Today we are honoured to premiere November Girl’s new single “Keychain” alongside an accompanying short film just be forewarned that if consumed together in one sitting the song and video could potentially melt your face clean off so maybe wear one of those full-protection virus visor thingies at the very least…

…a short film we’ve been informed is “a Car Stuck Girls-inspired music video directed by Lola Daehler” who’s also known as Death Recruiter but don’t let that or the closeness of her last name to “Dahmer” fool you because Lola only slays on stage (to our knowledge anyway!) as the frontperson/bassist for Homade and seeing as we’re entirely unfamiliar with “Car Stuck Girl” videos (*cough cough*) we reached out to November Girl’s front girl Willa Beck and she was kind enough to explain it’s “a genre of pornography in which girls get their cars stuck” and you can probably guess the rest from there (insert chosen car pun here, or see below) or perhaps you can’t which is okay cuz we find it’s best not to make too many assumptions about the kids these days…

…which as it turns out was the right call to make because November Girl and Ms. Daehler don’t take genre conventions for granted either seeing as by their own account the “Keychain” video flips the script on all those vehicle-based dirty (literally!) movies and instead to the contrary “ends up actually being quite wholesome” which is in keeping with how “everything November Girl does plays with this virgin / whore dichotomy” and now I’m beginning to see the light…

…but nonetheless having never been a November Girl nor a girl period virgin or whore or otherwise it’ll always be a stretch for me to fully understand so I reached out to Willa B. once again for further exegesis and she kindly spilled the beans when it comes to the “key” for unlocking “Keychain” so ya see it never hurts to ask:

“Keychain” is a song about sisterhood and the day-to-day mundanity of your teen-years and young adulthood actually becoming quite special and profound when you’re with your girls. There’s a certain admiration with which you look at your sisters, and “Keychain” captures this.

…all of which makes total sense now listening again tho’ admittedly the statement above makes it sound like the song is something like an update of Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” and hey maybe it is but “Keychain” is more fittingly slotted under “indie rock” than “girly pop” even tho’ you’ve still you’ve got elements of the latter with a sweet dream-poppy vibe overall and some pretty wispy backing vocals but also some harsher, more aggressive tones too not to mention a nicely buoyant-yet-down-in-it grungy chorus that’s got a whiff of Japanese Breakfast to it with extra wasabi…

…tho’ you could make just as strong a case for Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders just be aware this is all pure conjuncture on our part no doubt you’ll pick out your own musical touchstones and did you know it’s coming up on the 25th anniversary of Spice World which in this reviewer’s view is vastly underrated (both the film and the soundtrack!) not to mention quintessentially late ‘90s with cameos by Elvis Costello and Bob Geldof and Jennifer Saunders of Ab Fab fame alongside many more which just goes to show the Spice Girls were always way cooler than anyone gave them credit for at the time…

…and then as if that’s not enough toward the end of “Keychain” there’s a guitar solo that’s downright Robert Quine-like with its slashing angularity and fuzzy-headed tonality (see below!) an influential journeyman post-punk guitarist that I wouldn’t expect the kids today to know (I mean, sheesh, even the Spice Girls are a full generation removed from Gen Z today which is a little shocking for a Gen X’er to realize) but then again it’s best to take nothing for granted cuz the kids today are pretty damn savvy and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that November Girl is into Richard Hell or Lou Reed not to mention Marianne Faithfull or Tom Waits or heck even Fred Maher…

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…but we’ll have to investigate further on such matters and in the meantime we can tell you without hesitation November Girl has some very cool band-branded garments over at their online shop (which upon further examination looks like they’re all sold out but oh well the pictures themselves are pretty choice) and also one of more of its members are Scorpios which means they’re unsparing but also fiercely loyal with their friends which just brings home the whole “sisterhood” angle unlike those stubborn, uptight September Gurls haha just kidding all you Virgos and Libras we love ya…

…and finally don’t forget to head on over to the Deli Instagram page at your earliest convenience to view a bunch of exclusive behind-the-scenes photos from the “Keychain” music video shoot—a shoot that in part took place upstate at the music studio/animal farm/heavy petting sanctuary known as Holy Fang with BTS stills generously provided by Alexis K—shots all but guaranteed to get your goat but in a good way or we’ll refund your money assuming those upstate goats didn’t eat all those dead presidents already… (Jason Lee)

