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 Bill Murray 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’s and 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 EastCiders Collaboratory” 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. Shred Flintstone, 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’s and 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 EastCiders Collaboratory” 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. Shred Flintstone, 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’s and 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 EastCiders Collaboratory” 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. Shred Flintstone, 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…!!!

 

photo by Allyson Piñon; stream the new EP here or here or here

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 today on an EP entitled FTEV—with a limited-edition run of 33 fluorescent green cassettes made available for fans of tangible media—and speaking of "tangible" these five specimens of machine–made music 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 EP is 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 

April 3 Queens, NY – TV Eye w/ Sextile (Limited Tickets Left)

 

–> HEAR THE PLAYLIST HERE <–

In the inspirational sports movie parody movie Blades of Glory (2011) Will Ferrell offers a memorable commentary on the Black Eyes Peas’ 2005 Grammy-winning (?!?!) single “My Humps” stating that “No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative; it gets the people going", a line memorably sampled by Watch the Throne-era Jay & Ye back before the former came to known as “Beyoncé’s husband” and the latter came to be known as “certifiably insane", but when it comes to “provocative” songs that’ll “get the people going” in 2023 we’d like to nominate “Rock God” by Madison, Wisconsin-based rock band Mickey Sunshine…

…which instead of being about “lady lumps” is about the lumps ladies have oft taken in the realm of “cock rock”, a moniker used to refer to phallocentric rock music and/or rock music made by “cocks” a.k.a. selfish jerks a.k.a. Rock Gods, which may lead one to expect a granola-encrusted folkie lament about rock star narcicism and patriarchal privilege, to which Mickey Sunshine may maybe say “hold my Anheuser-Bush” cuz instead it’s a grunge-encrusted terrace chant punk rock anthem…
 

…with singer/lyricist Andrea Gonzales-Paul laying claim to the phallocentric rock god throne with a ribald refrain that can’t be reprinted in a family newspaper despite its clear satirical intent rooted in “good for the goose, good for the gander” foul-mouthed comeuppance–but you can listen to “Rock God” to your filthy heart’s content as part of the February 2023 “Deli Delivers” playlist alongside sixty-something other provocative songs released over that given month’s 28 days some of which you can play for your mom without blushing…

…and seeing as any February playlist is bound to get the short end of the stick—and seeing as it’s already 10 days into March tho’ if you followed the Deli’s instagram account you could’ve started listening to it a few days ago—we’ve included a few numbers released in the first few days of March and one from late January, to help compensate so go check ‘er out and enjoy three-plus hours of provocating musical madness from New German Cinema’s “Being Dead” to Pharmakos’ “Dead of Night” cuz we’re dead-ass sure this totally sick playlist is gonna become yr new unhealthy obsession… (Jason Lee)

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MICKEY SUNSHINE — "ROCK GOD"

Andrea Gonzales-Paul (@insufferablewomxn): vocals, rhythm guitar
Chris Di Bernardo (@dibsondrums): drums, ass-slaps
Skylar Nahn (@_sky_crowe_): lead guitar, feedback/noise
Tony Duvall (@thonyduvall): bass guitar

Produced by Logan Severson and Mickey Sunshine
Recording Engineer: Logan Severson (@loganseverson)
Mixing Engineer: Logan Severson
Mastered by Cam Frank (@camcamcamcamcamcamcamfrank)

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MORE MUSIC FROM THE PLAYLIST & SOME OTHER KICKASS VIDS BY ARTISTS ON THE PLAYLIST:

 

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Cover image by Kelsey Wagner. Music video directed by Molly Mary O’Brien. 

Hot off the record presses, Shybaby’s “For Rent” is about a rent boy in the literal sense—a term traditionally used for young male prostitutes who occupy a strata of sex work that’s a couple rungs below being a high-class escort or an aspirational hustler; think Dee Dee Ramone trying get picked up on 53rd and 3rd to support his smack habit—but the rent boy at the heart of “For Rent” is instead your everyday low-level drug dealer with striking blue eyes and cool tats who’s prone to texting at 3am with invitations to share his bed in Bed-Stuy and not even paying for your Uber over…

