Words by Jason Lee; Photo by THE TINFOIL BITER
My ass sold their ad space / but then I got banned
By a bill passed by a senator / who subscribes to my OnlyFans
My buddy’s in prison for possession / busted by a cop
Whose cousin runs a high end dispensary / for tech bros in the Bay Area
—Spite FuXXX “Stripped For Parts” (lyrics by MG Stillwaggon)
More than any band we’re aware of Spite FuXXX capture the jittery sense of dislocation of life under late capitalism while calling out some of its culprits too in a world that turns and shifts and moves so quickly that it changes right before our eyes much like the ten songs that make up CUM IN PIECES which break down pretty evenly between battle-ready rallying cries facing off against a cavalcade of social ills and outrages on the one hand (see the lyrics above) and more straight-up unadulterated spasms of rage, self-loathing, concupiscence, and gallows humor on the other hand so in other words “Tuesday” for most of you who’re reading this your humble scribe included…
NOTE: The player above is not operational. Go to BANDCAMP to hear the album, soon to be available on Spotify too…
…set against a volatile sonic backdrop of anarcho-punk on quaaludes and ‘shrooms (think Crass meets Germs) that feels to us like riding a dark ride at the seedy Coney Island of yore that thrashes you about this way and that and feels like it could jump the tracks at any moment and either way check out “Unwind” and see what ya think cuz it does for Bo Diddley what Devo did for the Stones lurching to a start like a broken bumper car before revving up to a choppy rendition of the Bo Diddley beat supplemented by MG’s guttural cries on the way to a full-on mostpit-worthy hardcore stomp and then back to the lurching bumper car thing again which by its end makes clear how fraught it can be even just trying to unwind…
…and what’s all this about late capitalism and neoliberalism recently you may ask, well, as you may know it’s a term used to describe the economic orthodoxy of the past 40 years or so with austerity, deregulation, privatization, and globalization prioritized above all else in the name of free movement of capital, goods, and people which then get stripped for parts by investors, bosses and CEO’s at any opportunity in the endless quest to extract more from less and in the process redistribute wealth retrogressively which is how one ends up with someone like Spite FuXXX’s lead singer/screamer/orator MG Stillwaggon referencing rising rents, declining job security, lack of healthcare, and selling blood plasma for cash all in the first verse of “Stripped For Parts” not to mention the song itself kinda sounds like it was built from stripped parts come to think of it…
…kicking off with a fragmentary shard of melody played as a kind of timeline by bassist Grey Albert that could be considered Jah Wobble-esque except at a much faster tempo that’s propelled forward with even more thanks to the breakneck drumming of Alex Glueck but with plenty of space left for Anais Valdez‘s Sonic Youth-esque dissonant guitar chords to sustain and fade for Michelle Procida‘s synth squiggles and woozy, burbling theremin bubbling up into empty sonic crevices like molton dayglo lava…
…thus adding a touch of the carnivalesque to the proceedings and if maybe some of their stuff sounds a little like demented calliope music you’d expect to hear at a down-on-their-luck traveling circus (we mean this as a compliment!) it could just be Spite FuXXX’s subtle way of critiquing today’s media- and tech-saturated society of the spectacle that’s so crucial to sustaining late capitalism with daily allotments of digital bread and circuses and wait did we just use the words “subtle” and “Spite FuXXX” in the same sentence we apologize to all involved…
…but more to the point the carnivalesque vibe is perfect for a group who’re so wonderfully bonkers live cuz onstage the Spite FuXXX seize upon their instruments like Lennie in heavy petting mode as MG prowls the floorboards—and the floor itself—like a recently uncaged tiger or better yet a sex-positive carnival barker proselytizing to passers-by beckoning them to step inside with their heavy use of bullhorn-style vocal effects making the comparison perhaps even more apt…
…which brings us at last to MG’s sprechstimme style spoken-sung vocals a style which of course has a long lineage in punk rock and riot grrrl circles going all the way back to Patti Smith reciting her actual poetry to Lenny Kaye’s three-chord vamps in a manner soon adapted by John Lydon and Mark E. Smith among others who likewise wedded rambling/ranting heightened speech to the cyclical grooves of garage rock, dub, Krautrock or other styles that work as wide open canvases for poetical prose…
…tho’ lately we’re grown so accustomed to all those post-punk revival bands featuring sprechstimme like Protomartyr, Sleater Mods, Mhaol, black midi, Squid, IDLES, Editrix, English Teacher, Dry Cleaning, Goat Girl, Patio, PVA, Wet Leg, and Yard Act that we’d almost forgotten there were others ways to go about it besides being cooly observant and slyly satirical and ironically deadpan and no wonder most of these bands are Brit-accented (shoutout to the NYC-based Patio!) and nothing against the bands above (great if it’s your thing) or Limeys in general but as a cholesterol-clotted, red-blooded American it’s refreshing to hear the submerged roiling tension of UK “crank wave” brought fully to the surface in more explicitly confrontational form…
…cuz as any rightfully spiteful f*ck already knows it ain’t just senators and tech bros who’re ready & willing to strip you for parts but also errant former romantic partners (“Was I your manic pixie nightmare / or just a beer you took to bed?”), ineffectual would-be lovers (“oh what a waste […] dripping down my leg instead of all over your face”), trust-fund punks (“inferiority complex / cuz you bought that leather jacket / with daddy’s Amex”), social media chicanery (“promise I’ll be your slave / all for the precious glow / of dead electric eyes”), the futility of the universe itself (“Precious Meaningless,” “Dust”) and even the freakin’ Statue of Liberty (“oxidized copper all over me […] she shoved her torch inside of me”)…
…and while CUM IN PIECES’s narrator may seem to have a masochistic streak sometimes these ten songs are clearly dedicated to preserving or restoring one’s own agency (“what they took from me, I’m gonna take it back”) and vanquishing those who’d ever try to take it again but as a final note don’t get it twisted cuz while this writeup may’ve made some of you think Spite FuXXX are into stern lectures on neoliberalism and late capitalism no that’s just us and to the contrary the word on the street is that the band know how to party and can maybe help ya finally loosen up a little bit too once you cum to realize “all we have that can’t be stolen / is the ephemeral”…
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CUM IN PIECES released February 8, 2024
Grey Albert – bass, lyrics (“Lady Liberty”)
Alex Glueck – drums
Anais Valdez – electric guitar
Michelle Procida – synth, theremin, backup vox
MG Stillwaggon – lead vox, lyrics
Recorded 2022-23 at Bluestockings, NYhed Studio, and Daisy Chain Studio in NYC
Mixed 2024 by Ian Rose at Daisy Chain Studio, mastered 2024 by Grey Albert
Cover art: blacklight velvet painting by MG Stillwaggon from a photo by Amanda