INTERVIEW WITH HEARTSREVOLUTION

CC: Tell us about the Heartsrevolution universe. How did it come to be? What’s the Heartschallenger? Lo: heartschallenger is about taking on the things that challenge you. i hated my job..so, i decided to build an ice cream truck because i had dreamt of doing that since i was 15 but everyone told me it would never work. then i realized everyone i knew was stupid and decided to prove everyone wrong. it worked. so, fuck everyone if they are reading this! Ben: Lo made an ice cream truck and I made the music for the truck. We wanted to continue to work together and made music and called it Heartsrevolution. Heartschallenger is the name of our company. The company is a representation of a generation of kids who are creating their own path. There are ice cream trucks that are a part of this world, but they are not called “the heartschallenger”

The rest of the interview can be read below. Heartsrevolution will be playing this thursday at Beauty Bar so make sure you’re there – free copies of the new CC zine will be waiting for you!

Heartsrevolution – “Switchblade”
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M.I.A. SPEAKS ON TERRORIST ACCUSATIONS

Having taken several courses on world terrorism in college (and being a music pirate myself, haha) I’m quite familiar with the LTTE, i.e., the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist organization calling for independence in Sri Lanka. While much could be argued to the validity of their claims, the group is most notorious for civilian kidnappings and burning down schools, etc. So what does this have to do with CC fave M.I.A.? Well the London-based Sri-Lankan raised rapper has roots in the LTTE movement, her father being a founder of an off-shoot student-led Tamil organization (his code name was Arular, thus the title of M.I.A.’s first album). Recently, our favorite rapper has come under harsh criticism for being a supporter of the Tamil Tiger a blog to her Myspace. Check it below:

“MY DAUGHTER THE TERRORIST

I CAME ACROSS THIS MOVIE TODAY ,

http://www.snitt.no/mdtt/prints/movie.htm

http://www.oslodocs.com/product_pages/my_daughter_product.html

I HAVE JUST ORERED IT SO I HAVENT SEEN IT YET , BUT WITH SO MANY ONE SIDED VIEWS IN THIS WORLD IT IS ONLY FAIR WE STAY EDUCATED AND EXPOSE OURSELVES TO ALL OPINIONS. I WANT TO SEE THIS MOVIE BECAUSE
1. NO ONE HAS EVER ACCESSED THE AREAS THIS FILM WAS MADE IN, AND I ACTUALLY DONT KNOW HOW THESE PEOPLE LIVE.

2. ANY EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS WHO HAVE ACCESSED THIS AREA , WHO INVESTIGATED THE TRUTH, HAVE BEEN SHOT DEAD BY THE GOVERNMENT, IN A BID TO KEEP THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE ONE SIDED .

3. I FOUND THIS STORY
http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/12934…

READING THE COMMENTS MADE ME WANT TO SPEAK OUT. BUT I WAS DENIED ACESS TO MAKE COMMENTS, ONLY THE WELL CONNECTED INSIDERS ARE ALLOWED TO COMMENT AND THIS IS THE CASE WITH SO MANY OF THESE BLOGS TALKING SHIT ABOUT ME. NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO TELL THE TRUTH, AND SET THE FACTS STRAIGHT. SO HERE IS THE COMMENT I WANTED TO MAKE!

THE TRUTH TO WHY I LEFT TO SRILANKA WAS …
A. I COULD , I WAS BORN IN LONDON.

B. EVERY TOWN AND VILLAGE MY MOTHER TOOK US TO WOULD GET BURNED DOWN BY THE ARMY. IN THE END EVEN THE TAMILS WOULDN’T LET US STAY THERE AND AFTER MY SCHOOL WAS SET ON FIRE BY THE ARMY, I HAD NOTHING TO DO THERE, AND WAS REALLY FUCKING BOARD.

C. FUCK YOU TO ALL THESE EVIL PEOPLE TWISTING THE TRUTH. YOU DONT SPEAK FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN SPEAK FOR MY SELF.