…cuz when you think about it “rent boy” as commonly used is a bit of a misnomer given that most financial-sexual exchanges with literal streetwalkers are one-time only transactions whereas being a renter is to take part in an ongoing if explicitly impermanent series of exchanges—like renting a room or an apartment on a short-term lease—without owning or being invested any further and that’s the situation at the heart of Shybaby’s “For Rent” a song that takes the term much more literally…

…with our song’s narrator entering into a more literal rent boy relationship that no less intense or seemingly even more intense that a more officially committed relationship (no full-on “I love you, you pay my rent” dependency à la the Pet Shop Boys here) with the only promise made being to promise nothing which may spell "trouble" but our narrator doesn’t seem to "mind it" or at least that’s our reading of the lyrics which are delivered something like Kat Bjelland covering Bob Dylan’s "Talkin’ World War III Blues"…

…or better yet in Shybaby’s own words: "’For Rent’ used to be called ‘Drug Dealer (For Rent).’ It’s the fun, more oblivious part of a two-song arc ending with an unreleased song that used to be called ‘Drug Dealer (Kicked Out).’ He was a drug dealer but not mine. He described himself as ‘For Rent,’ as in he was so scared to love someone after being hurt that he flat out let me know he didn’t want to care about me, while in the same breath telling me he cared about me; it’s less about him than how I’ve allowed myself to be cared for…”

 …going to explain how “the song and video are dramatic and unserious” where the song’s “bridge is unhinged from the rest of the song in a way that makes me laugh – but also in a way that feels as abrupt as how he’d contradict himself, and how I’d go from so obsessed to so hurt. I liked that he called me pretty, and I’d gloss over the part where he also made me feel not-so-nice (very bad)" and the bridge does indeed sound like they turn into a Primus cover band for a minute…

…which is the reason “For Rent” pops for this reviewer is how it locates a comfort zone within these contradictions and unhinged shifts as put across with what sounds like unmitigated glee and a fit of bad temper at once perhaps provoked by emotionally investing in rented spaces whether physical or emotional…

 …as conveyed in the discursive lyrics (see below) and maybe even more so in the sing-spoken-shouted vocals and the careening buzzsaw guitar riding over a galloping beat with an elevated heart rate like a bunch of kids hopped up on Blue Maui Punch Pixy Stix in a bouncy castle and it’s nearly impossible not to get swept up in the song’s sweet ‘n’ sour flavor-crystal energy even as it leads our narrator down the path of declaring “I’m in for trouble now” while admitting the rush of “wak[ing] up in a room shifted two feet to the right"…

…but where it’s highly likely you’ll be taking this physical dislocation to the next level by moving into a new place entirely (part II of the original song?!) but not before crawling and shambling across the soon-to-be-vacated dwelling wearing a wide smile and clothes borrowed from one of Madonna’s backup dancers circa 1983 during that liminal, magical moment when you’ve finished cleaning out the old place moments before moving into the new one which is exactly what Shybaby does in the video for “For Rent"…

…or as Shybaby puts it in regards to the Molly Mary O’Brien-directed video: “The video was filmed in [my] apartment the day after moving out (rent went up by 40%). It felt like a perfectly timed opportunity to make something out of a shitty situation. It’s grey, washed out, and a little grimy, but it’s still fun” which sounds like a good description for NYC in general and also for the renter’s mindset of making unlivable spaces livable and even appealing and really more love songs lost should evoke real estate seeing as residential well-being is key to most any Gothamite’s mental health more so than dating or relationships…

…which is a very New York-based state of mind we realize but it’s makes sense for a city with over 8 million people to choose from romantically or otherwise (good odds even with 40% of adults being married tho’ who knows how many happily) but with only about 2 million rental apartments to choose from, with the overwhelming majority already occupied, so it’s no wonder many singles in the city would deem it a bigger deal landing an ideal apartment versus going on the perfect date or finding an ideal mate except for where two birds can be killed with one stone via strategic cohabitation…

…so hopefully “For Rent” will spark a trend towards more rental-based love songs which despite spiraling rents in NYC (the median rent in Manhattan recently breaking the $4K threshold) still represents a better option than owning that is if you get creative and/of lucky enough in your search for rental spaces cuz who wants all the extra work and worry of owning or the attendant risk of such a major commitment—whether romantic or real-estate based—so why not stay up for rent indefinitely? (Jason Lee)

