Words by Jason Lee
CALLING ALL ALT-GIRLS AND ALT-BOYS! ALT-ROCKERS AND ALT-POPPERS AND ALT-HIP HOPPERS! READERS OF ALT-LIT AND LAUGHERS AT ALT-COMEDY! LIVERS OF ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES AND LOVERS WITH ALTERNATIVE SEXUALITIES! READERS OF THE ALTERNATIVE PRESS AND MAYBE EVEN TAKERS OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINES AND LET’S NOT FORGET ADHERENTS OF ALT-COUNTRY, ALT-SINGER-SONGWRITERS, ALT-ELECTRONICA (aka “INDIETRONICA”) ETC. ETC. THO’ ALT-RIGHTERS NEED NOT APPLY…
…FOR YOUR PRESENCE IS REQUESTED at ALT CITIZEN’S upcoming six-night spectacular, playing host to a series of ridiculously stacked shows—one per night, inspired by the old CMJ Music Festivals of yore, starting this Tuesday at Night Club 101—extending over the course of this coming week at a new venue every night cuz that’s how Alt Citizen rollz in celebration of the print zine’s/online music blog’s 15-year anniversary which is funny cuz it makes Alt Citizen exactly 5 years The Deli’s junior tho’ don’t get it twisted cuz we ain’t trying to flirt like that w/our sister mag (we’re related, you sickos!) plus 20 & 15 may’ve only ever worked for Romeo & Juliet or Charles and Caril but not really so well…
…which sure we’re and that’s the thing innit about the “alt-” prefix is how it’s all about being in a state of betwixt-and-between like how most alt-rockers aren’t “anti-rock” at all but want to rock and need to rock–it’s just they think a lot of the mainstream stuff sucks whether cuz its too soft (says the punk), too stupid (says the “college rocker”), too safe, too corporate or too whatever else which is exactly why an alternative is called for in the first place and how Kurt Cobain could wear a “Corporate Rock Still Sucks” t-shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone and have it not come off hypocritical at all what w/Kurdt being trapped in a liminal hyperspace between being both “a part of” and “apart from” the very thing he’d been fighting for and fighting against for most of his life still-young life, dude was complex…
what’s all this got to do with Alt.Citizen, you may ask, seeing as “corporate rock” is hardly a thing anymore, well, for one thing “corporate Internet sucks” sucks just as bad if not worse than corporate rock and so does the full-scale corporate takeover of government plus with the rise of the machines on its way we figure it won’t be long ’til AI slop floods the space including music blogs which’ll only make authentic voices still crying out in the wilderness all the more crucial (we’re here for ya!)…
…and in case yr thinking, “well, was Alt Citizen really always so ‘alt’ from the beginning or is it all just a pose,” allow us to pass the baton over to Alt Citizen founder Nasa Hadizadeh quoted from a 2019 interview speaking on the inspo behind the mag’s founding 15 years ago cuz it may provide some insight:
I worked on a documentary with my dad during Occupy Wall Street. We met with some radical political thinkers and everyone there shared their views via pamphlets and sheets of xerox paper. I found it really inspiring and when I decided to make a zine, it was important to me that it would be pocket size so it could be easily shared and passed around. I never imagined creating a glossy that would sit pretty on a coffee table. Alt Citizen intends to discover and reveal the humanity that connects us to artists and their work.
…which you think about it makes sense that people advocating for an alternative model of society less riven by Gilded Age-levels of income inequality and wealth disparity would turn to alternative modes of communication in the form of handmade DIY print media to spread the good word in a rhizomatic fashion in contrast to corporate media and in contact to digital media too tho’ not untouched by the latter cuz how could anyone be, realistically, living in the 21st century with Nasa going on to observe that “being online and in hand is our way of combining old school and new school methods of connecting with people and sharing information”…
…plus it’s worth pointing out how much the history of digital media has played into the alt-ing of our lives with the prefix not widely used until the birth of “alt” forums/newsgroups on Usenet way back in the day before the Internet as we know was even a thing and way, way before social media tho’ it was basically the model for it and while at first Usenet forums were monitored by moderators in top down-fashion with posts classified under a pre-established set of categories…
