a booty-seeking “ghost pirate” revealed to be the leader of an international smuggling ring) but instead with Scooby, Shaggy and the whole Mystery Machine gang getting sucked into an existential vortex of pure light and energy like the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey and then you’d have something much closer to Wake of Modern Life which was released one week ago today…

The dark days are here again
Mother, we are survivors
We’re in this together — “White Lies”

……an album that’s equal parts introspective and otherworldly, but at the same it feels very much of its time and place as in 2023: A Dystopian Odyssey (does the titular “wake” refer to a slipstream or a funeral or an awakening? who knows!) and here’s another advantage of bands being unwilling to over-explain their work and that’s the freedom it gives critics and other commentators to rely on pure, rampant speculation which regular readers of this column must know is something of a hobby…

…and so when it comes to the band’s name I’m gonna go ahead and speculate that Dear Banshee was chosen as their moniker as a reference to’ “Dear Prudence” as covered by Siouxsie and the Banshees seeing as the Beatles’ cover serves as a fitting encapsulation of the Dear Banshee’s lush, ornate Baroque pop wedded to introspective lyrics overlain with a layer of gothy, black mascara laced darkness with more than a tinge of psychedelia thrown in for good measure and ahhhh there’s a good San Fran connection…

…tho’ I certainly don’t mean to give the impression that Dear Banshee are taciturn or withholding cuz to the contrary the band’s two co-lead-singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalists James Lucas and Chelsea Wilde are warm and engaging in conversation and were more than willing to talk on the phone for nearly an hour and share some interesting tidbits about the album and some of its specific tracks such as opener “One Last Sign” which quite effectively sets the overall tenor for Wake of Modern Life…

In the wake of modern life / reflections are all I see
A copy of a copy / turn around
Is it one last breath or one last sigh? — “One Last Sigh”

…and when I suggest that Wake of Modern Life is very much a “headphone album” given its exquisite production and sonic detail, interweaving a rich array of timbres and textures, James gamely co-signs the idea going on to describe the record as “bedroom rave” which even if he made this up right on the spot it totally makes sense to me as applied to someone who’s spanned styles and formats from punk rock to jazz (fact: James’ father used to play clarinet in a jazz ensemble and contributes one and the same to “Greed”) to bedroom alt-pop to an entire phase spent as a drum ’n’ bass DJ…

…going on to explain that in contrast to their more guitar-heavy first album “I always wanted to start an album with just electronic stuff” which makes sense given his penchant for artists spanning the spectrum from Aphex Twin’s twisty, oft-ambient “intelligent dance music” to the glitchy electro-industrial “thrash-hop” of Death Grips and indeed “One Last Sigh” reminds me of a Xerox machine spitting out “copies of a copy” in a cut-and-paste collage of diverse influences until the ink cartridge explodes that is and smudges then all together into a blurry Rorschach test… 

…which isn’t the worst metaphor for how Wake of Modern Life was assembled, or for “One Last Sign” in particular with its herky-jerky drum programming sounding like it was dubbed from a 20th-generation cassette (Dear Banshee are self admitted gearheads and may or may not have purchased digital instruments from music stores, ripped all the sounds, then returned them) soon joined by a squelchy melody formed from fragments of guitar played by Chelsea, later cut up and fed through various filters by James in a recycling/repurposing process (Chelsea: “The first time I heard the track I didn’t know what to expect. I’d done bits and pieces of guitar work but hadn’t heard it all put together”)…

…with vocal lines traded back and forth between the two, then sung in harmony, then stacked layer-upon-layer into ambient washes of sound—a technique suggested by Chelsea and largely borrowed from her own musical project Minor Birds (FFO: Marissa Nadler, Chelsea Wolfe) and it’s worth noting here that Chelsea is a relatively new addition to Dear Banshee and that she’s got a penchant for the doomier side of the musical spectrum (e.g., Idles, All Them Witches) not to mention being formally training in classical piano from early childhood which brings a literal Baroque influence into play (James: “She’ll look at me and make a little smirk when she’s playing Bach or something”) and oh yeah you may have noticed both of them are skilled multi-instrumentalists…

…so you never know who’s playing guitar vs. piano vs. some other instrument on this record (not to mention how fluidly their voices mesh together at times) all woven into the fabric of a song like “One Last Sigh” which ultimately builds up and then unravels into a tangled heap of burbling keyboard arpeggios (can’t help but think of Grandaddy’s Sophtware Slump here) and massed voices and strings (Karina Garrett plays viola on the track and contributes string parts across the album) and who knows what else into a glitched-out-sonic-vortex-wall-of-sound which is pretty fitting for a song that appears to be about the very process of unravelling itself…

Quiet and still inside / phantoms are my only friends
Maybe we’ll all go out again / empty streets seem so calm
Uneasy thoughts slide down the walls — “Phantoms (So Much Time)”

…on an album that’s very much a product of the COVID-19 pandemic and attendant unravelling both thematically (C: “I feel like a lot of these lyrics are reflective or what we were dealing with the pandemic. We both got Covid during rehearsals. We spent two years recording. It really took a toll on us.”) and structurally (J: “We worked on the album in two phases. The first was working on the songs in live band rehearsals, getting the spines of the songs down, the vocal melodies especially. The second phase was composing on computers and piecing songs together that way. Chelsea and I figured out entire segments of songs as we were recording them”)…