 
Shybaby’s next show is March 29th at Ethyl’s in Brooklyn, with more TBA soon…

Lyrics courtesy of the artist:
Been 2 years since you first stayed
In my bed with me you were so skinny jaded
didn’t realize it was you again
Til you said "oh hey how have you been"
Since then you’ve inked up all your skin
Grown your hair out even longer put some meat on your you bones, I…
…you’ve still got those blue blue blue blue eyes
God damn you couldn’t be a more delicious sight

I know you’re trouble boy
yuh
I’m in for trouble now

You say you’re for rent you’re for rent you’re for rent
But then you call me a babe and i don’t mind it
But when you say you’re for rent you’re for rent you’re for rent
So you’ve been through it well, who hasn’t?

The next night after we’d stayed up playing dice
N woke up in a room shifted two feet to the right
I was out proving i don’t need no concrete
When you texted me the name of your bedstuy street
Three in the morning 15 dollar car
My second of the night but you didn’t even care
Walls painted peach and covered in leaves
I don’t wanna leave, i don’t wanna leave

I know you’re trouble boy
yuh
I’m in trouble now

You say you’re for rent you’re for rent you’re for rent
But then you call me a babe and i don’t mind it
But when you say you’re for rent you’re for rent you’re for rent
So you’ve been through it well–who hasn’t?

You can say i give you these looks
It’s cause I could get hooked

You say you’re for rent you’re for rent you’re for rent
But then you call me a babe and i don’t mind it
But when you say you’re for rent you’re for rent you’re for rent
But then you call me a babe and i don’t mind it
You say you’re for rent you’re for rent you’re for rent

 

To be honest we hardly know a damn thing about Aux Blood except they’ve put out some cool songs lately (that’s enough!) plus they have a cool name that that makes us think of plugging in digital peripherals (auxiliary ports a.k.a. aux ports) directly into one’s body and bloodstream and Aux Blood most definitely make music to get jacked up to and jacked up by…

…music described on the band’s own Bandcamp as “hardcore shoegaze noise” so that’s a whole spectrum of noise right there with a cryptic addendum that “collaboration is essential” and they do have as knack for sounding doom-laden/depressed one minute and enraged/infuriated the next in a seeming bid to be deemed the Auguste Rodin of sculpted noise…

…a title Aux Blood makes some progress in earning on their three latest singles—"Carcrash” (shoegazery á la Jesus and Mary Chain), “No Marks” (distorted melodic postpunk), and “Graveyard” (punky-grungy primal scream therapy) the latter of which dropped just a few days ago—not to mention their eponymous 2021 LP and a couple cool numbers found only on their Bandcamp page…

…and when it comes to doomy and infuriating world events of late requiring massive infusions of auxiliary energy and resources to attempt to counteract the recent Turkey-Syria earthquake surely tops the list which we realize must come off as a flippant transition to make but we’re making it because Aux Blood is headlining a benefit show tonight at Brooklyn’s Gold Sounds Bar with 100% of door and bar proceeds going to charities working on relief efforts in the region…

…an effort that will require a span of who knows how many years with the death toll now having crossed 50,000 not to mention widespread loss of shelter and livelihood for many survivors in a region already beset by challenges and calamities now looking at a whole new level of sustained hardship and lingering trauma to a degree impossible for most reading this to comprehend and if there’s a moment when collaboration is essential this is one of them so come on out to the show if you’re inclined or look for other ways to chip in… (Jason Lee)

A native to the Bronx NYC, OOMAN (they/she), is a Kittitian-American songwriter, producer, MC and DJ whose music sits at the intersection of electro house and alternative Hip-Hop.

To skip straight to the Deli’s exclusive interview with OOMAN—conducted on the occasion of their brand new single "NEW PURSE" released just today—scroll down past the jump below just after the video for "MISS GOT ROCKS" or by all means continue reading directly below if you’re interested in purses and handbags in addition to OOMAN…

 

Whether serving as an accessory to an outfit, an accessory to self-empowerment, or even an accessory to crime, purses are powerful symbolic totems in our society. Purely in terms of fashion, the right handbag can make or break an outfit while also making or breaking one’s image—just ask Young Jeezy who once made it known that “all I ever want’s a bad b*tch in a Chanel bag” or LL Cool J who loves ladies known as “around the way girls” prone to carrying “a Fendi bag and a bad attitude” with purses on the whole, and certain brands of purses in particular, serving as shorthand for specific personality types, overall attitude and power as in rap/dance/pop songs where something or someone is deemed “Gucci” meaning that the entity in question is good or even great (or chill, or dope, or illin‘) just ask Gucci Mane…

