Category Archives: Music + Playlists

Our Songs Are Our Trauma Prizes: An Interview with eCOCOBOYS

eCOCOBOYS feminist band

Photo by by Michelle LoBianco (@brooklynelitist)

I had the pleasure of seeing eCOCOBOYS perform at Alphaville this August. They were energetic and raw, with a lo-fi, Riot Grrrl-esque vibe, and told powerful stories throughout their set—all while wearing coordinating cowboy hats. The band and I caught up over email, and they answered a few questions about what drives them, and what’s coming next!

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Matt L Roar: Tell us how the band formed, who plays what, and how long it’s been around.

Maia: Tara plays bass and is our lead singer, I play guitar and sing some harmonies mostly, Griffin also plays guitar and is starting to sing now (!), and Tasha plays the drums. We all started playing together in September 2018.

Tara: I met Maia and Griffin my freshman year of college and I talked to them about always wanting to start a band, so two years later we finally started the band. We would just sit in Maia’s apartment writing our song to our talented drummer, the metronome app. Then finally we were like, we have to get a drummer, so our friend Gabi posted on a musicians Facebook page and Tasha responded. We played together once and it just all came together.  Continue reading

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My Guns N’ Roses Death Wish

My Guns N' Roses Death WishOn the frosty January day in 1992 when Guns N’ Roses came to Dayton, Ohio on their Use Your Illusion tour, I couldn’t sit still in math class. My teacher was a twenty-something brunette who let us to listen to music as we worked on our problem sets, and we would flip between the commercial pop station, Z.93, or the independent alternative station, 97X, discussing the merits of commercial rock versus the grunge bands coming out of Seattle that we were all starting to love. Guns N’ Roses was playing at the almost brand-new arena, The Nutter Center, with Soundgarden opening, and I had convinced my parents that I had to go, and that my older brother—home on winter break from his first year in college—could take me and some of my friends. I don’t think my parents knew that GN’R had caused a riot at their show just six months earlier at Riverport Arena in St. Louis, or about their wild reputation, but I was ready to see some blood.

In math class, we were talking about the possibility of a similar scene at the concert, imagining all of us caught up in ripping the new arena—named after the grandfather of one of our rich classmates—seat by seat; visions of chaotic violence and being trampled to the tune of a band that I loved. It sounded heavenly. “If I die tonight, at the concert, it would be worth it,” I announced, and my math teacher scoffed at me, telling me that it was a ridiculous thing to say. But I didn’t care—and I recognize the night now as one of my first moments of courting and desiring danger. Nothing anyone said could take away my emerging feelings of self-loathing; my baby death wish.

I was a thirteen-year-old brown girl: braces, already a 36C bra size, black Chucks covered in doodles, and I was deeply and blindly influenced almost entirely by white male artists. I read Jack Kerouac, and had Aldous Huxley quotes that I didn’t understand stenciled on the brown paper wrappings of my books. I had gone to see Terminator 2 seven times in the theater that past summer. At that time, there was no one who looked like me in popular media, definitely not on MTV. At the core of me, there is still the terrible sensation of feeling so completely invisible in the world; the isolation and loneliness of not seeing yourself reflected back anywhere, at a time when you are starving for any kind of attention or guidance. I was so often stewing in the rage that comes from feeling invisible. And then, I’d be home alone watching MTV, and there was Guns N’ Roses reflecting all that anger back at me. What else could I do but cheer on their callousness? Only now, from a distance of 30 years, can I identify the self-hate that was so deeply tied up in my desire for all things white, male, powerful and rebellious. Continue reading

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Morgane Lhote Finds Her Disco-Drenched Place in the Sun with Hologram Teen

Morgane Lhote Hologram Teen

Morgane Lhote aka Hologram Teen creates atmospheric electronic music that is equal parts dystopian horror movie soundtrack and disco dance banger. A French expat, she now lives in Los Angeles, after stints in London and New York City. Hologram Teen’s newest record, Between The Funk and the Fear, released by London label Polytechnic Youth, is a tribute to the places Lhote has lived, as well as her love of cinema, video games, and a full spectrum of pop music. After decades as a professional musician, recording and touring in bands including Stereolab, Hologram Teen is Morgane’s first solo record. It is a project that embraces her diverse musical influences and a dark, futuristic, queer aesthetic.