…a creative process that, however painstaking, appears to suit the duo well now that ever since peak pandemic has come to revolve around the central axis of James and Chelsea especially given the fairly regular turnover among the other three members of the band—James clearly knows many proficient Bay Area players—who come and go depending upon availability and the vagaries of life as a musician overall…

…with James describing his working method as fairly meticulous (J: “It’s kind of like a science experience but if you didn’t go school for science”) while Chelsea is more inclined to “rolling with the punches” and “go with the flow” and improvise where needed (C: “99 percent of what I love about music is playing live. I knock things out in one take cuz I hate the studio”) resulting in a multi-layered, existential vortex whose sonics range from the sweeping piano-based indie rock balladry of “White Lies” culminating in a yearning string-laden coda to the neo-psychedelic of “In the Moment” with its airy Mellotron and twinkling guitar and warm synth tones so go check it out, yo… (Jason Lee)

Ok imagine a modern day Lilith Fair except instead of Lilith it’s more like a Kali meets Persephone meets Yewa meets Chang’e meets Courtney Motherf*cking Love Fair and that’ll give you some idea of what to expect this weekend at the Rights of Spring Fest taking place from 3pm until late late late both Sat/Sun at Our Wicked Lady in Bushwick, Brooklyn…

…BUT WAIT THAT’S NOT ALL cuz it’s also a fundraiser with 100% of the door and partial bar proceeds going to the New York Abortion Access Fund (est. 2001) which pays clinics directly for low-income patients’ abortions including a growing number of out-of-state abortion patients for the obvious, troubling reasons…

…plus they’ll be vendors, DJs downstairs (including the legendary Jonathan Toubin closing out the fest upstairs on Sunday), flash tattoos by Shannon Virginia & Reba a.k.a. Flowers For All Occasions, and booze by Slow & Low and yes free ice cream for everyone in attendance…

…well ok maybe no free ice cream but The Deli will be “livesteaming” (as the kids say) the event all over your face and hands on IG Live and shooting a mini-doc for Deli Mag Films and oh yeah the bitchin’ flyer is by Sean Urie with festival co-producer Alexandra Blair from the Silk War (also performing at the fest!) hangin’ around for the duration conducting impromptu interviews (see above for a sneak peek!) so get ready to get crazeeeee yo…

…and yeah your heard us right "DELI frickin’ TV" is an actual thing–check us out on YouTube–cuz the Deli is going full-on multimedia with livestreams, video interviews like the ones seen above, and producing our own good ol’ fashioned music videos, it’s a whole new chapter y’all whoop whoop!–so join us on this journey won’t you please and in the meantime enjoy the music and vids below by the featured artists at Rights of Spring… (Jason Lee)

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April showers may bring May flowers as the famous saying goes but here at The Deli we say why not “make it rain” year-round like Lil Wayne and Fat Joe rolling up night after night to Atlanta exotic-dancing mecca Magic City with wads of dead presidents circa 2006 excerpt where the the only G-strings in evidence are those found on an electric guitar and where the only stream to be found is the one delivered by your streaming service of choice that is unless you’ve got your music collection stored in the cloud…

…and now we’ve run out of precipitation and/or strip club based metaphors but that’s ok cuz the salient point is that it *was* indeed a particularly fecund April (and if May’s even more profligate, holy cow!) with a great deal of great music raining down from the heavens, four examples of which are featured here (including one release-day debut!) with more golden musical showers soon to be featured in this space when our next “Deli Delivers” monthly playlist goes up a few days from now but for now check out our hot takes on the four bangers below all released in this the fourth month of 2023…

JessX — “Void Fill” (released today) –> LISTEN HERE

This song successfully puts across the thesis that “voids annoy” (with apologies to Buzzcocks) seeing as the "voids" in question are more than merely random unoccupied spaces, but rather spaces waiting (or more like aching) to be filled by someone or something whether it’s a person or an object or a cheap sensation doing the filling—capitalism, of course, depends upon the endless fomenting of scarcity with the resulting void only fillable by means of consumer-based gratification—and this doesn’t even account for being called upon to help fill the numerous voids experienced of others…

…which is what JessX’s single new single “Void Fill” seems to be about (I’m not your "void fill" / but I love the thrill / it’s pressure on my innocence / filled with guilt…I’m not the cheapest little item on your bill) saying "up yours" to bondage bolstered by a blur of manic energy that’ll surely fill the void in your life for punchy high-velocity melodies and piledriving riffs and chords and defiant lyrics plus there’s this cool part that comes in 15 seconds into the 90-second long track and re-appearing again later comprised of cascading, half-screamed high harmonies set against steadily building rat-a-tat rhythms…

…which is like micro-dosing a shot of sonic adrenaline so consider that particular void filled too and if there’s any one mass medium that’s all about putting people’s desperate desires to have their voids filled on display it’s "reality TV" so it’s logical the music video that’s in the works for JessX’s “Void Fill” is a take-off on competitive reality shows so stay tuned and in the meantime check out the trailer above…

Joudy — “Tail End” (released two weeks ago on Trash Casual)