…with the power of the purse only being enhanced by so readily crossing and blurring all kinds of lines and social boundaries with handbags being in essence the ultimate luxury item of the street whether found at upscale boutiques or hawked right off from city sidewalks, a portable status symbol that’s at once exclusive and accessible and highly functional as well, used to carry money and cosmetics and other can’t-do-without personal items especially when wearing an outfit too sleek or too chic to have pockets (no wonder purses are closely associated with nightlife and club culture) and while the earliest handbags were the sole province of men (it’s true!) once women started carrying them they came to be seen as a marker of liberation, part and parcel with expanding freedom of movement outside the domestic sphere…

…not to mention how purses and handbags have established connotations within hip hop culture (many a handbag brand has been made mythic thru hip hop lyrics) and in drag culture and on the dancefloor too—for one example of the latter consider the genre of EDM known simply as handbag house (aka “diva house”) defined on Wikipedia as an “anthemic sub-genre of house music that became most popular in gay clubs during the second half of the 1990s”—and when it comes to queer hip hop Purse First is the name of preeminent podcast covering queer rap artists with a name taken from the expression “purse first, ass last,” a Black queer colloquialism referring to taking care of business before pleasure, a key life hack for marginalized populations in particular, which all goes to show the power of the purse with purse here used as a double signifier for handbags and for socio-economic power…

…and if there’s one notion that queer-identifying Kittitian–American songwriter/producer/emcee/deejay/electronic artist OOMAN gets across clearly on their brand new track “NEW PURSE” debuting right here and right now on the Deli Mag it’s the power of the purse in all of the various respects discussed above with “NEW PURSE” likewise serving as the perfect sonic accessory to introduce a talented young artist with a brand new bag who rightfully demands respect for “putting in this work” over “a beat that’s hot and wet” declared in a voice dripping with attitude all over this down ’n’ dirty bop designed for dancefloors and headphones alike (whatever your bag may be!) because “NEW PURSE” is a straight-up club banger whose two-minute duration is stuffed with enough sonic nuance to be appreciated by shut-in audiophiles as well…

…but that’s quite enough from me, your dedicated musical correspondent, seeing as The Deli was lucky enough to converse telephonically with OOMAN just the other day and you’ll be better off hearing all about what their bag is straight from the source so let’s get to it with no further ado with some comments from OOMAN excerpted from our highly captivating conversation. (Jason Lee)

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

On musical roots…

My father is a musician. It’s his lifestyle. We share this in common. He’s been in bands for 40 years, playing bass and steel drum for different genres, calypso and afro jazz to name a few. At a young age I started going into my dad’s home recording studio, I wanted to be a singer. He let me record my voice. I also studied piano into my late teens. In school I always wanted to be aligned with music, I’ve always had a deep desire to be a recording artist and performer.

Another early influence was the trips we took to Saint Kitts. My family would visit there every other year. I’ve been there a bunch of times. There’s a carnival every year and a big annual music festival.I’ve been to Carnival a couple times, once in SK, many times in Brooklyn and once in Boston. The way Caribbean people go hard for music at Carnival -It’s adjacent to punk in a way—people "jump and wave” in the street together. Parallel to the hype at any function. It’s in my blood.

On developing as an artist…

As a teenager I was obsessed with MCs and singers. 

I always wanted to be a popstar when I was little, but it evolved into a desire to write songs. I didn’t realize how much goes into following this path. In my teens, I started rapping and writing songs with the idea of being a ghostwriter for other artists. By 18 I was learning to record on my own. At first I was more writing slower ballads, synth bass ballads. It took a few years to find my own sound but I would write songs all the time. My first release across platforms was “On 10.” It’s a low tempo synth-based song. By that time I was using GarageBand and taught myself to produce by experimenting, playing around and seeing what would come out, until I was happy with the sound. I’m still working on developing my craft as a producer and writer.