Morgane and I first met in Brooklyn in the late 00’s, when we bonded over our mutual love for the ridiculous elements of 60s French yéyé music and style, Feminist theory, over-the-top sci-fi thrillers like Escape from New York, and the “classic” 80s French teen melodrama La Boum. Between the Funk and the Fear brings together these influences to create an album that rides the line between danceable and experimental. I had a chance to catch up with Lhote over email about her record, and the experiences and pop culture that have influenced it.  

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Eleanor Whitney: You’ve been playing in bands for decades. How did you come to play music and, specifically, electronic music? What were some of your early musical influences or inspirations?

Morgane Lhote: I was really lucky in that my parents gave me a turntable and some of their records when I was 4 or 5. The two records I played constantly were the soundtrack to Grease and Breakfast in America by Supertramp. They also gave me this really weird record by Guy Béart, Futur Fiction Fantastique, which had this amazing futuristic cover by French cartoonist Mœbius.

When I was a teenager, I already knew I wanted to be a professional musician and at that point in time I really loved the Bangles, the B-52’s, and new wave bands in general like Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club.

I started playing in bands from the 1980s, but nothing serious, it was more like jamming with people from high school and I played drums back then. A couple years later, I also started playing guitars in local Paris bands with friends. It was nice to get that experience and learn to play with other people.

I didn’t start making electronic music until 5 years ago when I bought [the music-making software] Ableton Live 9 and suddenly I was like: I can do this on my own!

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Cosmic Femme Punk Visionary: A Conversation with Taleen Kali

Taleen Kali photo by Emery Becker

I first encountered Taleen Kali at a small zine fair that was taking place in an open air courtyard in an arty Los Angeles strip mall. “How LA,” I thought. While browsing, I was struck by Taleen’s beautifully put together publication, DUM DUM Zine, and the sense of both playfulness and artistic gravitas surrounded her. So of course, after picking up a copy of the zine, I did what any fangirl would do: I followed her on Instagram. Through the images and stories she shares I learned about Taleen’s work as a yoga instructor, guitar shredder, dog-mom to an adorable pup named Leelo, her recent shoot with BUST magazine as a glitter makeup model, and got a sense that there’s almost a mystical girl gang that hovers around her. She seemed to embody the spirit of Weird Sister, so of course I had to talk with her more. We caught up over email about intersecting artistic identities and communities, cultivating creative rituals to survive these current political times, and the upcoming EP she is recording.

Eleanor Whitney: You do so much! You are a writer, editor, artist, musician, yogi, glitter makeup model and all around badass. Do you distinguish between your different projects or do you see them more as one integrated art practice?

Taleen Kali: The glitter makeup story for BUST Magazine was definitely a fun surprise!

As an interdisciplinary artist my projects have always been conduits, helping me to excavate and express different parts of my identity. I think it’s human nature to compartmentalize, yet the more stuff I make the more I realize it’s coming from the same source, even if it’s expressed through different mediums.

EW: You have played in punk bands around L.A. for a few years and now you are gearing up to record and release a solo EP and play a type of music you describe as “cosmic femme punk.” How did you hit on that description for your sound?

TK: All the writing and music projects over the years helped me figure out what I really wanted to write, and ultimately sing about: transcending the bullshit, comprehending the beauty of the divine feminine, and elevating my surroundings. Arriving at that mindset is what cosmic femme punk means to me.

Over time my music began to evolve from this “doom” persona, becoming less about bleak narratives and more about sonic expression and reclaiming femme visibility, and getting to decide what that means. As a first generation Armenian American it’s really important for me to use my voice and resources to uplift fellow women of color, queer communities, trans folx, and other marginalized voices. What we need to talk about will change too as media and culture evolves, so I thought: why not start with “FEMME AS FUCK” and go from there?

