Better Late than Never + Show Reviews

Cat Vet, Philadelphia, Pa

My friend Jesse has wanted to be in a band for as long as I can remember and she finally did it with CAT VET, this new all-girl band out of Philly. It's so cool seeing your friends finally do something they've always wanted to do. I've got a lot of girl friends who are finally making their own dreams of being musicians come true but we're all in our late 20s and 30s. Seems like 27 is the new 17. I know women, including myself, finally taking the music they make seriously and playing shows, making recordings, going on tour... Finally taking ourselves seriously as musicians and artists in our late 20s and 30s, even if we may have been playing music in one way or another all of our lives. I know moms in punk bands that go on tour. This sort of self-expression is a necessity that you make time for no matter what. Maybe we're figuring it out later than the average boy musician, but at least we're figuring it out, right?

Okay, now let's get down to business. Show reviews and reviews of recordings are what you're getting this month. Let's return to CAT VET, a brand new band with a self-released tape out called Yr Wild! My band joined theirs for a few days, starting here in New Orleans and going through north Florida. CAT VET reminds me of BRATMOBILE or EXCUSE 17 with less trauma and anger. They are, for sure, the daughters of riot girl, even taking on subjects like consensual sex in one of their songs. They're also all about inside jokes, weird cat humor and having a bunch of people dancing up front while they play. Dawn and Jesse switch off on guitar and drums, while Kirstin sings and shouts, banging an egg shaker on her leg the whole time. All three of them are friends and housemates and share the same total weirdo sense of humor. If you're into BRILLIANT COLORS, I think that you'll probably like CAT VET.

Speaking of bands that actually sound like “riot girl” bands—rather than girl bands that are compared to other girl bands merely because they're girls—don't you think SON SKULL sounds like BIKINI KILL? That song, “Boston Girls” sounds like a BK-style riff to me, for sure. Mary, who sings in this band is one of the mamas I was talking about who still plays shows and goes on tour, along with her baby daddy, Hayes who is also in WHITE BOSS. When both SON SKULL and WHITE BOSS came to New Orleans and played Nowe Miasto warehouse a couple months ago, Mary had her two kids with her and I ended up helping one of her daughters look for a purple barrette she dropped on the ground outside the show while her mom set up to play.

SON SKULL are from Olympia, as you may have learned from the Olympia scene report that just ran a couple issues ago. So are HYSTERICS who I got to see play at the public library in Olympia, Washington with BROKEN WATER for Ben Nuts! zine release party. Ben's zine is stellar when it covers local bands and has articles like the one Tobi Vail wrote about meeting Mike Watt when she was a teenager, but is less so when it features long-winded penis torture porn. The newest issue is awesome and also includes of flexi disc with tracks by MILK MUSIC and CARRIE WHITE of GUN OUTFIT. Getting back to HYSTERICS, they rock. I have a crush on that band. They're obsessed with the only kind of hardcore I like at all: the 80s DC stuff. They cover ARTIFICIAL PEACE and have an original that sounds lots like MINOR THREAT. The singer is even wearing an EMBRACE shirt in a picture on the inside of their tape sleeve. Very obsessed with 80s DC punk, these girls. They all seem to be in their early 20s but most of them, if not all of them, have been in other bands before. They've got a self-released tape with songs about gender roles within the punk scene and capitalism. Their singer, Stephi, has great energy and attitude. You already know all about them, if you read their interview in issue #xxx.

I grudgingly attended the CRACKBOX/TRANNY SHARK/CROWS FOOT show because, while I really wanted to see all those bands, I really dislike the bar that they had the show in. It's one of those places that feels like a warehouse for the wasted, you know what I mean? Just a big, cold, black box of a room that you cannot have fun in unless you get trashed. No ambiance to mention, and the owner of the place has a reputation for being a nihilistic dick. CRACKBOX, please let me book you a house show next time. Corrina, their singer, has all the power and heart to warm up a space like that, if only for the duration of their set. Crackbox's guitarist lives in a different state most of the time so they've been playing their hearts out (raw pop punk style) since he got back into town several weeks ago. TRANNY SHARK is a new all-girl band from New Orleans with a member of New Orleans' MOST HEINOUS and also with, lead singer, Alison Gaye, running her mouth, delivering snarky humor, while the rest of the band tries to keep up. They were raw, sloppy and engaging that night, and I'm excited to see their band get better and better the longer they play together. Gotta admit, I do have a difficult relationship with TRANNY SHARK. For instance, some of the members might have issue with the fact that I call them an all-girl band in this column, cuz, you know, why does it matter that they're girls and what's the point of putting on shows with all girl bands? Whatever, that's fine. We don't all have to agree. The last band to play that night was CROWS FOOT and I left, like a jerk, during their first song.

The recent show at The Peach Orchard skate park was pretty dreamy. It's January and it's still just barely warm enough to be able to have a show outside at night. If the winter hadn't been so sad here, it would've been so easy. Every other day it's 70 degrees! They strung Christmas lights all around the skate park, which was just built within the last year in the perfect spot, out of the way, near a highway and some train tracks. Suddenly that night, out of nowhere I heard the voice of a goddess! I thought it was some pre-recorded music playing through the PA but it was in fact this lady named AMI DANG from Baltimore. She played electronics, with all of her waist-length hair draped over her left shoulder, seated on an orange blanket, with a sitar in front of her. Ami is Indian American (her family's from New Delhi) and she sang in a popular Indian female vocal style that most people are familiar with, and played the sitar along to some dirty, blown-out beats coming from the bass amp behind her. Later on in her set, she did this really awesome thing with two dissonant layers of vocals that sounded kinda creepy like in The Exorcist. Lydia Lunch does something similar in one of her songs on Queen of Siam. Very creepy, bizarre and awesome sounding. I smoked AMI DANG out after the show.

Will NEONATES ever come to New Orleans? What will Layla's new band sound like after she's done coordinating at MRR? If I listen to SONIC YOUTH and THE RATS too many times in a row will I stop liking them after a while? These are the questions that weigh heavy on my mind these days. Waiting for the heat to return...

Published in MRR #???