Late stage capitalism is the worst but you can still give gifts to your loved ones when you follow our gift guide! There is no need to make purchases that will ultimately only benefit, like, three billionaires! may we suggest these gifts:
• Take your friend out to ice-skate, watch futbol, see Stuart Murdoch reading from his new book, sip boba tea, slurp noodles, or give experiential gifts like road trips, spa days, roller derby matches, or of course guitar pop festivals (but not the one in California owned by a creep!).
• Think about nature: Head to Audubon, Wildlife Conservation Society, Save the Manatee, Oceana, the A C L U, and other do-gooders and buy things that benefit them! Also consider adopting a real-life rescue pup or a black cat or buying things that benefit animal sanctuaries, hummingbirds, bees, bats, and wildlife. Give seeds to grow food, make bat boxes, hummingbird feeders and give someone beekeeper classes!
• Support the greatest radio station around like WFMU by grabbing a cute T-shirt. Consider commissioning a photographer or artist to make something for you or buy something they’ve already created. Also shop at museum and gallery shops, independent book shops, small businesses and of course record shops! (We love Courtesy Desk, Jigsaw, Monorail, and Dusty Groove a lot!)
Read on for some more ideas but remember, giving more money to billionaires (and the online retail giants they own) is bad for the entire world. They are drunk on power and need to be reined in.
Glasgow’s Dancer and Portland’s Whisper Hiss Team Up for Split album and chickfactor co-interview
Whisper Hiss (Meredith Butner, Rhiannon Flowers, Jenny Rahlf, Jon Schlaffman) are a four-piece queer post-punk band from Portland, Oregon, and have been the go-to local opener on most indiepop and post-punk house and DIY shows for bands touring through Portland since 2017. Dancer (Gemma Fleet, Chris Taylor, Gavin Murdoch, Andrew Doig) are a four-piece mutant disco post-punk band from Glasgow, Scotland, that only formed in 2023. Split is a split 12-inch featuring six songs each by both Dancer and Whisper Hiss. This split release came about by chance. The label HHBTM pitched the idea of the bands recording a few extra tracks and doing a split 12-inch as a way of connecting them.
Dancer has been pretty prolific in a short time of being a band, can you tell us a little about your songwriting process? Gemma (she/they): I’d say we are all songwriters in the band and we mix up the process all the time. It might be a fully formed song brought into practice that we all add our bits to, on bass (Love) or guitar (Bluetooth hell), vocal (Passionate Sunday) or a song that started with a drum beat (rein it in) – The split LP songs were played out all together and came together in pretty much one practice apart from You Saint that Chris brought in and Gig Economy that Doig had. Chris (he/they): We’re just all fiends for a new song. We had a writing moratorium at the start of the year and the second we ended it there were 8 new songs we’d written individually for Dancer in secret from each other. It’s a compulsion for all of us I think. I’ll often be getting set up in practice or just idly playing and Andrew will suddenly ask “what’s that?”. I try to repeat what I did and 5 minutes later everyone else has turned it into a song. We just pounce on them when they appear sometimes. I think we write so much because there is no set process other than, “does anyone have something new that sounds good?” Andrew (He/Him): Yeah it can be quick, I think we are developed and there is an almost gleeful energy with the songwriting. Dare I say it’s confidence sort of propelling us? Maybe that confidence has not always been there in past projects you know? So it’s infectious. I think we all think the band is good and the prospect of another song is always exciting so they keep coming. Meredith (she/her): I love what you said about confidence! I’ve mostly played music with other women and self-taught musicians and we’ve had trouble fully owning that word. In my first bands, just being on stage itself was an act of bravery. I’ve written in bands where self doubt hovered around or we were sometimes too apologetic about our ideas with each other, and when it comes to booking or promotion I’ve also feared asking for too much or appearing too confident which has led to missed opportunities. It’s something I’m really working on looking at. It helps to have Rhiannon as a front person and co-conspirator — she’s such a force, and not a person who makes herself small. With Whisper Hiss, I feel that infectious spark you mentioned in a clear way… like I actually know that what we have is special. Rhiannon (she/her): It’s so ingrained to cut ourselves down a notch. Saying you have something special doesn’t take away from other people or mean they aren’t also special. I want to see people around me feeling empowered and celebrated. The more I witness it in others the more inspired I am to fully show up as myself. I want that feeling and I want it for those around me.
Dancer. Photo: Chris Hogge
Lyrically, are there any themes that come up often or tie together your songs on Split? Gemma: Priority Girl is about the ‘Karen’ phenomenon and how distasteful it is to be pushy but remembering too that men complain all the time. The moral of the story is if you have a Karen you use them to do good. Gig economy follows this theme as is about someone ordering Deliveroo in a snow storm and complaining when it arrives then the driver in their haste to correct, gets in an accident ! I’m concerned that people working in the gig economy are not protected by employment law and sick pay is hard to claim. Rhiannon: I felt instantly connected to your lyrics Gemma, and honestly felt a kinship. I feel like we both have a storytelling aspect to our songs. My lyrics are mostly autobiographical and come from my personal and internal world, then I make connections from that to things around me. I write a lot about anxiety and breaking free. On SPLIT the songs stemmed from the song Movable Objects which is mostly about freedom from stagnation and the idea that there are many paths to get somewhere.. and how a lot of what’s pressed on to us in society literally doesn’t fit anyone or make anyone happy. Fawn tells a few stories but actually was inspired by a time I was recently assaulted on a bus. A man cornered me and it was really scary! I was able to get away with the help of another woman and got off. The song is about the lose-lose where if you are noticed you are under threat, but then when you are more invisible people also don’t respect your personal space or stomp on you. Envision Another chorus actually came to me in a dream! It had the melody and everything and I actually remembered when I woke up for once!
Do you have any before show rituals? Gemma: Shadow boxing whilst jogging a loop around the venue as the Rocky theme tune plays over the PA. In my head. Andrew: I spend some time trying to remember my parts, as they always seem to get vague in my mind around show time. Recently I have been playing the beginning of Passionate Sunday wrong every time we play it live. The mind does weird things under mild duress. Chris: For me, it has always been trying to find the perfect balance between time/coffee/food/alcohol. It feels like there’s this perfect combo for playing live and the constant variables (mostly how much time between arrival and show, and how much of that time is already planned for) keep it interesting. It sounds complicated but it’s mostly about not getting too drunk even if you have 3 hours to kill at a bar that doesn’t serve food or coffee. Rhiannon: Chris that sounds a lot like me! You’ll find me in a dark corner of the bar measuring out exactly how many sips of one cocktail I’ll have and at what hour before going on stage. And strategically eating dinner 1.5 hours before doors. It’s very precise mathematics and science! I also like to do power pose, that’s a good before show move.
Whisper Hiss. Photo: Alisha Flowers
You are all active in other bands, is it hard to juggle the various schedules?Gemma: I think it’s harder to juggle a full time job. I really enjoy my job and doing bands so try to keep things relaxed, In the past I’ve done mad things like played in Paris, driven back to London, slept for 3 hours then went to work or gone to work directly off of a flight from Texas. Andrew: Yes and no. There are certain weeks where every night is a band practice or a show and sometimes that feels like living a dream and sometimes it just feels like too much. Personally I have a habit of taking a lot on with music stuff. But then you think what would we all do otherwise? Chris: This is usually the case (and certainly is for everyone else in Dancer), but for the first time in my life I am in only one band and it is my only active project. I have enough freedom in Dancer that I can use pretty much all of my guitar ideas so I’m pretty satisfied with the situation. I’ve noticed recently that the only kinds of shows that get me out of the house are improv or heavy stuff, perhaps because it’s less often we play with bands like that. I’d like to do something in one of those spheres again maybe.
What do you each do for fun outside of music? Gemma: Watch YouTube videos of Idlewild at the Brat Awards with lovely big mug of tea. Oh, that’s still music. Maybe just the tea then, in silence? Andrew: See above, sometimes not much else! I force myself to read, it’s one of my favourite things to do but I rarely feel relaxed enough to concentrate. Cinema. Food is good. Riding my bike. Glasgow is very grey and rainy even in the Summer sometimes so there is tendency to stop everything and go outside if good weather happens. Chris: I’ve rekindled a childhood love of video games in recent years, which has been surprisingly rewarding. I can’t say it’s entirely unrelated to music as the soundtracks make up a lot of my listening these days. So long as you completely ignore any online community involving games whatsoever, it can be a lot of fun. I try to always play stuff that is nothing like anything I’ve played previously, which has been pretty doable mostly. There’s a lot of really great and unique stuff out there, much of it that couldn’t exist in another medium. It’s a good time for it. Other than that and music, my wife, cats, food and travel keep me happy.
Whisper Hiss. Photo: Alisha Flowers
What is the Portland music scene like? Supportive? Difficult to access? A bit of both?! Jon (he/they): Portland is overflowing with bands; so many bands that there’s no way that I’m aware of even a fraction of them. From teenage bands playing house shows and whatever few all ages venues there are, all the way up to dad bands and literal grandparents playing shows every single night all over town. Legit DIY venues to play are dwindling, it seems, since I moved here in ‘08 – there used to be a lot more small spaces/dive bar type of venues where you could catch a random incredible show on any given evening. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly difficult to access, but it depends on your goals, I suppose. The punk-adjacent/queer/weirdo art and music community that I feel like I’ve become a small part of has been nothing but supportive and inspiring. That said, I’m sure there are tons of other “scenes” or music communities in Portland that aren’t on my radar at all. Jenny (she/they): I think it is supportive and there are also some mini scenes within the larger Portland music scene. There are a lot of bands here— I feel like you have to know someone to get in with certain venues. Honestly, I’m the most hands off in the band when it comes to booking/ promoting— I very much appreciate my bandmates for getting us out there and making connections. Meredith: Whisper Hiss has been so well received by audiences and I generally feel so much support from other local musicians and bands but, with a large number of bands in town vying for a limited number of slots, it can feel difficult to break into larger rooms with bigger crowds. Sometimes when we don’t get on a show we’d love to play we joke that, because our band name starts with a W, we must be on the bottom of all the alphabetized booking lists. Rhiannon: Oh yes our name starting with a W has led to our obscurity, that’s gotta be it (Laughing). I feel like we have a really sweet scene of bands where shows sometimes feel like just hanging out with friends and sharing art. There’s a lot of photographers in the scene too. I met my friend Colette from the band Perimeters, because she kept posting these cool photographs of us after our shows, and one day I wrote her and was like “Come say hi next time!” And she’s such a gem.
Are there any great Portland bands that have been around forever but might not have hit the UK that we should check out? Jenny: The Prids are the only ones I can think of that have been around a while— not sure if they’ve toured the uk, but worth checking out. It seems like many bands that had been around when we first started out sadly disbanded during the pandemic. There are so many bands here and I’m sure ones I haven’t named that deserve recognition. Jon: Sad Horse. The members of that band also own one of the few remaining DIY show spaces in town – Turn, Turn, Turn Meredith: Yeah, my suggestions maybe haven’t been around forever… Yuvees just moved to Brooklyn, but they are an ex-Portland band putting out great stuff. Public Pleasure’s first full length is coming out mid-October and I’m really excited to hear that. Collate, Love in Hell, and Perimeters are all great bands and friends. I’m happy All Girl Summer Fun Band are playing shows again.
Dancer. Photo: Chris Hogge
We want to know about the Glasgow scene too! Does it feel inclusive? What bands should we check out? Andrew: There is so much to say about this. Obviously there is a whole lore around Glasgow and music, it is much romanticised. Firstly none of us (now) are actually Scottish in the band, so as an English person coming into the ‘scene’ at a certain age, having lived in London for many years previously, has been fascinating. It definitely lives up to expectations in some senses, but as with all scenes the idea that everyone knows each other etc is exaggerated. But then again it can feel small and concentrated enough that you do tend to see some of the classic Glasgow characters around quite easily. There are so many different strands too – improv, electronic and clubbing scenes, beyond the expected indie pop or whatever people might think. It’s diverse and exciting, for such a small city there are loads of venues and stuff is going on all the time, but then on the flip side it can feel repetitive at times. Like there is this great venue The Glad Cafe, its ace, but I have been there like 6 times in the last couple of months and starting to get cabin fever! It’s better to get out and about though, of course, and for me and Gemma (a married couple in our 40s) it has certainly given us a fresh and new social aspect to life that we weren’t maybe getting in London so much anymore. We have met a lot of nice people who have supported Dancer and other projects we have done, so yeah it feels inclusive to us right now.
As for bands to check out there is L, Guests, Essen, Errol’s Hot wax is a cool label, Goldmold another label of note (who released our first 2 EP’s), Nightshift and Set Piece are 2 other bands I play bass in who I like haha, Come Outside, Onat Onol, Susannah Stark, Simone Antigone, Coolant, Radio Banter, Edwin Stevens, Buffet Lunch (technically Edinburgh), Nightschool records, Dragged Up, Even Sisters, Coffin Mulch, Pink Pound, R.Aggs. The list goes on and on and these are the artists within Dancer’s gravity really, there is a universe of other far out things happening. I will say that even though they don’t seem to live in Glasgow anymore, Still House Plants latest LP is pretty much my album of the year, that record blows my mind!
Is there anywhere in the world you would really like to take Whisper Hiss?Meredith: We really haven’t been many places with this project yet. Getting to know you all and working on Split has us dreaming of coming to the UK for sure. Rhiannon: Right now coming to the UK sounds dreamy and I’d also love to tour other parts of Europe. I’m basically itching to tour! Take me everywhere! Jon: Oh jeez, yeah, I’m up for whatever! I’m the most recent member of the band, so I haven’t done any touring as a Whispie yet but I’d love to get this batch of songs on the road in front of new faces. I think we’re alldreaming of a Euro tour; we’ll see what opportunities present themselves! Touring the west coast kinda sucks since there are really only a few cities over here, and there’s a great deal of distance between them. It’s basically Seattle, maybe Oly, Portland, and then nothing for over 600 miles (965 km for y’all, I googled!) until you hit the bay area. I envy east coast (and Euro) bands who can get in the van and play a ton of shows back to back in different rad cities each night for quick little tours or whatever. You don’t have to spend a whole day driving just to get to like Sacramento or something lol. Jenny: UK tour with Dancer!
Like us, you guys have maybe been in other bands previously, tell us about them and do you currently do any other projects? Rhiannon: My first band ever was called Drastic Plastic. I was only 19 and had just moved to Portland because I heard it had the most lesbians per capita. I didn’t know what per capita meant but it sounded promising. At the time there was a thriving queer punk scene, and even though I was a tad too young to have been part of riot grrrl, I was heavily influenced by all those bands from here and Olympia. I’d had this realization about being a fan. These feminist and queer bands were about building community, not hero worship. I realized I wanted to be part of a community of artists creating social change, instead of idolizing others. My next band was called Seagull and Wave, it was the first time where I played keys and sung. It was a new wavey project with just guitar, keys and drum machine. It was fun but terrifying to sing and play at the same time. It was very new. Whisper Hiss is the first band where I really found myself as a musician. I realized I can naturally play by ear, and key parts just sort of started flowing for me. Right now Whisper Hiss is my only band, but I’ve been jamming with a friend of mine on an Italo Disco/new wave inspired project that I’m excited to develop! Meredith: In college and just after, I played guitar in a riot grrrl band called Athena Starwoman. In the early 2000s I was in a pop project called 10¢ (the dimes). This was a cool time for Portland DIY and I was active in lots of stuff like zines, crafts, running a tiny venue and recording studio called the Portland Robot Steakhouse, and hosting Handmade Bazaar a backyard summer buy/sell/trade sale with food and bands. I took a bunch of time off from music and then started a band called Anther who I played with before joining Whisper Hiss. Sometimes I write and record songs with my husband at home. Jenny: My band history dates back to my late teens. I played in several bands up until my mid twenties when I fell off playing music for about 8 years! I left all my gear in my ex partner’s moms shed. When I went back to collect my gear I felt nostalgic and realized how much I missed music! Long story short, Whisper Hiss was born and that’s the only band I’ve been playing in since—unless you count Untitled Bedroom Project which really just consists of me and my girlfriend informally jamming out in the bedroom. Jon: Whisper Hiss is all I’m doing at the moment (I work full-time in comics publishing and I just don’t have the youthful energy I once had lol). I played for years in a garage-punk trio here called BOBBY PERU which morphed into another band called BARB. I did a noise rock thing called HAUNTED HEAD for a little while and there was also a dub-influenced punk-ish project called COOL FLOWERS with some homies who have all been in dozens of other bands. Getting to open a show for Anika was a major highlight of my time with that band!
Whisper Hiss. Photo: Alisha Flowers
Whisper Hiss is a fun band, How does it feel to play together? Rhiannon: Thank you, Dancer is very fun too! Playing together feels electric. There’s a magic that happens and we all love experimenting and being creative together. At shows we have a lot of fun. I sort of jump a lot and I like to hop over to my bandmates when I’m not behind my keyboard. Meredith: We do have fun! I can be a kind of moody or intense person when left to my own devices, but group projects bring out a different side of me and creative collaboration really helps me access joy and let go. I’m actually such a fan of my bandmates, both as musicians and people, and I feel lucky every time we play together that I get to add my ideas and energy to the mix with theirs. Jenny: We don’t call ourselves moody and the beat for nothing! We all bring our own unique brand of moodiness that I think we embrace and believe makes us special. We also have a lot of fun! I’ve never been in a band where writing songs is so exciting and I’m so incredibly proud of everything we do! I admire my bandmates—they are endlessly talented! Jon: So good! It’s all felt very natural to me and the band environment has been full of love and support. They’d been a band for a while already when I joined so there were a bunch of songs that I needed to learn right off the bat, which was a new experience for me, and a lot of fun. Going into the band, having studied and learned the songs, I knew I’d be working with talented and creative songwriters so I was super excited and I’m very proud of the work we’ve done together since then. Very much looking forward to the next batch of songs – I love the whole process of songs taking shape and seeing everybody’s ideas falling into place. For me, the excitement of building up to a recording session, and ultimately an album is hard to beat, and I feel like we’ve proven to ourselves that we can kick out the jams in a pinch, if need be lol!
How do you tend to record Whisper Hiss? Do you have someone who records you regularly? and how is Portland for rehearsal spaces and recording studios in general? Meredith: My husband is a recording engineer and we worked with him on the majority of our recordings. They were each done in different studios, I assisted and then he and I mixed at home with input from the band. Our full length tape was difficult to mix and ended up going through a lot of different drafts and taking a long time. When Jon joined the band we were still mixing that. With Jon’s new energy we quickly wrote three songs and wanted to get them recorded to have a representation of the new line up. We rent a practice space in a building that has a record store, a screen printer, rehearsal rooms and a recording studio. Jon had recorded there before and floated the idea of using it this time. It sounded so easy – we wheeled our amps down the hallway – and I loved the idea that I could just show up and play bass and wouldn’t have so many roles. Split was recorded there with Eric Crespo. He mixed at home and we went back and forth through email with notes. Rhiannon: Recording has felt really different over the years! Our sound has distinct threads that make it Whisper Hiss, but also has changed a lot over time, and that reflects in our mixes. For our cassette we were trying for a big sound, and recorded each instrument separately. For Split we went a different approach and performed live for our takes with overdubbed vocals, bells and handclaps. I actually used a front desk bell for the beginning of Come Feel Me. I wanted the feel of working behind a front desk and someone is trying to get your attention in an insistent entitled way. I got a bit bell-happy and pushed for even louder bell in the mix, but I’m glad I got convinced that less front desk bell is more front desk bell. I want to figure out a Velcro situation on my synth so I can use the bell live. We had more fun ideas of accents and noises to add this time. I hope to keep experimenting with cool sounds even more next album! Also Meredith brought a huge tin of peanuts to recording, I will be expecting that luxury item going forward.
Whisper Hiss. Photo: KC Jonze @thelonius_punk
In 2015 Gemma and myself spent 24 Hours in Portland, checked out the Donut shop, walked around in the sun and generally buzzed off of how cool it felt to be there. The city has a reputation (to us anyway) of being one of the coolest in the USA, how would you challenge this perception? Or is it in fact just very cool? Rhiannon: I love Portland, it is very cool in my opinion! There are some real issues with gentrification which has been happening for a long time. Another recent thing that’s come up is the music scene speaking out against Live Nation making a venue here. We try to support independently owned venues, and keep corporations from controlling and messing with the music scene. Portland is the last major city to not have Live Nation competing with local venues. Portland has changed a lot since I moved here as a teen in 2001, but it still holds its magic. In the spring there’s incredible cherry blossom trees with petals falling all over you like you are in an enchanted forest. There are small business like bars and cafes in old cute houses, and there are still parts of town that have the old feeling. There’s a lot of amazing people who I love here too. There’s a meandering feel on sidewalks, like no one is in a huge rush to get somewhere. A lot of music and creativity has come from here, and you can feel it.
Do you have a most memorable show? Chris: Playing Pies Pala Pop Festival in Rennes earlier this year was very special. It was our second show outside of the UK, outdoors in good weather with a crowd that was as into it as we were. The festival had a great line up and really looked after everyone too. The whole thing was like a dream. Andrew: The Pies Pala Pop fest in Rennes (France) back in June. Our second show abroad (the first was the day before in Paris) – awesome outdoor stage at a fest with loads of cool bands, good weather, big and responsive crowd. Total dream! Gemma: I loved the gigs we did supporting Dry Cleaning, it was nerve wracking because it was a big crowd but people were not there to see us and I really thought we would be ignored or people would just chat. Surprisingly people were really engaged and we were a true warm up for the gig, by the end of the set people were really buzzed.
What is your biggest challenge as a band? Chris: Getting to do it enough really. I’d get together to write, rehearse, tour or record every day if we could. Andrew: Keeping it all together I think. Maybe it’s not a secret to mention we have recently changed drummers. Bands are hard. Group dynamics are hard and being on the same page is hard. For all the 99 percent of fun and awesomeness, it’s that 1 rogue percentage that can derail everything. Gemma: Making music is always the easiest part, it’s the other stuff like organising tours and finding time to look at emails , that sort of admin stuff.