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Music & Radical Potential: Louisa Solomon of the Shondes

The Shondes

“I make music because the state of the world can feel so dismal,” says Louisa Solomon, singer, songwriter and bass player for the Brooklyn-based, feminist rock band The Shondes. For the past decade her band has been fusing politics into emotional, soaring rock songs. With their recently released fifth album Brighton (Exotic Fever Records), they have created their most successful melding of heart, soul, politics and rock riffs that also lays Solomon’s inner life out for listeners. “The act of creating is a coping mechanism, a survival tool, and I think some of what is most inspiring in political art is not the lyrics, or explicit content, or even the ‘topic,’ but the exposure of process,” she further explains. “We try to in some way be very up front in our music about how it affects us to create it, and how we hope it similarly affects listeners toward survival, toward hard work, toward hope, toward sustainable change.”

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PJ Harvey in LA: 50 Ft Queenie and Rising

Photo by: Solvej Schou

Photo by: Solvej Schou

“Tell you my name/ F U and CK/ 50 foot queenie/ Force ten hurricane!!”

I first heard Polly Jean Harvey belt those words–from her fuzz-soaked mantra “50 Ft Queenie” off her second album “Rid of Me”– live in 1993, at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. I was 14 then, a combat boots wearing Hollywood teen with anger over the death of my mom, who died when I was a kid, just brimming on the surface, ready to explode.

PJ Harvey embodied that anger. She harnessed it. She made it acceptable, accepted, real and true. Words steeped in sexuality, revenge, art and the blues surged through her. She was wiry, stylish and beautifully British. She was the main headlining act, the star, only a year after her 1992 debut “Dry” hit all of us with an onslaught of grinding, raw Telecaster rock ‘n’ roll and songs referencing the bible, desire and rejection, and filled with gut-clenching moans. Distinctly female moans. Radiohead opened for HER, not the other way around.

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Internalized Misogyny Playlist: 11 Songs by Women Hating on Women

Because misogyny is everywhere in our culture, internalized misogyny is also, unfortunately, everywhere. You know how it goes—maybe you find yourself hating on your body, or judging other women’s sexuality, or doubting your own awesomeness at work. Goddess forbid, you may have even uttered the phrase “I don’t like other girls.” Even the most hardcore of feminists are influenced by the white supremacist patriarchy’s messages about girls and women. And so are the most successful of female pop stars. Why are there *so* many songs about how stupid / deceptive / sneaky / crazy / unimpressive girls are… that are sung by women? Are these songs self-implicating appraisals of our culture’s sexist standards? Or just plain-old sexist themselves? Or simply honest expressions of women’s emotions… which are therefore inherently kinda sorta feminist? In the spirit of unpacking our internalized sexism knapsacks or Louis Vuitton bags, I rounded up eleven well-known female-fronted songs that hate on women—here they are, in no particular order:

1) “Stupid Girl” – Garbage

Not to be confused with “Stupid Girl” by The Rolling Stones, or “Stupid Girl” by Neil Young (hey, fuck you guys!), this song is one of several from the Songs by Women Called “Stupid Girl” canon. It features 90s chick singer icon Shirley Manson berating a “stupid girl” (herself? Someone else entirely?) for basically being a hot mess and a fake who wasted everything she had like the beautiful fool that she is. Is this song a self-aware look at one woman’s internal monologue amidst society’s messages about how “stupid” girls are? Or merely a condemnation of girls for being stupid wherein the speaker attempts to distance herself from a dumb, misguided girl who fucked up her whole life? Also, omg you guys, who hasn’t pretended they’re high and/or bored, just to be adored?!

 

2) “Stupid Girls” – Pink

This song presents the classic sexist binary of “stupid” girls who carry around tiny dogs and wear tinier t-shirts and go tanning (oh so 00s) and “not-stupid” girls who wear suits and run for president. It’s kind of weirdly an anthem of second wave feminist ethos. This song contains the cutting and very apropos to our current historical moment lines: “What happened to the dream of a girl president?/ She’s dancin’ in the video next to 50 Cent,” and “I’m so glad that I’ll never fit in/ That will never be me/ Outcasts and girls with ambition/ That’s what I wanna see.” This song is confusing, ‘cause Pink herself wears tight clothes and dances and parties—but for some reason (ahem. Internalized misogyny) chooses to reinforce a tired, sexist binary that girls who do these things can’t also be smart and ambitious.

