On “Spark,” which opens Sister Dynamite, Alice Bag crafts an earworm. “Hell no! I’m not dimming my/I’m not dimming my spark,” she sings. That line can stick with you throughout the day. In can infiltrate your dreams. It’s can...
With every headline these days centered on COVID-19, it’s easy to forget there are other things going on in the world. Let punk trio The Venomous Pinks’ latest song “Todos Unidos” remind you that the usual problems plaguing society...
We were existing on the cusp of the 1990s. The ’80s as people remember it now, an era marked by new wave, John Hughes’ teen flicks and Ronald Reagan, was essentially over by 1989. Yet we were still a...
IN2ITIV3 is making waves as a musical embodiment of the growing punk/hip hop crossover in Cincinnati’s local music scene with their debut self-titled EP. Featuring bandmates that listen to everything from B2K to Patti Smith, IN2ITIV3 settles on lyrical rap...
When we last caught up with Philadelphia-based indie punk band Church Girls, they were just about to release their third EP Home; as the follow-up to their debut full-length Hidalgo, it showed a distinct evolution trending toward a rougher, more...
On the one hand, it’s hard to imagine a better venue than Greenpoint mainstay St. Vitus for the stateside return of a band that integrates black metal, punk, and post-hardcore into their dizzying sound. But even if it seemed...
When I meet up with feminist punk duo True Dreams at drummer Hannah Nichols’ Brooklyn apartment, they’re wearing what they call their “uniforms”: black school girl skirts, leather harnesses, and crisp white Dickies button downs, each emblazoned with half...
After being friends for decades, former members of The Muffs, The Pandoras, and The Friggs, Kim Shattuck, Melanie Vammen, and Palmyra Delran, finally decided it was time to start their own band together. Kim and Melanie first played together...
Bay Area indie artist Tony Molina has always had either foot in two worlds, which is perhaps the only obvious observation one might make about him. He maintains deep ties to the punk and hardcore scenes in which he...
Seattle’s Nauticult— equal parts industrial hip-hop and thrashing noise punk—was born in a moment of raw inspiration. For years, the members had known each other and even considered rapping over beats together, but they didn’t actually pull the trigger...
Kym Register’s voice is familiar, the kind of husky twang you traditionally hear on old country records. While the medium of folk music is timeworn, the stories Register spins have a modern slant, as they speak from the perspective...
When Philly four-piece Big Nothing broke onto the scene back in 2017 with their self-titled 7” EP, they brought with them an impressive lineage. Guitarist Pat Graham fronted the punk trio, Spraynard, and fellow guitarist Matt Quinn played with...
Initially coming together in high school and emerging as a dreamy punk-tinted band after college, the Northside-bred, female-fronted Leggy has grown into Cincinnati’s latest long-reaching musical output. They signed to independent UK record label Damnably (Wussy, Golden Gurls) in...
ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Sophia Vaccaro finds empowerment and personal autonomy in the mosh pit, with PUP providing the punk rock release....
CUT AND PASTE is a new column that celebrates proto-blog culture by delving into the world of self-published print media – colloquially referred to as zines – which cover a wide scope of the personal and political lives of...
photo by Studio 29 Photos Detroit feminist punk/noise band GIRL FIGHT released their sophomore record, She’s a Killer, last week – a politically charged twenty-minutes that barks and bites. Ellen Cope and Jacob Bloom fine-tune their brazen two-piece effort...
Where do you see yourself in ten years? Are you doing the same job? Or do you see yourself picking up a secret passion and taking it out on the road? Musician Anna Connolly spent her teen years romping...
Punk is a loaded word. It’s been ascribed to popular artists as diverse as New Found Glory, Green Day, and Patti Smith. Graham Caldwell makes music as Billy Moon that expands beyond the label, gifting listeners with a tonally...
The live music experience is a major part of music fandom, and anyone who attends concerts regularly can attest that there’s an unspoken sense in the air of how to behave and interact with one another at most shows. In...
All Lester Bangs wants to do is listen to his favorite record: Van Morrison’s 1968 masterpiece, Astral Weeks. If only he could find his copy. It’s got to be around here somewhere, beneath the splayed magazines, take-out containers, and...
New York, the city that never sleeps, takes an especially hard toll on those who make its endless nights possible: the waiters, the bartenders, the ticket takers who silently put up with endless shit from drunken idiots. The service...
Pioneers of Detroit’s early 2000’s caffeinated punk movement, Thunderbirds Are Now! shake off unofficial retirement to rework an old track for the new regime. “Outsiders” finds our riotous foursome angrier than usual and not at all rusty as they...
“Grab your socks and comb your locks. Let’s go!” instructs Detroit’s delightfully sinful goth-punk trio Pretty Ghouls.Sure, they seem sweet and saccharine at first glance, channeling the likes of The Shangri-las, but it is their muddy, bloody graveyard grit...