At the same time I was getting more and more into deejaying, going to sets and teaching myself how to mix. I was looking up to DJs like Tygapaw, LSDXOXO and Byrell the Great, to name a few. I love their styles. I played a few gigs at a couple venues, which exposed me to so much music and I really just loved all the separate elements that made the song. I never stuck with DJing but it definitely had an impact on the way I was teaching myself how to produce, create and think about songs. I have a few of my early mixes on Soundcloud. Maybe I’ll return to it.

On bridging the DJ/songwriter gap…

In trying to achieve that goal I started making songs to create the same feeling you get from being at a party, at the pinnacle of the night, when everyone’s dancing and it feels like the whole room’s moving in sync. It was a process of figuring out how to match the two things I was doing, DJing and songwriting. The experience of going to the club was so important to me, especially at that time. Those DJ sets were the only place I could go to be in a predominantly black and queer space. I’d come back home inspired, ready to write and respond to what I’d experienced and how true it felt. 

On emceeing/MISS GOT ROCKS

I’m drawn to MCs and the power in their words. It’s an affirmation practice. And there’s a connection between dancehall MCs and MCs in hiphop. As I’d listen to Caribbean DJs speak on the track, I’d feel inspired to tap into that same power when experimenting on the early demos I’d make. [most accounts of hip hop trace its beginnings back to Jamaican-American DJ Kool Herc, with hip hop/rap music sharing a similar emphasis on verbal dexterity, mastery of rhythmic flow on vocals, use of linguistic wordplay, humorous double entendre, and strategic use of signifyin’ speech–remarkably like various genres heard across the Caribbean from calypso to dancehall]. I produced MISS GOT ROCKS with the intention of stating an affirmation over a high energy synth bass. And I feel like the conception of that track challenged me to step into my truth as an MC. Like yes I’m vers, I can go between ballads and bops. 

On Performing..

Last year I did my first string of live performances as an MC, performing a lot of unreleased music that will be coming out this year. It was like a workshop to me, to see how my music affects people at a live set. That kind of emotional experience on stage, the intimacy, it’s so real. Seeing people experience my music for the first time, seeing people go crazy over it, it’s exciting and inspiring. I’m a new artist and performing feels like its own practice within this universe that I’m creating through my sound. 

On “New Purse” and other new material… 

I created the demo for “New Purse”

last year using GarageBand, put the stems down and everything, then tapped my co-producer and friend Max Rewak and asked him to work on an arrangement of the stems. I wanted him to take my demo and make it more dimensional. We sat in the studio together with it— he played around a lot with delay to give it dimension, to where my voice is morphing all the way through the track. I feel like I’m listening to an entity rather than myself when I hear it. It’s OOMAN on the track. I’m excited to release it.

On making music videos…

The video for “Miss Got Rocks” [the follow-up to “On 10”] was shot right around my neighborhood. I’m based in Brooklyn now but went back to that street where I grew up [in the Bronx]. It was my debut video so I thought go big or or go home and actually did both! It was self-funded.

The director Sokhna Samb was super open to my ideas and visions. Her own creative direction is what took it all the way there.

She’s from the Bronx too, so she really understood what I was trying to convey. I told her this is for Bronx b*tches, and that was our mantra. The Bronx gets hate but it’s a hub of the best NYC talent and that’s fact. Everything about it stands on my experience in my hometown – the video reminds me of a time in my life when I’d jump on the train from my parents house in the Bronx to parties in Brooklyn all dressed up for the function, like a picture of my life.

My next music video will be for “Berlin” [the follow-up to “Miss Got Rocks”] after “New Purse” is released.

If you’re at all familiar with the parties involved you’ll understand why it makes good sense for Scout Gillett to record an acoustic cover version of Beach House’s “Take Care” seeing as Scout’s own music likewise occupies a liminal space between elegiac and ecstatic like a loud whisper emanating from outer space—all hazy, lush atmospherics and mystical slow-motion melodies building to slow crescendos over weeping lap steel guitars and stately, undulating rhythms that bloom suddenly into walls-of-pollenated-sound—except that Gillett & Co. take the dream pop template and port it over to a postpunk-meets-Americana format (a.k.a. metronomic-austerity-and-hypnotically droney-textures meets tenor-banjo pickin’-and-high -lonesome-yodelin’) which is a new genre they seemingly invented themselves in a shotgun marriage between Sturm-und-Drang and strum-and-twang…

