Bring Back the Riot! [NDDT59]
27 December, 2013
Am I referring to riot grrl? No - but yes. Indeed, the two bands on tap today are both femme-fronted, and they're both loud and unruly. They could start something. Like fires. Or the aborted girl power revolution. Maybe? In an alternate reality?
You'll hear me refer to children quite a bit. And I apologize for that. But here's the issue, see - if grown-up women musicians are supposed to wear little black evening dresses, or sing soppy coffee bar shit, or whisper in French and get trapped in crystal prisons, or maximize cleavage for maximum success, then fuck growing up. Resist, RESIST, kick 'em in the teeth and reject all the bikinis and pole dances of the world. We can be as ugly and upfront and nasty as we wanna be. Rock on, sisters.
You'll hear me refer to children quite a bit. And I apologize for that. But here's the issue, see - if grown-up women musicians are supposed to wear little black evening dresses, or sing soppy coffee bar shit, or whisper in French and get trapped in crystal prisons, or maximize cleavage for maximum success, then fuck growing up. Resist, RESIST, kick 'em in the teeth and reject all the bikinis and pole dances of the world. We can be as ugly and upfront and nasty as we wanna be. Rock on, sisters.
North Dakota - Whether or not these chicks actually hail from North Dakota is irrelevant. All that matters is that they have guitars, loud amps, and buckets full of glee.
Their sound transcends states, anyway – lightning rounds of giddy screams, slippery beats, but especially teethy riffs, the kind that grins the biggest smile then chomps down on your ears. Pat Waggy is their first LP, a shimmying snake of a howler. Lo-fi as all get-out. A straight-line focus, but with a wiggly, warping, jiggling tendency. “Stagecoach” lurches forward after dusky sways of modern blue cool, but “Galapaghost” wriggles to and fro with a righteous post-punk stomp. North Dakota don’t sit still – they run circles around the studio, swap records and ideas with each other. Most of all, though, North Dakota love to make a racket.
But “Waiting In White”. Ooooooh, what swagger. What simmering intensity. Where much of this LP is a rush of raw energy, of squealing cheer and adventure, this tune is carefully plotted, deploying subtle motorik groove with minimal synth wobbling to entice the listener closer, closer, ever closer.
Do North Dakota connect dots? If they did, they might start at Liliput (“Angry Boy” , then draw shaky lines between the Kills, Deerhoof, the Clean…but by then they’d be bored, and curving loops off the page. Nope, North Dakota don’t draw lines. It’s always the critic that picks up the pieces anyway, isn’t it? Tiny jigsaw pieces that you swear should line up, that look like they belong together, but really never quite fit.
Enough. Shell out some cash and download this.
Their sound transcends states, anyway – lightning rounds of giddy screams, slippery beats, but especially teethy riffs, the kind that grins the biggest smile then chomps down on your ears. Pat Waggy is their first LP, a shimmying snake of a howler. Lo-fi as all get-out. A straight-line focus, but with a wiggly, warping, jiggling tendency. “Stagecoach” lurches forward after dusky sways of modern blue cool, but “Galapaghost” wriggles to and fro with a righteous post-punk stomp. North Dakota don’t sit still – they run circles around the studio, swap records and ideas with each other. Most of all, though, North Dakota love to make a racket.
But “Waiting In White”. Ooooooh, what swagger. What simmering intensity. Where much of this LP is a rush of raw energy, of squealing cheer and adventure, this tune is carefully plotted, deploying subtle motorik groove with minimal synth wobbling to entice the listener closer, closer, ever closer.
Do North Dakota connect dots? If they did, they might start at Liliput (“Angry Boy” , then draw shaky lines between the Kills, Deerhoof, the Clean…but by then they’d be bored, and curving loops off the page. Nope, North Dakota don’t draw lines. It’s always the critic that picks up the pieces anyway, isn’t it? Tiny jigsaw pieces that you swear should line up, that look like they belong together, but really never quite fit.
Enough. Shell out some cash and download this.
Dogtower - Oh, yeah. Thought Poly Styrene was inimitable, eh? Wait ‘til you hear Dogtower. The lead singer belts out like the perfect vocal stunt double - screaming, thrashing, commanding, throwing the wildest temper tantrums. But forget Lora Logic – the kids have grown past X-Ray Spex, past the old punk-pop bop, past the Top of the Pops game. In that sense, Dogtower is a very literal “post-punk”, or rather a “post-modernist punk”. They’re grungy, and not in a 90s way, but as in clothes strewn over the bedroom floor, bibs stained with mushy peas, crusty spaghetti sauce on the walls.
Don’t get me wrong, though – the Dogtower LP (a self-titled one, it is) is quite a poppy punk, but in many guises. They strip it to Beat Happening basics for “Trinkets”, set it ablaze on “Fireworks”, and mix it up into a happy spiky sloppy milkshake for “Simulated Drinking”. Buzzcocks for breakfast, Germs for lunch, some pink flag for dessert. Supper, meh. Who has time to sit for that?
The most fascinating bits on the Dogtower menu, though, are the stuff that most artistes would call “bloopers” – the false start on “Pub” (über-ace track, by the way – bubbly, buoyant, and laced with petrol – “HOLD OUT YOUR WRIST, HE’LL X-RAY YOUR FACE”), the barely audible banter in the up-and-down, sprint-and-brake “Dogtower”. Well, and the line “I only want you for your cock” is golden songwriting, if ya ask me (“Cock”).
Anyway, what does it all add up to? All these mishaps and raunchy humor and incendiary vocals? Not polite society, that’s for sure. The kids of Dogtower (and they are kids, no matter what their actual age is – I say that with mounds of praise) want to muck up the crystal-preserved world of today’s wannabe garage rockers, channeling X-Ray Spex as their main muse but hardly the only one. Don’t bring ‘em home to yr mum. And never show these blokes a camera, unless you want total anarchy among the young ‘uns…wait, that sounds like a BRILLIANT idea…can that happen anymore? Can youth revolts still happen on the air? Or will Dogtower just devour their hip, indifferent veggie audience?
Don’t get me wrong, though – the Dogtower LP (a self-titled one, it is) is quite a poppy punk, but in many guises. They strip it to Beat Happening basics for “Trinkets”, set it ablaze on “Fireworks”, and mix it up into a happy spiky sloppy milkshake for “Simulated Drinking”. Buzzcocks for breakfast, Germs for lunch, some pink flag for dessert. Supper, meh. Who has time to sit for that?
The most fascinating bits on the Dogtower menu, though, are the stuff that most artistes would call “bloopers” – the false start on “Pub” (über-ace track, by the way – bubbly, buoyant, and laced with petrol – “HOLD OUT YOUR WRIST, HE’LL X-RAY YOUR FACE”), the barely audible banter in the up-and-down, sprint-and-brake “Dogtower”. Well, and the line “I only want you for your cock” is golden songwriting, if ya ask me (“Cock”).
Anyway, what does it all add up to? All these mishaps and raunchy humor and incendiary vocals? Not polite society, that’s for sure. The kids of Dogtower (and they are kids, no matter what their actual age is – I say that with mounds of praise) want to muck up the crystal-preserved world of today’s wannabe garage rockers, channeling X-Ray Spex as their main muse but hardly the only one. Don’t bring ‘em home to yr mum. And never show these blokes a camera, unless you want total anarchy among the young ‘uns…wait, that sounds like a BRILLIANT idea…can that happen anymore? Can youth revolts still happen on the air? Or will Dogtower just devour their hip, indifferent veggie audience?