…but as complaints grew over the limitations of these big, externally determined headings–even w/new subheadings being approved and introduced all the time—finally someone had the bright idea of adding a catch-all “alt” (for alternative) master heading and more letting virtually anyone launch new alt-groups on virtually any topic with the first three created being (and this is true and not at all surprising) alt.sex, alt.drugs, and (wait for it!) alt.rock-n-roll with a myriad of other alt-groups soon added such as alt.goth, alt.hackers, alt.fractals, you name it, with all these new alt-offshoots soon outnumbering the sum total of everything posted under the more “legit” pre-determined categories put together and thus was born the early, freewheeling spirit of the World Wide Web in all its then de-centralized glory…
…and while time has demonstrated the many ways digital media can be inherently alienating and/or cynically manipulated, at the same time it’s sheer immediacy and interactivity makes it ideal for DIY publications so why not straddle the line by using both mediums (as Alt Citizen does, those sly devils!) to build hybrid digital/IRL communities cuz (even if it sounds paradoxical!) indie depends on community so why not come out and show some IRL support ya punk starting with Night 1 of “AC15” on 9/9 or go one or more of the subsequent nights thru Sunday 9/14 with an alt.rogue’s gallery of transgressive musical entertainments on full display (full schedule w/lineups here)…
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…like French band Lulu Van Trapp for starters who fronted by their titular figure will take you out of your comfort zone and then MAKE YOU BEG FOR MORE LIKE THE DOG THAT YOU ARE and if you’re wondering where we’re coming from just take a look at the music video for their latest single “l’amour et la bagarre,” cuz even if yr a typical red-blooded American who only reads and speaks red-blooded American, the alternating waves of dread, desire, paranoia, and euphoria running thru the song’s opening lyric (“I feel strange / at the party / where I wasn’t invited”) comes across just as clearly in the music itself and the visuals too which make clear it’s the kind of party where anything could happen which is exactly why you’re enticed to stay…
and what’s more in the video you get to watch Lulu and the Van Trapps beat the stuffing out of each other (and their audience too, eventually) as they play the song on stage only pausing for the occasional snog just like the Van Trapps in the Sound of Music for you old-movie buffs out there with Alt Citizen describing the LOVECITY LP which includes “l’mour” as being akin to a battle cry and there is no specific enemy. Is it her lovers? Her friends? The world? Or herself? which maybe helps explain the Purge-like indiscriminate battle that breaks out on and finally off stage in the song’s video (dir: Nolwenn Grall Jaubert) and if you enjoy films by Gaspar Noé (we do cuz we’re messed up like that) then you’ll probably dig this video too (hot take: Climax is possibly the best film of the past ten years) so yeah maybe it’s a French thing…
…which to be clear we’re not just talking fisticuffs here but backroom fight club levels of brutality as in Lulu & Co. pummelin’ faces get getting their faces and other body parts pummeled until blood sprays, gushes and drips down the drummer’s snare in thick crimson rivulets (keep that grip tight!) but at the same time everyone looks rapturously happy which is fitting we suppose for a song about carrying on the ultimate love-hate relationship with the French title translating to “Love and Brawl” and lyrics about an emotionally sadomasochistic relationship with no pretense that love is everlasting or that sincerity between two people is even possible which is just the kind of messaging we love hearing from French people cuz it’s so freakin’ existentialist which only feeds our sneaking suspicion that LVP, authentically full-on rock ’n’ animals while on stage, may prefer reading Heidegger by the pool in their spare time—all the better for dreaming up more blood-fetishizing videos and songs about the porous line between pleasure and pain…
Love on the Brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOcN5g4DGSk
…and finally if you seek to truly understand the “alt” mindset then peep this concluding quote from Lulu about where they find their inspiration: We write about the confusion of our generation, how we feel old before we actually are, bending under the burden of social expectations. Boys who dream of being girls and girls of being boys, who don’t want to feel assigned to any kind of role or stereotype. We write about our dreams and loves, with a touch of surrealism and naivety.
