Guitar + Work = Rock
I was so thrilled when Jason, the filmmaker behind the webseries “All New York’s a Venue” approached Corita about featuring us in his project. His videos feature indie bands playing songs in atypical locations, often quite unfit for a musical performance. The best part about the videos, I think, is that they are not music videos per se. They are not overly staged. They are just a live performance in an unconventional location.
My band Corita posed a challenge, however. We can’t play acoustic. I don’t want to sound snobby, but our songs rely on reverb, delay and a little bit of distortion (see, we’re a bit shoegaze). This does not work on an acoustic guitar, so playing on the subway or down by the Gowanus canal (our favorite NYC polluted waterway) was not an option. We needed somewhere to plug in.
Then I came up with an idea. My workplace is incredibly supportive of artists. That’s our business. We also have an airy, light-filled loft in DUMBO. Considering we had a feminist tea party come and set up shop in the office for a week I thought, well, why not a band? The organization was only too happy to agree, as long as we did it on a Saturday when the office was empty and kept the noise to a minimum.
It was really funny, and strange, to load all our gear into my office and play our songs about disenchantment, growing older, and looking at the sky in the middle of the file boxes and computers I see everyday. But that is part of the fun of the project. The incongruous nature of the music and the location. I hope you enjoy watching the results!
All New York’s a Venue #6: Corita – “Act So Fake” from Jason Hood on Vimeo.
All New York’s a Venue #6: Corita – “Clouds” from Jason Hood on Vimeo.
If you were like me and grew up in the 1990’s and loved punk rock and feminism, you loved Sleater-Kinney. It’s no longer the 90’s (though with all the plaid coming back this season and all the reissues of classic grunge records you might wonder) and I’m no longer a teenager, but I still love Sleater-Kinney, punk rock, and feminism. I still have not yet found a band as compelling as Sleater-Kinney (though Electrelane filled the gap after Sleater-Kinney disbanded in 2006, but then they broke up too!). I liked S-K long enough to get over my initial teenaged rock star worship and went from buying a ticket to a show in Boston I was too young to go to and hoping for the best to being impressed with their guitar chops on their last record The Woods. They were just a really solid band. Every album brought an innovative approach to their sound. Their live shows were breathtaking and the members were well spoken and stylish to boot. All this to say that despite my ambivalence about music lately I was very excited to hear that Corin Tucker has a new project (and with Sara Lund from Unwound on drums no less!) and jumped at the chance to interview her and write a profile for Venuszine. Her new record, 1,000 Years, is solid as ever and as always, she is always thinking deeply about what’s going on in society and her personal life and working that into her songwriting. Please check out the full profile on Venuszine 
I’ve been listening to Seattle-based singer-songwriter Jen Wood since I was in high school. At that point Jen had already been making feminist and indie oriented acoustic music for years, notably with the riot grrrl related Tattle Tale (which also featured Madigan on cello). I remember being so inspired by Wood’s song writing that I painstakingly typed out the lyrics to her song “Bullet Box” and taped them onto the cover of my math folder, along with the photo from the cover of Wood’s album Getting Past the Static. When I got the chance to see her play live (I think at 17 Nautical Miles in Portland, if memory serves? How’s that for the 90’s! That’s old-skool Todd P. right there) and dorkily had her sign her CD for me.
Killerfemme 