Speaking of voids to be filled, Joudy’s third single from their upcoming Destroy All Monsters LP is an apocalyptic rock anthem that’s all about turning endings into new beginnings—something these three Venezuelan émigrés who also happen to be cousins are well aware of after having made their way to NYC by separate, circuitous routes—and with it’s ominous, lurching riff (played in a 5/8 time signature for all you aspiring Tool tribute band members) and vast, spacious ambience this single definitely lives up the album’s title as borrowed from the 1968 kaiju film…

…cuz one could easily see Godzilla laying waste to the iconic United Nations building as “Tail End” plays—or Rodan ravaging Moscow or Mothra massacring Peking so you’d better duck—and while the song works well as an epic alt-soundtrack to the original trailer for Destroy All Monsters (we’re talking Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz levels of synchronicity here) Tail End” has it’s own video already (dir. Gabriel Duque) and it’s also apocalyptic just like those old rubber-suited monster movies and likewise you’ll likely be cheering on the planet-smashing when it arrives more than lamenting it…

…and with Joudy’s new video garnering airplay on MTV’s “Spankin’ New” broadcast (spanking not included) it’s a good thing it’s 2023 and not 2001 cuz if Carson Daily and the rest of America got freaked out by Mariah Carey and her ice cream cart on the set of TRL back in the day who knows what the teenyboppers woulda made of this trio of face-melting South American shredders who walk a fine line between psych and doom and prog and grunge and shoegaze…

Powerviolets — “Furrowed Brow” (released one week ago)

Speaking of being haunted by monsters, Powerviolets are a band led by singer/writer/guitarist/music video actor Violet Hetson. Violet likes Matzo Ball soup and hates Radiohead. Her favorite song about New York City is “I’m Gonna Move To New York” by Lumpy and the Dumpers (I’m gonna go out and score / I’ll be just like Thurston Moore) and her father is bald and Jewish.

All of the information above was gleaned second-hand and quoted near verbatim from a live podcast taping the Deli attended last summer featuring funnyman David Cross and a panel of local musicians responding to deliberately arbitrary questions and it was a pretty odd experience and speaking of pretty odd experiences you’re likely to have one listening to Powerviolet’s music cuz Violet is self-confessedly into all things witch-adjacent and haunting-related especially haunted DIY spaces…

…and that’s exactly the energy that comes across on their new single “Furrowed Brow” which relates the story of joining a cult where you have to “choose one child to leave behind” which in this case is an “egg worm son [who] steals and lies” or something along those lines but we’re hey not here for lyrical exegesis tho’ I’ll take a crack at musical exegesis and say “Furrowed Brow” is something like a mashup of the previous two songs covered above…

 …with a punk-adjacent intensity and ethereal melodies wedded to an witchy mid-tempo psych-pop groove with some nice feedback-laden textural tones adding to the overall ghostly vibe (lead guitar: Beau Dega; d: Daniel Miliambro; b: Caesar Concha) tho’ there’s a couple more “rockin’ out” parts too and the overall vibe is like Real Ramona-era Throwing Muses meets early Breeders meets Belly so in other words Tanya fuckin’ Donnelly but maybe I’m just projecting my desire for all music to sound like Tanya D. was involved with it somehow or for a more modern comparison you could go with the Paranoyds…

…but really Powerviolets just sound like Powerviolets which is exactly why you should check ‘em out, or if you’re really “with it” you already did so and already heard “Furrowed Brow” a couple weeks ago when Violet set up a dedicated phone number you could call and listen to the song before its official release cuz apparently she’s a switchboard operator for the phone company (?!?) and then we recommend you go and listen to “Ribbit” which is Poweviolets’ contribution to the excellent Warriors comp recorded at and released by Holy Fang Studios last summer as a fundraiser for endometriosis research, awareness, and advocacy…

Stallion Dunquis — “Sunday’s Gone” (released one week ago)

And at last after three examples of strum-and-twang Sturm und Drang we figure it’ll be good to go out on Stallion Dunquis’ “Sunday’s Gone” which could be described as a “stripped-down, piano-driven track with lyrical and emotional delicacy drawing comparisons to Tobias Jesso Jr. and John Lennon” if the song’s official press release is to believed which after some consideration we’re willing to sign off on even though we don’t know who Tobias Jesso Jr. is (but now we do, thanks Stallion!)…

…and if you’re gonna go the stark, stripped-down, one-man-and-a-piano route you’d better have a strong concept and strong execution and Mr. Dunquis pulls it off by laying out the song’s central conceit in the first few lines (“You don’t have to make it right / some tears are not meant to dry / I don’t wanna live that lie”) over a similarly no-nonsense, nakedly emotive blocky chord progression a la “Imagine” or “Stay” or “Without You” (Tobias!) and then throw in a couple small variations like the overdubbed vocal harmonies that appear about half-way through and voilà you’ll have listeners crying in the shower stall…

…which is well-earned seeing as the song was written “for someone experiencing a profound loss. Basically, the message is saying that it’s all okay—the sadness, the madness, the tears, the guilt. Just embrace it all today as best you can because there is happiness awaiting you tomorrow. Imeant the song to feel like an arm around your shoulder” and if punk rock is all about stripping rock music back down to its three-chords-and-the-truth ethos then "Sunday’s Gone" could easily be viewed as a piano bar punk rock equilvalent… (Jason Lee) 

