Riot Grrrl certainly coming back with avengance. If you thought the return of Julie Ruin and a Kathleen Hanna documentary in the works is mind blowing you'll love this snippet of the the riot grrrl scene in the early 90s.
Grrrl Love and the Revolution: Riot Grrrl NYC, released in 2010, documents the feminist music movement Riot Grrrl in New York from 1993 to 1996 through the eyes of documentary maker and Riot Grrrl participant Abby Moser.
The film features interview with musicians, including Kathleen Hanna, and Riot Grrrls themselves discussing what the movement means to them and why it matters.
After the film's release it had limited screenings and there is now little information available regarding whether the film is still being screened or available to buy on DVD.
Some bands love to seen, heard and talked about. They fantasise about becoming the next Lana Del Ray-sized internet hit and as a result they compose every aspect of their band around becoming 'searchable'. Google groupies is what they are. Fortunately some bands are going against the SEO grain, like Household and their entirely un-googleable name.
Try searching for Household in Google (or you preferred search engine) and see what comes up. I got a couple million pages on everything but the band. It seems Household have a sense of humour since they called their debut album 'Items', which does not help their searchability one bit.
Household are a three piece Brooklyn-based band made up of Talya Cooper (guitar and vocals), Jenna Weiss-Berman (drums and vocals) and Isabel Freeman (bass). Lo-fi to the extreme Household mix rattling snares, rumbling bass lines and droll, matter-of-fact vocals to muster up a sound that can only be described as if Young Marble Giants, Grass Widow and Delta 5 spent the summer renting an apartment in Brooklyn and formed an awesome super band.
Album opener 'Go Away' is definitely the stand out track. It has a soaring, catchy chorus that sees Cooper softly yell "defective, defective"; a comment on old fashioned views of a 'woman's role' or just a statement about a broken household item. You decide (I think it might be the first one to be honest). Songs stop abruptly, change direction and fascinate you in ways you couldn't believe.
Household's minimalist, lo-fi style is certainly a winner and although they have only been quietly discussed on a few blogs here and there, mainly because no one can find them, that is no reflection on the band or their album, which is an impressive debut that everyone should feel excited about.
Valentine's Day is a tricky occasion for many of us to have live through. Whether you're 'in a relationship', 'happily single' or 'it's really complicated, seriously I couldn't explain to you what's going on between us if I had a million years' everyone wants to know what you're doing for Valentine's Day.
Are you going to waste £10 of you're hard-earned, or not really that hard-earned in my case since I work in media and stare at a screen for the majority of my day, money to see a truly, god-awful chick flick and receive a present that you honestly can find no use for.
It's fine if you like that kind of thing but for the cynical folk like me another second of this mindless lovefest cannot be tolerated. In the spirit of all things cynical I have whipped up a 15 track mixtape that features anti-love songs about heartbreak, cheating, lying and a whole lotta crying. That should stop you feeling lovesick.
Tracklisting:
1. February 14th- Huggy Bear
2. Beat Your Heart Out- The Distillers
3. No- Vivian Girls
4. Only Loved at Night- The Raincoats
5. I Love You Eddie- The Crystals
6. Single Again- The Fiery Furnaces
7. Love und Romance- The Slits
8. This Isn't It- Giant Drag
9. I'm Blue- Shangri-Las
10. Don't Wanna Hold Your Hand- thee headcoatees
11. A Real Man- Sleater-Kinney
12. Legs- PJ Harvey
13. I Don't Wanna Be Friends With You- Shop Assistants
14. Cheated Hearts- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
15 Girlfriends Don't Keep- Bratmobile
A welcome return for Golden Oldies here on Don't Dance Her Down Boys and the first band to be featured are Pylon, the Athens, Georgia new wave band that were a huge part of the Athens post punk scene.
Pylon formed in 1978 when guitarist, Randell Bewley, bassist, Michael Lachowski, and drummer, Curtis Crowe, came together to form a band after meeting as art students at the University of Georgia. Vocalist Vanessa Briscoe, also an art student at the university, was chosen after the guys held auditions for a singer.
Pylon's brand of post-punk, raucous music won them famous fans like Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, Talking Heads and the B-52s who helped the band promote their music across America. REM drummer, Bill Berry, described Pylon as "the best rock n roll band in America".
While the thundering bass of Lachowski and jangling guitar of Bewley were certainly catchy, it was, without a doubt, Briscoe's vocals, that veered from sweet and docile to raw and dominant in a heartbeat, that made the band. This can be heard best in the band's most recognisable song 'Stop It'. In the call "No rock n roll now, no rock n roll now" I hear the yelps of Karen O and the squeals of Allison Wolfe.
After two albums and a lot of touring Pylon had grown tired of playing and resented the fact that the music they had once loved had become more of a business and a chore. The final straw came when the band opened for U2 on the first leg of their US tour. They were disheartened with the music business and decided to break up in 1983.
Pylon reformed in 1989 and broke up again, releasing the LP Chain on the way. They finally came back together in 2004 to play at Little King's Shuffle Club. The band continued playing until guitarist Bewley sadly passed away after suffering a heart attack in 2009.
Pylon certainly are not a household name like many of their contemporaries later became but they can most definitely get away with the title of "the best rock n roll band in America". Anyway they wouldn't wanna be a throwaway name on everyone's tongue. They knew what they were making was more than that.