D.WHAT PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND IS THAT YOU DONT HAVE TO BE A TAMIL OR A LTTE SUPPORTER TO KNOW THAT BURNING DOWN A SCHOOL WITH 800 KIDS IN THE NAME OF FIGHTING TERRORISM IS NOT COOL. I AM NOT A LTTE SUPPORTER. I WAS JUST AN 8 YEAR OLD THAT DIDNT GET KILLED ON THAT DAY, THATS ALL. I’M A MUSICIAN WHO DOESNT WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS AGAIN AND AGAIN, ESPECIALLY IN THE MUSIC PRESS.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR HEARING THIS

EVERYTHING IN ME WAS KILLED BUT MY ART IS NOT DEAD!

i love you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx m.i.a”

Brush off them haters M.I.A.! Also, start making new material, please!

M.I.A. – “Paper Planes”
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TRYOUTS – TV ON THE RADIO’S DEAR SCIENCE

If Brooklyn-based band TV on the Radio’s sophomore LP Return to Cookie Mountain was their experimental take on the modern rock album, Dear Science is their response to modern soul, which this album has in spades. Of course, being a TV on the Radio album one shouldn’t expect any straight-up funk jams or R&B hits, but beneath swirly whirlwinds of David Sitek’s studio trickery lies some of the most naked and heartfelt tunes of the band’s career. While RTCM was a firestorm of bombast and furty, DS is a delicate and hushed wind-swept evening, the perfect soundtrack to biking down a poorly-lit city street at night. Recalling the layered production work of Anywhere I Lay My Head, Sitek’s pet project released earlier this year with Scarlett Johansson, the album swims languidly through sensitive and careful tracks like “Crying” and album standout “Lovedog”. Still, TVOTR do occassionally bring the bounce, albeit with a tender touch, like on excellent opener “Halfway Home” and brilliant single “Golden Age”. The album flows seamlessly and despite early reviews that the record suffered from sameness compared to their older LPs Dear Science stands as a unique and rewarding experience. Definitely makes the team though it may be the nerdy kid who can’t execute a single move but does all the other cheerleaders homework for them.

TV on the Radio – “Halfway Home”
TV on the Radio – “Love Dog”
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NEW BLOC PARTY TUNE – “TALONS”

Straight off the release of their rushed-to-the-street third album , Bloc Party has released another one-off single from the Intimacy sessions, this one entitled “Talons” and it features all the makings of a great Bloc Party tune. Ingredients include, driving guitars, the requesite Kele Okereke whisper-verse, pummeling Matt Tong drums, and the new electronic soaked underworkings that have come to define the band as of late. Check the single out on their Myspace and buy Intimacy while you’re at it.

Bloc Party – “Halo”
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NEW VIVIAN GIRLS B-SIDE SURFACES

Over at Gorilla Vs. Bear we found a rare b-side for the Vivian Girls that needs to be checked out now. Download it below and make sure and buy these girls’ self-titled debut when it becomes available. More info at their website here.

The Vivian Girls – “My Baby Wants Me Dead”
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FREE RAVEONETTES EP

Apparently if you head on over to the Vice Records site you can download a free three-song EP from the Raveonettes which remixes three songs (”Dead Sound”, “Aly, Walk With Me”, and “Lust”) and somehow manages to make these excellent tunes awesome in a different way. Head over there now!

The Raveonettes – “Aly, Walk With Me (Nic Endo Remix)”
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NEW CANNIBAL CHEERLEADER ZINE OUT!

(picture uploaded tomorrow!)

From our office to your hands, from the computer screen to your subway car, the Cannibal Cheerleader zine Issue #2 is out, and it features complete interview with the Vivian Girls, Heartsrevolution, the Action Design, Ponytail, Treasure Mammal, Fight Bite, and more! Pick up yours today here in Austin at locations around town (Waterloo Records, Sound On Sound Records, MonkeyWrench Books to name a few) or just email me if you’d like a copy! We’ll of course have to do an exchange of some sort, so offer me something good, like a cool band recommendation or pictures from an upcoming show. You’ll get your hand on one of these bad boys if you do! Email me at cannibalcheerleader@gmail.com.
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HEARTSREVOLUTION INTERVIEW CONT’D

Here’s the remainder of our exclusive Heartsrevolution interview. Bonus questions will only be available in the form of our Cannibal Cheerleader zine, so pick one up to get the whole interview!