A few weeks ago The DELI caught a live show at the Sundown Bar in Queens featuring RONI and her band and having seen RONI play solo a couple times before it was an entirely different experience (come to think of it, those two solo shows were pretty different from each other too…) and if you wanna understand how and why these differences exist just check out the DELI-exclusive interview with RONI below, after the jump, and hey let’s hear it for four-letter-long names written in all caps…

…which is totally well-earned in RONI’s case since practically every time she plays a song live it’s like watching a movie projected in Cinemascope—big in emotion and vulnerability and sonic detail and sheer power of voice with seemingly little held back—which is equally true it seems whether RONI’s backed by her band or solo, or whether it’s a rocked-out number or a more introspective, intimate piece of music where even the “smallness” is widescreen if you know what I mean…

…and after having a nice wide-ranging conversation with RONI on the phone the other day I’ve come away with more insight into how she’s able to create this live-wire tightrope-walking energy no matter the physical or instrumental setting seeing as RONI (and her band) are basically walking a tightrope when they play live (or otherwise) with spontaneity being at the core of their music which extends all the way to RONI’s songwriting which starts with free-form improvisations recorded onto a voice app or other device that get further fleshed out later but with as much of the original in-the-moment content preserved as possible…

…with RONI’s most recent single “Don’t Look At Me Like That” (see the music video up top) being no exception and btw it’s on the rock ‘n’ roll "power ballad" side of the things but don’t worry it’s a long way from Winger indeed—building from a faded-in ambient intro to a stark ballad of empowerment to an lighter-waving rock ’n’ roll guitar solo to a brief hushed coda so it’s a journey you see—which is appropriate for a song that’s about how it feels when people look at you that way (you know the way) and pushing back against the patriarchal gaze and whether you know this look or not you’ll have a much better understanding of it after hearing the song…

…and ever more after reading the interview below with RONI providing us with an x-ray level look at her creative process and background and the whole story behind “Don’t Look At Me Like That” itself and to our knowledge this is the only interview with RONI currently available to the masses which we consider a great privilege to bring to you, said masses, so give it a look and learn how not to look at her like that…

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On RONI’s formative years…

I was born and raised in Jerusalem, except for being in Paris for three years when my dad got sent there for his job. My father is French-Moroccan. He speaks French in addition to Hebrew and English. My grandmother was born and raised in New York City. So I always had citizenship here. When I was 18 I went into the military, which is mandatory in Israel, and served in the military band. About a month after being discharged I decided it was time to move.

First I moved to London. I wanted to see what it was like—what it’d be like living there and it was closer to home. 2010 wasn’t the best time to be in London. It was before Ubers and the pound was very strong which made things expensive. Nobody would hire me. I didn’t have paperwork, wasn’t a citizen and couldn’t work. But I played music constantly and played lots of shows. But after about three months I was over London. 

On moving to New York City…

On September 1st, 2010 I moved to New York. It was an opportunity to play live more often and in front of more people. At that time in Israel, it wasn’t easy making music in English. Hebrew was preferred. It’s not like that anymore. At the time I was already writing songs in English. In New York I could have a broader audience, an audience that could connect with the lyrics. 

When I moved here I had around $500 to my name and most of that I found at a transit station not long before moving. The money was money was stuffed in an envelope I found on the ground beside my suitcase. It was about 250 pounds in cash with no sign of who it belonged too. That’s what got me started in New York City.

On making records…

What’s even considered an LP or an EP these days? Is it still a concept or not? I don’t think about it too much. Whatever’s on deck, whatever’s ready to go, I put it out unless there’s a bigger concept at play. We don’t record to make money, that’s why I have my day job.

Recording is just the archiving of your art, which is important on its own. But the most important form of expression for me will always be performing the songs. Recording is an almost museum-like way of dealing with my music. Put it in a frame, be on pitch, produce it nicely—it’s a deliberately displayed piece of work. Then it’s done and it’s on to the stage. That’s where it matters most. 

On playing live versus recording…

Playing the songs live, they change over time. Every interpretation is at least slightly different from before and sometimes much more. Either way the songs get updated in that setting. The next songs I put out will be recorded live. That’s my happiest place.

There’s three main settings for creating music as I see it: the studio, what I call the workshop—whether it’s a studio, rehearsal space, cabin in the woods, places were you’re workshopping and writing—and live venues. Which one of these is my happiest place? Playing live is number one. Workshopping comes a close second.

Recording studios can be cold and alienating places. Live performance is the opposite—all about the energy exchange with the audience. I feed off of that, need it to supply anything myself. I don’t go onstage for the attention—it’s obviously part of the deal but still—it’s what I get from the audience, and how we recycle that energy between us, that makes it a memorable experience. 

On the audience-performer feedback loop…

If you’re not getting anything from the audience it’s difficult to give your all in return. But that changes 180 degrees if even one-percent of the audience is into it. You can tell just by what their eyes and what their faces are giving you. Everyone has to bring something to the equation. 

Live music can be boring if it’s basically the exact same thing you heard on record. I’ve seen some big names play shows like this in the last few years—just playing the album live on stage with no extra long ourtro, no “going nuts” part. I can sit at home with my nice speakers and get that experience.