…which is something she did recently and posted on her Patreon account not to mention a rendition of Lieber and Stoller’s “Kansas City” as made famous by Wilbert Harrison and later by The Beatles posted even more recently on the page and wouldn’t it be a nice birthday surprise to subscribe to Scout’s Patreon account (it was yesterday but I’m sure she accepts late gifts!) and you get a present too cuz you get access to a bunch of “cool content” (as the kids say!) all for nothing more than 5 bones per month if you get a “bottom” subscription or if you’re more of a dom type you can splurge for a “top” account and get a free zine alongside intimate journal entries and a treasure map all for a mere double sawbuck per month…

…which is a fitting choice of cover repertoire for someone who once lived in Kansas City like Gillett did, that is, after departing the Badlands of rural Missouri whereupon she immersed herself in KC’s punk scene and chief among the reasons for appreciating this lovely lo-fi bluesy hootenanny version of the song recorded live to four-track with some of Scout’s regular co-conspirators is how clearly her lover comes through for the thick-and-tangy, sauce-stained jazz and blues Mecca—not to mention the city that brought us Puddle of Mudd—or as she put it a few days ago in a highly exclusive online forum: “I have so much love and respect for Kansas City. As I’ve grown older and continued finding myself, I’ve realized and appreciated how my hometown and friends there have shaped & defined me” even after some years spent in the Badlands of Brooklyn…

…a city-boosting sentiment that extends to Gillett’s inaugural LP no roof no floor (Captured Tracks)—an album recorded at the Chicken Shack in Stanfordville, New York in a barn with Scout gazing up at the stars on clear nights as she laid down her vocal parts—which she’s stated was inspired in part by being “homesick for a home that no longer seem[s] to exist” with Kansas City and Missouri having been ravaged in the intervening years by economic hardship and the opioid crisis in particular and it’s not too hard to imagine a 21st-century variation on Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen driving in the dead of night from Lincoln, Nebraska to Kansas City, Missouri with no roof no floor playing on the tape deck of their beat up Ford after killing her dad and going on the lamb which is not to romanticize mass murder of course not the horrors perpetrated by Charles Starkweather but Malick’s lyrical Badlands is still one hell of a movie…

…and whether Scout’s singing about the hardships of her home town or the necessity of finding her way out of the darkness or going skinny dipping in the Atlantic Ocean during lockdown or the trials and tribulations of romantic entanglements or checking out a hottie on the M train and it making her feel alive again (check out this helpful song-by-song breakdown by S.G. herself) it’s near impossible not to be sucked into the slowly swirling eye of the raging hurricane of Scout’s voice which is both the still eye and its the surrounding storm-bands in this scenario painting in timbral hues ranging from a whisper to a whimper to a yowl to a howl to a swooping scream…

…and lucky for you Scout Gillett’s about to go on tour so you should probably check out SG and her Chicken Shakers if she makes it to your town or ‘burg and even luckier if you happen to catch a date in April on the last leg of the tour—eight shows in nine nights—when they’re touring with fellow twangy rock ’n’ roll band fronted by an artful, soulful singer-songwriter and Deli favorite Sarah Shook & the Disarmers straight outta North Carolina so lucky for you Baltimore and Pittsburg and Queens (hell yeah!) but I’m sure there’s great opening bands in other cities too. (Jason Lee)

cover photo: Tits Dick Ass
Listen to the PLAYLIST HERE

If ever there was a time to ritually watch a music video by trio known as the Cedar Street Sluts—who once served as GG Allin’s backup singers and then spun off into their own act just like Vanity 6 did with Prince—perform GG Allin’s original composition “Sluts in the City” on an cramped “sketchy alleyway” soundstage complete with a blatantly fake “bum” (the newsboy cap being his most bummy feature) eyeing the girls nervously as they bump and grind and pose like three office workers from New Hampshire who decided to dress up like Sheena Easton and go out to karaoke and sing “Sugar Walls” as they sing in nasal-toned unison about how “I’m a bitch, I’m a sleazy whore” and “We’re the Cedar Street Sluts! We hate everyone!” then Valentine’s Day is probably the day to do that cuz you best believe I’m in luv, L-U-V…