Dancer. Photo: Anthony Gerace
What are your live shows like? Chris: Very very fun. It sounds like a cop-out answer but it’s an honest one. The comment we got most after coming off stage in Rennes was about how “smiley” we all are. It brings me more joy than anything, and there’s plenty to go around so that’s what we project. People pick up on it, send it back our way etc. Our best shows are just joy feedback loops between us and the crowd. Andrew: Always great I think! We have definitely improved this year and have been reacting to some great crowd buzz. Gemma: I really can’t help but dance around a lot, I am definitely the Dancer in Dancer. In previous bands I’ve played the bass so it’s been really freeing and new to work on the performance, I love to use the length of the stage and jump high.
Are there any places you’d like to take Dancer on tour as well? Chris: Broadly speaking, North America as that’s where the highest concentration of people that listen to us are. I’d love to tour Japan, or really anywhere I’ve never never been. More specifically, I’d like to play The Empty Bottle in Chicago. A great deal of my favourite art and music was made in Chicago, and I hear that place in particular is a lot of fun to play. Andrew: Well USA is of course a dream, but the money it would cost to do it legally is enough to bankrupt even the wealthiest group these days. I am not sure why it costs so much to get into the USA? For me, playing on a warm Summer’s evening somewhere in Portland with Whisper Hiss would be the greatest. But they just cut creative funding here in Scotland, so the options are shrinking by the day! Gemma: Italy, it’s the most beautiful country and best food. I have played a few gigs there in the past and absolutely loved it, other countries in Europe have a bit more funding and appreciation of live music than the UK I think.
You chickfactor readers already know that Kristin Thomson and Jenny Toomey were very involved in the independent music world in Arlington/D.C. in the ’90s. Jenny cofounded Simple MachinesRecords with Brad Sigal and Derek Denckla, and then she and Kristin went on to run the label (with Pat Graham and Mickey Menard) and were involved with the Future of Music Coalition. (Our zine started around the same independent universe/era, and our festivals were surely inspired by their events.) Like many other folks at the time, I had a copy of Simple Machines’ guide to starting a record label, which made it seem like something we could all do (and many of us did!). Tsunami (which also featured John Pamer and Andrew Webster, among others) reformed in recent years to perform and have just released a big fancy box set of their music and are preparing go on a tour early next year with Ida. These two lifelong friends chatted with us recently about indie confessionals, mechanical bulls, and “shorting it up,” among other things.
Hey nerds: check out Loud Is As, the new Tsunami retrospective on Numero Group: 62 tracks over 5LPs collecting together 11 7-inches, 4-track demos, 1993’s, 1994’s The Heart’s Tremolo, plus 1997 A Brilliant Mistake on vinyl for the first time ever.
chickfactor: What did you guys do this weekend?
Kristin Thomson: On Friday night I went to see Duster, technically a labelmate. Curious to see them since I didn’t really pay attention to them when they were active in the late ’90s. Saturday I drove to Lancaster to see Jawbox, and they are a force to be reckoned with. Jenny Toomey: On Friday night, I tested the makeup for an insane little joke unboxing video, which basically is me opening the Tsunami box set, pulling them out and throwing them to the side as if I didn’t care about them at all because I’m trying to get to the electric face mask underneath. When I put it on, it burns the word Tsunami on my forehead. So I was working with an actual makeup artist, and it took about 2 1/2 hours. I went out to drinks at the little punk rock club in town. Brian, my husband, who’s a journalist, was down in North Carolina. He got home Saturday. We have this huge CSA because we live in farm country, and I always complain to Kristin that I feel like I have another child, which is all the vegetables I have to find a home for in my stomach by the end of the week. So we did a lot of cooking and watching horror films. Kristin: Baby Kohlrabi hanging out with you or something? Jenny: We got Kohlrabi, which was in the share. We’ve also got a weird new vegetable, which is a mixture of broccoli and lettuce or something. How often do you say, “I’m 56 and I’ve tasted a vegetable I never had before”?
Jenny and Andrew
CF: Where do John (Pamer) and Andrew (Webster) live these days? Jenny: John is a professional photographer and lives in LA. Andrew is a green architect with his own firm and lives near Amherst. CF: What are your day jobs? Tell us about your pets, kids, hobbies, whatever. Kristin:I am director of special projects at Media Democracy Fund, we’re an intermediary between the very large foundations and grantees that do work on everything from broadband access to fighting racialized disinformation. There’s a very small team, only eight of us, so we have a lot to do, whether it’s making grants and contracts or doing events or leadership development, building coalitions and things like that. My son Riley is upstairs, but he goes to Saint Joseph’s University and works in the box office at a venue in Philly. Jenny could talk about pets. Jenny: I can. One of them is currently trying to interrupt our interview. He’s our new rescue, Iggy. I’ve worked at the Ford Foundation for 16 years. I started a technology portfolio where we support organizations working to put rules in the internet environment to protect the public …. CF: That sounds easy. Jenny: You don’t know the half of it. Not only have we not managed to do that, but for many years, I watched as we ignored what was coming. Few of my peers thought what was happening in the tech space was all that important. They were all doing social justice work, so they didn’t care about “fancy technology issues,” … and I’m like, “Oh, no, it’s coming for you!” And they’d be like, “I’m not interested, and I don’t have to be.” And I’ve been like, “Oh, no, get ready for the horror film that is going to be your portfolio.” I’ve been working with the president of the foundation because he immediately got it—how dangerous tech was and all the areas we cared about so he’s kept me around. For the last five years, I have focused on building the field of Public Interest Technology. This boils down to training technologists in a more cross-disciplined way so they’re more effective in environments beyond the private sector. We’ve also been creating pathways for them to go into government and civil society so the next generation of technologists can tell their parents, “I just got this costly computer science degree, but it’s OK, I’m going to go work in government, and there is a role for me, and you don’t have to be scared that I just wasted all of that money.” I’m leaving Ford at the end of this year, and Kristin is also leaving her job. So we’re basically just Thelma and Louise-ing the next year.
Tsunami by Pat Graham
CF: That’s awesome. Did you come from musical or artistic families? What were you like as teenagers? Kristin:The thing that people find most interesting is that we moved a lot. My dad was in corporate real estate, so there was bouncing back and forth from Canada to the United States. You get used to moving and starting fresh with new people and new experiences. I took regular classical piano lessons growing up, but I was listening to music and going to shows and getting more interested in bands mostly by the time I was in high school when you could maybe go to a show in some weird all ages space or listen to music based on what other people were listening to in your very small school, things like that. By the time I got to college, I was part of the college radio station at Colorado College—KRCC—and was part of the concert committee. Jenny: With regards to music, we always had music playing in the house. As soon as they came home, they put on the turntable. In junior high, I sang in a professional choir called the National Children’s Choir, which Amy Pickering and Kate Samworth were also in. It was like three practices a week, a month of summer camp and dozens of performances during the holidays. So I sang a lot, but it wasn’t until I was in college that I got into a band. I was such a punk rocker in high school. Many punks went to BCC (Bethesda Chevy Chase high school), and I was lucky to make friends with the Bloody Mannequin Orchestra guys, who would drive me to the punk rock shows in DC. Once that started, I lived from show to show. It became like the most important thing to me. Then I got into Positive Force, which also put on tons of shows. Still, I didn’t start thinking I should be in bands until Dave Grubbs and I were friends in college at Georgetown University, and he asked me, “Why aren’t you in a band?” And I hadn’t thought about it, probably because there weren’t that many girls in bands, and I didn’t see the pathway, but once he asked, it was just like, “Oh my God, sexism, there it is!” I’m doing an undergraduate degree in sexism, and I’m obsessed with punk, but I don’t know I can be in a band. I called my friend Derek Denckla and said, “We should be in a band.” That’s how Geek started, and that eventually led to Tsunami. CF: When you look at a lot of those old punk photos from DC, it looks like all men in a lot of them. I know there were women there. Jenny: There was a time before that, like before Minor Threat, where it was a smaller scene, more new wave and weird and I think there were more women in bands then. That’s why Dave Grubbs could ask me that question: Louisville also had a weird, small scene where Tara Key was one of the most influential musicians, and everyone looked up to her. So it didn’t seem odd. But it wasn’t until I was in college, or maybe close to it when I was in college, that Fire Party started. And right then what I couldn’t previously imagine was happening before my eyes.
CF: What was your first concert? The first record you bought? Kristin:I definitely know the first record. I bought the B-52s yellow record with my own money in probably 7th grade and I loved it. I mean, I must have almost worn it out playing it. I loved it so much. I think the first show I actually saw was the band Chicago, but it was free because they were playing at the New Mexico State Fair. And I just wandered through the crowd. You know how Chicago named lots of their albums numbers? They were on like #19 or something and I was like, “a band can have enough music for 19 records?” That’s amazing. I think the next one was Tom Petty. Jenny: I don’t remember seeing a lot of big concerts. The first punk shows that I went to were 9353 shows. They played all the time, at least once a month. I was obsessed with them. They are entirely undersung. Before I went out to shows, Bloody Mannequin Orchestra would play at the BCC talent show, or I would go over to Whitman and Geoff Turner from Gray Matter would be playing at the Whitman talent show. It wasn’t until the late ’90s when I started reviewing music for the Washington Post that I went to large concerts. And I think that’s the only period when I did that. Though I remember I got tickets to see the Michael Jackson Victory tour in high school. But I don’t remember going to many big shows or paying any attention to those types of bands. I never listened to The Beatles to even know what The Beatles were. Kristin: Now you can listen to The Beatles and like them. It’s a whole new thing for you. CF: What was Arlington like when you guys were there? It was so chill then. Now it might be the most expensive place to live in the D.C. area. Jenny: When I went to Georgetown, I really didn’t want to stay in the dorms. So I didn’t most of the time. I lived part-time in a group house with some of the Beefeater folks, Nicki Thomas from Fire Party and some other punks, but by freshman summer, I was staying at Positive Force. I didn’t have a car, so I would ride my bike back and forth to Georgetown from Arlington, and at 8 or 9 p.m., the streetlights would just start blinking yellow. It was that quiet a town. The streets rolled up when Sears closed for the night. Simple Machines Records started in Positive Force house and operated there for many years until we felt the need to start our own house.
Tsunami via their FBK page
CF: How many people lived there? Kristin: About 10 people at any given time. Jenny:That would be the worst-case scenario. But you know, people had sweethearts, others would crash at times. The Positive Force meetings were held in the living room. At a certain point, it felt like I’d lived there too long. So, no shade on folks we still love from the house, but we were ready to start a new chapter. I remember when we first moved to the first Simple Machines house, we’d moved in the springtime, and there was a cherry blossom tree blooming in the front yard, and I had my window open, and it was quiet and there were no dishes in the sink, and I just felt soooo happy. Kristin: I mean, the other part of it is like that we were within a 4-minute car ride or maybe 15 minutes on your bike from Teen-Beat house, Dischord, Dischord Direct, John Pamer’s parents’ house, where we practiced at the beginning, from other bandmates. So there were so many things. Yes, Mount Pleasant had named houses, lots of people lived there, but there were similar lots of connective tissue in Arlington. Jenny: I’m going to say that if it’s the most expensive place in the world, Kristin, your father gave us bad advice when we were trying to get that house. Kristin: That’s right. We were like, should we buy it here? He did say don’t buy it. It would have been worth a lot of money. It is sad to say that there were three different houses we lived in. None of them are standing anymore. They’ve all been replaced. Knocked down and something else put in there. CF: I bet Cynthia Connolly documented it all. Kristin: And our housemate Pat Graham, who took tons of photos. Pat is amazing. He took tons of Polaroids at the time.
CF: Do you have any stories about being involved with Positive Force, events or actions? Jenny: How long do you think you lived in the house, Kristin? Kristin: Maybe two? Jenny: I was there at least five years, if not more, because I also spent the summers in the first Positive Force house, which could get to like 15 inhabitants. When another house closed down, they just moved everybody into the basement if they needed a place to stay. Kristin:The show that was the most high stakes in my mind was during the March for Women’s Lives. It was April 1992 where we had Fugazi play two nights and one day it was Bikini Kill and L7 and the other night was Scrawl. I have the flier somewhere. I was already working at NOW and I thought it’d be a great way for people to be attracted to D.C. to come to the March, and also be a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. But there were also attacks on abortion clinics in the DC region that were timed with the March. So there’s high stakes clinic defense stuff going on, we were raising money for Planned Parenthood—this is where Pat took those very famous photos of Bikini Kill, the one where she’s sitting on the ground—it was a very intense show. And if you read Kathleen’s book, it was an intense day for her too. We pulled it off and it was just very intense. Jenny:For me, some of the earlier Positive Force things stick more. Events like the Dupont Circle Festival were formative. I was underage; I was too young to get a permit, but somebody older than me went to sign the documents. And we had to do everything ourselves, like building the stage. I took a bunch of bad photos of that Alternatives Festival, and it’s just so interesting to see the range of performers.You had black poets and then Julianna Luecking and then the Morning Glories and with Peter Hayes, and I think Fugazi and the Hated and also my band Geek played. Back then it was easy to do a free outdoor festival. All you had to do was imagine what you wanted, and folks would come together and make it happen. I did something similar at Georgetown. I asked Jeff Nelson to do a poster for it. He silkscreened this very complicated poster because Jeff Nelson has a predilection for very complicated things. He drew all of these people pulling on a rope as one side of a tug-o-war, and he asked Ian MacKaye to do all of the poses so that he could get the musculature right. But if you look at this poster, which I still have, it’s this beautiful multi-color screen print of 4 Ians pulling … like a woman Ian and a black Ian and a long-haired Ian. Kristin:I also liked the stuff that was very routine, like that we were on schedule for, like, spending the night at the Community for Creative Nonviolence to cover for the staff. So you’d show up at midnight and stay till 5. It was a lot of just making sure there wasn’t an emergency, but the constant working with the Emmaus Services for the Aging to help. A lot of just community service stuff and you felt good helping. Jenny: It’s a natural tendency for people to be creative and help one another. It’s so strange right now because the media and misinformation are constantly cultivating our distrust of everyone. But even so, over and over again, when there’s a crisis like a hurricane or a flood, the first thing that people want to do is to help each other. And I wonder why it’s hard for us to remember that outside of crisis.
CF: Let’s talk about Simple Machines. What were some of the challenges, proudest moments or biggest achievements? Funny stories? Jenny: Every element of it was fun, even the end. The gift Kristin gave me, though it initially felt like a punch in the stomach, was when she said, “If we keep working this way, I’m probably not going to love it anymore.” She was right, so we decided to end on a high note. There were moments near the end where it felt like a slog. It could be overwhelming at times … mostly I’m proud of everything. I’m proud of the weird cassette series that we put out. I’m super proud of the music that we put out … I mean, we put out Scrawl records! Come on, how lucky is that? All the events like Lotsa Pop Losers, Working Holiday, or the final Kick The Bucket funeral show. I particularly loved just putting together thousands and thousands of seven-inches and sending them out. Kristin: Working Holidays fest had the kissing booth too. Jenny: Kristin, you’re forgetting, though, it wasn’t a kissing booth, it was a confessional. Kristin: I stand corrected. Jenny:Different band members held court on one side while audience members sat on the other side and confessed punk rock sins. We’d announce from the stage, “Richard from Versus will be in the confessional between Eggs and the Coctails’ sets.” Kristin:During Working Holiday, we had a ghost postage situation. Franklin Bruno wrote a song about it. Because we were sending out so many 7-inches routinely, like every other month, here goes 800 packages, we had this standard Pitney Bowes you’d rent and you have to get it refilled at the post office. This is old school, people. You pay some money and they’d reset the numbers on the dial so you had X number of hundreds of dollars of postage. Well, the lady at the post office who we probably saw every other day by accident gave us not $500 but $5000 of postage just by clicking the wrong dials. We realized the error when we got it home, but we didn’t say anything so we used the postage for like 8 months. At the very end when we had no dollars left and we had to take the machine back in. Jenny: We shouldn’t have done that. We should have just said it was lost. Kristin: But we went back and it was the same postal clerk who in a panic realized that there had been an error. And I don’t know if she recognized in her handwriting or whatever, but she was like, no, you owe us $4500 and there was no getting around it. We owed them $4500, which we paid and I can’t remember how. Jenny: Jim Spellman loaned us the money. “Moneybags Spellman.” Kristin: Adventures in mail order. Otherwise one of us would have an idea, we would rev each other up like, “well, what if we also had a birthday single?” “oh, wait a minute, how about we do a special stamp?” and then … ideas became like AHH and then we would do it. Jenny: Kristin and I trigger each other’s obsessiveness around this stuff. And it was funny because when we lived in Positive Force house, I’d have to walk through her bedroom to get to my bedroom, which was a freezing sleeping porch. I’d walk through the upstairs defunct kitchen (which Simple Machines turned into our office) and through her bedroom to get to mine. So if she heard me doing Simple Machines work in the kitchen, she’d get out of bed and come out and work, too. And if I heard her going into the kitchen to work, I’d get out of bed and work. So it was this very unhealthy but productive relationship. CF: Very strong work ethic. (We talk about music categories and getting lumped in with certain artists and how indie rock is kind of a pointless term that doesn’t say anything). Discuss. Kristin: Indie rock isn’t really the sound. It’s more like the hierarchical status of the band, like they’re not signed to a big label, they’re not a pop star, all those things. So it seemed like an easy way to say like, well, they exist in this layer, even if it’s like everything from the Tinklers to Tar. There was a giant swath of bands that were on decent sized indie labels that played guitars. It’s a catch-all that doesn’t really describe the music. Jenny: We talked a lot about this on Tom Mullen’s “Washed Up Emo” podcast. For people who believe in emo—and who am I to deny that emo exists?—there have been layers, generations, and waves of music on which people have written dissertations. But being someone who was in the town watching the punk rockers before there was that terminology, it seemed like a strange joke, right? It will always seem revisionist as opposed to factually accurate. Though, of course, it is both. It’s the same thing with riot grrrl. When people put a name on a genre … tying a band to a specific type of music … I don’t mind if it’s helpful for people to encourage them to try it out … but when this happens, it’s usually because somebody is on a deadline. It’s a bit of a shortcut. Kristin: These days it’s almost like a drop-down menu of particular genres and like a UX on something being uploaded. CF: A lot of the stuff that we all cared about back then—integrity, creative control, feminism—still matters because it’s ingrained in our DNA, but feels like a luxury at a time when it’s so hard for bands to make any money. How have things changed for you? Both of you have proper jobs so it’s not like you have to take time off from bartending or whatever to go on tour. What were some of the challenges that came along the way? Jenny: One of the reasons Kristin raised the concern about whether we should continue the record label was because it got to a point where we couldn’t do anything well. We couldn’t work an interesting day job because we had to take chunks of time off to tour. We couldn’t tour enough to cover all our expenses because we had to be home to get the records out. We found ourselves in an impossible scenario. Some labels solved that problem by getting a financial partner, selling the label, or bringing someone in. The things taking up a lot of time at that point were press and promotion, which had little to do with why we wanted to put the records out in the first place. Sometimes people tell us, “It’s so cool that you didn’t sell out.” But let me tell you, there weren’t a lot of buyers. And of the people who took deals, there weren’t many great successes. I may have felt a twinge of jealousy when a band got a lot of attention, but anytime you got close to these major label people, you could see these relationships were pretty transactional. Even when I was on 4AD, the folks were nice but they’d always talk about music that “was going to happen” or music that was “over”. Everything was rated in this flat commercial binary. In the year that I got a salary from 4AD and didn’t have to work a job, the whole process killed the joy of writing music. Kristin: I wanted to insert something in the record so we don’t forget it later because we’re sort of in this category. While we were busy on tour with Tsunami—especially as we did fewer sort of elaborate projects involving many bands like a Working Holiday series or the Machine series, and it was like we’re helping the Raymond Brake or Scrawl or Franklin Bruno with the actual record—that was when it became more challenging for Tsunami to also put out records and go on tour because we had responsibilities. Pat Graham ran our mail order, Mickey Menard ran our distribution, and did tons of bookkeeping. So, when we were on tour, they were often there keeping everything going.I also think we should mention that I was not around at the beginning of Simple Machines; it was Derek and Brad who started it with Jenny. Because we’re talking about this moment where we were like, I’m not sure this can work anymore because how can you balance out all these responsibilities and do it well? Because both of us are very driven to do things as well as we can and not to blow stuff off. So there were a lot of things piling up that we were responsible for, and we had to make our decision with the label. We were trying to be responsible for the bands that were around us to make sure everybody was whole. Jenny: It was also a good time to take stock. Some of the SMR bands were getting major label interest and were beginning to leave, and we wondered, “are we going to replace these bands with other bands? Are we doing this to be a label, or are we doing this to help our friends?” And at a certain point, we realized we were ready for that next challenge. I was excited about doing the solo music—Liqorice and the Jenny Toomey stuff—and starting afresh and being in a band without carrying around all the other stuff. So, there were things we were giving up, but there was other great stuff we were getting. Kristin was getting to live in the same city with her husband Bryan, and to start that life, I was getting to move out of the group houses and work on new music.
CF: The DIY spirit, support and camaraderie were some of the great things that came out of D.C. and Arlington and the East Coast scene. Kristin: Yep. It was nice to go on tour and meet bands or pass through scenes who had similar cohesiveness to them. There was obviously a lot of stuff going on in Olympia, WA, but there were things going on in Portland and there were things going on in Chapel Hill. It was very fun to go even brush past some of those other scenes and see what their lives were like or play shows or whatever it is. Jenny: And that gets to a question you were asking before about genre. We came out of punk … earnest but also silly. The label started a year before the Geek tour with Superchunk and Seaweed. So, in the beginning, there were DIY and indie labels, and then there was this punk rock/young rock kind of thing. But we really came into ourselves when we met bands like Versus, Small Factory, Velocity Girl and, of course, Unrest. That was the beating heart moment of what we were doing with Simple Machines. CF: Did Tsunami have any preshow/postshow rituals? Special elixirs, backstage snacks? Jenny: When we toured Europe, we had a rider that was a little bigger. John Pamer put Dr. Pepper on it, which we got maybe three times. We asked for postcards and stamps, which we would get every once in a while. Kristin: Who was it who had tube socks and batteries? Jenny: That was the Butthole Surfers. They would come into the venue and refuse to load in. They’d say, “Where’s the tube socks?” And they would peel their socks off, leave them on the floor, and put the new socks on. Kristin: We didn’t have any preshow rituals. Not really, no. We were like, “there’s 75 people here, let’s stand in the front row really closely”. It became kind of a habit where if you’re not playing, you’re in the front row to support the other band.