 I like to give people a bang for their buck, to give some extra value. If you’re gonna come all this way, make the time, pack your weed or tobacco or whatever you do, get on the train, travel for who knows how long and then spend 3 or 4 hours of your night at a venue, I’d better bring it.

Where else does anyone get that opportunity—to have people stand there and listen to me for 30 or 45 minutes? Where do you get to experience that? It’s a special setting, a very unique experience. I like to show gratitude to all the people who make all that time and effort to come to my shows. And that’s one reason I make it a different show every time. You’ll remember that it sounded and looked and felt a certain way. I want my records to have that same energy.

On evolving…

The first 2 EP’s after I went back to playing solo were studio creations. I didn’t have band. For me, music is not about always sounding the same. You’re allowed to evolve and explore. With Crown I was invited by a friend to a producer’s studio (Or Visinger). They were working on a beat and I improvised most of what’s now “Stop Motion” along with this beat. The three other songs on the EP were made the same way. The songwriting and guitar parts were mine and the beats were by the producer FortyForty.

The next EP, Afterglow, was created from a bunch of songs that were already improvised and finished. After Crown I started improving songs all the time. I realized that was my favorite way of making music. I don’t tend to sit and write. I don’t journal. For years I was always struggling with not writing enough. Finally I stopped thinking about songwriting that way. I finally accepted it. It’s not my medium. 

On songwriting and improvisation…

I’ve been playing for a long time and I’m good at making up melodies and lyrics on the spot. It’s challenging and I like a challenge. I adapted this as my new method—starting with free improv and then forming songs out of the improvs. Afterglow is exactly that—five songs that started off as improvisations. It was produced by Nir Yatzkan, an an old friend from military school since we were 18. He produced it remotely from Israel. 

The way I make music now is to sit and improvise and record what I’m doing into voice notes or in a practice studio. I try to improvise everything at once so it comes out as a full formed song with chords, melody, lyrics, hooks, everything already set. The idea is to improvise a song as if the song already exists and I’m playing it live, as if I’m channeling the song. 

On her new bandmates…

I want the next album to be recorded live with my new band—Pat DiPaola on drums and Tom Shani on bass. But of course that takes more money, more time and planning versus making an album mostly in the box. I’m really lucky because Pat and Tom connect with the songs. 

They’re total professionals. They know how to get the work done. At the same time they’re kind and gentle human beings. Toxic masculinity was never good for me in band environments, acting passive-aggressive and that whole thing. I’m thrilled to have two great musicians to work with who are equally great human beings as musicians. We just toured together for 10 days and didn’t strangle each other so there’s the proof. 

I’ve had several bands before and none stuck this way. I feel totally comfortable bringing them my songs and we figure out the arrangements together. They play whatever they’re inspired to play. I give Tom the chords and we go from there. I let them know if anything’s not the right vibe. But more often than not they get it right intuitively, right off the bat. They know my vibe—Know what’s right for me and my songwriting. I know their’s too. We don’t have to change much from how we intuitively feel things the first time around.

On recording “Don’t Look At Me Like That”…

Bass: Tom Shani 
Drums: Pat DiPaola
Written by RONI with assistance from Thomas Barranca
Produced by RONI, Jason Alexander Reyes, Jonathon Meier, with assistance from Tom Shani
Recorded, mixed, mastered by Pat DiPaola at 727 Studios (Brooklyn)
Vocal recording and production – Jason Alexander Reyes 

It was a perfect team who worked on the new single. Everything was kept very much in the family, in the close-knit tribe. Nobody else touched this song, no one was brought in from outside for mixing or mastering or anything—except for the graphics and art made by Toby Verhines who I met on Instagram. He lives in Ohio. We met in person on the tour I just did, so now he’s part of the tribe too.

“Don’t Look At Me Like That” had existed for about 6 months and people were like you’ve gotta record this song but I didn’t want to self-produce it. Last June I played a show at Rockwood Music Hall and met Jonathon Meier. He introduced himself and said I love that song you just played, would love to work with you on it. 

I’ve heard this before and nothing happens but I sent him the demo to see what he’d do with it. All of the sudden two weeks later he sent me his own production of the song. That was a big sign. I thought “let’s do it.” He a little new to production but I thought we could figure out the process as we went. I added my best friend, producer and songwriter Jason Reyes to the mix and both Jonathon and Jayson connected really deeply as well. 

We decided to do it the Virgo way, to meet every week and focus on completing one element of the song: beats for the verse (the drums are a mix of drum machine and live drums), beats for the chorus, bass and synths and percussion, synths and pads in general. On week 5 we recorded the live drums and bass at Pat DiPaola’s 727 Studios. Then did the vocal tracking at Jason’s studio. Finally, Pat mastered and mixed it. We set our goal and stuck to the schedule and didn’t linger over anything—just get it done and we did. 

On the song’s genesis, meaning, and reception…

“Don’t Look At Me Like That” is a pop/R&B/rock hybrid. It vibes to the catchphrase—there’s definitely sass to it but put across differently every time we play it live. Still it’s good to have a set version of it on record that captures all the elements—but live we take it to a different place every time, especially where we extend the ending, going off to different places and improving what we feel in in the moment. I never want to hear a song played live exactly the same way twice but that’s just me.