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Crazy Excited About Being in the Car: Talking with May Black and Juli Sherry of Mutt

Mutt is a scrappy animal. Look closely and you can see traces of punk, riot grrrl, grunge and more, but no other dog can bark like this. Formed in 2015, Mutt is an Oakland-based trio, currently featuring singer and guitarist May Black, drummer Chris Maneri, and bassist Juli Sherry. Mutt’s first album, Creature, just came out in March. May and Juli recently answered a few of my questions from the road during a northwest record release tour.

Mutt

Elka Weber: What are your influences?

May Black: We are constantly introducing each other to new music. I grew up listening to a lot of country music, soft rock, and Broadway musical soundtracks gleefully provided to me by my folks but I also had a brother and sister a decade older… I did not start realizing I wanted to actually be a musician until I heard Cat Power’s album Myra Lee. After that the doors were blown open. I think whenever I approach a song I am still trying to capture that sort of edgy vulnerability.

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Talking with BOYTOY’s Saara Untracht Oakner & Glenn Van Dyke

GAS_1

Saara and Glenn from BOYTOY gassing up. Photo by Will Warasila


BOYTOY‘s music makes me feel like summertime. Like smoking weed by a river. They’ve been described as alt-pop-shoegaze, but they definitely have garage and punk elements, a skateboarding-barefoot-to-the-beach vibe. Here, I talked with Saara Untracht Oakner (vocals and guitar) and Glenn Van Dyke (guitar and vocals) of the Brooklyn-based band about haters in middle school, their songwriting process, the surfing influence, thoughts on feminism, and more. 

Matt L Roar: Can you tell me a little bit about what the band has been up to? Are you living in California now? Do you have any new stuff coming out?

Saara Untracht Oakner: Glenn and I went out to LA for the winter to play some shows and write and demo for a new record. We were working with Lena from La Luz in her little loft/studio space and she was playing bass with us for some shows.

MLR: Do you guys all surf or is it just you? Do you think shredding waves influences your approach to shredding music?

SUO: Glenn and I both surf. She grew up surfing in Jacksonville, FL and I grew up surfing Lido and Long Beach on Long Island, NY. We also say the ultimate day is surfing and then playing a show. Tacos in between the two don’t hurt either.

Glenn Van Dyke: I think surfing provides a certain amount of mellow and excitement that might carry over to some other parts of our lives.

MLR: Can you describe some of your influences? Describe your sound for people who don’t know you…

SUO: We listen to a lot of everything, from 60s garage pop nuggets to Lou Reed, Rolling Stones, CCR, Sabbath, the Kinks, to Jesus And Mary Chain, Nirvana, Brian Jonestown Massacre, My Bloody Valentine. Glenn and I have always been into punk growing up skateboarding like the Ramones and Operation Ivy, Rancid and the misfits. I love reggae music and soul but I’m not really trying to make reggae music. Desmond Dekker, Althea and Donna, Alton Ellis. I could go on forever.

FL_SHOW

GVD: Same — including but not limited to Kylie Minogue, Biggie Smalls, Eminem, The Spice Girls — okay I have to stop….

MLR: I was watching one of your videos where you guys talked about coming together to practice for one day and then cranking out five songs on a recording the next. Can you talk about the process for writing BOYTOY songs and if that’s changed or what the ideas behind this approach is?

SUO: Glenn and I usually write the skeleton structure of songs on our own and bring them to each other and flush them out. Other songs start as a jam between the two of us.  We’re writing these new ones we are demoing now kind of as we go building on the recordings which is fun. Usually we write them and play them live and practice them until they’re ready to record. It’s been fun going in with just the skeleton and layering them in recordings, not sure where they’re going to end up.

GVD: We definitely write songs quickly, I think we’re both pretty good at not overthinking or falling into the abyss where a song never gets done. We know when it’s there and then we move on to the next.

MLR: Can you talk a little bit about how you came to the band name?