C

…and you will be too if you watch the video above but that’s not the only reason we’re brought you here today cuz this song is but one of 69 utterly filthy, irreverent, anatomically obsessed and totally awesome paeans to love and hope and sex and dreams brought together via the magic of music streaming in an original Deli playlist that we’re calling DELIntines Day: Lewd, Rude & in the Mood featuring no less than 68 additional viral hits (there’s a whole mini-set of songs contained within on the subject of venereal diseases) such as “You Fingered Me Weird” by DickLord, “Sit On My Face Stevie Nicks” by the Rotters, and “Oral Sex With A Caterpillar” by Jerry Jamrag & The Afterbirths so you see the level of depravity we’re dealing with here…

…and speaking of depravity there’s two count ‘em two NYC bands that lead off the playlist with two brand-spankin’-new songs about tainted love RELEASED TODAY with the two acts in question being Homade and Tits Dick Ass and I don’t believe it’s hyperbole to say both these songs are the Zen perfection ideal of what a Valentine’s Day song should be, i.e., full of snotty disregard for the heteronormative, Hallmark-card pieties of a holiday that telling erases the already fine line between coupledom and consumerism to which the best forms of protest are the practice of either total debauchery or willful withdrawal (both well represented on the playlist!) and by the way when it comes to the latter Happy International Quirkyalone Day to those who celebrate…

…and who better than slutty-and-proud-of-it “bad girlfriends” to lead us out of the wilderness which happens to be the primary subject of both songs as made clear by the mere title of Tits Dick Ass’s “GF from Hell” and in case you were curious about the province of the band’s name TDA are named after the old parlour game where someone names three celebrities and then everyone pretends they’re Ed Gein who’s just murdered the three celebrities in question and now must decide which of them has the best Tits, Dick, and Ass (respectively) since he’ll be using their body parts to finish assembling the Frankenstein’s monster he’s been working on in the basement so you can see why the game is sometimes called Fuck, Marry, Kill for psychopaths…

….but anyway back to TDA—known in some circles as the Hardest Working Trans-Fronted Feminist Punk Rock Band in Show Business—this tranarchy-endorsing power trio fronted by Julia Pierce sound like a million hollars by scholars of squalor on this their sonic-steamroller of a debut single (plus they don’t look too shabby either, I mean, who doesn’t love a drummer in bondage gear?) and really I can’t recall a punk rock combo who were both this doomy and this dancey since 45 Grave first haunted the shabby storefront clubs and gritty dens of iniquity of Eighties LA/Hollywood with TDA coming off on the whole like an amped up/turned on/pissed off version of Joy Division covering “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” with detectible filaments of Birthday Party, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and early Hole also to be found in their sound…

…and now lastly but not leastly and only moderately yeastily, this brings us to the officially designated Bratz of the Lower East Side, a four-piece collective known as Homade who’ve been featured in these pages before in both full-band and side-project form and truly the Homaders have outdone themselves once again with thire new single released just today called “Broken Hearts” (a longtime live fave) with lead singer Lola D. fully embodying the photo found under the word “tongue-in-cheekily superciliously bad girlfriend” in the dictionary with a stirring sung-spoken monologue that starts off all David Johansen/Mary Weiss like with Lola declaiming “Boys never wanna just kiss / they wanna cuff me” and then once the music kicks in “you dick-game is aight / but I’m scared that you love me” soon admiringly that “I get off to broken hearts and broken things”…

…which totally embodies the Sluts in the City/Quirkyalone ethos described above as the song builds and builds like a boulder careening down a mountaintop in an electrifying blur of schadenfreude sorcery and lucky for New Yorkers everywhere if you feel like getting felled by TDA’s steamrolling sonic attack and Homade’s careening Heartbreak Express then you can do just that tonight at The Broadway as the bands celebrate V-Day with a double single-release party alongside local faves Pons and Theophobia which is but one of the numerous VD-celebrating-and-eviscerating performances planned for tonight so be sure to check your local listings (in any city or burg!) or simply visit the Deli’s Instagram page and check the feed for the relevant flyers… (Jason Lee)

 

 

 

 

From left: bassist Tui Jordan; drummer Gabby Borges; lead vocalist, lyricist and guitarist Lily Mao, and guitarist/producer Nate Jesensky