A look inside the beautiful booklet that comes with the new Tsunami box
CF: Did Tsunami have any stagewear rules? Were shorts allowed? Jenny: There were a lot of shorts. I remember the Nation of Ulysses was against shorts, but Tsunami shorted it up! CF: You know it! Velocity Girl too. Kristin:She always had great outfits and still does. Jenny, you had a pair of those classic D.C. shoes, like the canvasy ones that had the ridgy sole and if you stepped on your Rat pedal, it would get stuck in the ridge. We would swap shoes sometimes. So I would wear your shoes and you would wear mine. Jenny: We wore lots of thrift because we love thrift shopping. I loved 40s dresses … I dreamed in gabardine and rayon. Unfortunately, I can’t get into any of them anymore. Kristin: There was that amazing thrift store in Minneapolis. What’s it called? Deadstock. Ragstock. But there were times where we would thrift in the afternoon and so we would sell the merch, put the thrift stuff in the merch box and ship it home or just bring it home with us. And we come home, we’re like, there’ll be like a merch box full of thrifted things. Jenny: I remember on that first Beat Happening tour in Waukesha, WI, Pat Graham took us to an enormous thrift store, and there was a girl in front of me in the aisle who had like an armful of fabulous dresses, and I was like, “Shit, we were 10 minutes too late!” But then, even though I was following her, I got an armful myself. It was so rich back then, and those stores were a very strong argument for the Midwest to exist.
CF: So what about your songwriting process? How did that evolve over time? Jenny: Our first set of songs were in-jokes, funny, and fast. Bricks inspired us; they wrote their songs in 15 minutes, which is great. Kristin had never played guitar, I had banged a guitar with a stick in Geek, and Andrew had never played bass. We had a lot to learn. As we developed, the music began to reflect what we were experiencing: sexism in the scene and how mean people are to each other, crushes, workload and the press. The last record critiques how everything’s going, the vultures circling the independent music scene, and the gatekeepers and the people making less interesting choices, normalizing a kind of powerlessness that didn’t seem like what inspired us. We write our songs individually. We’re not a jamming band. And then we just work out stuff together in practice. It was really, really fun when we played at John’s parents’ house. We could play a couple of times a week, and because our brains were young and agile, we could learn things fast. Also, we were touring all the time; we’d get notions of new songs in the van, practice at soundcheck and then unleash them on the world. Kristin: The lyrics have stood the test of time and I don’t know if it was just coming out of your journals or if you wrote, wrote, wrote, edit, wrote, wrote. Did they come fully formed or were they heavily edited? Jenny: A few songs come fully formed. Most come as a feeling and shards of an idea that require a lot of sanding and reorganizing. I had a really difficult time remembering what was happening where, with whom and when. During Simple Machines, I was writing in my journals all the time, but looking back it was all crushes or bitching about something and clumps of confusing lyrics. Slogging through those volumes 30 years later feels like translating from a forgotten language. And it’s funny because I had breakfast with Ian recently, and we talked about all his archiving work. He figured out how to avoid ending up with useless journals like mine at an earlier age. He said he had a journal on his first tour of the West Coast. He saw all these punk shows. Instead of documenting them, he just wrote about how he missed Cynthia and how sad he was. And then, when he got home, he was like, “This is useless. I have to be more disciplined in my journal. What did we do? Who did we play with? What was the venue? What were the dates?” My journals have none of that which is incredibly frustrating, but I’m glad to have them because I still have access to the emotions, however gauzy and I can see how many different projects were happening simultaneously. So there are Tsunami lyrics next to Grenadine lyrics next to Liqorice lyrics, next to tour dates and production ideas and my Kinko’s work schedule, and it was all happening at the same time.
Black Cat Anniversary Show 2023: Jenny Toomey, Jim Spellman, Kristin Thomson
CF: Tell us about your friendship and how it’s evolved over the past decades and how what you’ve learned from each other? Kristin: We’re like the Wonder Twins. Once we activate, we have a lot of additive power because we are both good at different things but they complement each other. I really like logistics and spreadsheets and being organized and all that stuff. I think we’ve been lifelong friends because we not only have shared values, but also have a way we can work together to make something even bigger than ourselves than the two of us. Or even bigger than the group that we bring together to help us do something else. I’ve learned so much from being your friend. I’m always learning every day, there’s something new. Jenny: I feel the same way. Kristin is such a special person. She’s just incredibly open and generous. She shows up with no guile or angle. She’s enthusiastic and game for anything. That’s 100% true. How hard is it to be best friends with someone who’s that great? More importantly she always does what she says she’s going to do. We both have a lot of that in us, which makes it possible to imagine and execute crazy ideas because we will try to do it together. We have so much history, a shorthand and a shared sense of humor. We fill in each other’s memories about what happened. Numero asked us to do this a couple of years ago or floated the idea, and I don’t know if we knew we wanted to do it yet. We were sort of confused. It all seemed kind of strange and maybe too good to be true. Now that we’re in the middle of the work, it’s been a joy to dig through suitcases with Kristin. Kristin:In addition to the box set, Numero said, OK, we’re doing this big show last February (Numero 20) and got invited to play and we were kind of a last minute addition, it was maybe November, December, so we didn’t have a ton of time. A handful of Tsunami songs are quite simple to resurrect but as we got farther into the catalog it got harder and harder, only because we hadn’t practiced them in 25 years. I listened back to all the records in order and I was like, wow, these lyrics are good! It’s just something I hadn’t thought about in a long time. It was exciting to think about them again and re-remember all the lyrics and how dynamic and fun they are to play. Jenny: We had this thing we started doing where a bunch of the Tsunami crew were part of my wedding band. Ida was our wedding band. They learned about 35 songs, and many friends did guest spots. At our 10th wedding anniversary, Brian suggested getting the wedding band back together again to hang out. We rented this massive rocketship of a house in Rhinebeck, NY. It was so much fun. We had a karaoke machine in the living room so we could sing and play games. It was so awesome that we have gotten together every year afterward and it reconnected us all together. So we had a bit of a glide path when Numero asked us because we were already back in each other’s orbits. And then it was so much fun, like when we were practicing. I remember John Pamer said, “I just had this strange feeling like I’m 19 years old.” Playing old music does bring back the emotions, though we’ve had to do a lot of work to hit the notes again.
CF: What about sexism and hecklers? Were there any bad soundman stories or like or uncomfortable encounters on tour, weird celebrity meetings? Did you meet Perry Farrell? Jenny: We had a lot of all of that. Kristin: I felt like it wasn’t so bad. It was fairly easy to have a clever retort or avoid it if necessarily. Jenny, there was one time we played in Oberlin and you told the soundman “no reverb” and he kept adding reverb just to taunt you. Jenny: I don’t remember that kind of stuff. With the heckling, the audience wants you to win. So, it’s pretty easy to turn it around, and I can be the mean one if necessary. I’m the yang to Kristin’s yin. All that stuff washes away, though. When you are younger, it feels like everything is a nerve, a pressure cooker. You don’t yet have the wisdom you get when you’re older, where you realize that none of that stuff is all that important anymore. CF: Was that one of the most inappropriate venues for you to play? Or can you think of a place that was more inappropriate? Kristin: I was thinking about this, this was so early. We played in Gainesville, Florida, in a bar that was basically like a shot and beer bar in college town Gainesville. I was like, this doesn’t seem fun at all! It was super-early in Tsunami so we played. The crowd didn’t care—they were riding a mechanical bull next to us. It didn’t matter. Jenny: Yeah, and there’s that time we played at Notre Dame. There were three people in the audience. There was a dartboard on a wall to the right of the stage, and people were playing darts in front of us during our set.
Sinterklaas 2019. Back row: Bree Benton, Unicorn Brian Hartman, Franklin Bruno, Kevin Cordt, Kerrilynn Pamer, Derek Denckla, Bryan Dilworth, John Pamer. Front row: Amy Domingues, Stefan Bauschmid, Jenny Toomey, Kristin Thomson
CF: Those (Ivy League) eating clubs used to really pay the bills, though, didn’t they? Like Princeton’s Terrace Club. Jenny: Oh yeah, the Princeton Terrace shows were awesome. We’re so lucky that my old bandmate from Liquorice, Trey Many, is booking this tour that we’re doing with Ida in the spring. When we were discussing where we should play, I asked if he could throw some of those university shows in. He gently explained that students these days might want young people to play. They don’t want a 56-year-old set of indie-twins performing. As for the inappropriate venues, we were often protected because of how we were in the world. We killed people with kindness or weren’t famous enough to attract the “just coming to fuck shit up” kind of people. But I remember in the ’90s. It wasn’t too difficult to find those assholes if you strayed into the “normisphere”. I remember going for a beer at that odd enormous brewery Bardo Rodeo in Arlington. A group of frat guys did something rude to me, and I called them out. In response, they immediately circled my boyfriend at the time and were screaming, “Do you wanna go?!” He’s like, “I don’t need to go. You didn’t do anything to me, but I’d be worried … because she’s mad at you. I wouldn’t want to be in a fight with her.” So he was cool and wouldn’t take their bait. But then they physically tried to push us outside. They were picking an actual fight! In retrospect, we were often protected from so much shit just by being in counterculture. It’s not like it was perfect, but if I had gone to a fraternity party once, I bet I would have experienced far worse than I ever experienced in punk rock. CF
Earlier this autumn, the Bay Area pop group Chime School flew over the ocean for a tour of the United Kingdom and France and they documented it all for chickfactor and you can read it here.
Bandleader Andy Pastalaniec writes: From the moment “Chime School” transformed from a bedroom-pop solo project to a debut LP on Slumberland Records with a fully formed backing band, it’s been a goal of mine to take the project across the pond to the land where so much of its “formative jangle” originated.
The opportunity arrives on New Year’s Day, 2024, when we’re invited to play the Paris Popfest in September. My sophomore album, “The Boy Who Ran The Paisley Hotel” is slated for release in August on Slumberland. Paris Popfest is exactly the anchor we need to build a tour around.
I’ve always done pretty good booking DIY tours, but I have no idea how to book a tour in the UK. Luckily, I don’t have to, as I’ve convinced Reuben Miles-Tyghe, of UK tour agency Outsider Artists, to add us to his roster. OA have been leading a sort of reverse “British Invasion” of California indie groups to the UK and Europe, booking tours for many of the contemporary indie cognoscenti: Cindy, The Umbrellas, The Reds, Pinks & Purples, Kelley Stoltz, and others. I am a bit nervous that we are not as big as those groups (our second album hasn’t even been announced yet) so this whole thing could flop in a most-embarrassing fashion. But I resolve to do what I can to make it a success.
So, over the next 9 months I’ll spend many hours making videos, posters, flyers and other promo materials for the upcoming album, and what has become an 11-show France/UK tour, beginning September 27 in Paris, and concluding October 7 in the legendary indie pop city of Bristol!
France & UK Tour Poster
Travel Day: September 25-26 – San Francisco to London to Paris
Andy: We have about 20 hours of travel ahead of us, flying first to London, then lugging our bags and instruments from Heathrow on the tube to St Pancras station where we’ll take the Eurostar to Paris. Josh: Our travel day starts off with an important victory: we’re able to convince the people at Virgin Atlantic to let us carry on our guitars, so they can be stored in the cabin for our flight instead of having to be checked (and maybe lost). So this puts us at ease for the journey right away. Andy: Pro-tip, if you’re touring overseas, avoid connecting flights and take your instruments straight to the gate. Play dumb, and be very very polite.
Leaving SFO! Photo by Holly Coley
Andy: We arrive in Paris on September 26 in the evening, exhausted, to a Haussman-era flat overlooking Porte Saint-Denis where Emmanuel and Joanny, our gracious hosts from Paris Popfest, have arranged for us to stay. It’s under construction (which is why it’s available) but it’s unlike anyplace we’ve stayed in Paris, so we’re totally energized as we head to night one of the Popfest.
DIY popfests are one of my favorite events to play and attend. Night one doesn’t disappoint, we’d been looking forward to catching Blue Orchids, and they are great. We are tired but the best way to beat jet lag is to stay out as late as possible, and then sleep as long as possible. We succeed on both.
Paris Balcony
Porte Saint Denis – the view from our balcony
Day 1: Paris Pop Fest w/ Gentle Spring, Les Freluquets, The Orchids
Andy: We have only one full day in Paris (and we sleep through most of it), but three of us have been before. We spend our limited time wandering around some cafes, eating as many pastries, bread, meats and cheeses as we can before it’s time to head to sound check. The fest is at Le Hasard Ludique, a venue built on a decommissioned Metro station with an outdoor terrace on the former train platform, overlooking the former Metro tracks, which have been transformed into a makeshift park. Josh: After our soundcheck, the fest’s official photographer asks us to take some photos outside. It’s the platonic ideal of band photo backdrops (the ne plus ultra, even). You literally could not take a bad looking picture back there. So much so that after the photographer is done, we start taking some of our own, which gets him started again.
Official Paris Popfest portrait by Philippe Dufour
Andy: It’s definitely surreal to be on a bill with indie pop legends the Orchids, and The Gentle Spring, they are both great. The Orchids are incredibly friendly and we really hit it off. Les Freluquets are a more obscure French indie pop group from the 1980s who have reunited for the fest, and they are fantastic as well. Josh: Everyone is great, especially The Orchids. James Hackett’s voice sounds pretty much identical to the records, and the band sounds fantastic. One of the guitars has a “Within Your Reach” level of flange on it for the entire set, which is really working for me. Late in the set they go into “It’s Only Obvious” and the crowd goes as nuts as an indie pop crowd can go, singing along. Andy: Chatting with organizers Emmanuel and Joanny before our set, they ask if we speak any French. We do not. They kind of goad me into giving an introduction in French when we take the stage. Why not? I write out something very simple on a handbill. At least the most stressful part of the tour will be over fast. I approach the mic, “Bonsoir, nous somme Chime School de San Francisco…” applause and cheers of “ouais!” erupt from the crowd as I continue my little speech, and we are off!
My “speech”
Andy: Our set is supercharged by the excitement of finally starting the tour, and the experience of being an “exotic” group to a foreign audience– something our friends in other California bands had told us about. We make a bunch of new friends, sell all the merch we’ve brought (the rest is waiting for us in the UK) and think, if the rest of the shows are even half as fun as this, we are going to have a great tour.
Live at Paris Popfest – they love the dramatic lighting!
Day 2 – Cambridge, UK at NCI Centre w/ The Lord Mayor’s Horticultural Society, Garden Centre
Andy: We wake up somewhat early in Paris as we have another long travel day back to the UK on the Eurostar, then on the train from London to Cambridge. Josh: Gary, Phil and I are waiting downstairs while Andy goes back up for a final idiot check. It’s starting to rain, Phil goes out a bit into the thoroughfare to smoke. With his all black outfit, watchman’s cap and cigarette, Phil seems to fit right into this Parisian street scene. Just as Gary remarks on this, we watch as someone passing by tries to ask Phil for directions. Andy: Phil definitely looks natural, which makes sense as this is his third or fourth Euro tour. The first he did in his early 20s, in a hardcore band that toured Europe for like a month straight staying in squats and the like. In short he’s a total pro and pretty much goes with the flow the entire time. Josh: As we finally get on the train to Cambridge I start to relax a bit. I look out the window and watch England going by, looking quite a bit just like it does in movies and teevee. The band is in a state of semi-delirious giddiness. I think we’ve skipped right to being on “tour-time,” where you can’t really tell what time of day or even what day it is, you just keep moving. We arrive in Cambridge and start looking around for the tour van. We catch sight of a tall and burly dude with a wiry mane of sandy blond hair, wearing a sleeveless cutoff denim jacket over a flannel shirt. That’s our guy, Charlie Fitzgerald, aka “Fitz.” He’s recently driven our friends The Reds, Pinks & Purples, and Kelley Stoltz on their UK tours, and we’ve heard nothing but good things. Fitz leads us to his van, a large Euro-style conversion. In the back there’s four seats arranged around a wooden table, behind which is a loft with a mattress. Below the loft, a secure gear-hold. This will be our second home for the next 10 days.
With Fitz and his vanJosh and Gary – Sleeping loft!Our home for ten days!
Andy: The first UK show is at NCI Centre in Cambridge, a historic neighborhood social club/pub that is occasionally transformed into a DIY music space. Setting up on the stage in the back of the well-lit social hall, I’m reminded of famous photos I’ve seen of Shop Assistants, and other legendary indie groups who played similar places in the 1980s. We’re set to play two shows with Garden Centre, one of the many groups with shared members from the prolific London-based “Gob Nation” scene (The Tubs, Ex-Void, Suep, others). I read a profile about them in the Guardian that made me feel a bit intimidated, like they might beat us up and steal our lunch money. Then a small car pulls up to the venue and the band tumble out and introduce themselves. They’re all very nice and honestly, hanging with them we feel totally at home like any DIY show we’d play in SF or Oakland. Josh: You may have never guessed they all knew each other, it’s only when you notice their interactions have the quality of an endless comedy sketch built on a deep foundation of inside jokes and running bits that this was, in fact, a band. I had done no research whatsoever into any of the bands we’d be playing with, preferring to experience them fresh at the shows. Andy had told me some things about Garden Centre – Owen from The Tubs plays guitar; they’re affiliated with a scene called “Gob Nation,” which sounds not unlike our corner of the current SF music scene, which Gary describes as “13 people playing in 35 bands.” Being in around five bands myself, I’m in no position to argue. Andy: Opening the show are The Lord Mayor’s Horticultural Society, a gentle acoustic duo composed of a classical guitarist/vocalist and cello player. Their set is beautiful and I can imagine our friends back home loving it. I’m not sure what to expect from Garden Centre live. Their records are abstract and eccentric, mostly featuring Max, the lead songwriter. They set up and start playing and the live group is a fully formed powerhouse. Seriously one of the best groups any of us had seen in years! Josh: Their mix of folkish melodies and anthemic indie pop knocked me out right away. Max has a unique voice and uses it to great effect – with great pitch and a convincingly forceful delivery. Great songwriter too, with the kind of lyrics that seamlessly transmute everyday humdrum into high drama. The band is fantastic – a perfect combination of disparate musical personalities and charming stage presence. The between-song banter is a continuation of their off-stage humor. Midway through the set Max starts a bit about how he’s against Horticultural Societies, and he particularly doesn’t like the Lord-Mayor either. Then someone from the audience shouts, “I’ll kill you!” Hecklers don’t fuck around in Cambridge! When we hit the stage and Andy gives his standard introduction: “Hi, we’re Chime School from San Francisco” I have to add “Please don’t kill us.” Andy: We apologize for being the only non-plant band on the bill.
Garden Centre at The Victoria in London
Day 3 – London, UK at The Victoria w/ Dignan Porch, Garden Centre
Andy: In the van, Gary starts talking about how we need to get a “Sunday Roast,” this English tradition where you go to the pub on Sunday and get a huge plate of meat, potatoes, gravy, etc. It’s a Sunday as we arrive in London and we have a bit of time, let’s give it a shot. We spend about an hour wandering around Dalston, trying to find one, but we fail, every pub is sold out! I guess it’s really a thing? Instead we head to The Duke of Wellington, a “classic old boozer” where Garden Centre have invited us to have a few pints and watch some footie. Our drummer Phil, is a huge football fan (we refer to him as our “English translator” on tour) so we certainly don’t have to twist his arm. The show is at The Victoria, a cozy bar with a dark, dank venue hidden behind a secret-passage bookshelf door. Josh: It’s adorable. Layout, and size-wise it’s comparable to the legendary SF venue The Hemlock Tavern. I amuse myself for the rest of the evening by privately referring to it as the “Harry Potter Hemlock.” Andy: Opening are Dignan Porch, who are on the Safe Suburban Home label, which we are fans of. They are friendly and their performance mesmerizing. Garden Centre totally rule again, and we are sad that we won’t be playing with them more on the tour. Josh: Garden Centre play basically the same set as the night before, so I’m prepared and perfectly situated to take a video of my favorite song from their set, “Chicken.” I’m fairly certain it was this video – which I posted later in the night – that led directly to a purchase of a Garden Centre album by Kevin Linn aka “Kevin Paisley” of Paisley Shirt Records, back home. Andy: That’s right! Garden Center are totally up Kevin’s alley!
Live at The Victoria in London
Andy: At the show I finally meet Fran Carolyn, music writer and radio show host, a huge supporter of the SF Bay Area groups for the last few years.
Fran and Andy in London
Andy: Also in attendance is Peter Momtchiloff of Heavenly/Talulah Gosh, etc. which makes me really nervous as we play, since his playing was so influential when I was learning to write songs on the guitar. He’s a really nice guy and he digs our set so we’re feeling chuffed. We also meet Beth Arzy who says she loves the painting of the tabby cat on the cover of the new Chime School album. She asks if it’s a portrait of my cat. I tell her it’s not, but that I do have a tabby cat that my partner named Aberdeen!
Day 4 – Nottingham at JT Soar w/ Plum Jr., AHCB
Andy: It’s cold and rainy when we pull into Nottingham. First stop is “Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem,” recommended by Garden Centre as it’s “thee oldest inn in England.” We spend a couple hours there, eat some steak & ale pies and have a few pints. Josh: It’s entirely possible the place is a tourist trap but it’s still pretty damn cool. Built into the side of a rock hillside, the walls in some of the rooms are actually walls of caves within the larger rock. As it rained on into the afternoon some of these walls started sweating and dripping with authentic English damp. Andy: mmm… authentic damp.
Outside the oldest pub in EnglandJosh, Gary and Phil paying homage to everyone’s favorite proto-marxist redistributor of feudal wealth, Robin Hood.
Andy: We split the pub and head to JT Soar, a DIY space that kind of feels like our practice space back home. They throw tons of shows and we see flyers for some friends’ bands on the wall. The rain is pouring, but it doesn’t stop folks from coming out, and it’s a very welcoming crowd. Josh: The space is full when we go on. “We went to the oldest pub in England today” Andy says during a mid-set tuning break. “Which one?” a few people in the crowd shout out. “The one named after a Mekons song,” I add.
