Fuck Yeah! Queer Music

So. You like RVIVR? Earlier Lemuria? Pop punk? Sunshine? Happiness? Well, if we’re being real here, you probably already love Aye Nako, but if you haven’t gotten your ears around to listening to them already, quit wasting time and get on it!

Ayke Nako is a Brooklyn quartet that makes the hip poppy punk that’s a hit with all the kids these days.  It’s tinged with a little college rock/90’s indie nostalgia with chord progressions that make you smile and roll around on the floor with joy. Or maybe that’s just me. They recorded a new album recently, and are doing a short east coast this summer to mark its release, and it’s going to be the best. So everyone go and listen to these guys and it’ll make the world a better place. Guaranteed.

Check ‘em out:
Official site
Facebook
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skullvomit:

The First 7-inch Was Better: How I Became an Ex-Punk
by Nia King

I just read this zine by Nia King and it’s really good. It’s a personal account of her history as a mixed race queer woman in the Boston and Baltimore punk and anarchist scenes and talks about alienation and disillusionment with those cultures. It’s very well written andI enjoyed it a lot.

You can download it from the queer zine archive at the link above or buy it from her. She also makes really neat comics and does other cool stuff.

Alright, so. EX. By V. They make awesome noise, are punk as fuck (whatever that means, they are it, for reals), etc…

EX. By V. is a philly two piece that makes music that is loud and weird. It’s got a huge thrash/punk influence, with vocalist/bassist ksenya leah basarab switching effortlessly between an incredible growl, and a nasally-in-that-90s-alt-rock-way clean vocal. The bass is distorted to hell and back on most tunes, and the drums are exactly what you would expect for the genre, so it fits perfectly. 

EX. By V. also does some interesting things with samples and loops, keeping them from falling into the repetitive trap many thrash/punk/hardcore bands do. Some tracks are just looped voices and sampled noise and static, creating a very creepy atmosphere, which is pretty neat, and again, serves as a good break from the cranked to 11 bits.

They’re involved with Gender EDGE, an art collective that spans multiple cities and is promoting activism through art, especially around trans and queer issues, which is pretty nifty.

Check ‘em out:
Bandcamp
Blogspot
Facebook
Gender EDGE

FY!QM Reviews-RVIVR’s The Beauty Between

I’m going to get right down to it: RVIVR is the shit. And their new album, The Beauty Between, is their best material yet. The year is still young, but this record is likely going to be one of the best of 2013.

These guys are pretty divisive in the punk scene, and by that I mean the cis-het white dudes that tend to dominate these communities don’t really like it when RVIVR tells people to calm the fuck down at shows or to let short people up front so they can see, or for dudes to keep their shirts on. They’re unapologetic about their politics, and while they are not perfect, they’re a breath of fresh air in the realm of bands that get talked about on Punknews and Property of Zack. There are lots of awesome queer punk bands out there, but few have the fan base of RVIVR, which makes them, and this album, a pretty important thing for the modern punk scene.

The Beauty Between is not a revelation by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just 42 minutes of solid, fun, catchy punk with dual vocals, hooky solos, and a ton of drum rolls, so the songs always feel like they’re building towards something, whether it be a chorus, some gang vocals, or a solo. Or saxaphone (yes, saxaphone). The only real weak spot is the bass, which doesn’t punch through on most of the songs, and when it does, it’s mostly boring and the lack of any warmth in the tone just makes it sound like they direct lined it into Pro-Tools and never did anything with it. But that tends to be a problem with the genre as a whole, and it doesn’t detract from the fun of the album.

Three of the tracks are full band versions of songs found of vocalist/guitarist Erica Freas’s solo album that came out last year, Belly (which is available on her bandcamp as pay-what-you-want). It’s worth a listen to both versions of each, as they each have great things about them. However, “Spider Song” and “Rainspell” work better as full band songs. “Rainspell” in particular benefits from a tempo increase and vocals from Mattie Canino. “Paper Thin” is much more of an emotional gut punch as an acoustic track, but the RVIVR version has an phenomenal chorus that really showcases Freas’s awesome, interesting, and powerful voice.

Freas’s vocals are probably the best part of the whole album. Not that Canino is bad, he has a perfectly fine voice and a great yell when he needs it, but as a friend told me recently, “I’m sick of dude voices,” especially in punk. They’re everywhere and a lot of them tend to sound the same, so the tracks where Freas takes the lead are real stand outs.

Lyrically, RVIVR tends to stick with their usual themes of finding your place in the world, finding community, and trying to defend that against people that are trying to tear your shit down. And a lot of it is vague enough that it can be applied to a number of different situations, while still remaining powerful. They are relatable and can resonate on a personal level for a huge number of people without being horribly cheesy (they can be a bit cheesy, but in a way that just endears them to you even more).

tl;dr The Beauty Between is a great album, so get on that. It’s available as pay-what-you-want on Rumbletowne Records (along with all previous RVIVR material), and while there is no physical release yet, vinyl is planned for the spring/early summer, so be on the lookout. 

Eekum Seekum makes some damn fine punk music. The kind that clips and pops like crazy on the recording, but you don’t even care.

Their six song EP, Glitter Bomb, is full of quick, hard hitting queercore. It can be political, as on “Pink Dollar$” or about summer fun, like “F.U…N.” And it can be poignant and hard hitting in a deeply personal way, where the music becomes cathartic, rather than just thrashy and angry. When it comes down to it, Eekum Seekum is legit, and are reminiscent of old school queer hardcore like Mukilteo Fairies, but more Canadian.

Check ‘em out:
Bandcamp
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Meet Seattle’s My Parade, the radical, lo-fi dance punk band of your dreams. If you haven’t been dreaming of radical, lo-fi dance punk bands, I am sorry, but check these guys out to see what you’ve been missing.

My Parade gets it all right. Obviously super dance-y beats, but also looping, repetitive guitar riffs, some cow bell, bouncy, treble filled bass, and amazing vocals (of both the lead and gang varieties). Pretty much, it’s like listening to a less grating, headache inducing Death From Above 1979, or The Wombats, or Dartz! (well, Dartz! is awesome, but that is a different post for a different time). Their first full length, Monster Fatigues was released early last year and gives you ten tracks packed into less than a half-hour. So give them a listen and get your butt groovin.

Check ‘em out:
Bandcamp
Facebook

So. Shady Hawkins. Owners of the greatest Facebook about me section ever. And as someone who spends a lot of their time perusing queer/feminist/radical band pages on Facebook, I can say this with some authority.

“Militant feminist revengecore.” That’s it.

So there’s some of that, but also, some awesome garage punk. There’s distorted surf rock guitar, doo-wop “Woo”s (check out “When Yr Gone”), and lots of ride cymbal and floor tom action. There’s political punk (“Yr Time Is Up,” about the shit justice system, especially around abuse survivors) that could’ve come straight from 1992, but it didn’t because it came from this year and that’s even better. 

For real, Shady Hawkins is catchy, smart, radical (in many senses of the word), and worth your time. They’re from Brooklyn and are playing a couple shows in the immediate future that you should probably go to because I can’t. For those of you not in the area check ‘em out in the following Internet locations:

Bandcamp (Featuring new album just released in November, Dead To Me and show information).
Facebook