Late-night free association by Jason Lee; Cover photo by @hashbrownmami666
“There is a HOT new new single in your area who wants to meet! Tonight, FIRSTSEX celebrates their first single and first music video being out everywhere singles and videos are sold, er, streamed and given away for free. A song that rips the rose-colored glasses of love off your face and reveals the flat diet soda that your standards have become. Click this link to put this sexy thrasher in your ear and eye holes. What you are waiting for??? “
—Lightly paraphrased statement from Firstsex’s Friendster account
…which okay let’s back up cuz the first thing you should know is that Firstsex is comprised of Nicole “Nasty Nikki” Sisti (famed to indie nerds as the guitarist-vocalist for the Epitaph-signed melodic punk rock band THICK who have a new record coming out soon and a couple new members to boot) and Elena “DJ Tiny Hands” Childers with the pair sharing vocals, and with drum programming by Augie Pink Pink of “Augie Pink” fame, with Nikki serving as songwriter and producer of FSX’s debut single “DIET CHEAT LITE” with a *way* different sound than anything by Thick (cuz wut’s the point otherwise!) what with FIRSTSEX’S thick (!) electronic textures supported by some drony guitar chords and distorted Sprechstimme vocals, throbbing octagonal drums pads (editor’s note: this is poetic license) and whiny new-wavey keyboard…
…which are all high compliments indeed if your band happens to be the next evolutionary leap from electroclash to indie sleaze to whatever’s next (we propose: softpunkcitypoptechnogrungeemofunk tho’ Firstsex themselves describe their music as ~goth dance / girly punk~ so we’ll just stick w/that) and btw lyrically the song is self-declaredly intended to serve as “diet soda for anyone who’s been cheated on and gaslit about it” tho’ honestly we’d be a little hesitant to gaslight diet soda cuz that could be worse than drinking a 2-liter Big Red immediately after several packets of pop rocks esp. for a goth dance/girly punk pop-rock band (“that can is shook / ‘till you explode“) tho’ who are we to judge…
…and while the offer of diet soda certainly sounds like a gesture of sympathy and comradship let’s keep in mind how most diet soda tends to have a bitter aftertaste and no nutritional value with empty calories that only leave you wanting more so maybe that’s why our protagonist sounds a bit conflicted in the song’s lyrics tho’ it’s admittedly in the ear (the ear) of the beholder with FISTSEX playing on the multiple (let’s face it, nearly infinite) meanings of and idioms using the word “fuck” which not unlike “ass” (see below) adds a level of polysemic perversity to the lines below cuz it’s not entirely clear if the scumbag dood’s already “fucked you [over]”…
….or is the meaning meant to be more literal [editor’s note: insert chin-stroking emoji here] or are there two entirely different “you’s” being addressed in the second line with all this ambiguity making for many potentially nuanced readings tho’ with V-Day fast approaching FIrstsex do seem intent on putting a spanner in the works w/the listener-viewer disabused of any picture-perfect-through-rose-colored-glasses notions of the Hallmark-card created “holiday” in addressing the cold, hard reality of dealing with lame-o’s who can’t even seem to cheat properly, instead offering up “fake sugar” in the form of saccharine-sweet, self-serving little lies which they can barely muster the energy to even halfway appear to believe themselves…
You’re thinking of his love, but his demons demand blood
You wanna fuck him badly, but he’s already fucked you
…but scratch that cuz this song doesn’t directly address our bad romantic actor but instead offers solace to fellow femme folk who’re likely eminently familiar with the scenarios laid out in the song and with “demons demand[ing] blood” no wonder the accompanying music video depicts a coven of witches performing the traditional ceremonial rites of Cheerleading Camp & Messy Cake Party (watch for even more cake-based shenanigans in our next writeup, we swear!) alongside their shameless “stans”, erm, we mean, good friends who also feature prominently IN HELL cuz why else would they be surrounded by non-lethal-but-no-doubt-torturous flames for the duration of the vid and if you wanna know how it was done then maybe drop band-bud Gillian Visco a line a.k.a. Shadow Monster (or one half of it anyway!) who served as the video-e-o’s Director of Photography…
…and look, to be clear we’re not advocating any of this, nor are we condemning it, cuz The Deli like to keep our options open (typical dood-talk) esp. in matters relating to God ’n’ the anti-Christ (Beelzebub to you, Bub, or alternately, Ol’ Scratch, The Dark Prince, Mephistopheles, or Belial if yr nasty and let’s face it the Prince of Darkness easily takes the cake when it comes to having multiple cool nicknames with “Jehovah” being the only semi-cool nom de nick for the Godster ioho) but still we prefer to go Swiss just in case there’s any CCM artists coming down the pike who look ready to blow up big cuz we don’t wanna alienate any potential future friends of the Deli esp. those w/tax-exempt status as part of their “religious organization” scam, erm, we mean “status” who wanna give us a dono in return for fawning coverage in our dirty little hipster music magazine (ok blog, sheesh!) for extra added cred…
It’s like Diet Cheat Lite
Drink up those actualities
Your boundaries are low and cheap
Swallow up those empty calories
…and as you can see in the lines above Firstsex are perfectly willing to interrogate their own animal lusts and base desires (and poor taste in men) cuz how else could doods or even same-sex leaning women and non-binaries even get any action if women were’t willing to put up with arrogance, machismo, and entitlement occasionally which isn’t to say it’s a good thing and to be clear Firstsex ultimately advocates that their peers fight back against these pernicious tendencies by both raising their standards and thru necromancy and mastery of the Dark Arts if called for tho’ always in self-defense we hasten to add which is clearly the stance taken by Firstsex & Co. re: female empowerment and demanding to be treated as as multi-dimensional human beings cuz clearly FRSTSX has thoughts, dreams, and desires just like you and me…
…even if these may mostly revolve around drinking diet soda and cocktails, booty-shaking and titty-tapping (hey we just call ‘em like we see ‘em!), pom-pom routines and copious cake-smearing (trigger warning: copious shot of said girly punk digging their grubby little fingers into an hitherto unspoilt cake) not to mention pastry consumption and bird-flipping and a little blood-dripping for good measure cuz at the end of the day it’s all good wholesome fun plus the whole manic-pixie witch thing is all but guaranteed to drive away the biggest-loser suitors seeing as they tend to deeply, deeply fear women who are at once sensual, intelligent, and complex and who knows, if one takes their name literally, it could be that only FIRSTSEX’S first song will be about sex (and guilt, and lust, and cheating, low standards, and demonic) to which we say let them smear cake…
And here’s a last message from the tuneful duo re: tour dates (starting tomorrow!) esp. for those who residing in Massachusetts, Vermont, and Montréal and unafraid to see a band play at a place called Asbestos Farm and for the NYC locales among you, u can catch Firstsex TONIGHT (2/11) holding a public screening of the video and launch party at Jones Bar in Ridgewood, Queens, which may be BYOC but inclusive of a DIY Valentines arts & crafts station with supplies provided with bibs recommended if you happen to own one and now the credits…
SONG & VIDEO CREDITS:
Mixed by @denimcasimir
Mastered by @carlsaff
Drums: @augiepink
Single art: @televisionoverdose
Director of photography: @shadowmonster
Demon squad✺◟😈◞✺: @melcamm. @squeakwin. @ohthisoldthang
Special thanks to: @jondyljoy. @porkloinprince. @hashbrownmami666