Live in Nottingham at JT Soar
Day 5 – York at The Fulford Arms w/ Vehicle, Speedreaders
Andy: We are excited to play York, as it’s home to Safe Suburban Home, a great record label. With our spare time before the show, we head into town and check out The Shambles, a street in the city center that dates back to the medieval period. Someone suggests we try something called a “Yorkie Pud” which is apparently a yorkshire pudding in wrap form. We find the place that sells them, and eventually realize the recommendation may have been sarcastic… but it gives us some fun between-song banter during the show. “Eews” abound as we share what we ate. The show is a great time and Vehicle and Speedreaders are both excellent. Josh: Between sets I meet Jim Quinn, who aside from helping to promote the show was also the proprietor of Safe Suburban Home records, who co-released the recent R.E. Seraphin record that I played on. Nice guy! We talk a bit and I get a pic with him to send to Ray and the boys back home. Andy: Perhaps my favorite part of the show is this teenage kid who dances like crazy during our set. After the show he chats me up at the merch table about how he’s getting into indie pop. He’s got no money to buy merch so I just give him a copy of everything we have.
The Shambles in YorkTrembling Madness Apartments
Day 6 – Manchester at Gulliver’s w/ Autocamper, Severe Girls
Andy: Manchester is one of the shows we’re most looking forward to. We’re playing with Autocamper, one of the more exciting new indie pop groups in the UK (and new SLR labelmates!). I met Jack and Arthur two years ago when seablite and the Umbrellas played Manchester. As we catch up I learn Jack and Arthur met that night as well, and that was the night they started Autocamper!
Autocamper at Gullivers in Manchester
Andy: Autocamper do not disappoint! Jack’s guitar is trebly and noisy, a great counterpart to Niamh’s gentler organ. The show is great and afterwards, they take us to Peer Hat, a low-key bar near the venue that for some reason feels like the English version of the late Cafe Pergolesi in Santa Cruz. Josh: The show is great – in my opinion the best crowd of the tour. It’s also the loudest show of the trip – I like the sound guy a lot but by the end of the night he seems almost comically gacked. Autocamper are great though – cool kids through and through, and fun to hang with. There was a cool couple who stayed upfront and danced like mad throughout the entire show – I can’t tell you how much this helps when you’re well into a tour and your energy is always in danger of flagging.
Chime School at Gullivers in Manchester
Andy: No tour of the UK is complete without a stop at Bernie’s, a Manchester institution. Part of the music scene for decades, she started hosting bands in the basement of her house about 20 years ago. Gary has stayed there a number of times over the years, and I’ve stayed there once before as well. We are lucky, as Outsider Artists have arranged our tour in such a way that we’ll be staying at Bernie’s on three separate occasions, which probably accounts for the excellent health we remain in for most of the tour. Bernie is very politically active, and it’s comforting to get the hell out of the U.S. and talk with some fellow leftists. We have some great chats and even watch a bit of footie one morning.
Hanging your poster on the wall in Bernie’s basement is a rite of passage.Chime School with BernieHad to do it…
Josh: We didn’t make it to Syd Barret’s house in Cambridge, and we couldn’t stop by Mark E. Smith’s house in Prestwich (it’s for sale if anyone’s interested), but we did make it to Salford Lads Club and took the obligatory band picture outside the front door. Gary’s been here and done this before, sharing that they never let people inside and generally seemed suspicious of any interest people had in the place. But it’s been a while since his last visit and things have changed. As we’re milling about, a nice older man pops his head out the door, sweeps us up and takes us to see “The Smiths Room” inside the building. Clearly a pet project of his, it’s covered from floor to ceiling in Smiths and other UK punk and indie memorabilia– and lots of pictures that tourists had taken of themselves out front. Andy: Morrissey is a reprehensible nativist shitheel, but it’s cool the Salford Lads Club is able to sell memorabilia and leverage their Smiths association to fund childrens’ programs. There’s probably a bunch of working class immigrant kids who benefit from them, and I bet that makes Morrissey really mad! So that’s worthy of my support.
Day 7 – Glasgow at Mono w/ The Cords, U.S. Highball
Andy: The typical motorway stop in the UK is ten times better than most of what you’ll find in the US, with actual nutritious food options that are so incredibly crucial when you’re staying up late, getting very little sleep, and drinking more alcohol than you probably should. On the drive from Manchester to Glasgow, Gary insists we stop at Tebay, which he says is one of thee top roadside stops in the country. He’s not joking, the place is full of snacks, beers, and all kinds of fun tchotchkies. None of us are vegetarian or vegan, but throughout the trip we’re kind of obsessed with finding the craziest— err, most “authentic” local fare. Tebay has a massive assortment of Scotch Eggs, a hard-boiled egg deep fried in a sausage and breadcrumb casing. In California parlance, gnarly cuisine. We get a few of them for the van, and some meat pies. I’m glad we have plenty of spicy mustard to go along with them.
Sunny day in Northern England.Making our selections
Andy: We arrive at Mono in Glasgow, load in, and hit up Monorail. Glasgow has always been such a welcoming place every time I’ve visited, Mono especially. We’re all very grateful for the work Monorail puts in to help promote DIY music and culture. It’s nice to catch up with Stephen and Dep at the counter. The show that night is terrific, one of the best of the tour. I’m nervous because there’s some indie pop icons at that show as well. After our set, friend Kenji introduces us to Katrina Mitchell, and I meet Tim Vass from the Razorcuts, who were supremely influential for Chime School.
Live at Mono in Glasgow – photo by Stuart Reidman
Andy: We’ve been hearing so much about The Cords, and they are indeed great fun. I realize I have a Kitchenettes badge on my tote bag from the last time I saw them in SF. Knowing what fans The Cords are of Morgan (Kitchenettes, Umbrellas), I offer it to them and they are stoked!
Andy & The Cords
Andy: It’s also fantastic meeting James and Calvin from U.S. Highball. They play a beautiful set and I really hope we can see them again someday. James is wearing a jumbo Tiger Trap badge, and I ask him about it, he says he just made it up on a button machine he bought, and offers it to me. Pin badge gifts all around! Josh: Like Manchester, Glasgow looms large in the music nerd imagination. So it was extremely gratifying to have such great shows in both places.
U.S. Highball Live at MonoImpromptu selfie with Tim Vass (Razorcuts) and Vanessa Vass (The Melons).
Day 8 – Halifax at The Grayston Unity
Andy: Halifax is the last of the smaller towns we’re playing on this tour. It’s nestled in a valley, along a river, cold and green, with a bit of a Pacific Northwest feel to it. Marc Dobson, who runs Prefect Records (and was also in the Field Mice and Northern Picture Library) says he’ll be coming out for the show. He doesn’t live in Halifax. I thought we might see him in Manchester, but he says “I’m saving my support for when you really need it.” We might need it tonight. The Grayston Unity is a small venue located in a dank basement beneath a bar. We have no idea what to expect, maybe this will be one of those shows that’s more like band practice? Josh: The owner of the bar and venue is super friendly and seems genuinely excited to be hosting bands – which is not as common as you’d hope. He’s been holding it down in Halifax for years, his claim to fame having brought Pulp there in the 90s, with several posters to prove it! Andy: We wander a bit before the show, eat some pizza with Marc and his daughter and head back to the venue to find the opener is already playing, and the show is packed! Where did all the indie pop fans in Halifax come from? It’s about time for our set to start. I walk backstage to find Gary and Phil sipping from a giant bottle of Buckfast ….uh oh! Everyone in Glasgow warned us not to drink Buckfast, a fortified wine supercharged with caffeine, so obviously Phil bought a huge bottle. We all take a big swig before we hit the stage. After a song or two, I start feeling super loose and chilled out, yet totally energized! This stuff is great! It becomes a bit of a pre-show ritual for the remainder of the tour. Everything in moderation, I guess. Halifax is a great town, and a sleeper candidate for funnest show of the tour.
Phil with the Bucky.Andy outside the Piece Hall in Halifax
Day 9 – Liverpool at The District w/ Yee Loi, Irene & The Disappointments
Andy: Our time in Liverpool is somewhat limited, but number one on Phil’s list is finding somewhere to watch the Everton F.C. match. Phil is a huge Everton fan. I don’t know anything about football, but everyone we meet seems bewildered that an American has even heard of Everton, let alone is a supporter. We had hopes of catching the match in person, but time won’t allow it. The venue is located near the Mersey river in a former industrial area. There’s a kind of outdoor market, beer garden sort of place nearby, where we can take some goofy pictures at a Beatle-bar, and find a place to watch the match and eat.
Peace and Love, No Autographs…
Andy: The District is one of the larger venues we’re playing on the tour, and the sound is really good. I think it’s one of our best sets of the tour. It’s good to catch up with Ade Burke who runs Carnival Brewing, a local brewery who have been making signature brews for Glas Goes Pop fest for the last few years, and also booked a seablite/Umbrellas show at the brewery back in 2022.
Andy and Ade from Carnival Brewing, after the show, in the club lighting.
Andy: We also meet Ann Nazario, who does a podcast called “Ask a Drummer” (which is great, as drummers tend to be so underappreciated). She says she recently interviewed Keith from The Umbrellas and asks if I could introduce her to Phil. When I tell her there happen to be three drummers in Chime School, she lights up and we hatch a plan to do an interview with all three, so look out for that in the future.
Day 10 – Coventry at Just Dropped in Records w/ Lande Hekt
Andy: We’re thrilled to cap off the tour playing two shows with Lande Hekt and her band, and that the first show happens to be at a record shop. For the most part, we’ve been moderating our record buying for fear of spending too much money and having to lug a bunch of records around, with the exception of Josh, who we regularly lose for hours at a time to whatever record shops might be in walking distance. Josh: It’s certainly true, but I’m pretty certain I spend less money than the rest of the group, since I mainly live in the bargain bins these days – after all what’s the fun of paying today’s prices for a record you already know is going to be good, when you can buy a small stack of weird looking records you’ve never seen before for the same price? Andy: Fair point, but now that we’re close to the end, we all indulge. The folks at the shop warn us that The Umbrellas recently tore through and cleaned them out, so of course now I’m feeling competitive! We look through just about everything and find lots of really great records. I snag a bunch of Sarah, Creation, and Factory stuff, and lots more. They give us a nice “artist discount” as well, so we’re all very happy. Lande’s band is even better live than on record and they’re all lovely people, we have a great chat about the Bristol and UK DIY scene and comparisons with the US.
Lande Hekt having a laugh during soundcheck.
Andy: Our set is super fun and there’s a great crowd. I really can’t say enough about Just Dropped In and the people there. Super kind, fostering a wonderful DIY music space and also running a top-notch record shop. We are super grateful to play here and hope to come back! Josh: After the show, Joe, the promoter who runs Sink or Swim Promotions, takes us around the corner and treats us to an incredible Indian feast. I had been wanting to get some Indian food for the entire trip. Lande Hekt told us the Midlands was the best region in England for Indian food, and I don’t doubt it. Andy: It’s more of a Northern Indian style of cuisine, and the first time any of us try Parotta bread, which is very different than Naan you typically find in the states. Incredible stuff.
With the crew at Just Dropped In…
Day 11 – Bristol at The Cube Microplex w/ Lande Hekt, Silk Cuts
Andy: It’s hard to believe we’ve reached the last day of the tour. I’m super excited to visit Bristol, home of the Subway Organization and of course Sarah Records. Our route has us crossing the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and even though it’s pouring rain, I insist we pull off the road and have a look. Whether you’re a Sarah nerd or not, the view from the Clifton Observatory is breathtaking.
Rain at the Clifton Observatory.Clifton Suspension Bridge
Andy: I’m hoping to check out Temple Meads Station, but it’s clear across town, and I’m told it’s also under renovation; the whole thing covered in scaffolding. We’ll have to skip it. I suppose public spending on transit infrastructure is a fitting reason to miss a Sarah Records landmark. The Cube Microplex is a DIY venue in an old movie theater. Lande and the group were telling us about it in Coventry and we’re all really excited, as it sounds like the Bristol version of the 4-Star Theater back home.
Phil at soundcheck in an empty Cube.
Andy: At this point we all admit to being a bit tired. I’ve done a couple long-ish tours as a drummer, but I’ve never fronted a band playing hour-long sets every night for eleven straight days. It’s a lot of singing! I’m not sure how my voice still works, but I think I’ve got one more show in me.
Silk Cuts and Lande Hekt are both fantastic. Reuben from Outsider Artists (our booking agent), lives near Bristol so he’s come out to the show. It’s great to finally meet him in person, after we both put so much work into the tour. Of course there’s a part of me that thinks “oh shit, I hope he likes the live group.”
Lande Hekt at The Cube – photo by Wendy @Stardream_GirlLive at The Cube in Bristol – photo by Wendy @Stardream_Girl
Andy: Backstage, Phil, Gary, Josh and I pass the bottle of Buckfast around and toast to one final show. I start to get a bit nervous as we begin our set; the venue is nearly full, everyone is politely seated far from us, and the stage is extremely well lit with no dark or dramatic lighting to hide behind. Josh: It’s always psychologically tricky to play high-energy music to a seated audience, But it’s also nice to look out at a full house, seated or not! Andy: After our third or fourth song a San Francisco sports heckler makes himself known, trying to ask us about the 49ers or something, but giving us some fun barbs to exchange and break the ice a bit. Our Bristol set goes off without a hitch, and the tour is done! We’ve done so well on this tour that we basically have nothing left to sell, which is a major relief, as hauling a box of merch home always feels like a sign of defeat. We exchange hugs with Fitz and Reuben, and go our separate ways. Noah from Lande’s band kindly hosts us for our last night in the UK. Walking to his flat from the venue, with all of our luggage and instruments, the sky completely opens up, and we get completely drenched. All of our stuff is totally soaked mere hours before a long travel day. We kind of can’t help but laugh but hey it’s ok, things dry really fast in England, right??
Backstage at The Cube
Andy: After another 20-hour travel day on a bus from Bristol to London and a flight back to San Francisco we’re finally home.
Thanks so much to everyone who made our first UK tour so memorable: the promoters, bands, venues, all the people who came to see us and walked away with a T-shirt or record, especially the folks who saw us on more than one occasion! We hope to visit you all again someday!
WUT is fun! We asked the Vancouver, BC riot-twee band WUT, which features members of Knife Pleats, Tough Age, Jock Tears, to document their recent West Coast tour, and we think you’ll agree that reading it makes us want to form a band and go on tour! Listen to their latest album, Mingling with the Thorns, here. Photographs courtesy of WUT
WUT are:
Tracey Vath: bass, vocals, and additional guitar
Kaity McWhinney: guitar and vocals
Lauren Smith: drums and vocals
All 3 members have arrived in the USA for our first show at the Vera Project
Day 1 Seattle, WA – Vera Project The Nags, Sleeping Bag
Tracey: Whenever I travel from Canada into the states, I always get the border crossing jitters. Even if I am just going across to get a soda and a hotdog. So I wore my fancy border crossing dress and packed two lucky charms away in my backpack. But, a few short hours later, we were eating ice cream sundaes in front of an American flag the size of 17 football fields. Our show was at the Vera Project, which is a superb all ages venue right below the space needle. They run programs that teach folk how to do stage sound and recording. Before we played, we met a really sweet person named Meredith, who was at the show with their dad and they told us all their favorite songs from our two albums! Seattle locals Sleeping Bag were completely our bag, and we were jazzed to play with The Nags, also from seattle. After the show, we stayed with our friend Freddie Lee Toyoda in their rock n roll hall of fame basement. I fell asleep with visions of Frank Zappa and little Debbie treats dancing around in my head.
Tracey basks in all the little debbie products that our host, Freddie Lee Toyota, has provided for us during our stay
Lauren: We made it to America! First stop was feeding my cute band with dumplings dunked in black vinegar in Seattle’s Chinatown near the train station where my Amtrak Bus pulled into. I saw a lady eating a feast of hard boiled eggs while sitting on the exit stairs towards the street and seeing her growing tower of egg shells was getting me really hungry now. There was not a chance we were going to make soundcheck tonight! My google maps promised me that the Dough Zone was dumpling destination numero uno so I made my way there and picked up as many steamy dumplings as I could carry to the Vera Project to surprise Kaity and Tracey with who were already at the venue waiting for me. The show was “lightly attended” but there were sweet folks there. The drummer from the last band said the way I hit the crash cymbal was just like Marky Ramone, filling me with a lot of optimism for what was ahead of us. After the show, we made our way to Lake City where our sweet friend Freddie and their partner, Keegan call their home. Their cute house stood out amongst their neighbors with protest signs taped firmly into their windows. You can’t be neutral on a moving train, right? To not take a stand is to collaborate. Freddie never takes a seat and we love them for it. We left Lake city with three boxes of covid tests, a bass guitar for Tracey, an axe for Kaity, pockets full of twinkies and hearts full!
Our merch setup, including Tracey’s drawing to replace the actual records which we did not have in time
Day 2 Portland, OR- Mississippi Records Layperson, Lowland Painter
Lauren: We were warned that traffic going south on the I5 was gonna get nutty between Seattle and Portland and our comrades were right! It was a crawl past Tacoma and we decided to take it easy on ourselves and stop to fill our water bottles up with that fine artesian well water on the streets of Olympia-a-a-a! They say if you drink from the well in Olympia, you’ll come back to the city, and given WUT’s total adoration for Thurston County and specifically Olympia I’d say we’re hooked! More to come on our Oly show later…. We made it to Portland nicely hydrated with about an hour to spare, parked our van outside of Mississippi records and had time for a beer in the park before sound check got underway. The portland local rockers were so quick to jump in and help us untangle wires, and get the knobs turnt out in all the right ways, we were feeling so safe and taken care of! We decided to hit the road after the show and get some miles down as the next days drive was one of the biggest!
Tracey signing Scott’s door of musicians that have stayed with him (it’s a LOT)
Tracey: In Portland, the legendary cowboy rockers, Cruise Control, helped us out with our gig at Mississippi records – even going as far as helping me turn my bass pegs while I painfully tried to tune using an unfamiliar (to me) tuner. Sometimes I need all the help I can get. Since our records were late from the printing press, I drew up a picture of what the album looks like, and we put that on the merch table, along with our stickers and baseball cards. We could still sell the album, but we just had to take people’s names and addresses so our label could mail them (thanks again, HHBTM, we love you!) After popping some beta blockers, a magical pill essential to calming the nervous shaky feelings, we were good to play our set with Layperson and Lowland Painter- all class acts.
Scott, Lauren and Kaity stand in front of his house, which is surrounded by a fortress of sunflowers, ready to say goodbye and head out
Day 3 Boise, ID – Shrine Social Club Papas, French Tips, Color Green
Tracey: Our friend Amanda from Apollo Ghosts recommended that we check out Pendleton, Oregon, on our way to Boise, Idaho. So we stopped off in the “old west” themed city with strange brass animal sculptures on every corner. The three of us went separate ways to find toilets, stamps, water, solitude, etc, but we all ended up at the same thrift store on the end of the street. Most of the store was on sale for $1, so Lauren and I tried on a bunch of stuff- her in the change room and me just outside of the changeroom. I think being on the road for 3 days had already given me a no shame attitude about things like changing (and peeing) in public. The two of us walked away with pretty much a whole new tour wardrobe. Back on the road, we got an insta message from a random person named Scott asking if we wanted to stay at his house after the show that night. We asked if he was going to the show, and he said no. At first we thought it was a bit strange, but after looking at his IG profile, we got the impression that he housed a lot of bands, so we said yes. We arrived at the Shrine Social Club close to door time, where we met Papas and the French Tips, the two Boise bands that we were playing with. Papas are super silly and down-to-earth people who keep track of time by 4/20’s (“it was a few months before last 4/20”..), and the French Tips are so sweet and generous (not to mention total shredders). Big props to the person who kept asking me to flex and kiss my muscles. I really don’t know why that was happening, it was too loud for me to hear what she was saying, but I was stoked on it regardless. Afterwards, I found that she had bought our album and wrote us a note that said “I ❤️ you – always come back. Keep your chins up xoxoxo”. Scott from IG showed up at the end of the show, and our anxieties eased as everyone seemed to know him. He gave us directions to his house, declining our invitation to join us for Mexican food because he “doesn’t do restaurants”. Scott ended up being a total gem. Not only does he not do restaurants- he also doesn’t buy anything, at all. A true dumpster diver, sunflower sower, and great host. We added our signature to his door full of tags from the hundreds of bands he has housed over the last decade.
Lauren: Without fail we forgot about the time change between Portland and Boise adding one more hour to our already huge travel day. We did a good job of balancing “making good time” and “making good memories,” stopping in Pendleton to do some epic thrifting and to Safeway to pick up some fresh foods. We arrived at the Shrine Club with like 10 minutes to spare before sound check and man oh man was this venue COOL! We played in the basement with the coolest local bands, Papas and French Tips. Loved meeting these guys, we traded merch after our sets from behind the merch table and I left Boise with a Papas stickers and pins on like all of my belongings. There is a super special community of weirdos and rockers in Boise and we left feeling like we gotta get back! I hope we apply for Treefort Fest next spring! We made our way to Caldwell Idaho after the show to stay at Scotts rocker mansion where we met his brilliant goats. I got my picture taken feeding the mama goat a baby marijuana plant which I sent back home to my mom on Vancouver Island, who was quite impressed!
Making our way to Salt Lake City
Day 4 Salt Lake City, UT- Old Cuss Café Gonk, Strog, Chalk
Tracey: In Salt Lake City, Utah, we played at a cute cafe/vintage shop called Old Cuss. All the bands that night had weird one syllable names- WUT, gonk, Chalk, and Strog. As soon as we arrived at the venue, a new friend gave me a copy of a Brendan Fraser zine to read, and I spent the next half hour lost in memories of The Mummy and George of the Jungle until we realized that the show had started and we had missed most of the first band. Apologies to gonk, it’s all Brendan Fraser’s fault! This was our first really hot show, where the temperatures felt a bit unbearable. I saw Lauren using her clip-on drum fan and wished that I had bought one to clip on the head of my bass. It isn’t until I am on stage when I remember all the things I have wanted to rig onto my bass or have on stage- a fan, a reading lamp (to see my fingers at dimly lit venues), a tuner, a stand for soda water, etc etc. At night we stayed at Lauren’s sweet friend Stan’s furniture-less apartment and ate burritos on his floor.
Lauren hanging out in Berty, our faithful van!