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RIP Christine McVie

From the golden age of Tin Pan Alley about a century ago to the golden showers age of Meet Me in the Bathroom-era indie sleaze and beyond, songwriters do seem to love writing songs about New York City or at least many of them do and while one could easily make a case for there being more memorable and outright iconic songs about NYC than pretty much anywhere else in the world it’s equally true tho’ not as widely noted that there’s lots and lots of crappy songs about NYC too…

…one example being Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Island Girl,” a song largely forgotten today despite topping the charts back in 1975 and for good reason too seeing as it’s a cringe-worthy condescending ode to a six-foot-three “Jamaican honey so sweet / down where Lexington cross 47th Street […] turning tricks for the dudes in the big city” with lyrics that reinforce at least one hoary racist or whorey trope for every bump of coke Elton and Bernie must’ve done when they were writing the thing (allegedly!) not to mention some faux West Indian articulations and a bizarre kazoo/keyboard/marimba solo section I sh*t you not…

…and then jumping ahead 40 years you got Taylor Swift and Ryan Tedder’s “Welcome to New York City,” a song lambasted for being “the worst ode to NYC ever” and for being a “gentrification anthem…[written] for its transient oligarch class” with T-Swizz pimping her new hometown via a string of tourism brochure platitudes and bland “poptimist“ electro-pop uplift although at least it includes a couple pro-LGBTQ+ lines fit for mass consumption that even if perfunctory (or not!) who cares in the end cuz who can know what mysteries lie deep within Miss Tay Tay’s heart…

…and when it comes to songs about NYC it’s a matter not only of quality but also of quantity cuz there’s soooo many songs about NYC already in existence which has gotta make it pretty tough to come up with a non-hackneyed angle on the city and really how many ways are there to say “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere” or to praise “streets [that] make you feel brand new [with] big lights to inspire you”…

…and even if you’re looking to write more of an outlier song with NYC-related lyrical content it’s a safe bet almost every random piece of NYC marginalia you can imagine has been addressed at least once or twice before in song like how back in the ‘70s there were not just one but two songs by major artists named for the notorious “Coney Island Whitefish” which I would not recommend ordering from your local fish market even if you are running low on tartar sauce…

…which is all a moot point to the likes of Hiro, Dima, Johnny and John seeing as the musical foursome “fucking hate songs about New York”—and isn’t this the most “New York” take one could take on songs about New York possible—as explored further on “Songs About New York” which is the title track twice iterated appearing on both sides of the split seven-inch recently released by The Black Black and Kissed By An Animal (EWEL Records) two bands with an overlapping keep-it-in-the-family membership while remaining almost entirely non-incentuous in sonic terms seeing as how “KBAA move through tight, clean punk into melodic power pop, while TBB bring their unique brand of bass-driven post punk groove” according to the EWEL’s official press release…

…and it’s a clever conceit to be sure having both bands record their own versions of the title song (alongside one bonus cut each) because not only do they cleverly bypass the whole “another stupid song about New York” quandary with a song about stupid songs about New York sharing a set of lyrics and a main vocal hook between them but otherwise we’re talking two totally different bags of apples…

…a conceit that (arguably) acts as a critique of the Big Apple’s oft-vainglorious sense of self-regard because as usual the mirror has two faces—the one shown to the outside world and the one more hidden away which is not to imply those two sides are always clearly distinguishable—and whether we’re talking about a split-single or a split-personality the two sides reflect and refract one another while standing along in their own right too like a double-helix strand of DNA where neither side is considered the “A Side” or the “B Side” it’s far more dialectical than that…

…or to put it more in layman’s terms the new KBAA/TBB split-single totally rips while simultaneously ripping a new one for all those clichéd songs about New York and ripping at the very fabric of ontological/representational self-certainty ideal for fans of bands like The Hives, The Vines, The Seeds, Oh Sees, Parquet Courts, Television, Radiohead, TV On The Radio, TVOD, Cinemax After Dark, Red Shoe Diaries, Midnight Blue, New Wave Theater, The Corey Hotline and Freddie Freaker and the single comes in numerous hues and shades such as periwinkle putrid pink, grape Shasta, and ‘70s shag avocado but the color is chosen at random so order at least 10 copies (out of a limited run of 200!) to increase your chances of getting a cool one… (Jason Lee)