“Don’t Look” was written the way I described before. It started with an improv session at home. A friend reminded me that I came up with the core of the song when someone was making a lot of noise outside, honking their car horn so I yelled out the window shut up, stop honking!” which I’d totally forgotten about. That set a mood that ended up triggering lots of other things, lots of other thoughts. 

I started improvising, building on the title phrase and life experiences I’ve had. The lyrics are based on living within male dominated fields, worlds I’ve been part of my whole life, and just society overall. And then one part is based on a woman I dated who is in a yoga cult. The second verse of the song gets into that, into the whole experience of her choosing between the relationship and the cult. And choosing the cult—entering into this portal of madness. I’m glad I didn’t fall into it too. It was her world, definitely not for me. 

The title can be taken different ways and that’s on purpose. It’s about being assessed in a certain way, largely based on gender. Being looked at a certain way because of it—assumptions being made that aren’t there in reality. Being over-assessed. But it’s also about being under-assessed. Being underestimated and not seeing what’s there. 

I switch the pronoun from “you” to “her” at some points in the song to make it clear it’s not just about me. There’s half the population at least that has to deal with being looked at that way, of be assessed in a certain way—toxic patriarchal stares—and reclaiming power from that. 

For the tour I had t-shirts that have the title of the song in big script and it definitely provokes a reaction from lots of people. It’s like a kind of litmus test. In Cleveland I walked to a local diner in the morning to get a bagel and there was a table of older gentlemen, probably in their 60s, and one of them leaned over and said “I’m looking at you like that.” It started a whole interesting conversation. It’s an ice-breaker at the very least.

 

 

Photo by @tesskrope; clothes by @bookivintage

If you wanna skip straight to the artiste-provided liner notes by all means just scroll down past the jump we promise it won’t hurt our feelings, but on the other hand if you’re feeling indulgent then keep reading the full preamble directly below and either way we appreciate your patronage…

It’s to be expected when you listen to your average three-minute-and-a-half-long pop song (broadly speaking) there’s gonna be some unsolved mysteries contained therein—for instance, is Jay and Beyoncé’s 2018 trap-inflected banger “Apeshit” really merely about “livin’ lavish [with] expensive fabrics” or is that an overly literalistic, materialistic reading of a song intended more as a “socio-cultural text destabiliz[ing] Enlightenment universalism and its public/private split”?—and it’s just such questions that pay the salaries of music bloggers the world over so long as the artists themselves don’t spill the beans on what they were thinking…

…and true to form when it came time to review Big Dumb Baby’s sophomore EP Terrible Twos we had many questions to speculate on but before going there you should know that Big Dumb Baby (né Ashley Dumb Baby) is “an actor turned singer/songwriter from Nashville now living in Brooklyn [who] melds her love of 90s indie-rock with influence from her southern roots to create a distinctive and unfussy songwriting style that’s uniquely her own” who describes her music as “goo goo ga ga core”…

….now, normally, we’d speculate on what these four songs mean likely theorizing that “Jenny’s Place” was written as the theme song to a sitcom spec script written by Ashley herself in which she plays the titular Jenny who runs an underground tavern/high-stakes poker parlor/cockfighting ring out of her off-the-grid basement apartment alongside six male housemates (she tells her overprotective father they’re all gay, natch) not to mention one very nosy neighbor so yeah we’re talking Archie Bunker’s Place meets Frank’s Place meets Alice meets Cheers meets Sons of Anarchy and like any good TV show theme “Jenny’s Place” is damn catchy with a warm enveloping sound and lyrics that paint a vivid picture of a setting and a cast of characters…

…but then we thought hey, what if we actually just went to the source and asked Big Dumb Baby what these songs are all about which we figured was maybe just crazy enough to work—granted, we’ve done this a few times before but our short-term memory isn’t what it used to be—and lo-and-behold BDB accepted our offer and came through with a fantastic set of liner notes covering not only song meanings and creative inspirations (such as outright spite, among friends, natch) but also full credits for each song and some nice BTS insights into the recording and instrumental arrangements of the four songs (plus the one acoustic version, making five tracks in all) with technical details kindly provided by the EP’s multi-instrumentalist producer Ian Michael…

…with the latter being a nice, unexpected bonus cuz despite their overall unfussiness these four/five songs are downright ornate at times too esp. when it comes to some of the subtle sonic flourishes contained therein (headphones highly recommended) with flutes and recorders and violins and cellos brought to bear and so with no further ado let us hand over the floor to Ashley and Ian with a set of annotations that bring to mind the golden age of liner notes printed on back covers and inner sleeves of vinyl LPs—or in minuscule typeface in CD booklets—direct from the terrible two of Terrible Twos…

*******************************************************************************************************

TERRIBLE TWOS — BIG DUMB BABY

Opening Statement by Big Dumb Baby: Terrible Twos is a collection of songs I wrote in my final year living in Nashville, TN. It’s a celebration of joy, friendship and love and I’m really proud of it! We recorded the majority of the guitars and vocals in my bedroom and the rest in various living rooms and basements. Below you will find some notes on the songwriting process from me, and recording notes from the producer, Ian Michael.