SUO: I’m always brainstorming band names. I came up with the name BOYTOY before the band even existed. My old band had just broken up and I knew I wanted to start a new project. Glenn’s band (our bands used to tour together) was also just breaking up. I checked Google and bandcamp and MySpace and Facebook and all the other outlets and couldn’t find another BOYTOY or at least an active one. So I secured the gmail, bandcamp, and handles before the band even existed.

MLR: Who are some of your favorite female musicians?

SUO: We just saw Thelma and The Sleaze for the first time at SXSW. They’re a 3 piece from Nashville and they fucking SHRED. They’re all super rad people too. Screaming Females has a front woman. She rips on guitar too. I’ve always loved all the strong women in the late 90s rap game: Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliot, Eve, Lil Kim.

GVD: THE SPICE GIRLS, Heart, Joan Jett.

MLR: When I approached you to do this interview, you mentioned that you don’t identify as a “girl band” or feminist musicians. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SUO: Just because we are women who play music doesn’t make us feminists, or a girl band. We’re a rock and roll band. You wouldn’t call a band of men a “boy band.” Yeah, I believe women should and can do everything men can do, but I don’t believe in separating the two or excluding one group from the other. Both Dylan and Matt (our drummers on the last two records) are guys. How does that make us a girl band? We’re not trying to make any statements by playing. It’s just what we do.

GVD: I’m definitely a feminist but I didn’t learn how to play instruments to stick it to the world because I’m a woman. It’s important to recognize that all over the world women are still not treated equally whether it’s a question of salary or respect or any other ungodly means of discrimination that exists due to physical disparity between the genders. I think it’s important to understand that you can achieve whatever you want to regardless of the parts you were born with. it’s fantastic to continue to see strong women emerge culturally and I think it’s important to keep showing girls AND boys of the next generation that it shouldn’t matter how you look on any level, that person sitting next you is your fellow human and you should respect that. I don’t think either of us want to have to talk about what it’s like to be a woman and actively pursuing goals all the time, I’d rather talk about what kind of gear I like.
MLR: Ooh! What kind of gear do you like?
 
GVD: Haha! So broad! We could be here forever. Right now my new favorite toy is a fuzz pedal my friend David Harrington built, he sent it to me for Christmas. It’s called The Bloody Finger. It’s has two controls — volume and tone — and works great for filling out some low end and adding texture. As we speak I’m having a guitar built by Johnny Rushmore so I’m really psyched on that too!
MLR: Any words of inspiration for the young musical shredders of the future?

SUO: Play all the time. If you want something go after it and don’t accept defeat. Because you will face rejection. In middle school these boys were starting a punk band. I asked if I could be in it and they said they didn’t want a girl cause it would mess up their image. I told them I was gonna get so good that it wouldn’t matter I was a girl and everyone would want me in their band anyway. I can say for certain none of them are playing music at this point.

GVD: Don’t be afraid to mess up! Learning music is a process that never ends and sometimes the best riffs come out of a fuck up or an accident. You’re gonna mess up, maybe even at a show but it’s just going to make you better.

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To learn more about BOYTOY, check out the official music video for “Blazed,” and if you can’t get enough, check out the 11 tracks on Grackle on Soundcloud.

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Prince: Climax = Song

Prince

By all accounts, I was a late bloomer. Someone whose idea of sensuality was shaped in layered ways by strong female musicians – Chrissie Hynde, Etta James, Janis Joplin, PJ Harvey, Patti Smith – from my childhood through adolescence, but not fully expressed in my own life until college.

Those were also the people I looked to when I performed, twisting my hips, growling and singing at clubs around Los Angeles starting in high school, and later, post college, as a sweaty, black eyeliner and neon polyester dress wearing dancer in the revival 1960s Mod scene in L.A. and New York.

Venue as bedroom. Audience as lover. Climax = song. Those singers still fill my spirit when I play now with my band, performing a mix of rock, Americana, blues and soul.

Prince – whose death just a week ago at age 57 continues to feel unreal – is the only man who similarly inspired me when it came to the expression of pure, musical, sexual freedom, a freedom both nuanced, open hearted and, yes, layered. The day he died, and days later, the floodgates of memory tore open for everyone I knew. Driving around L.A., I blared his music in my car, one of many doing the same.

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