Lauren: Now that we were off the coast we were really feeling the difference in climate and temperature. Our last nights host, Scott, was so kind in making about a dozen recommendations of rivers and lakes to stop in at on the way to Salt Lake City to cool off in. We ended up finding a little lake outside of Falls City to eat some pasta salad at and take a dip. The band that swims together stays together, and this little pit stop had us in good spirits for our next show at the Old Cuss in SLC. This was sort of a twilight zone show for me where the drummer/singer of the local band was also named Lauren Smith, and my old dear friend, Stanislav emerged like a friendly ghost from Summers past. You know that point of tour where you kind of just give in to living the tourin lifestyle and your work inbox just kind of melts away as you forget all your passwords and you stop checking in cause you’ve gone full rocker? Well for me it happened in SLC! After this show we had a couple days off so it felt particularly timely that we turned full road dogs with Nevada and California coming in hot!
Smiling through the heat, at Circus Circus, Las Vegas, waiting for a cab.
Day 5 Las Vegas – Day off- Excalibur Resort
Tracey: The road from SLC to Vegas was so curvy that we called it the squiggles. Turns out I hate driving the squiggles, Lauren loves driving the squiggles, and Kaity is indifferent to the squiggles. I asked Lauren to put on the Pee Wee’s big adventure soundtrack to help me feel my groove and concentrate while navigating the squigs. And speaking of pee wee, I perfected a way to pee somewhat modestly by sitting on the edge of the vans bumper and keeping the front part of my pants up while the back part was down low enough to stay dry and unassuming.
Lauren: That morning as we were leaving Stan’s apartment he warned us of how easy it is to steal one’s catalytic converter, which gave us all a bit of a complex the rest of the tour. Not only were we ultra conscious about carrying out our borrowed instruments into whatever building we were stopped in at, we were also covering our backpacks and belongings with Tracey’s king sized comforter. Having to consider the ease of which we allowed our van to be crawled under was a whole other worry I never really considered, but things are different in America! I was really looking forward to the drive from Utah into Nevada as it was nearly 10 years since I drove it last with my band Tough Age. The skies are expansive and the beams of light that come through the clouds down to the red earth below is beyond dreamy and reminds you about how far you are from home! We rolled into Las Vegas that afternoon around 5:30pm and wanted to catch a swim at our hotel pool before they shut it down at 7pm. After our dip we headed back to our hotel room and Kaity put on a Frank Sinatra filled Las Vegas playlist on spotify and we gleefully counted out our band fund. Kaity is our band treasurer and she is damn good at it! She doled out $10 each in gambling money to Tracey and I, and we ventured out on the strip. We had a mission: make it to Circus Circus for a triumphant celebration of gymnastics and creepy clowns. A few feet from our hotel I noticed a busker-type covering Shania Twain who I wanted to share my gambling money with, but to my dismay my $10 had turned to $2 and somehow lost my pocket full of ones and fives! I decided to hold on tight and keep my last $2 for the right moment as Tracey reminded us all that what you give to Vegas you get back 10 fold. Onwards and upwards! Vegas is such a tricky maze of smoke and mirrors and without a lot of food in our bellies we were losing steam. We found some pizza and landed at the Paris Casino where I put my $2 to the test….. and …. I won! $45! Woot woot! I excitedly dashed over to the atm to cash in on my winnings and swing my backpack atop of the machine to safely tuck in my winnings into my change purse. It wasn’t until the Bellagio fountains that I realized my backpack was missing from its groove on my shoulder. Looking into Kaity and Traceys weary eyes, I realized my backpack had become a casualty and must be left behind to forge ahead if we were ever going to make it to Circus Circus in one piece. I think it was in the fairy tale gardens inside of the Bellagio reception where we realized getting to Circus Circus on foot was going to be a lot tougher than we first expected and swiftly booked an UBER. The next day Tracey and Kaity drove me in the tour van back to Paris and I met their lost and found team who happily pulled out my backpack from their pile of black backpacks with my belongings still safely inside. Thank you Paris!
Heading towards Palm Springs through the beautiful red rock landscape.
Day 6 Palm Springs -Day off
Kaity: We woke up in our Excalibur hotel room and I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. Vegas had dug its claws into us and I was desperate to pry them out. My experience of the night before had felt to me like a series of chaotic, strange and ominous events, all taking place in a night time hellscape temperature of 95 degrees. Confusing gambling machines, lost money, lost backpack, expensive food, closed attractions, endless drunk people, and an uber driver who drove with his knees while he zipped through traffic – Vegas was not for me. Tracey and Lauren really wanted to go to a place called the Omelette House for breakfast. I checked the google maps, and saw there was one just outside of Vegas, and one directly back into the eye of it. I pleaded with them that we should get out as soon as possible, but two against one, we headed back into the center of the inferno. We parked, and turned off the van, and within seconds the air became unbearable. We quickly grabbed our guitars and ran straight into the restaurant seeking shelter, this was another 104 degree day. To our relief the restaurant wasn’t that busy and the food was great. Just as we were finishing our delicious breakfasts, we decided to read our horoscopes for the day. Lauren started with Tracey, it said… that she would have to control her emotions in the face of something difficult… hmm, I didn’t like the sound of that. Then to Lauren.. in the face of difficult times that were ahead, she would need to try not to look at things as good or bad… that didn’t sound good. And finally for me.. things will not go according to plan today. I did not like these horoscopes at all, but we were still in Vegas, so I guess I wasn’t that surprised. I knew we had to get out as soon as possible. We piled into the van, me in the driver’s seat. Ready to leave this place behind, I turned the key, and nothing happened. I looked around to see if I was hallucinating in the stifling sauna-like air. Tracey and Lauren were talking about something, not paying attention. I tried again. Nothing. The heat was rising by the second as I yelled out, “The van’s dead!” We all gave a shriek and ran back into the restaurant to regain a normal temperature while we thought of what to do. I was hopeful it was just a dead battery, but Tracey was pretty sure she didn’t have jumper cables. We asked around and no one seemed to be able to help us. Finally I remembered I had BCAA (thanks Dad!) and so I gave them a call and they said they’d be there, but not for 3 hours. Things were not going as planned. Vegas, I thought, you dirty little devil… you just can’t let us leave. Tracey by this time had harnessed her emotions and worked up the courage to brave out into the heat again to search the van for jumper cables. Moments later, she returned triumphant! Lauren had been making the most of the situation, spending these moments shopping for silk shirts, and it turned out the owner of the shop was parked right beside us. He came out and connected up all the cables. We held our breath and closed our eyes as I turned the key. I can not describe to you the joy I felt when I heard the sweet rumble of that engine, and felt that stale cool air blowing out of those dusty old vents. We were on our way, but I wouldn’t be letting my guard down until we were all the way out of town.
Lauren: Once we got that car battery working again we didn’t turn off the van until we made it to California. Palm Springs to be exact. I knew of a cool hotel some friends of mine have played the roof of in pre-covid times called the Ace Hotel. Kaity was able to book a room for us and we spent the evening eating guacamole by the pole and taking underwater cellphone videos doing acrobatics in the luke warm pool until midnight. It felt good to be back in California and I was looking forward to the promise of the coast tomorrow!
Lauren about to descend a very steep cliff down to Blacks Beach by the Torrey Pines Gliderport
Day 7 San Diego – The Brown Building Flower Animals, Kan Kan, Neutral Shirt
Lauren: We were able to make great time arriving in San Diego with the afternoon open, so we followed a recommendation from a friend back home to check out Torrey Pines Glider port and Blackbeard beach which was a full on nudie beach! We modestly got in some great swims as well as a little hike and felt so dang happy to be back on the coast! All swims aside, the best part of tour (at least the way we tour) is the connections you make with so many cool and kind and politically progressive folks. The DIY network of like minded sweethearts is as strong as ever and meeting Matty in San Diego really solidified this. We gushed over all our shared friends from back home. He’s been organizing at the Brown Building which was cool as hell throwing shows nearly every day of the week and offering harm reduction classes and supplies. We played with Kan Kan, Neutral Shirt (matty) and Flower Animals. We played with Neutral Shirt (Matty), Kan Kan, and Flower Animals. After the show we met up with the dudes in Kan Kan as we all feasted on late night burritos as big as our calves. We slept in Mattys living room that night amongst his impressive cassette tape collection of touring bands up and down the coast, so many friends from the past and present, it really felt like home there.
Flower Animals at Brown Building, San Diego
Tracey: All the bands we played with in San Diego were not full bands. I mean, they usually are full bands, but for various reasons, each band had a member or two that couldn’t make it. Usually, this means that a band drops out of the show completely- but not in San Diego, heck no. I was so very charmed to see that Neutral Shirt, Flower Animals, and Kan Kan, all decided to still play the show despite the lack of band members. And I am so glad they did, because the tunes were just as sweet and charming as the people making them.
Tracey eats a banana on the way to Pasadena
Day 8 Pasadena, CA – the Old Town Pub Kids on a Crime Spree, Pillow Fight, Sugar World
Lauren: This was a real winning day of tour. We had the best breakfast of the trip, my first plate of chilaquiles and the most tasty cafe de olla. Wish we had more time in San Diego to enjoy the food but that’s tourin life. We were on our way north now from San Diego and making the most of these short drives where we stopped in Rio Del Mar at the dog beach for what I think was the number one swim of tour. The beaches in California really are the most!
WUT playing at the Olde Town Pub, Pasadena, Photo by @nematodeworld
Tracey: At night, we arrived at The Old Town Pub in Pasadena, California. I stayed in the van to take a nap while Lauren and Kaity went in for a drink and a looky loo to see if Kids on a Crime Spree had arrived yet. I spent most of my time on our car rides wearing only my undies, so after I awoke, I put on some jeans and a t- shirt, slammed a soda water, and walked through some streets that smelled like hot piss, and went into the pub which also smelled like hot piss. Not a big deal- most of my favourite places at home in Vancouver smell like piss. California is just a hotter smell of piss. Hot piss. Kids on a Crime Spree were there, so we all said our hellos and introductions. I felt immediately comfortable with them and was already asking to borrow various gear from Mario. We hung out under a lime tree with local treasure, Alice from Pillow Fight, who put the show on for us. My dear friend Lance was there, so we took a series of selfies together to send to his mom. If you haven’t heard Sugar World yet, I suggest you get on it, the dream poppers played a sugar sweet set that had us swooning.
WUT on stage with Riley at Thee Stork Club, Oakland
Day 9 Oakland, CA- Thee Stork Slub Kids on a Crime Spree, Artsick, Monster Treasure
Kaity: We left early that morning, with a long drive ahead of us. We stopped for $1 frosty’s and Lauren did her first 1 hour shift of driving, she did great! We made good time, so we were able to grab some groceries in Alameda, and take them down to Crab Cove for a picnic. It was perfect weather, sunny with a slight breeze, and we watched the pelicans dive in the bay as we lay in the grass. Lovely. Finally we made our way to Thee Stork Club. After looking around for parking to no avail, we found a spot a few blocks away. We made our way to Telegraph Ave, where we spotted the big red sign and headed in. We walked into the main showroom and there she was, RILEY! My best friend of over 30 years, setting up on stage with her band. Riley and I met in Grade 3 when I moved to her small town in Ontario. We became best friends and spent a few years together riding bikes, climbing trees, and getting up to all sorts of small town mischief. When my family decided to make the move to BC in Grade 7, we didn’t miss a beat. We’ve visited each other almost every year since then, sometimes more than once. Growing up we listened to a lot of music together and were always messing around on instruments. When we got older, we both formed our own projects, Riley started Burnt Palms, and Tracey and I started Love Cuts. Eventually on those yearly visits, we started to write songs together. They were silly and fun and free, and we called it Drownded, a project that continues to this day and will hopefully never end. When WUT originally started, before Tracey and Lauren had officially joined, I had written a bunch of demos and sent them to Riley to play some drum tracks on, not really knowing what kind of project I wanted it to be. Tracey and I had been playing in Knife Pleats, and when that ended, I was feeling like I wanted to take a break from being in a band, and starting getting into home recording and working on songs solo. Eventually, I decided I was ready for a band with members close to home. So first I asked Tracey, and fortunately Lauren was stoked to join us, and that’s how we got to the WUT you know today. All this to say, Riley and I haven’t lived in the same town since 1997, and aside from the Love Cuts playing one show with Burnt Palms back in the day, we don’t really get many opportunities to play together, let alone shows.
Photo booth photos WUT and RileyMonster Treasure at Thee Stork Club, Oakland
So, I was VERY excited to see Riley and spend the next two days together playing shows and hanging out with her music family. The night was everything I could have hoped for! All of the people in her community are such genuine, down to earth, nice people, who truly have a love for good music! Artsick were up first and they absolutely killed it! Mike from Slumberland joined them in between his top-tier DJing, adding in some fantastic distorted guitar. For our set, we had planned for something extra special. On our new album, Riley recorded an excellent guitar track on the song Feelings, so we asked her to join us to play it, and also if she wanted to learn some of the lead guitar from a few other songs. Of course she said yes! We were able to do 1 quick green room practice before the show, and it was the most breezy, effortless, natural run through, with all 4 of us harmonizing in some kind of perfect angels stars aligned universe. It was truly a dream come true to play together. The night continued, and both Monster Treasure and Kids on a Crime Spree were incredible! I felt so happy to be sharing the stage with these amazing bands. Mike (AKA Kid Frostbite), kept the party going with his DJ set, and everyone was feeling it! So many happy people dancing and enjoying the music, it was a great energy. We danced till late, chatting with lots of people who were stoked on the album, and taking silly photos until it was time to go.
Saying goodbye for the night to Monster Treasure after the showSnacks by Ilene at Photo Select, Sacramento
Day 10 Sacramento, CA – Phono Select Kids on a Crime Spree, Artsick, Monster Treasure
Lauren: Reunited with Monster Treasure and it feels so good! Rachel, Briana and RJ have been so incredibly good to me and all my crazy bands over the last like 10 years! Almost every time one of my projects has toured through Cali these guys have showed up huge for us, connecting my bands to the coolest underground venues and local bands… I am so lucky to call them my friends! The show at the stork club was rad!!!! What a lovely venue and kind folks. Waking up at Rachel’s house after the Stork Club show was a big highlight of tour. Here we sipped coffee next to her backyard wading pool, got some laundry done, and got hooked on this TLC show “Love after Lock-up” while stretched out on her huge couch. You really don’t get many days like this on tour and we were lapping it up!
Artsick at Phono Select, SacramentoGroup photo after Phono Select show, Sacramento. Monster Treasure, Kids on a Crime Spree, Artsick, WUT, plus family members
Kaity: We spent the morning relaxing at Rachel’s lovely home, and when it was finally time to head over to Sacramento, I offered to drive. Riley joined us, sitting shotgun and playing DJ. The drive was beautiful. We took a route that followed the Sacramento River. The trees swayed in the late summer breeze, no doubt a hot breeze, as this was set to be 100 degree day. Thankfully, we remained comfortable in our air conditioned van, enjoying the winding road and quaint landscape. When we finally arrived and stepped outside, the heat immediately overwhelmed us, and we retreated into Phono Select. This is where we finally go to meet the wonderful Ilene, who organized the show. She had prepared a lovely spread of snacks and cold drinks in the back, thinking of every possible thing to make the show comfortable and keep everyone hydrated and fed. It was much appreciated! The show took place outside under cover and thankfully there was a slight breeze, but of course Ilene had fans, and popsicles ready for all! Finally, Riley’s family showed up, and we got to reconnect. Despite the heat, everyone rocked their sets, and it was another incredible show. Riley joined us again for a few songs, and I loved seeing her kids dance and cheer us on with their bubbles and glowsticks. It was again, heart warming and dreamy! We had another big drive ahead of us, so when the show ended, we took one big group photo and said our goodbyes. As we sat quietly in the van entering the hotel into the GPS, Riley ran over to my window, smacking her hands against the glass, for one last surprising farewell! We laughed and hugged one more time and said, “goodbye for now,” as we like to do.
Visiting our friend Scotty in Ferndale, OR
Day 11 Arcata, CA – Outer Space Blub, Los Perdidos
Tracey: Humboldt county is my new travel vacation destination. The fog, the ocean, the forest, the cherry pie with soft serve from Toni’s, it is all absolutely dreamy. We stayed with our old friend Scotty from the now defunct punk band, B-Lines, and his automobile aficionado partner, Cynthia. It was such joy to see Scotty thriving in a town of artists and fellow weirdos. We drove to our show at Outer Space in Arcata, and I curled up in the back of the van with some crackers and hummus before entering the venue. It’s a fantastic DIY community space that seems to go on forever through back hallways and various rooms. I sat in a rocking chair, my furniture of choice while at any punk show, and drifted into nostalgia listening to locals Blub play their groovy tunes. When we played, I noticed a cuddly couple sitting near the front and felt honoured that we could be the type of music to cuddle to. Los Perididos from Arcata played beloved rock that was raw as it was real. My heart felt rapturous and my mind was racing with ideas as we drove back to Scotty’s.
Los Perdidos at Outerspace, Arcata, CAWUT at Outerspace, Arcata, CAKaity at a beach heading up the coast from Arcata
Day 12 Albany – Day off
Tracey: Unfortunately, our show in Eugene, Oregon was canceled (until next time, Who Brought Opie!) but it ended up being a long day of driving anyways, arriving at our hotel in the evening, and feeling too tired to do much other than go for a swim at the pool and order pizza. Speaking of food, my tour diet pretty much consisted of a bag of sweet kale chopped salad by day, and a veggie burrito at night. Oh, and of course, flats of soda water. Last tour I had eaten cereal every day, but had trouble keeping my almond milk cool on this trip. On our drive through the redwoods and along the foggy coast, we recorded a radio blurb for the breakfast show on KAOS. I had to write down my lines, but I’m not sure how well that helped, as I still ended up saying my words all wrong until the 4th or 5th try.
Lauren unpacks the van at our motelFinally picked up our records from Chris at Jigsaw Records in Portland. Were able to assemble a few before hitting the road again.
Day 13 Olympia – San Francisco Bakery Trust Fall, Yarrow, Generifus
Tracey: Our show in Olympia was outdoors at San Francisco street bakery. Our friend Markly Morrison from Low Pro podcast helped us book the gig, and we presented him with a theoretical trophy. Before the show, we ate at Quality Burrito and I had an exceptional fried tofu sandwich. I made a big scene about how I always finish my meal and never need to ask for a take-out container- but then I couldn’t finish my meal, and had to ask for a take out container. Whomp whomp. A highlight of the show, for me, was when I was laying on the grass, watching Generifus, and a child came up to me, grabbed my leg, and started dancing with it. After watching Yarrow play, I decided that WUT needs a bongo/tambourine player. I lost my mind a little watching Trust Fall because they are so, so splendid. This was our first show on the tour where we had our records for sale in the flesh, so we were thrilled to touch, hold, kiss, and sell them. Our friends Freddie and Kenny from Your Daily Hour with Me (Thurston county, WA, public access tv super show) were there and Freddie filmed our entire set for a very special future episode of YDHWM. Kenny left early so he could film YDHWM in the studio, so we phoned him from the bakery and then decided to Vin Diesel it to the studio to make it onto the final 5 minutes of the tv show. What a rush. We parted ways after Kenny showed us the incredible multi-colored jumpsuit he is crocheting in his crafting group.
Kenny shows us his beautiful knitted jumpsuit!Our shirts, ready to be worn for one last show of tour.
Day 14 Tacoma – Cush Hill Freddie Lee Toyoda, Nester
Tracey: We stayed at a hotel on the outskirts of Olympia, and I cried in front of the staff because I thought I was late to the free breakfast buffet. Turns out the make your own waffle machine was still hot to trot, so my tears, like usual, were in vain. After being told by my friend at Collective Groan that we were going to play a frat house in Tacoma, I was fully prepared to walk into some sort of party straight out of an American Pie movie.To top it off, the house was called Cush hill, and I know I’m a square but I am pretty sure that is a weed reference. However, no beer pong skills were needed, as it was just your regular sweet punk house, but with an ice box full of refreshments- thanks to Freddie Lee Toyoda. We were ecstatic to play a show with Freddie Lee and their full band, fresh haircuts and all. Tacoma locals Nester were a real joy, and we ended the show wanting to come back to Tacoma as soon as possible. But first, we wanted to leave Tacoma- as soon as possible- to get back home into our own beds. We drank Red Bulls and sang along to 90’s alternative for the 3 hour drive back across the border to Vancouver, Canada.
Freddie Lee Toyoda at Cush Hill, TacomaTOUR IS OVER, filling up one last time to head back to Vancouver
Day 15 Vancouver BC- Red Gate Kerkland Jerks, Muppet boys, the Drink Tickets
Kaity: After spending the day relaxing back at home, it was time for the final show of tour! Lauren picked me up in her little mini cooper, and when we got to Red Gate, I set up shop behind the merch table assembling more records. I had not seen the Drink Tickets or Muppet Boys before, and they both were amazing, putting on a great show. Kirkland Jerks as always, were incredible. It was so nice to see friends and play one last show on this home run of a tour!
Tracey: We arrived home from Tacoma around 2am, and I was greeted by my very confused dog, who probably had assumed that I was just gone forever and life without Tracey was the new normal. I slept the day away and then got ready to go to Red Gate, one of the only all ages venues in Vancouver. Apparently 15 days is long enough for me to have extreme sushi withdrawal- so I got some rolls to bring with me to the show. We are hashtag-blessed here in Vancouver to have so many top notch bands, and new ones seem to emerge every day. Pop sweethearts the Drink Tickets have totally mastered the art of breaking the 4th wall. Muppet Boys are almost as good as Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, and Kerkland Jerks always reminds me that I am out of trail mix. Eirinn, who recorded and mixed Mingling with the Thorns, was there with his own WUT jersey that says TECH on the back. Right as we were about to start playing, Adrian Teacher showed up and handed Lauren and Kaity a beer, and when he held a can in my direction, I said “sorry I don’t drink!”, to which he replied “I know, that’s why I got you a SODA WATER”. Dang, it’s good to be home.
We are thrilled to present an excerpt from the new visual history of Pulp edited by Mark Webber, who started out as a teenage fan of the band before becoming their fan club president and tour manager and then joining the band in 1995 (fan dream come true!) In addition to music, Webber is a curator of artists’ film and video and has edited and published several books on cinema.The bookgathers material from Mark’s extensive collection of ephemera and objects accumulated over the past 40 years. His memories, images, photographs, flyers, record covers, set lists, stickers, posters, press clippings, merchandise, and promo items help tell the story of the band. I’m With Pulp, Are You? also features a foreword by Jarvis Cocker, and newly commissioned essays by music writer Simon Reynolds and TheQuietus co-founder Luke Turner.
