Words by Jason Lee
You may think the biggest conflicts of our times have to do with red states vs. blue states or freedom vs. fascism or “woke” vs. non-woke but in reality it’s the ongoing battle between rockists and poptimists that’s all but torn this great nation apart over the preceding decade (or two) thus leading to a deeply entrenched two-party system where common ground is increasingly hard to find between the likes of stodgy, gatekeeping rock critics on the one hand and avid followers of American Idol & other pop-tart flavors of the month on the other given their highly non-overlapping notions of what constitutes “authenticity” and/or “artifice” not to mention what constitutes a “party”…
…which is why it’s always refreshing to come across musical artists who seek to bridge this divide and fight against ever-growing polarization in our society (which shouldn’t mean you have to be a moderate necessarily) and who knew all it would take to heal the rift between rockists and poptimists would be a cargo’s clutch worth of rocked out cover versions of songs by one of the preeminent pop auteurs of our time, namely, Charli xcx, performed by one of the preeminent bands to bubble up from Brooklyn’s nü-rodivergent metal & punk underground of late, a band self-describedly “fueled by rage and salad”, namely, one Skeeter de Milo…
…but first let’s start with Charli who’s known to be a chasm straddler in her own right, equally at ease as a behind-the-scenes songwriter churning out hit after hit as being a front-and-center pop-star phenom which is exactly what xcx officially became in the summer in 2024 if y’all can remember back that long when brat took over the airwaves and the TikToks with a potent “blend of indie sleaze hedonism and confessional songwriting that took her popularity to new heights” alongside other winning cross-platform promotional strategies including a Brat-branded typographical font, color palette, seasonal vibe (“brat summer” natch) and presidential candidate (!) but hey you can’t literally win ’em all…
…which is where Skeeter de Milo come in what with SDM being a down ‘n’ dirty rock ‘n’ rolling four-piece combo who also, unexpectedly happen to enjoy playing Daft Punk cover sets on or around Halloween that leave about half the audience visibly upset but the other half visibly delighted and now they’ve upped the ante considerably by recording and releasing an entire set of songs from brat and brat-adjacent songs as a means of building upon Charli xcx’s legacy esp. her previous efforts to bridge aesthetic chasms and socioeconomic divides…
… and while artists ranging from Caroline Polachek to Ariana Grande to Lorde for Lord’s sake have recently “covered” songs from brat (tho’ more like collabs) on the xcx mandated brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, none of those artists describe themselves as purveyors of “ripping, mosh compelling, stage diving, middle finger raising, naughty behavior inducing, hard-core punk rock and roll” but this is exactly how Skeeter describe themselves which is the whole point innit cuz you want that chasm to be as wide as possible before you mess with jumping it…
…and yet here they are rolling out their tribute to brat or about half of it anyway dropping one new track per day over the course of several days last week and now this week, all of which’ll be joined together and released as the EP brat but it’s skeeter de milo so it’s weird and what’s more the avowed rockers known for songs like “Um Duh” and “Knife to the Gun School” have bravely taken a pop-oriented, old school huckster-approved promotional strategy to promoting the EP with an original music video dropping alongside each new song with today’s new song/new video being “Apple”…
Note: Skeeter de Milo wants you to know that Kamala is NOT Brat…
…which is literally a song about healing rifts, namely familial rifts, or trying to anyway, rifts that likely stem from generations of intergenerational trauma going back who knows how long with apples never falling too far from the tree as the saying goes or as Charli herself puts it, “[It] feels like you never understand me / so I just wanna drive…to the airport, the airport, the airport, the airport,” lines which make clear Miss C’ being literal flight risk but hey it’s a valid coping mechanism…
…which leads us to imagine a scenario in which Charli xcx drives out to the airport to get away from her annoying family but then thinks better of it at the last minute and ends up at one of the many seedy strip clubs dotting the landscape around most airports in this great nation of ours what with Charli xcx being deemed “indie sleaze” and all that plus who can turn down an economical lunch buffet…
…and what kind of music would you expect to hear at such an establishment (assuming yr lucky enough to find a club that’ll springs for a live band and not just a DJ) with the answer being a band like Skeeter de Milo of course cuz seriously just from the name alone they just sound like a band who’d seek out gigs at less than reputable locales like airport-adjacent t*tty emporiums and no we’re not just saying that just cuz they got “skeet” in their name…
…which’ll make even more sense once you give Skeeter de Milo’s version of “Apple” a listen cuz frankly it sounds downright sleazy tho’ glamorously so to be clear like if a time-traveling 1970era Slade covered the song or an Alternative Tentacles band in the ‘80s or ‘90s what with its glitter rock meets hair metal meets grunge vibe and all those crunchy power chords, peripatetic bass lines, in-the-pocket Phil Rudd-style skin-beating and vocalizing that goes from Lou Reed in the lower register to more akin to Layne Staley up top…
…and then the video is the icing on the cake cause it looks like it was actually shot in the private rooms of an exotic dancing establishment with neon lit streamers divvying up the lap-dancing cubicles and when lead singer Cam places a hollowed-out Apple computer monitor on his head and does the “Apple” dance that was all over TikTok this last summer it definitely feels like your you and your friends are about to get kicked out…
…but don’t worry there’s more icing where that came from cuz over the next couple days Skeeter D.M. unveiled their cover of “Sympathy is a Knife” which is a song described by Wikipedia as being written about self-comparison, paranoia, insecurities, and suicidal ideation, so in other words Wednesday, with their version being appropriately brutal given the subject matter and not very strip club friendly with SDM overlapping one syncopated part after another with machine-gun snare hits replacing the 808 hand claps and super sludgy slabs of bass & guitar standing in for the cavernous low end of the original as Cam howls into the wind about “feel[ing[ all these feelings I can’t control“…
…but then the true pièce de résistance of the band’s bratty shenanigans is SDM’s inspired reading of “Guess” which in its original rendition didn’t see the light of day until brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not came out except most people know the version from brat and it’s completely different but also still brat (pop music recycling for fun and profit at its finest!) on which Charli is joined by a feral, purring Billie Eilish who brings down the house (literally) after crashing through a wall atop a bulldozer in an attempt to better investigate the color of Charli xcx’s underwear…
…which let’s just say the underwear on display remains neither “under” nor “worn” for long which also goes for Skeeter’s version with the band appearing to have been entrusted to run an entire lingerie establishment while the manager getting lunch at The Landing Strip and yes this means SDM get pelted with a wide array of underthings but most importantly they nail the song’s essence by keeping it coquettish on one hand while building up quite the pulsating, throbbing monster groove on the other kinda like if Talking Heads’ Remain in Light got crossed with Korn and Limp Bizkit with impressive use of cowbell by drummer/percussionist Gabe and vintage “Dick Dale on Ritalin” double-picking by Dan on guitar and blood-spitting “God of Thunder” rumblings by Dev on bass guitar..
…before assuring us (having switched over to Billie’s POV) that even if “Charli likes boys…she knows I’d hit it” and with all the musical layers in play mirrored by the multiple layers of gender-bending going on here you gotta pause to appreciate the sheer artifice and/or authenticity of the moment before it’s demanded that we GUESS! GUESS! GUESS! GUESS! the color of Cam’s underwear even tho’ they’re fully exposed by this point alongside the bras ‘n’ panties and other unmentionables hanging off from every available surface and musical instruments in sight and if that’s not an indelible enough image to sell SDM’s brat but it’s skeeter de milo so it’s weird to the general public then we don’t know what is…