"JENNY’S PLACE"

Jenny’s Place was the name of the house I lived in during my senior year of college. A grimy and horribly maintained townhouse in Allston, MA with an infuriating landlord named Jenny. There, I lived with 6 dudes: Guillermo, Aoun, Eli, Ben, Jacob and Ian. It was such a special time, but definitely the kind of living situation that would only be fun in college and while you are still on your parents health insurance. As you can imagine, it was crusty and probably mold infested. We smoked cigarettes in the basement and threw parties in the glass-dusted backyard that backed up to the loudest train tracks you have ever heard. I know none of this actually sounds fun, but there was nothing more special than coming home to 6 of your best friends everyday. It was such a loving household.

While the roots for this song are in nostalgia, I actually started writing it out of spite. Two roommates, Eli and Ben, decided to start a music project called Jenny’s Place and DID NOT INCLUDE ANY OF US!!!! So rude. So I wrote this song and didn’t include them :))) 

Production notes from Ian:

As Ashley said before, these songs were the last batch written in Nashville. The general process for the writing went down like this: Ashley writes the songs on the guitar and usually has the main riff and chords sorted out in the initial draft. "Jenny’s Place" started with that descending riff on an acoustic and essentially sounded like the alternate version you hear at the end of the EP, sans string arrangement. 

We were working out full band arrangements of this music at the time and the song had a much faster and more driving rock groove underneath. We actually recorded an entire alternate version with this arrangement during the same basic tracking sessions for "Haircut" and "Tornado Chaser." For one reason or another, it wasn’t clicking and we felt it could be stronger. We were in New York by this point and I made a demo that is the basis for what you hear now. Literally what you hear is the demo guitars and bass with re-recorded drums instead of a drum machine. Ashley reached out to Harrison Patrick Smith, right before The Dare released “Girls” and asked him if he wanted to do a remix and he instead was kind enough to add some percussion and piano, remixed the guitar loops and I believe added an acoustic.

Credits:
Music/lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin 
Production: Ian Michael, Harrison Patrick Smith 
Mixing: Saguiv Rosenstock 
Mastering: Sasha Stroud (Artifact Audio) 

"TORNADO CHASER"

I think this is my favorite track on the EP. I stumbled upon the phrase tornado chaser one day while living in Nashville and was immediately inspired. I started to think about my friend Jack and how they continue to be a hype-man in everyone’s life. They are also one of the most brilliant and chaotic people I’ve ever met. I wanted to write a song hyping them up. I also had a lot of fun with the rhyme scheme for the song as well.

I don’t like laboring over songs, or really anything in general… if something isn’t working I just set it down and come back if I feel the urge. I had been playing around with the chords I use in the verse for quite some time but nothing ever stuck. Once I started writing the lyrics, everything came together quite quickly and easily, which is always so satisfying.

Production notes from Ian:

This song was one of the first written after we released the first Big Dumb Baby EP. I remember Ashley writing the chord progression pretty immediately, I thought it sounded like something you’d hear on a Tropicalia album or something from the 60s. The arrangement and ideas for production came together when we were rehearsing the tune for live shows back in Nashville. We knew we had this song, "Jenny’s," and "Haircut," and that we wanted to record them before moving because we had a pretty great team of people to record with at the time. 

I think it was either in June or July before moving to New York when we tracked those three songs with Jeremy Berstein at his home studio. Jeremy was also the engineer for a solid amount of the first EP and we had a lot of fun tracking with him. I want to give a shout out to Victor Pacek and Aaron Lawson on bass and drums respectively, who did the amazing whole take you hear on this track. Victor has some amazing bass playing on this one, ideas I could never have! 

Credits:
Music/Lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin
Drums: Aaron Lawson
Bass: Victor Pacek 
Guitar: Ian Michael
Mixing: Saguiv Rosenstock
Mastering: Sasha Stroud – Artifact Audio

"BIRTHDAY SONG"

I wrote this song for my dear friend, Ian, who’s my guitarist and produced Terrible Twos. I think we were at his family’s house in Rochester for his birthday and I was just kind of messing around improvising and he was like “wait I love that keep going!!” I think I wrote “Birthday Song” in one afternoon…. Coincidentally, this is the exact same way my song “If Michael was a Dog” came together. 

Production notes from Ian: This was the last song I remember being written for the EP. We did a couple acoustic recording sessions in Ashley’s room in New York. I think we had the idea to have this be a chamber pop style arrangement pretty early on but needed to figure out how to do it. Sean Brennan was the one writing the arrangements for this tune. One day, Ashley and I were having a phone call and the idea popped in my head of having Chase Ceglie play the clarinet and flute parts because I had worked with him in the past and knew he was more than capable of playing the arrangement Sean was writing. 

We shot Chase a text and he recorded his parts from his studio in Rhode Island. There was a recorder part written in the arrangement and I played it on an Irish penny whistle that I had since middle school. Easily, one of my favorite moments recording was working on that recorder part in my bedroom. 