Hardcover, 288 pages, Hat and Beard Press
Text/edited by Mark Webber
Foreword by Jarvis Cocker
Additional texts by Simon Reynolds and Luke Turner Designed byMark El-Khatib
Images from I’m With Pulp, Are You? courtesy of the author and publisher
Here is the excerpt, reprinted with permission from the author and publisher:
The World Was Going On Outside: Sex, Pulp & Teenage Fandom
Luke Turner
“Intake, Manor Park, The Wicker, Norton …” I’m transported back to an evening after school in the mid- 1990s, Jarvis Cocker’s deep, breathy vocals in my ear; “Wombwell, Catcliffe, Brincliffe, Attercliffe, Ecclesall …” This was the sort of stuff you found on ads for premium telephone numbers in the back of magazines, then hovered over the family telephone desperate to dial but terrified of it showing up on the bill. “… Pitsmoor, Badger, Wincobank, Crookes.” At that point, Sheffield Sex City was like nothing else I’d ever heard, miles from the increasingly bland Br*tpop on the radio: eight-and-a-half-minutes long, a pulsing bassline, Candida’s spiralling keyboards and deadpan monologue contrasting with Jarvis’ more unhinged voice describing a city consumed by sex (literally, when, at the moment of climax, the Brutalist Park Hill estate is floored by a synchronised orgasm), its inhabitants led this way and that by desperation, trying to grope their way towards one another in the pre-smartphone booty call era. It was Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood via South Yorkshire and a discarded copy of Readers Wives found in a bush by the roadside.
Images from I’m With Pulp, Are You? courtesy of the author and publisher
The local branch of Our Price Records had been the conduit to this uncanny erotica of the built environment as, in the spring of 1995, I made my way backwards through Pulp’s discography from the release of Common People. Intro, a 1993 compilation of singles released on the Gift label, was a transitional record for the band, but a revolutionary one for me. It made the band seem impossibly exotic; unravelling (like a pair of nylons) what it was to be British, to expose an urgent, seamy energy underneath. “I’d rather get my kicks down below …” – I wiggled in front of the mirror to Space, twink-minced through the park with O.U., thought of my crushes to Babies, and so on. But most of all it was Sheffield Sex City that had me reaching for the family AA Road Atlas to look up these exotic place names as if I were hunting in the dictionary for dirty words. The music papers that I stood reading in WH Smiths every Wednesday might have been going on and on about Camden, but for a while Pulp made Sheffield sound like a place where Babylon pulsed behind net curtains. I dreamed of moving there and used the excuse of a university open day to bunk off school and head north for a spot of sex tourism.
Images from I’m With Pulp, Are You? courtesy of the author and publisher
I can even remember the Pulp uniform that I put on that morning: fading moleskin trousers, Dr Martens boots, a battered brown velvet jacket over a grey charity shop shirt ribbed with a synthetic material that was as itchy as wire wool, but I didn’t care because the collars were just the right side of ludicrous. At Sheffield station I disembarked in a fug of British Rail diesel fumes, bought a pack of 10 Bennies from the newsagent, and wandered out into the streets, Intro playing in my Walkman’s headphones, eyes up, getting the horn from the place names on municipal street signs amid the traffic and grime of the pre-gentrification city centre: “Woodhouse, Wybourn, Pitsmoor, Badger …”
It’s funny how quickly things change when you’re a teenager. Maybe Pulp were there for the late developers like me who got into music aged 14 or 15. For us, pop was never a sugary childhood infatuation, but oozed into our ears, tickled the pituitary gland, forever and only about hormones and sex. When Pulp released Razzmatazz and Lipgloss, I was still collecting tokens from cornflakes packets to post off in exchange for the model Spitfire and Hurricane fighter planes that would populate my cardboard cut-out RAF base. Two years later, I was wanting to cop off with the promotional cardboard cut-out of Jarvis in the local record shop. Or perhaps that’s not strictly true. I was more of a Steve man myself, with his louche floppy hair, or Russell, with his indescribable weirdness. (I’d have gone round to look at his sunglasses collection, alright!) Jarvis was different. I didn’t want to kiss him, didn’t even want to try and be him, but he offered a design for being, a space into which me and those others who I was sure were out there in Pulp-land could learn to fit our awkward limbs.
Images from I’m With Pulp, Are You? courtesy of the author and publisher
Discovering Pulp’s libidinous energy unlocked the heterosexual side of myself, even if confronted by the homophobia of school and 1990s British culture more generally. I always sung along with that line “Jesus, it must be great to be straight” with a different meaning than that with which it had been written.
Pulp’s dissection of the British libido was confrontational and explicit. The other boys at school didn’t get it at all, calling Jarvis a ‘freak’ and the band ‘shit,’ but who were they to throw insults, with their generic lad culture? Copies of Loaded magazine, Game On, Men Behaving Badly and Fantasy Football on the telly, tedious banter and boasts about what they’d done with girls at parties to which I was not invited. I never had any male friends who loved Pulp as much as I did. Back then and largely since, it was mostly women, all of whom burned a fairly intense and lustful flame for various members of the group, especially Cocker. At that age, it’s so easy to get your infatuations in the real world muddled up with feelings for the distant stars. Pulp even became the means of a hopeless attempt at flirtation at my Saturday job at Argos, where I desperately hoped to be put on shifts on the Elizabeth Duke jewellery counter with a girl who had an Italian surname and artfully smudged eyes. I made her a mixtape and invited her to a gig I was organising at a local rugby club, only for her to disappear out onto the pitch with one of the popular boys from school, her silver dress floating ghostly above him in the headlights of parental cars. Now my narrative is starting to sound like a bad attempt at writing a Pulp song of my own, but that’s why we fell in love with them – these songs of lust and failure were about our lives.
Images from I’m With Pulp, Are You? courtesy of the author and publisher
“Do you remember the first time?” the lyrics asked, but not many of us were yet at the point where we could sing the reply “I can’t remember a worst time.” The moment of fumbling awkwardness was still in the future, part of the adult world of unfortunate sex that was laid out so invitingly before us. The masculinity in Pulp countered the then dominant cult of the lad, but it wasn’t a faux- sensitive and wheedling pretence to be ‘one of the nice guys’ where sentiment is never backed up by action, the sort of behaviour that has lately acquired the soubriquet ‘beta male misogyny.’ Instead, it was unflinching and honest: the bitterness and anger that comes with sex was always present, but the power went in all directions – the stories in Pulp songs were from voyeur and exhibitionist, top and bottom, both subject and object of lust and desire. There was an acceptance that sex wasn’t going to be perfect, but a promise that it could be fascinating, complicated, funny and sometimes transcendent even in its seedy banality.
Images from I’m With Pulp, Are You? courtesy of the author and publisher
There’s often a sense, when looking at press cuttings of the day, that all this shagging meant that the media never really took Pulp quite as seriously as those of us who truly loved them did, writing about the band as if they were a Carry On film in pop form. Even in 2022, when reviewing Jarvis Cocker’s Good Pop, Bad Pop, the New Statesman claimed that during the 1990s, he “was the face of ironic detachment.” This came as a surprise to me, for whom there was nothing ironic whatsoever about Pulp. They understood the words of Oscar Wilde, that “everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” Pulp knew how the teenage frustrations that we were fast outgrowing also applied to the unfriendly world outside. There was nothing ironic about how they gave so many of us so much to live by.
Images from I’m With Pulp, Are You? courtesy of the author and publisher
Common People was all over the radio that spring. It was the soundtrack to not-really-revising for my GCSEs, to my first kiss with a girl, to that heady maelstrom of excitement, arrogance and terror that is being 16 years old. On May 22nd I went straight from school to buy the CD single the day it came out. Took it home, ripped off the cellophane, and put it on repeat for weeks. I loved the cover photo of the band in the sort of café I dreamed of haunting one day, if I could ever get out of the dull town I lived in and make it to the city. Left to right, Nick, Candida, Jarvis, Steve, Russell – five very different people who didn’t fit in, except with each other. It looked like a friendship to aspire to, a unit against the world and, given that Mark had just joined after years as a huge fan himself, it seemed not that remote from us either. Four lines of text on the back confirmed my infatuation: “There is a war in progress – Don’t be a casual(ty). The time to decide whose side you’re on is here. Choose wisely. Stay alive in ’95.” I loved that almost as much as the song, read it over and over and took it as a mantra. It didn’t feel like snobbery, back then, to be disdainful of the blokes in Ben Shermans who made Friday night pub trips more like running the gauntlet for me and my long-haired, ear-pierced, ladies- blouse-wearing friends. It felt glorious that a band who were all over the radio were sticking up for me, saying that actually I was right, that it was okay to defy mass culture, to not turn the other cheek only for it to be smashed into pissy town centre pavements at closing time.
Images from I’m With Pulp, Are You? courtesy of the author and publisher
It happened again with the next single a few months later. The tabloids might have fumed over the drug wrap pattern on the sleeve of Sorted For E’s & Wizz, but it was the text on Mis-Shapes that I read over and over: “We shall fight them in The Beaches – and The Stag and The King’s Head if it comes to that. You know the score – ten blokes with ’taches in short-sleeved shirts telling you that you’re the weirdo. Fear not brothers and sisters – we shall prevail. Live on.” The ten blokes might not have had moustaches, but they were familiar to us nonetheless, and Pulp gave us the psychic armour to withstand them. There was a lot of angry music available to teenagers at the time, from metal to skate punk and rap, but none of it really channelled that rage like Pulp did in a way that was familiar to our daily lives. From the “Pearly king of the Isle of Dogs” who “feels up children in the bogs” in Mile End, to ham-fisted geezers down the local pubs, brandy-drinking denizens of the commuter belt and, of course, a self-entitled Greek sculpture student, Pulp’s anger was for equal opportunities, aimed across British society and class structures.
Luke Turner writes about music, sexuality, nature, gender and history, is the co-founder of music and culture magazine The Quietus and the author of Men At War and Out Of The Woods, published in the USA and Canada by Greystone Books.
Wendy Pickles from the Popguns There are not that many songs that make me stop working and start lipsyncing and playing air drums like a crazy person: “Bye Bye Baby” is such a song. Brighton’s Popguns were on our radar back when our zine started back in the early ’90s and the fact that they’ve never played a chickfactor party is a massive oversight. I’m pretty sure it was Mike Schulman who put a Popguns record in my hand at Vinyl Ink Records in Silver Spring, Maryland, around 1990! The band formed in 1988 and are still making very good music and playing shows. At long last we are thrilled to share this new interview with Popguns singer Wendy Pickles! Interview by big fans Gail O’Hara & Gaylord Fields
Wendy on drums at their Christmas gig last year; photo courtesy of the Popguns
chickfactor: What are you up to today? Does the country feel different post-election? Did you watch the Euro final? Wendy Pickles: Trying to stay cool today—hottest day of the year so far in the UK! Sadly, I have no ice cream in the freezer.
I haven’t noticed a particularly different feel post-election among people I talk to—it feels as though everyone has been slowly ground down by 14 years of Tory reign so that cynicism and distrust prevail. I hope Labour can come good on some of their promises, but it’s all about the power and the money, the money and the power
I did watch the Euros final, at home with family and a tonne of snacks. I was on the Amaretto, which sweetened the blow a little.
What were you like as a child? A teen? I was incredibly shy and self-conscious, studious, law-abiding. I spent a lot of time reading and listening to/playing music. I reinvented myself in the summer between school and sixth form, ditched my glasses in favour of contact lenses and moved from incredibly square and uncool to incredibly square and a little less uncool.
What kind of rituals does the band have (on tour, in the studio, in general)? We have an unwritten rule that whenever we make a stop in the van everyone has to go and come back one by one, just to be as inefficient as possible with our time. Greg & I invented “soundcheckercise” – we do squats/lunges/jumps to the beat while Ken is whacking his drums during the soundcheck. We like to have a sing on the way home from a gig – “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” is one of our faves, along with “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”. We play studio bingo – phrases include “less is more” and “that was perfect … let’s just try one more”. We have plenty of sayings and in-jokes gathered throughout the years – some wouldn’t stand the woke test and many, naturally, are taken from This Is Spinal Tap. Simon & I watched it just the other week and it really is the funniest film ever made.
Are you from a musical family? No trained musicians, but plenty of singing and a little guitar playing on my mum’s side of the family. They liked to sing old London music hall songs at family gatherings – “On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep”, “My Baby Has Gone Down the Plughole”, that kind of thing. Music was on all the time when I was growing up—either on the radio (always Radio 1) or on the turntable (mostly Elton John!).
The Popguns in Nottingham, 1990. Photo: Jim Bethell (sent by Wendy)
Did it seem like the Popguns got their due back in the day? I’d say no, because I think if more people had had a chance to hear our music they would’ve liked it. Is that too obvious a thing to say? We fell into a bit of a guitar-based music gap between C86 and Britpop—baggy and rave were the in thing, and we were neither! The songs are strong, even if the production wasn’t always up to scratch
Was the band treated well in the press? What was the weirdest thing someone wrote about you? Some people liked us, some didn’t. I was just looking through some old reviews and many of them were quite flattering (eg “Come in Debbie Harry, your time is up” in Sounds 1991 – pretty good, eh?). At least we GOT reviewed and were given a few inches of interview space. I think the weirdest was Robert Yates in the Melody Maker, who said in a live review “To chance upon her in a back-street Brixton pub is to catch Cleopatra buying half-fat milk in Tesco’s”. Can’t decide whether it’s flattering or creepy!! Of course they didn’t just write about me, but inevitably a female frontwoman in an otherwise male band becomes a focus.
Who is the comedian in the band? Greg is the wittiest. Pat is the silliest and loves wordplay. Simon does funny things (not always intentionally!). Once during a power cut, he came out of the loo with his trousers on back to front (I promise, it was hilarious at the time!). Ken has a slew of bad jokes, best not repeated. I have a wicked tongue, but I try to hide it.
The Popguns in Nottingham, 2023. Courtesy of the band
Do you have any band rules about stagewear and banter? Never let Simon near the mic. We’re always trying to persuade (drummer) Ken to wear a vest. Once Simon accidentally pocket-dialled Pat during a song, so I guess we should really ban phones onstage.
If we came to Brighton for a day, what should we definitely do? Pick up a Happy Maki sushi wrap and eat it in Pav Gav (young person’s speak for Pavilion Gardens). Wander through the North Laines, being sure to visit Resident Music and to buy something colourful from Lucy & Yak (dungarees recommended). Play ‘Toad’ at The Hole In The Wall pub (toad table custom made by our friend and some time driver Garold). You should probably get some squishy donuts from the pier and sit on the beach with the thousands of other tourists. Finish off with a rock ‘n’ roll pint at The Albert (home of our annual Christmas shindig).
If you could choose any well-known musician from Brighton, past or present, to join the Popguns, who would it be, and why? Dave Gilmour would be fun! And not at all intimidating. I like to sing a little Leo Sayer at karaoke, though strictly speaking he’s from Shoreham, just along the coast.
It’s fascinating (to me, at least) when a group records two unrelated songs with the same title. What inspired the Popguns to do an original called “Bye Bye Baby” as well as cover the identically named Four Seasons song? I was a huge Bay City Rollers fan, so I loved that song. We actually had a Four Seasons album on cassette when I was growing up and I loved their music – but it didn’t have that song on it, so I didn’t know at the time that it was a cover. We were invited to contribute a track to an album of ’70s Number 1s for an Anti-Poll Tax album put together by a friend, and it seemed a fun idea to cover a song with the same name as one of ours – we ilke to confuse!!
Simon, your husband and bandmate, writes the songs that you then give voice to. How autobiographical are the songs when it comes to either your life or his? Annoyingly autobiographical – what am I going to write about for my solo project?
How did you both determine which songs would be Popguns songs and which would you and Simon record for your other shared musical project, the Perfect English Weather? It’s usually obvious: one, there is a distinction between indie rock and indie pop and TPEW definitely falls in the latter category, so they tend to be the lighter songs; two, TPEW songs are on the whole more personal to us as a couple; three, the Popguns reject it!
What advice would you give groups that contain a creative partner who is also a romantic partner so they don’t end up like Fleetwood Mac? Or perhaps they’d do well by following Fleetwood Mac’s example? It’s not always a recipe for a successful relationship, is it? Weirdly, we don’t spend a lot of time working on music together at home. Simon writes the songs, then the rest of us contribute in the rehearsal room and studio – that goes for The Popguns and The Perfect English Weather. Maybe that’s why it works?
How did you get on with the other acts who recorded for your early ’90s label Midnight Music, or did you not interact much? We didn’t really know any Midnight labelmates, but we got on great with The Waltones, who were on Medium Cool with us.
Who came up with calling the group the Popguns, and were you all surprised that no other band seemed to have come up with a name so basic yet essential before you did? Well we’ve never been happy with it, we just couldn’t agree on anything else – it was a case of picking a name that no-one was happy with! Glad you think it works!
The group took a break lasting more than a decade before forming again. What have you found to be the biggest adjustment in making music in the 2020s, for better or for worse? The studio is so much easier to use – not that I ever need it ;), but dodgy notes can be straightened out in seconds! And all those sounds at your fingertips – fun, but also potentially extremely timewasting. And so much can be done at home, which I think is a good thing, though Simon does have a habit of spending days locked away in his room doing remixes. The music making side is great, the social media side not so – not a natural world for us boomers/Gen Xers.
Has the Popguns’ musical catalogue been featured in any adverts, films, or TV shows? Do you have any problems with the concept of “selling out,” whatever that means to you? It has! A highlight for me was “Second Time Around” on BBC’s “Homes Under The Hammer”. We also featured in a 2018 Netflix series (“Everything Sucks!” – sadly didn’t get past Season 1) and a 2020 film, “Pink Skies Ahead”, which rather excitingly had Henry Winkler and Michael McKean in its cast. There must’ve been a late ’80s/early ’90s indie revival! No ads that I’m aware of, and I would definitely want to have a say in that respect. I am a VERY ethical person!
Let’s say for some odd reason you found yourself in the need to recruit someone to impersonate your singing voice (please don’t ask why, just play along, if you may). Which singer do you think would be able to do the job? Natalie Merchant please!
How has existing in older bodies changed how you go about touring, as opposed to 30 years ago? Oh my God, it’s knackering!! Definitely no more than two nights in a row. And much lighter on the booze. And Greg now brings salad as a snack
The Popguns often perform A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It.” When and how did you realize that you had the mad flow needed to rap credibly? Haha! I trained by learning the intro to “The Lone Ranger” by Quantum Jump. That and “Cool for Cats” by Squeeze
Which one Popguns song would your fans express strong unhappiness if you were to leave it off your live set list? And, in general, how accommodating are you to playing fan favorites when planning what to perform at shows? Is it a “one for you, one for me” situation? You’d have to ask them, but I’m guessing “Bye Bye Baby” or “Waiting for The Winter” – they’re the biggest singalong songs. We make occasional exceptions, but as some of us (me included) are quite bad at remembering the songs we mostly have to stick to the set we’ve been practising. We do try to mix it up though!
What are some memorable live shows you played in the old days and recently? Plymouth Cooperage 1990? 91? is a fond favourite for its stage invasion. Shelly Arms in Nutley (similar time?) for its bonkersness. More recently, Hamburg in 2016 and Athens in 2019 due to the unexpectedly large and enthusiastic crowds. Every Prince Albert ‘home’ Christmas gig is lovely—so many familiar faces in the audience. Last year’s Albert gig was fun as Ken & I switched places for one song – me on drums, him on vocals. And earlier this year we played at the wedding of two of our biggest fans, which was incredibly special and moving. Oh, not forgetting Mike Joyce playing “Rebel Rebel” as our intro music at the 100 Club in London – pretty cool!
Do you have any horror stories? Can’t really top Greg falling from a second floor window in Plymouth and breaking his wrist (a lucky escape). I don’t know, I tend to get shielded from all of the bad stuff – I’m still that square and not-very-cool girl at heart!
Have you ever played in the US? Yes! We played New York Popfest in 2014. It was an odd one—we loved being there, but we had a late (headline) slot on the Sunday night and not everyone stuck around to see us. Of course we had to use other people’s gear and Pat borrowed a bass guitar from a very generous but very small person. The bass was a perfect fit for its owner, but hilariously tiny on our Pat (who is not a very small person!). Much chuckling ensued!
OG Popguns, courtesy of the band
Favorite place to play? It has to be The Albert. Be nice to play Brighton Dome though. Or Glastonbury!
Do you have day jobs, pets, kids? I was teaching pop singing to teenagers, which I loved, but stopped when the pandemic hit. Currently trying to do my bit to combat the climate crisis. I’ve started a climate choir, which is lots of fun. I completed a Masters in Songwriting last year and am now considering doing a PhD in something environment and music related. Dr Wendy! Simon still works part-time as a computer programmer. Pat and Ken are proper businessmen with their own companies. Greg works in IT at Brighton & Hove council. That’s not very rock ‘n’ roll is it, maybe scrap that answer!!!
Simon & I have two children, both now graduated from Uni. Anna is living and working in London and is a committed environmental champion, Thomas has only just graduated and is figuring out what to do next. They are of course wonderful human beings, are both very musical and have impeccable taste! We have two young, adorable cats – one ginger, one black. Not great for my environmental credentials as we feed them meat and they bring in many, many little dead bodies 🙁
Wendy says: “The Mean Fiddler poster is a bittersweet memory as it proves Pulp supported us back in the day, which is fun, but of course our careers took wildly different paths!!”
What are you reading, watching, cooking, eating? I have a stack of environment related books to get to, but I’ve been distracted in the last week or so by the discovery that I can successfully complete a difficult killer sudoku. Maths was never my strong point, so it is a big surprise! I prefer baking to cooking – my signature dish is vegan almond macaroons. We get a weekly organic veg box so I’m often trying to work out what to do with kohlrabi or padron peppers – any ideas?
Anything else you’d like to add? News, shows, new releases? We’re looking forward to playing with The Frank & Walters at 229 in London on 28 September. Apart from our usual Christmas gig at the Albert that’s it for the current tour schedule. Very soon we will be returning to the studio, so new material will be out in 2025.