I’ve got a theory (surprise!) about Lily Mao & the Resonators’ new EP Human Being Animal that it’s split between two halves (or “sides” for those privy to such lingo) with “side one” focused on the theme of animals (not a stretch!) and “side two” on addiction and dysfunctional dependency in general, and this is the nice thing about being a music writer is just making stuff like this up seeing as it’s a subjective art form and sure other types of writers and “reporters” make things up all the time too (political pundits, etc.) but at least with music no one gets hurt…

…which speaks to one crucial difference between humans and other animals and that’s how the latter are incapable of lying (some may disagree!) which leads us to track one (“Wolves”) a song about “what it means to be a human within a society overrun by disinformation” and how “the ruling class cyclically take away the working class’ rights using deception” which are both quotes from Lily Mao that I didn’t make up myself or to quote from its lyrics: “no one listened when I cried but […] the wolves are here tonight and you best believe they bite” which is not only a clever play on “crying wolf” but also speaks to our own animal natures…

…cuz it’s not like us humans are so special or anything, we do all those things other animals do like eat and drink and piss and poop and screw and reproduce it’s just we’re figured out some especially convoluted ways to fulfill our desires which often end up hurting us in the long run and it’s exactly these animal urges that make up the theme of song two “Tiger” which is about “that feeling of carnal excitement towards a commanding being” while still being aware of “power structures in nature and society” (again, direct quotes from LM!) with track 3 “Catman’s Song” being more about the nurturing and tolerant side of animals/human beings…

…so as you can see things get pretty nuanced on this EP even by the end of side one which comes across in the music too, exuding a feline grace one moment and getting its claws out the next—equal parts tasteful strumming and tasty licks and fiber-rich shredding and thissame spectrum applies to the singing too and to the other instruments—and maybe I’m biased or maybe just aging but Lily’s songs hit me right in the ‘90s feels so let’s say FFO Joan Osbourne/Alanis Morissette/Meredith Brooks/Tracy Bonham and if “Wolves” or “Tiger” showed up on season 2 of Yellowjackets I wouldn’t bat an eyelash…

…and now we turn over the record to Side 2 and it’s “addiction” songs with track 4 (“Chewed Food”) being about being so enamored of another person that you let them chew you up like a wolf would (then she pulled me aside / pulled out my insides) but finally coming to your senses just in time (spit me out / of your mouth!) set against a riff so groovy and upbeat that you can totally see how the narrator gets sucked into an interpersonal addiction which isn’t all bad cuz as Lily points out, “it’s actually punk rock to be vulnerable and feel things”…

…meanwhile “Addictions” is all mellow, sultry vibes especially at the opening while describing a relationship where the “heart didn’t break / but it bent” (note the melismatic pitch-bending on the word “bend”, clever!) which really puts you in headspace being seduced almost imperceptibly (until it’s too late) of a romantic addiction and then “Pills” brings drives the point home with an even more enticing groove—really I can’t help thinking about “About A Girl” in the verses and how approprite is that?—with Lily Mao at the top of her form vocally (all those rapid-fire twisty melodies and register jumps and vocal hiccups) and lyrically (the pills make me interesting / guard is a puddle / if you were here right now / I’d probably get off if we cuddled) not to mention that sweet string section…

…so there you have it and all apologies to all involved if I’ve made this EP sound a little too highbrow cuz in reality Lily Mao & the Resonators are one of the most straight-up fun, energetic and unpretentious bands out there even when they’re taking on some pretty serious themes (always with humor and humanity!) and Human Being Animal is no exception to the rule so by all means hire ‘em to play you next backyard barbecue or bat mitzva or quinceañera and you certainly won’t regret it… (Jason Lee)

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Credits:
Vocals, rhythm and solo guitar- Lily Mao
Second Guitar- Nate Jasensky
Bass- Tui Jordan
Drums- Gabby Borges
Written by Lily Mao
Produced by Nate Jasensky at Greenpoint Recording Collective
Mastered by Vanessa Silberman
Via A Diamond Heart Productions

About “A Diamond Heart Productions”: A Diamond Heart Productions is an Artist Development Label, Recording, Music & Publishing Company created by singer, songwriter, & Record Producer Vanessa Silberman. With over 60 releases under its catalog, the label also offers a very community driven home and spirit on the label side as well as distribution (Symphonic Distribution). The label prides itself on being an Artist Friendly Music Company with Old School Record Label Traits and a New School State of Mind in the digital age.