Next, we arrive in the promised land of Promiseland (né Johann Rashid) who may be Australian born-and-raised but came to our fair city in 2014 and never left (currently based between NYC and Mexico City) while quickly becoming known on our shores for his compellingly unhinged live performances and for music best described as a “fiery collision of punk vocals, driving beats, poetic chants, and ritualistic lyrics” as quoted from his official bio and as heard on his latest single, “Only Broken” (as in “I’m not dead / I’m only broken”)…
…with its accompanying music video aptly described by Alt Citizen’s Marisa Whitaker (Marisa writes for the Deli too, woo-hoo!) as “a chaotic and evocative trip of deathbed visions, reflecting the self-destructing nightlife world [so no wonder] the content warning for “suicidal ideation, nudity, the presence of weapons, and strobe lighting,” with the video playing like a collapsing, scrolling-in-reverse end credits sequence which not to reiterate but a certain New French Extremity bad-boy director comes to mind who seems to be working as a connective tissue here and how cool is that…
…with the music video on a whole appearing as if Gaspar Noé directed a remake of Flashdance (which would be amazing) and in fact the chorus of “Only Broken” has a certain Irene Cara-worthy pop uplift to it but with Promiseland crossing those ‘80s John Hughes soundtrack vibes (yea to New Order-ish hand claps!) with something darker, nastier, and more menacing which makes perfect sense cuz if you’ve been called “the future Prince of Anarchy” by none other than Julian Casablancas well you gotta live up to that shiz or as Rashid puts it in what we’d describe as alt-spiritual terms (again quoting from the Alt-Citizen piece):
“‘Only Broken’ is a raw reflection on the nightlife world that shaped Promiseland, where the line between survival and self-destruction blurs,” Rashid shares. “I wanted the intensity of the lyrics to be reflected in the video, weaving together Russian roulette, chaotic club floors, and flashes of life’s highs and lows into a chaotic spiral of sex, death, and the desperate urge to keep dancing even as we—and the world—bleed out. The video unravels like the final frames of a film, pulling backward through memories and chaos, collapsing into a kind of Big Bang. A recurring symbol of both violent creation and inevitable decay.“
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And at last on to SUO but what can we say that we haven’t said before in their numerous appearances in past Deli mags and communiqués–both in their previous band, the surf-gaze specialists BOYTOY; and then as frontperson, songwriter and shape-shifting multi-instrumentalist of SUO (working with various collaborators such as Josephine Network that is when not returning the favor)…
…who under their bequeathed name of Saara Untracht-Oakner is known as an acclaimed designer, painter, illustrator, photographer, furniture maker, and production designer, performing the latter role most recently for a mind-blowing vid for Geese’s “Taxes” which may be our fave video of the year so far and guess what it’s yet another music video about audiences at live shows becoming dangerously unhinged and losing their shit with blood, gore, grue, and outright chaos resulting, and truth be told it looks cool as shit which just goes show how collectively as a species we’re kinda screwed what with being so instinctually drawn to apocalyptic scenarios for whatever reason, speaking of which, in regards to the video below…
…please allow us to quote ourselves from a 2019 writeup on the head-noddin’ funky murder ballad “Unsatisfied Blood” with an unnamed Deli scribe describing how SUO goes about “lay[ing] down grooving, tactile indie rock on the new track…with muted guitars and atmospheric wah-wahs underlying Untracht-Oakner’s post-punk vocal delivery” with “lyrics detailing insatiable bloodlust [which] serves as a nice inspiration for the music video”…
…with “nice” being perhaps the not-so-operative for a video that sees SUO going on a cross-country interstate killin’ spree to rival Charles Starkweather—murdering a hitchhiker but not before a little sexy foreplay/knifeplay then offing a couple making out by the side the road and tossin’ ’em in the back of a pickup for a little free-form dancin’ with corpses which fortunately SUO had some bodybags handy (“I think I’m sick / I’m sick with loving it”) and what with all the killin’ and the mainin’ and the waves of mutilation in all the various music videos we’ve covered today we figure it must be meant to symbolize the alt.rebel’s desire to symbolically slay the older ways so that new art and new artists may sprout up in their place but hey we’re just spitballin’ here…
…and what with being pretty prolific in the singles department lately, SUO is keeping us all busy guessing at what cool new avenue they’ll be pursued next and here’s what Alt Citizen had to say about one of our personal faves of late (maybe 7 singles back!) called “I’m Trying,” where right from the jump, “SUO lets you know she’s ‘rough around the edges‘”, quoting writer Brittany Marino quoting from SUO, who “right from the opening she’s tough and brash but at the end of the night: she is trying,” and more than just tryin’ Saara was kind enough to outright “do” an interview with us in the form of sharing a few statements in response to prompts we sent on very short notice for which we’re terribly grateful and the responses are so good we’ll end this piece by quoting ‘em verbatim:
1. Alt citizen is cool and has always been cool. I remember getting a physical copy of their zine and I was still living in Boston at the time and I knew I wanted to be in it. They were taste makers and still are. In an age when most of the blogs are just writing about already famous bands for click bait, alt citizen is still highlighting new and underground music. They were first supporters of my band BOYTOY and have since supported some of my art shows and SUO videos and releases. Real recognize real.
2. Nasa [Hadizadeh] is one of the hardest working people I know. And one of the funniest. She’s such a good business person but also has a great creative mind. She’s able to get in the pulse of things and make the things she wants to happen, happen. She’s also a great friend. She always has good advice and is supportive and inclusive. She’s a legend! [Editor’s note: if only I was half as good a person!]
3. This 9/9 show is going to be INSANE. All of these bands not only have great songs but amazing energy and everyone is hot. SUO is playing strictly bangers for this one. I’d say be ready to rage.
Final note: And with D. Treut also on the bill, get ready for some music “defined by unconventionality—exploring the jazz improvisational, rock, and pop realms with equal vigor,” and with Alt Citizen/Cynosure alt.editor Brittany Marino hosting, and an alt.afterparty hosted by Quentin of IPC and a DJ set by Stella Mandala well it’s guaranteed be one alt.helluva time that’s gonna take you higher than thirty miles high…