Records Wendy cannot live without There are a handful of oldies I always go back to –
“Swoon” by Prefab Sprout
“Liberty Belle ..” by The Go-Betweens
“Captain Fantastic …” by Elton John
any Smiths/Beatles/Jam/REM
“Young Americans” by Bowie
“Behaviour” and “Very” by Pet Shop Boys
“The Clock Comes Down The Stairs” by Microdisney
“Nilsson Schmilsson”
Mostly quite predictable. Currently though, my go-tos are the upcoming Fontaines DC album (“Favourite” is an instant indie classic!), also “A Hero’s Death” by Fontaines, “If My Wife New I’d Be Dead” by CMAT (she is AMAZING!), “2020” and “The Hermit” by Richard Dawson (almost my favourite artist in the world), “Illinois” by Sufjan Stevens, “Seeking New Gods” by Gruff Rhys. “American Dream” by LCD Soundsystem. I realise there is a distinct lack of female musicians in that list – oops! I love Laura Marling and Pearl Charles!
Popguns set list from Nottingham, 1990.Popguns set list from Nottingham, 2023The Popguns in Lego made by a fan. Wendy says: “I’m in the middle with short brown hair (before I grew out the grey) and our sometime backing singer Kate is the blond singer on the left. Pat’s permanent grin is well represented and then-drummer Tony has drumsticks large enough to cause injury! They also caught Simon in his (now thankfully passed) trilby-wearing phase ;D”
From July 12 to 16, 1994, the original YoYo a GoGo festival happened at the Capitol Theater in Olympia, Washington. It was organized by Yoyo Records’ Pat Maley, Michelle Noel, Kent Oiwa, along with Pat Castaldo, Diana Arens, Sara Lorimer, and others, and there were subsequent YoYos in 1997, 1999 and 2001. Carrying on from the great tradition of pop festivals like the International Pop Underground Convention (1991) and Lotsa Pop Losers (1991), it featured a ridiculous lineup that included superfeminist superstars Team Dresch and Mecca Normal, loud bands, quiet bands, punk bands, pop bands, see a full lineup later in the piece. This part features words and photos from organizers Pat Maley and Pat Castaldo, fan Bryce Edwards and fan/documenter Brett Sandström (special thanks to Jen Sbragia, Pat C and Brett for the images). Please note: not all of the photos below are from 1994 YYaGG.
YoYo punks in the Lakefair Parade. Photo: Pat Castaldo
chickfactor: How did the event come about? What do you remember about putting it together? Pat Maley: The 1991, I had been running my recording studio (Yoyo) for about nine years, and by that time I had recorded many of the local bands, including lots of bands for K Records. So when I found out that K was putting on the International Pop Underground Convention (IPUC) at the Capitol Theater, I got very excited about the idea of recording all the shows, which happened, and was great fun and an album was made.
A couple years later, I asked my friends at K Records if they were going to do another IPUC; they said no. So I asked how they would feel if I put on something like it, which they must’ve been OK with because they were such a valuable source of information and support about what to do, how to do it, and what not to do. For me, wanting to record a festival was the gateway to wanting to organize one, but the feeling of a pre-Internet summertime party vibe punk rock/punk pop/multi-genre five-day music festival was the high I was seeking.
Michelle Noel. Photo by Pat Castaldo
I can’t remember how I met Michelle Noel, but I do know that asking her to help me organize this festival was the way I got to know her. I still thank my intuition for making that choice, because Michelle was masterful at organization, she was unwaveringly principled, and was able to stay connected with a sense of joy, which is what really made the festival feel alive. And I think that feeling alive-ness is ultimately why our four Yoyo A Go Gos were so successful. I remember that sometimes I would worry at how serious Michelle could become when the work got challenging, but what’s most memorable about her is how absolutely delighted and animated she would become about watching her favorite bands perform. We worked well together, and our musical tastes were complementary in that her tastes were more garage punk, and mine were more pop punk, with plenty of overlap. We don’t see each other often these days, but whenever we do, I know that I feel a great deal of love and admiration for her, and she tells me she feels the same.
In December 1993, I got a call from Calvin Johnson inviting me to go see “a couple of bands from Japan up at Evergreen…” we went to see Copass Grinderz and the Blood Thirsty Butchers, who put on such amazing shows that Calvin and I invited them to record the next day. I called in sick at work and was able to record two songs each. Two of those recordings, one from each band, are on the Periscope studio compilation, and both bands came back to perform at Yoyo A Go Go in 1994. I believe this is in part how I got to know Kent Oiwa who was a student at the Evergreen State College.
Kent Oiwa. Photo: Pat Castaldo (not necessarily from YYaGG)
When I first met Kent Oiwa, he had been working as a live sound engineer for backstage shows at the Capitol Theater. Initially he came to work with Michelle and I as an intern, as part of his learning contract at Evergreen, but quickly, he became the third organizer. I believe that my insecurity and immaturity at the time clouded my ability to see really Kent and his role as an organizer, but in retrospect, I am happy to know how clearly his presence, creativity, talents, contributions, and hard work were absolutely essential to the success of the festival as an artistic expression. Kento-san was for many years: an organizer of subsequent Yoyo festivals; a key to the functioning of the recording studio; he co-founded one of Olympia’s most original and creative musical exports, IQU; and he is still a dear friend. In 1996 invited me to travel to Japan and stay with his family. He took such great care of me on that trip, which is why for me it was trip was so ridiculously rich and memorable. When I think about Kent as a friend, I feel an abundance of gratitude, and some grief that at the time I wasn’t fully able to feel and express that gratitude as much as I feel it now.
Pat Castaldo. Photo courtesy Pat C
I think Michelle Noel first brought Pat Castaldo to my attention when I wondered something like “who’s the skinny kid who’s always enthusiastically working the ticket booth?” He was and is a quick wit, excitable, energetic, and there was something about his East Coast-ness that made me feel at home. Through the four festivals there were hundreds of hard-working, enthusiastic, lovable/adorable volunteers who were not only the heart of, but the cardiovascular system of whatever it was that made these festivals, unique and so enjoyable; and at the risk of using really clunky mixed metaphors, Pat Castaldo was the cream of the volunteers who rose to the top to be an organizer of the festivals after 1994. Which is to say that he was effectively an organizer during those five days in July 1994. For years after, he made the Yoyo recording label possible by being the primary graphics layout artist and worked closely with Tae Won Yu who created most of the artistic imagery for the festivals and live albums. These days, messaging, or getting to visit with Pat makes me very happy because I know that I am in for playfulness, brilliance, connection and warmth.
I have always marveled at the artistic vision of Tae Won Yu, who I met in 1991 in New York City. I had just finished playing a set with Lois Maffeo and was breaking down my drums on the stage at CBGB, when Tae handed me a cassette of his band Kicking Giant. Sometime after that, he and Rachel Carns moved to Olympia, and sometime after that, his artwork became the look of the visual introduction to the festival. The posters he made for the festivals were so beautiful and inviting. The poster itself felt to me like a summertime party.
Diana Arens. Photo: Pat Castaldo (not taken at YYaGG)
There are so many people to mention, and so many names I have forgotten. I feel a low level, subconscious grief about the loss of memory of people and their generosity. Here are names of friends who were there and helped in all the ways: Lois Maffeo, Candice Pedersen, Calvin Johnson, Nikki McClure, Sara Lorimer, Diana Arens, Brooks Martin, Sharon Franklin, Shigeki Nishimura.
There’s so much more I could say, so many stories and challenges and moments of joy. It’s also hard for me to convey how meaningful and deeply personal the festivals are, particularly the first one. I still feel so grateful and fortunate that with the help of so many friends, I was able to translate something I loved and felt passionate about into something so beautiful and rewarding.
Several summers ago, I was waiting in line to enter a show on the backstage of the Capitol Theater. It was a beautiful June evening, and I was about to see Jonathan Richman perform after having chatted with him earlier that day. I was thinking about his song “That Summer Feeling” and the line about how… “That summer feeling is going to haunt you one day in your life.” And I started thinking about all the years I’d spent in the theater I was about to walk into, and it definitely haunted me, and as if on cue, from inside the theater, Jonathan start strumming the chords of the song. And it reassured me that there’s magic like that happening all of the time, I just need to notice that it’s there.
Pat Castaldo: So I just showed up and started helping — I honestly didn’t realize at the time how big of an undertaking it was; I’m not even sure Michelle and Pat and Kento really did either. Apart from bands being on time and stuff, the biggest challenge for me front of house was just a sort of pre-screening, light crowd control — overall it’s an amazing and wonderful crowd, but there’s always a handful of folks — like five maybe out of a thousand? — who want to get drunk or cause a ruckus or something.
Being the person “in the lobby” every day, I got to deal with a lot of those folks.
Crabs. Photo: Pat Castaldo
Did you attend YoYo in 1994? In what capacity were you involved? Pat Castaldo: I did — I went to pretty much everything at the Capitol Theater during the time, mostly as a volunteer. I would have wanted to see the bands already, but to me the community aspect was always the tops — just being in the theater, being part of something bigger than yourself was amazing.
So I showed up to volunteer and quickly ended up, as it was happening, running the front of house during the first Yoyo. Doing errands, managing volunteers and working the door and ticket booth.
Lara Cohen (Runt zine): Crayon and the Softies had stayed at my house when they played a show in Philadelphia that spring, and I think they were the ones who first told me about it. They said that if I could get out to Olympia, I could stay where they were staying—at this guy Aaron’s parents’ house. (Thank you, Aaron! You were so nice and a year later, when I went off to college, sent me a copy of Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.) There must have been 15 people staying there, and I have fond memories of everyone trying out the NordicTrak.
How did it feel different from other festivals at the time? Pat Castaldo: I had gone to the first Lollapalooza in high school, but otherwise, I don’t think I really had ever gone to a festival before — I had walked by K’s IPU Convention when it was on, but didn’t know anything about it and was like “that looks cool, maybe I’ll go next year.”
I think the big thing that felt crazy and different to me at the time is how far folks were coming for it — people traveling to Olympia as a destination felt foreign to me then (and now, to be honest).
What impact did it have on the city of Olympia? Pat Castaldo: I think IPU was the first big explosion and then the Yoyos were powerful echos — incredible and their own thing. For me, the literal do-it-yourself nature is what held into other things. To me so much of the Olympia DIY movement was a “we have to do it ourselves or no one else will” and I don’t think if I hadn’t been volunteering at the theater I would have ever learned how important that is.
I think folks moving to Olympia to make even more of a scene definitely happened after the first Yoyo.
Indie bands beget other Indie bands and it’s kinda wonderful.
I just read Kathleen’s memoir and found it an excellent time capsule of the time — and it captured the feeling of how sick people could get of Olympia at times; mostly because the scene was so incredibly small. I never found the “I want to get out of here” feeling, but completely understand how people could. If she hadn’t moved to DC, then Riot Grrrl might not have been brought back, and then that also that means Ladyfest and other even bigger things might not have ever happened.
Photo: Jen Sbragia
What was the Olympia/larger independent pop scene like in 1994 vs. 2024? Pat Castaldo: I know nothing about the 2024 scene, but do think, that we had a special thing from like ’91-2005 or so, and after that things started to change a bit. How exactly is hard to pin down. I ended up leaving town in 2008 to move, like so many other Olympians did, to Portland.
What performances stand out in your memory?
Lara Cohen (Runt zine): Some Velvet Sidewalk, Lois and surprise Courtney Love reunion, Blairmailer, Kicking Giant, Jad Fair, Team Dresch, Halo Benders, Excuse 17.
What was the vibe in general?
Lara Cohen (Runt zine): Maybe people who were older and wiser at the time saw a more complicated dynamic, but to me as a teenager, it was glorious. The lineup was ridiculous and people were just giddy with excitement. The Olympians were really generous to the out-of-towners—even though I kind of stumbled in, people fed me, let me sleep on their floor, took me swimming and berry-picking, etc. I babysat Stella Marrs and Al Larsen’s child even though they had never met me before. It was hard to be a starry-eyed fan and try to play it cool when suddenly you were surrounded by all these people whose music you loved so much. I definitely failed.
What other memories do you have?
Lara Cohen (Runt zine): The organizers gave out yoyos and everyone rose to the occasion; I have all these photos of people trying to learn tricks. There was competition to win giant stuffed animals at the Lakefair carnival and gift them to other people who would then have to carry them around. Am I remembering correctly that it was very hot? I didn’t go to the parade, which I deeply regretted, and I think it was because the only clean shirt I had left was a thermal and I couldn’t take being outside in it. Later Tae Won Yu loaned me some shorts he’d worn as a child. David Nichols from the Cannanes and Blairmailer offered to walk me back to Aaron’s house after a party because “I bet there are some Australian drinking songs you don’t know.” But it was miles away, so instead Beck gave me a ride and we got lost in a housing development. It was totally surreal. I was in love with like 10 different people.
Pat Castaldo: It’s funny because it’s been so long ago, the album we made is the strongest musical memory I have left. Triple Vinyl! Tae and I did the cover together! I always regret how “red” people’s faces are on the back — it was one of my first every full-color albums, all the K stuff at the time was just two-color, and my crappy Mac monitor wasn’t up to the task.
But just reading the track listing I can smell the theater. I can picture Becca, Carrie and CJ (Excuse 17) playing their set and just being blown away. I remember Corin Tucker (Heavens to Betsy) standing there so strong and playing Ax Men and thinking, “woah, that’s the girl who works at the camera shop in the mall!” To this day those two albums and those live shows are some of my favorite music from Olympia at the time.
I remember wondering “how is there this crazy Japanese band playing?” when Bloodthirsty Butchers came on (and later staying at one of their apartments when I went to Tokyo).
I remember Mikey being Mikey and just bringing so much energy to the Fitz of Depression set.
I remember Mary Lou Lord playing during the afternoon and being dumbstruck that it’s the same person I saw a few years before busking in a Boston subway. Just memorized how small of a world it was.
Lara Cohen (Runt zine) and Beck at Calvin’s house. Photo: Jen Sbragia
I remember giving Beck and his buddy Mario yo-yos that Pat had got and all of us trying to do tricks in the lobby (there’s a pic of this on my flickr).
I remember thinking Codeine was sublime and how had I never heard them before?
I remember loving to get to see Long Hind Legs followed by Some Velvet Sidewalk, and just basking in the glorious sonic diversity that was our tiny town.
And then, of course, Lois playing Strumpet — basically the unofficial anthem of everyone in town. We all kinda walked around like we owned it — because we did.
Hannah and Jen. Photo: Jen Sbragia
Brett Sandström (fan): Thinking about Bratmobile’s “Queenie”, I know it was a bit cliché how I found out about Yoyo-A-Gogo. I was flipping through the pages of my teenage girlfriend’s Sassy magazine. I ripped out the little advert/article and asked my parents for a check to mail off along with a passport photo a friend made me that same afternoon.
Summer now, and I was nervous about trying to find a way there. Luckily, I convinced a friend to drive the hour south in his 1969 emerald green Cadillac hearse. He dropped me off at Sylvester Park with my skateboard, a backpack with some clothes, and $100 cash. I was alone, and like a kid in a candy store, I immediately spent too much money on records at Positively 4th Street. Full from the excitement, I stowed everything away in a Greyhound locker.
It was noon on July 11 when I learned that the main events didn’t start until the next day. I keep myself busy skateboarding, loitering in the park, meeting new people, I even took in an action flick at the State Theatre, where I’m certain that Kathi Wilcox gave me a free pop! I also saw the documentary film The Band That Would Be King. I learned of a show later that night in the Back Stage called the Midnight-a-Gogo; it turned out to be Dub Narcotic Sound System. I danced and I met a woman there who invited me to stay in her hotel room.
Lakefair parade. Photo: Pat Castaldo
I was wearing contacts then and I woke up with some sort of allergic reaction where the light was blindingly bright. Even though I couldn’t really see, I managed to stumble my way past the Ribeye into downtown where I sat in front of the Capitol Theater to wait for the festivities to start. I stayed hours with my back against the beige walls of the theater, knees bent and my eyes buried in my lap. A woman named Brooke asked me if I was OK, and after telling her my woes, she invited me to hang out with her gang.
6PM – July 12– the shows started. I was truly excited to see all these bands I only knew from records, but I was thrilled that Tattle Tale was playing the first night. I had seen this amazing duo play dozens of times in the Seattle area, but this was on a big stage and I was excited for them. The Brentwoods were a hoot and Unwound’s bassy rumble to finish their set is something that still reverberates in my soul today.
Photo: Pat Castaldo
The rest of the week went by in a flash and so did the memories. I switched hands a couple more times. I was starstruck every few moments. Jean Smith walking through the crowd with everyone singing along, I walk alone! Seeing Tim Armstrong busk outside with Mary Lou Lord. Meeting my earliest teenage idol, Ian MacKaye. CALVIN! Seeing Beck play a whole different set than my suburban friends saw the next evening in Seattle. Lync, Slant 6, Kicking Giant… It was all too much!
In 1994, Yoyo-A-Gogo, for me, was an adventure – meeting so many new friends and seeing so many wonderful bands, it was a punk summer camp. And, what was it, like $50 bucks?! What a time!!!
Bryce Edwards (fan): Such a blur since it was 30 years ago but one thing I remember is sitting in The Apples in Stereo / Neutral Milk Hotel van with the bands (who I knew from Colorado) and the Apples were super psyched because someone cancelled and they ended up getting to play last minute. Robert and Hilarie from the Apples played as the NMH band along with Lisa from Secret Square on bass. I made zines at the time and handed out about 100 of them over the weekend. A few weeks before the festival, I met a skater lesbian on the street in NYC and she ended up road tripping with me back to Colorado and then to Olympia for the festival. I’m not even sure if she had a pass or not but we spent 2 months together on the road. Ahh youth.
Glorious design work by the wonderful artist Tae Won Yu
From July 12 to 16, 1994, the original YoYo a GoGo festival happened at the Capitol Theater in Olympia, Washington. It was organized by Yoyo Records’ Pat Maley, Michelle Noel, Kent Oiwa, along with Pat Castaldo, Diana Arens, Sara Lorimer, and others, and there were subsequent YoYos in 1997, 1999 and 2001. Carrying on from the great tradition of pop festivals like the International Pop Underground Convention (1991) and Lotsa Pop Losers (1991), it featured a ridiculous lineup that included superfeminist superstars Team Dresch and Mecca Normal, loud bands, quiet bands, punk bands, pop bands, see a full lineup later in the piece. We asked some folks who played, attended and organized it to share memories including Jean Smith (Mecca Normal), Jen Sbragia (The Softies), Lois Maffeo, David Nichols (Blairmailer), Nikki McClure, Tracy Wilson (Dahlia Seed), and Sara Lund (Unwound). READ PART 2 HERE
Tae Won Yu design / Courtesy Lois Maffeo
Chickfactor: Did you attend YoYo in 1994? What made you want to go?
Jen Sbragia (The Softies): Yes! I’d never been to a festival like that and was very excited to be included and see a lot of bands.
Nikki McClure: Yes. It was across the street from where I lived.
Tracy Wilson (Dahlia Seed): Yes, I attended and played that year. The lineup was a dream come true and I can’t imagine any self-described indie rocker wouldn’t do whatever it took to be at this special event.
Gail CF: I sure did. I think I built my summer vacation around it, in the days when people had such a thing as paid vacation at their jobs.
Rose and Al – Photo: Jen Sbragia
In what capacity were you involved with YoYo a GoGo 1994?
Sara Lund (Unwound): I played at YoYo a Go-go in 1994 with Unwound. I had been in the band for about 2 years and we had released our 2nd record (with me) New Plastic Ideas that spring. We did a lot of touring that year – I think we went on our longest ever tour. 10 weeks all over the US. I’m pretty sure the YoYo show we played front stage at the Capitol Theater was the biggest crowd we had played to at that point.
I had attended the 1991 International Pop Underground festival my first week in Olympia, before I knew anyone. This festival felt very different to me as I was now a 3-year resident of Olympia as well as being in one of the relatively better known bands in town.
Sara Lund / Photo: Pat Castaldo
It most definitely felt like the town was suddenly overrun with looky-loos, coming to see what all the buzz was about. It was so weird that Beck came and played! He had had a huge hit with “Loser” and it was like cognitive dissonance to have a pop star wandering around this very anti mainstream, major label pro DIY scene.
I also feel like this festival made a TON of people move to Olympia. People got the impression from the festival that Olympia was this super fun, hip playground all the time. What most people discovered when they moved there was that Olympia was just a small town with not a lot going on and locals that weren’t particularly welcoming to a rush of young hipsters, polluting the scene. That was not true for everyone, but I know a lot of people moved there and did not last long once they realized daily life was nothing like YoYo a GoGo.
Rose and Beck in Calvin’s backyard. Photo: Jen Sbragia
Jen: The Softies and Go Sailor were invited to play.
Nikki: I think I named it? I remember suggesting the name to Pat Maley. I also maybe led a Nature Punk Walk? Where we caught the #81 bus to some park? Maybe what is now Squaxin Park? I hope someone out there remembers this! My memory was more focused on the making of burritos and selling them outside the theater. I was down to my last $100 and spent it on burrito making supplies supplemented with greens and nasturtium flowers from my garden patch. I’d make the burritos and then run across the street to sell them then run back to make more. I wore a kids cowboy hat and strapped a small suitcase to me, open and full off “Burritos a Go Go”. Thankfully I keep a briefly noted calendar. I made $68 the first day, $24 the next due to the nature walk. $72 the next day. And somehow figured that I came out ahead? Fed myself and some others at $2 a burrito! I took Ian MacKaye to my garden to pick more greens for the Friday burritos. I also was the Punk Rock Janitor for the theater and would clean up the stage area and bathrooms…the things one does for free movies! It was a time of scraping by and making fun out of it!
Tracy: My band Dahlia Seed was scheduled to play, but a month before, the rest of the members told me they couldn’t afford to fly out, leaving me to scramble to find a way to play without them. Michelle Noel convinced me I needed to still play so I promised her I would. I am infamously terrible at playing guitar and singing at the same time, so my co-worker Michael from C/Z records AKA Snackboy stepped in at the last minute to help me out. I taught him how to play all the Dahlia Seed songs I had written on guitar, and we played together as a duo with me singing beside him on electric guitar.
Gail CF: I went as a fan, a zine editor, photographer, documenter.
Jean Smith (Mecca Normal): Mecca Normal performed. We were around for most of the festival and went to lots of shows.
Nikki McClure / photo: Pat Castaldo
How did it feel different from other festivals at the time?