Credits:
Music/Lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin
Guitar: Ian Michael
Production: Ian Michael
Mixing: Saguiv Rosenstock
Master: Artifact Audio – Sasha Stroud
Recorder: Ian Michael 
Arrangement: Sean Brennan
Flute and Clarinet: Chase Ceglie
Violin: Lily Desmond
Cello: Sean Brennan
Upright Bass: Victor Pacek


"HAIRCUT"

I had a mental breakdown early pandemic, and shortly after went to residential eating disorder treatment where I was diagnosed as Bipolar. Before seeking professional help and getting on meds, I never recognized my intense periods of anxiety and hyperactivity as manic episodes. I find it hilarious now because in retrospect it was so obvious. "Haircut" is me making light of a heavy situation, switching the perspective and viewing as an outside spectator. It was a ridiculous and horrible time period in my life, but being able to find humor in it now is a sign of growth. Like, woah… that happened. Ultimately, "Haircut" is a celebration because, to quote the song, “I’ve been feeling sooooo much lighter, I’ve been feeling much more like myself”. 

Production notes from Ian:

When we tracked this at Jeremy’s, I had this idea of the tune being recorded in a kind of chaotic manner. There’s a part in the song where you hear a metal clanging sound and that was Aaron knocking over a mini gong from his snare drum. One thing I want to make note of too was when we were recording at Jeremy’s, Aaron and Victor were in the main studio room and Ashley and I were technically upstairs in the kitchen with the door shut to the studio, only looking at them through a small window in the door. I think I told Aaron to play bad on purpose or something. All that said, Ashley and I had no idea if that track worked or not. I remember there were actually a lot of heated debates about how I conducted that part of the session. 

The catch was, the drums were great but we couldn’t use the bass or guitar. For "Haircut," "Tornado," and the first "Jenny’s," I recorded all the guitars in Ashley’s parents house in her bedroom. She had a closet I used as an iso-booth for my amp and I’d play as loud as I wanted, very fun. When it came time for "Haircut," I remember tracking the bass part at the kitchen table at their house, and playing for her parent’s dog Ranger. The bass on "Haircut" is one of my favorite recording moments. 

Credits: 
Music/Lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin 
Production, Bass, Guitar: Ian Michael 
Mixing: Saguiv Rosenstock 
Mastering: Sasha Stroud (artifact audio) 
Engineering: Ian Michael, Jeremy Bernstein 
Drums: Aaron Lawson

"JENNY’S PLACE" – Acoustic Version

Anyone who visited Jenny’s Place knew it was a special house. So when I wrote this song I knew I wanted a second version that would encapsulate my sweeter memories of it. My friend Sean Brennan was a frequent flier at Jenny’s place and also happens to be a sick composer, so I immediately called him to create a string arrangement. He killed it as usual. 

Production Notes from Ian:

One aspect of the EP that was considered very early on was having rock tunes and more ornate folk arrangements. Sean Brennan is someone who has always been in the fold with Big Dumb Baby and truly is a brilliant arranger. We talked about this song having a chamber orchestra arrangement and figured out some names of who to record for these orchestral parts. Seamus Guy was a “Jennys” affiliate if you will and was immediately thought of to record violins. He tracked his violins at his house in California. 

In Sean’s basement, I tracked him and Victor playing cello and double bass. It was a fun experience and one of the first times I engineered strings so it was quite the learning experience. I tracked Ashley’s guitar but I believe she recorded her own vocals. 

Credits:
Music/Lyrics: Ashley Mayorquin
Guitar: Ashley Mayorquin
Production: Ian Michael
Arrangement: Sean Brennan
Violin: Seamus Guy
Cello: Sean Brennan
Upright Bass: Victor Pacek

 

Mixing jazz and rock is never an easy prospect. For every blazing Birds of Fire style powerhouse there’s at least a dozen tepid Jazz Odysseys. And for every sleek, sophisticated Aja there’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 scandale Baby 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 Things it’ll feel like the glory days of 2002-03 all over again with Come Away With Me and Belly of the Sun and Frank hitting 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)

RESOURCES:
"The End of the Music Business" — Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus (The Nation)
"10 Lessons from the Music Industry on How To Rise Up in the Gig Economy" — Garrison Leykan of London Records (Forbes)
"The Gig Economy Is Nothing New For Musicians–Here’s What Their ‘Portfolio Careers" Can Teach Us" — Alana Blackburn of the University of New England (The Conversation)

 

Photo by Michelle LoBianco

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)…

photo by Michelle LoBianco aka @brooklynelitist

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 titular gorgon 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)

Video of Wifeknife performing “Blackout” live at Our Wicked Lady on 5 January 2023 recorded/edited by Daniel Moore for Deli Mag Films: 

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)

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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…

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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

photo of Zach from Dead Tooth by Yan K

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…

01) Shannon Minor Group — “In Your Eyes” released on Friday (bandcamp)

02) Dead Tooth — “Electric Earth” released on Friday (bandcamp)

03) Tetchy — Smaller/Better EP released on Friday (bandcamp)

04) FACS — “When You Say” released back in February but still sounding good (bandcamp)

05) Romi O — “M2M” released on Friday

06) Wednesday — “TV in the Gas Pump” released last Wednesday naturally (bandcamp)

07) Kate Davis — “Long Long Long” off the Fish Bowl LP released on Friday

08) 79.5 — “Our Hearts Didn’t Go That Way” (feat. Durand Jones) released last Wednesday (bandcamp)

09) Lucinda Chua — “An Ocean” off the YIAN LP released on Friday (bandcamp)

10 Teenage Tom Petties — “Posters” released on Friday (b/w “My First Beer”) (bandcamp)

 (Jason Lee)