Nikki: Scrappily ambitious. Yet also low-key and not ambitious at all. Now looking back and thinking of the paths everyone has gone on since then, it was a nurturing garden in full flower and then the seedpods all popped open and scattered far, really far. I also remember the mix of bands being selected on some mysterious connections that weren’t based on musical likeness. It was really a mix of everything from quiet whispers to loudest possible electric noise. Polished and raw all a jumble.
Jen: I’d never been to one! I was still in transition from hair metal to normal music to indie pop when the IPU happened.
Tracy: I was 22 and had not been to too many festivals before – other than giant things like Amnesty International events. In some ways it set me up for a lot of future disappointment. This event was so friendly, so easy to attend and play, that it would be a shock to learn how most other music would struggle to have that kind of talent pool, that kind of welcoming atmosphere, and such wonderful support from the folks running it. I remember walking around, a very new person to the northwest (I has just moved to Seattle) and feeling overwhelmed by how friendly attendees and other band people were. Everyone was sharing addresses and phone numbers to stay in touch like the last day of summer camp or high school. I was so nervous to play without my regular band members and so many people went out of their way to make sure I felt good/proud of the performance. And wow, the food and drinks were affordable, like starving artist affordable, something I can’t say about many other fests.
Gail CF: Most festivals at that time were kinda gross and mainstream, like Lollapalooza, corporate, dorky. Not as outrageously priced as today but more expensive than something like YoYo, which was very accessible. I am guessing these bands didn’t get flown in for this, but probably appreciated the exposure at the time. Looking back, festivals like IPU and YoYo were influential on the small fests CF has set up, but again, it is ever harder to make a profit in 2024 since tech platforms are siphoning off everything they can and extracting pennies they did nothing to earn.
Jean: Mecca Normal toured at least once in Europe that year, playing the Fast Forward Festival in Nijmegen, Holland with Smog, Dump, Sebadoh and other specifically lo-fi bands. Even though that was a small festival, it felt very formal in terms of being accommodated at a hotel somewhere else in the city and arriving at the venue in advance of our set. I don’t think we went to shows other than the one we played. Other festivals we’ve played on tour we basically just do a one-day stop with shows on either side of it in other towns. Sometimes, as a band, you wouldn’t necessarily notice you’re playing a festival. You arrive, do the show and leave.
Festivals in Olympia were special because so many of the performers were there for more than their show day, seeing a lot of bands over the duration of the event, which also meant that various bands were meeting each other, and fans were bumping into band members at other shows and in the street. There were so many opportunities to engage and form new connections. Having said that, it was sort of nerve wracking to be so noticeable and approachable any time we were out and about.
There were so many participants, both band and audience members, downtown that we’d see people we knew all over the place. I’d say that proximity and a very small downtown core were key factors that helped to extend Olympia festivals beyond the venues to restaurants and accommodation.
YoYo Festival was, by location and association, related to the IPU 3 years prior, so expectations and comparisons were palpable. For me, there was no way it came close to the wow factor of the IPU, but it definitely had its own excellent vibe. For those who missed the IPU, they likely experienced the same thrill factor of the IPU when the town was once again filled with idiosyncratic fans and bands who, in essence, expanded even the broadest description of punk.
Being a small city, distances between everything are short. For a touring band, Olympia is a very easy town to deal with in terms of navigating, getting parking, having everything you basically need close by. It wouldn’t be the first or best place you’d think of putting on a music festival though. The IPU provided a blueprint for YoYo. That Candice Pedersen, co-founder of K Records, was able to put the IPU together and pull it off, was an astounding feat. For Pat Maley, following a similar path would likely have been somewhat daunting, but he had a lot of things working for him, including the fact that his recording studio was in the Capitol Theater.
People in front of the Capitol Theater / Photo: Pat Castaldo
What impact did YoYo have on the city of Olympia?
Nikki: I always welcomed the focus on the Capitol Theater as the epicenter of life, instead of my town being overrun by the carnival festival of Lakefair. It was a cultural exchange: Japan! New York! DC! LA! Anacortes! The impact was of connections between all the people and places that continues today. Olympia finally has a city-owned arts center that is developing places for performances. The city also is able to fund events now with a sale tax levy. People seem creative and ambitious again. Punk Theater! Community Print! And there are plenty of show flyers in the window of Rainy Day Records. AND the Capitol Theater is turning 100 years old this year.
What did it feel like to play YoYo?
Jen: I was always terribly nervous.
Tracy: Dahlia Seed was still a relatively new band, on top of being my first serious band, so I had never played something so big before. I WAS TERRIFIED. To soften the blow of what Snackboy and I were certain would be a disastrous performance, we went to the Oly brewery and got these little beer cookies to throw out into the crowd. We spent an alarmingly long time throwing out cookies before we played, but it seemed like people were wildly excited about them. It was a nice way to ease into our less than perfect set as a brand new two piece trying to play the songs of what was typically a well practiced 5-piece band. We played the day that bands like Built To Spill, Lois, Neutral Milk Hotel, Lync, Halo Benders, and Versus played, so needless to say, as a kid who was buried up to their ears in an obsession with DIY/underground music, this was one of the best days of my young life. I will never forget the sound of a theater filled with people clapping after we played the first song. I had dreaded that moment for so many months because I was so new to performing. The anxiety leading up to our performance was all consuming. After we completed that first song, even with all its flaws, the audience gifted us the support to feel not just really heard, but appreciated.
Jean: It was great to be on a giant stage in front of a big audience of people who were probably going to like us well enough. Because our friends were putting on the event, we felt supported in all ways. So having to assert ourselves as we likely would in regular clubs wasn’t an issue. Battling with typical soundmen in clubs tended to be tiresome after a long day of driving.
It was an honour to be included and, considering Olympia was like a second home to us, it was somewhat emotional to play a big show there. We’d already been around for 10 years at that point, so we wanted to represent our reason for becoming a band in terms of songs that meant something to people as well as playing new material.
I often think we give slightly better performances where there’s a sense of opposition, whereas, in a setting like YoYo, it may have seemed just slightly too friendly. Also, because I tend to look directly at people in the audience, I’m sure I would have been a bit distracted by seeing people I knew who I didn’t know would be there. While singing about various social injustices, seeing someone I like in the audience might set off a series of reactions in me that might not essentially fortify the performance. Wanting to jump off stage and hug someone was contrary to an angry song about a woman’s right to walk alone.
Jeff Cashvan and Richard Baluyut (Versus): Photo by Gail O‘Hara
What YoYo performances stand out in your memory?
Jen: I really remember seeing Unwound the most. I was right in the front with Linton from Go Sailor. I also loved KARP.
Lois: Versus sang “Frog.” My favorite band. My favorite song.
Nikki: Slant 6, Bloodthirsty Butchers, Had Fair, Gravel, Versus, Copass Grinderz, Mecca Normal
Tracy: I recall watching Built to Spill and being in absolute awe of how someone could ROCK but also be so vulnerable and tender at the same time. I was a massive Treepeople fan and Dug was so important to me. I seriously moved to Seattle to work at C/Z because I was such a big Treepeople fan. I didn’t think Dug’s new band would ever possibly be as good, and their Yoyo performance proved otherwise. I wonder if this is how Minor Threat fans felt when they saw Rites of Spring for the first time?
Gail CF: Team Dresch, Lois, The Softies, Heavens to Betsy, Spinanes, Mary Lou Lord, Excuse 17, Slant 6, Neutral Milk Hotel, Halo Benders…
New artists discovered?
Tracy: It wasn’t so much about discovering any artist for me. It was about seeing a lot of artists play live for the first time and out of those bands, Karp absolutely blew my mind. They were so tight and had the humor and energy I always wanted from The Melvins, but never quite got from their live shows during that time period.
Nikki: Copass Grinderz
Big Girl wall zine by Lois Maffeo and Margaret Doherty. Photos: Gail O’Hara
What was the vibe like at YoYo in general?
Jen: I felt like I was included in a beautiful weird secret.
Jean Smith: There can be a weird sort of alienation playing regular rock clubs in towns where you don’t know anyone, when you don’t actually know the other bands on the bill. In those cases, there may be an intensity of performance due to that anonymity. YoYo was the opposite of that.
Some Velvet Sidewalk / Photo: Pat Castaldo
Did Yo-Yo a Go-Go get national attention? Tracy: I think because there were bands from so many other states performing, the DIY world who was connected through radio, zines, penpal packages, and record stores all seemed in the know. Does that count as national attention?
Jean Smith: This appeared in Rolling Stone. It seems like it’s a snippet from a longer piece: “Such innocence and enthusiasm are the guiding principles of the Olympia genre called love rock. At Yo Yo, bands throw candy to the audience, and the festival organizers hand out yo-yos. Homemade and vintage instruments proliferate, as do two-and three-piece groups, a minimalism exemplified by the Saturday night performances of Mecca Normal and Spinanes.” – Evelyn McDonnell, Rolling Stone
Love Evelyn, of course, but, in the mid-90s, I’m actually not sure if it would have been published in Rolling Stone if she’d reported that a number of bands performed songs about women’s rights etc.
When national media mentioned various scenes and festivals we participated in, I usually had the impression that the individual journalists may have been compelled to report differently, but maybe their editors dictated a requirement for content that wasn’t confrontational, possibly even especially about women in music.
Mainstream mentions were usually a bit cringe. We were amazed when anything from our ilk made it to a national level. It seemed a bit suspicious. One of the few times Rolling Stone wrote about us, they said we were Vancouver Washington (as opposed to Canada). I took everything they said about anyone with a few grains of salt.
Gail CF: I was an editor at a big rock mag then but all the bands I interviewed ended up in our zine.
Jason Traeger, Calvin Johnson and Beck. Photo: Jen Sbragia
What was the Olympia/larger independent pop scene like in 1994 vs. 2024?
Lois: I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I’ve been helping put together another Olympia-centric summer festival called Northern Sky happening in early September. I think there is still a spirit in Olympia to find a fun spot and a great reason to bring people together and just try to pull it off. There is absolutely no danger of any Olympia festival becoming like Coachella or Primavera. Go through the list! IPUC, Yoyo A Go Go, Homo A Go Go, Ladyfest, Helsing Junction Sleepover: all just homemade events. No sponsors, just DIY labor and love.
Gail CF: The 1990s were the last decade where we could live in the moment. No one had smartphones and no one held things up in front of other people or looked at phones while watching shows. You were just there for the show. Sure, people could be rude and talk over the bands but probably not here. The absence of constant device fondling made people more social I think? Also people bought albums/paid for music; not every independent label was paying out properly but there was more potential for bands to earn a living from touring and selling albums.
Tracy: It is so hard to answer this question as a middle-aged person. I would love to believe versions of this event are happening all over the place today, but I also know that in today’s climate, booking a festival is more complicated and expensive than ever. Renting spaces is no easy task (insurance, rental fees, and so on), booking talent is a nightmare since so many artists (especially those with booking agents) charge 10x their normal fee when the word festival is attached to it. I think social media also inherently puts pressure on events to be so much more than just great music and so many events get lost in the weeds trying to be all the things. In turn I think the fans have changed. I grew up having zero expectations from a fest other than music, and fans now are expecting a mini Coachella from every multi-day music event with all the bells and whistles. The closest thing I can think to Yoyo isn’t so much an indie pop thing, but Goner is an example of an event that I go to almost annually that reminds me of the same genuine spirit. For me the perfect fest is 40% about the music (thoughtfully curated) and 40% about the people (fans/musicians) I will be able to spend time with in person, and 20% a city I like (and can afford to spend a few days in).
What other memories do you have about YoYo?
Lois: Yoyo coincided with Lakefair, the Olympia town carnival that had (still has!) all the clichéd accoutrements of such things: pageant queens, outdoor concerts with 70s cover bands and a parade with marching bands and floats from other small towns in Washington featuring their pageant queens, waving. Yoyo staff put in the paperwork to have an entry in the parade and so many festival-goers showed up to march through downtown behind a spray painted Yoyo A Go Go banner! The crowds that lined the streets didn’t know what to make of it and hardly anyone cheered for this ragtag bunch. But one old guy sitting in a lawn chair along the parade route yelled out, “There go the future welfare rats of America!” (A photo of Nikki, Tae and Calvin in the parade adorns the back cover of the “yoyo a go go” LP.)
I ran up to Christina Billotte after Slant 6 tore through a furious set and said to her, “Great set! It was epic!” To which she replied, “It wasn’t great at all. We played terrible. That’s the trouble with you Olympia people. You’ll clap for anything.” In my mind, that has become the best description of the Olympia music scene and the spirit that drives it. We’ll clap for anything! Thanks, Christina. (And btw, the set truly was great. What a band!)
Jen: If I knew his name, I can’t remember now what it was. Even though it was warm summer weather, he wore a ladies’ navy blue cardigan sweater, buttoned up to the top, with tight pants, low tops and a wide white belt. He had that short hair with the bangs cut straight across. I remember his nails painted with white out or white nail polish. Very emo. Before EMO existed. He didn’t say much and I liked that. I saw him every day at the festival. Eventually we spoke enough that I asked him to go for a walk around the block with me, and we briefly held hands. He wasn’t into me. I never saw him again.
Jean: We stayed at Calvin’s house. I think Dave slept in the basement in the recording studio and I slept in the backyard where I recall chit-chatting with Beck while I set up my tent.
I forget which festival it was when we bumped into each other, Gail. I also forget who you were walking with and what we all talked about briefly, but I think the conversation was in the actual street as opposed to on the sidewalk you’d just stepped off and we were aiming for. That is to say; it’s a very quiet town!
Tracy: Street busking! I think I saw Mary Lou Lord and the dude from Rancid perform like 3 other times, ha! I know I should be focusing on the bands that played, but my strongest memory is talking to so many different people from all over the country and making friends with people that I still know to this day.
David Nichols (Blairmailer): Pat Maley and Sara Lorimer came to Australia on holiday in I guess 1993. I was finishing my Arts degree at the University of Sydney but very occasionally making records with Michael under the name Blairmailer. Pat and Sara came to see Blairmailer play at the Richmond Club hotel in Melbourne. It was a well-attended show. I can’t remember who was in the band aside from Michael and me at that time, maybe it was just the two of us. Pat either got in touch later to say he was doing YoYo A Go Go or he was thinking and talking about it even while he was in Australia. Michael was very keen, I’m fairly sure that we recruited Bart and Andrew purely for the sake of the US tour, I mean aside from the fact that they were our friends and we liked them. We played a show in Melbourne with Stinky Fire Engine, The Cats Miaow were also on the bill.
Bart and Andrew were with the band for the rest of its existence, it didn’t last much longer. They were our two bass players, we had them play half a show each, which was probably about 5 songs apiece. They sat in the audience together and I think they saw almost everything and kept notes. At some time, before or after the actual Yo Yo show, we recorded an EP with Pat.
Blairmailer had two albums out by that stage, one was a cassette the other was an LP released on IMP records of Portland, a terrific label. Our show went pretty smoothly. We played a couple of other shows at the same time, one with Mocket, one with New Bad Things, both incredible.
YoYo Records’ Pat Maley / Photo: Pat Castaldo
The best shows I remember seeing were Versus, who I’d already seen elsewhere and who are one of my favourite bands, Copass Grinderz, Halo Benders, but I know there heaps more, of course. It’s a long time ago. Some Velvet Sidewalk were going through a really classic period, the Whirlpool album period. Don from SVS asked Bart, Michael and Andrew, kind of tentatively, ‘do you guys like… drinking beer?’ They did.
Meeting Beck and Ian MacKaye was a real privilege and we all walked together somewhere, sometime, after Blairmailer played.
The Stinkypuffs show was something everyone felt was a historic moment, I mean apart from being very touching. I recall being told at the time that Fred Astaire had performed at the Capitol theatre but I imagine everybody has.
I remember sitting in the audience with Rebecca Gates and Gilmore Tamny and Rebecca making some kind of joke, or observation, that included telling a young man ‘I knew your mom in high school’. None of us could have even been thirty by that stage.
I think this was the time I was in Olympia and there was some kind of parade in town? Am I wrong? Is that what’s on the back cover of the LP? If so, then this was the time when I saw a group of Olympia music people in the parade, and a woman asked a policeman who they were, and he said sardonically ‘the future welfare recipients of America’.
Pat Maley used to have a slight chip on his shoulder that he was shunned by the punks of Olympia somewhat, as a hippy, and it wasn’t until Calvin embraced him that he became really ‘acceptable’ to the more pretentious or fickle Olympia types. So I imagine that there was something a little bittersweet for him in running Yo Yo a Go Go but I am certainly glad he, Diana, Aaron and Sara put it on. He has tapes of everything, I remember him saying that one day a long time into the future he’d find a way to release it all, I guess the time is not yet ripe.
Gail CF: We started our zine out of love for the East Coast (and UK) pop scene in the early ’90s. Yo-Yo was like a grand introduction to West Coast culture for me. I loved the supportive and slightly earnest West Coast people, meeting people like Stella Marrs and Nikki McClure and seeing the DIY ecosystem and “let’s create our own fun” style of putting together an event. It was world-shifting in a good way. One more memory was that Vicky Wheeler was supposed to pick me up and give me a ride to SeaTac but overslept so I missed my flight, spent the night in the Holiday Inn SeaTac but then got upgraded to first class flying home; Dave Grohl and Elliott Smith were on my flight.
CF: What are you up to today? Jen Sbragia: Working on some freelance design stuff, making dinner, hopefully practicing guitar later What would you have been up to on a day like this in 1994? Very similar except I didn’t have Adobe Creative Suite! Tell us about how your songwriting process worked in 1994 vs. 2024. In the past, I would write and present a whole song of mine to Rose, she would then write a lead guitar part and a vocal harmony. For the new album, I had song ideas but also a few half-baked ideas and riffs, which we worked on together to make whole songs. It was pretty fun to do that, because Rose has studied the art of songwriting so much more than me. She inspires me to do better, all the time. Both of you have been undergoing major life shifts in recent years; how did grief, loss, change play into the songs? How is that different from your trials and tribulations of 30 years ago? I always used to write songs about unrequited love back in the day. This is still true for me! At this point in my life I have experienced more loss, so that is tied in too. But crushes not working out is my favorite songwriting topic, apparently.
Cover of The Bed I Made by Fumi Yanagimoto
What was a typical day in the studio like making The Bed I Made? And how does that differ from the 1990s sessions? Analog is lovely and all, but recording digitally is fantastic. Rose and I used Garage Band to make demos for each other we could email back and forth. When it came time to record in the studio, we felt so lucky to work with Nich (Nicholas Wilbur). He has an amazing ear, is endlessly chill and patient, makes the perfect cappuccino, and belongs to the funniest and best dog, Cathy. I heard my first ever ghostly footsteps in the (haunted) studio! Rose and I slept there at night – it was a little spooky, which I loved.
Softies’ studio still-life, courtesy of Rose
What are some of your most important studio accoutrements? Snacks, tea, special instruments or accessories? Lots of Juanita’s tortilla chips, peanut butter, strong coffee, maybe a touch of psilocybin. Anacortes Unknown has a vibraphone… it may make an appearance. How long have you been working on this one? I took a trip to Vancouver in January of 2023 and we ended up with the beginnings of 8 songs, and just excitedly continued from there, meeting every month or so. Sometimes we would meet in Seattle, sometimes I would make the full trek to Vancouver. I love long drives so it really didn’t seem too difficult. How has the touring and show playing ecosystem changed from then to now? Well, it is much better now that we don’t have to have an Atlas and a Thomas Guide! One time on tour we caravanned with walkie talkies.
We prefer that more days off need to be built in. We need ease and calm. The less stress, the better. There is a low key goal of being able to stay somewhere with a hot tub. Can we always have a hot tub? A girl can dream.
Jen in Portland. Photo: Gail O’Hara
What can fans to do help musicians have better lives? Vote. Buy merch. Come to live shows. Do you have a sense of how big your audience is now vs 1994? Do you hear from fans? We used to get fan letters back in the day. I have a box of them. These days, it’s much quicker and easier with social media. But also it can feel overwhelming because everything is so immediate. What about the vinyl reissues on K: are those all out now or coming soon? Out now: Holiday in Rhode Island [KLP119]
Out July 26: Winter Pageant [KLP061]
Out Sept. 6: It’s Love [KLP043]
Where all will you be touring? Glas Goes Pop festival on Friday, July 26.
Two record release shows at the end of August in Vancouver and Portland, followed by two more shows in early September in Anacortes and Seattle
East coast shows in late Sept/early October
California shows in late October
What else are you up to apart from the Softies? Always trying to balance freelance design work, hoping for more hours but grateful when I have free time for music. I have some new song ideas for All Girl Summer Fun Band but we haven’t had time to work on them yet. I would like to get back into drawing comics and/or making prints of some kind.
What are you eating, cooking, watching, reading lately? FOOD: I’m on a mission to sample every single non-dairy cream cheese on the market. I could eat the Moderno Bowl at Tacovore every day. Peanut butter filled chocolate covered pretzels from Trader Joe’s are my favorite food group.
COOKING: Lately I have been avoiding cooking as much as possible! I’m giving in to convenience whenever possible, although throwing a sweet potato in the oven is very easy and I love the edible sugar goo that comes out of them.
WATCHING: I’m re-watching Killing Eve because Jodie Comer is a goddess. Also watching the new season of Bridgerton. I will re-watch Broad City for the rest of my life. Listening to RebelGirl by Kathleen Hanna. Reading Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski. Books do tend to stack up and collect dust. I’m trying!
The cassette tape is on Lost Sound Tapes
Records Jen Cannot Live Without:
Tiger Trap – S/T & Sour Grass
Lightheaded – Good Good Great
Henry’s Dress – Bust ‘em Green
Girl Ray – Prestige
Pretenders – S/T
Fastbacks – Very, Very Powerful Motor
Young Guv – I, II, III, IIII (basically anything he does)
Dolly Mixture – Demonstration Tapes
Kids on a Crime Spree – Fall in Love Not in Line
Of Montreal – Cherry Peel
Best of 1994: Boyracer – More Songs About Frustration & Self Hate
Best of 2024: Lightheaded – Combustible Gems
The Softies. Photo: C. DoughtySet list from the Softies’ June 2023 show at Polaris Hall.Vinyl reissue out now on K RecordsVinyl reissue out July 26 on K RecordsVinyl reissue out Sept. 6 on K RecordsGrab a ticket ASAP, Glasgow!