CC:How would you describe your music? An amalgamation of electro and rock? Techno? Undefined? Ben:We have a bunch of songs that I think sound pretty different, but they are electronic, pop, punk. Lo: i hate the word electro..and i am pretty sure i don’t like electro music. i hate the word techno..it makes me think of kids who are sucking on pacifiers w/ those weird kanye west shades CC: How important is the visual aspect to the Heartsrevolution world? Should fans consider their experience incomplete unless they see you live? Ben: It’s super important. The visual aspect of heartschallenger plays a big role here and this actually preceded the music. Sometimes it’s frustrating to not have the means to make the visual aspect known. We have so many specific ideas whether it’s videos, live show, etc. Like, we don’t know how to use photoshop. Luckily we have some close friends that are involved though and help us get things done. Lo: god is in the details. it is important to me to create things that are a reflection of the things that make me want to wake up in the morning. . CC: What’s your live show like for the uninitiated? Ben: A technicolor light up disco floor w/ mosh pit. Or at least it will be! Kate: The live show is where I come into the band, I joined after working with the band on the first record. It seemed right, I wanted to start working in moving image and to push the idea of a visual representation for the music to another level completely. I think a fully considered performance is what the viewers and listeners deserve. People don’t just come to hear the music, they want to see and absorb everything, and we strive to improve and make that the most exciting experience possible. CC: You recently had a split EP with Crystal Castles and it would seem that your two groups are at the forefront of a new musical movement. Do you feel your music is innovative in this way? Lo: cc make great music which is why i wanted to do something with them in the first place.. a friend that worked at vice magazine in the uk told me about them and suggested we do a split. but they are liars and i would love to have it out with them..i am sure that day isn’t far away. our paths will cross and it will come down to a blind folded knife fight…because i am an unforgiving scorpio. other than the fact that “alice” and i both have vaginas…and ben and “ethan” both have penises there isn’t really much else we have in common. CC: Do you identify with Crystal Castles and how has their success affected you? Lo: i love and believe in a lot of what “alice” says. she is a great writer. most people that ask me about them don’t even understand what she is saying..i think that is funny. and their most popular song bugs the fuck out of me…i don’t like crimewave at all. i can still remember 2 years ago “ethan” singing it at cmj /fort fader party…i guess it’s much better having her lip sing it. CC: What bands most influence you? Lo: sonic youth, nirvana… a bunch of the riot grrrl bands i listened to growing up..like bikini kill, comet gain, huggy bear. i used to work at an all age club called jabberjaw when i was 14 and would put on shows..that place was magical and i got to experience this tiny glitch in time that i probably wouldn’t have if i was still in school and going to bed by 9pm. Ben: Everything that I’ve listened to does. It could be bowie or the strokes or daft punk or the beatles or young mc or so many others. CC: What acts are you listening to right now? Lo: i don’t really like most music. one of our songs…called teenage teardrops, we are doing the vocals this week and i have had it on repeat. when i need a break i listen to the sads. they are brilliant and are a good place to go to clear my head. CC: Favorite songs (both ones you listen to and ones you’ve done)? Lo: smells like teen spirit. Ben: Stop in the name of love, the sound of silence, today was a good day, private eyes, she said she said, let the good times roll, young americans, liquid swords CC: What does the future hold for Heartsrevolution? Lo: collaborations and touring the world in the ice cream trucks so that kids everywhere experience this thing we have built. CC: Can we expect a full-length soon? More EPs? Lo: Yes, both! Full length early 2009.. Switchblade Ep out on iheartcomix Oct 21st. Switchblade remix single on iheartcomix…release date: TBA but i think in Nov. http://www.myspace.com/iheartcomix We have one of our tracks. “ultraviolence” out on the next Kitsune comp in Oct. http://www.myspace.com/maisonkitsune, split 7″ symbolone http://www.myspace.com/symbolone the split w/ symbolone is going to be limited edition and self released but it is top secret! you will have to check our myspace for details http://www.myspace.com/heartsrevolution Kate: Much more to come, total world domination!!!

Heartsrevolution – “Ultraviolence”

Comments?

CC: What is Fight Bite all about? Why this type of music? How did Fight Bite come to be and what other bands have you each been in?

Fight Bite came to be when I (Leanne) had some songs together that were a bit soft and that didn’t fit in my more raw projects (Snowflakes, C!TR, Rival Gang). I saw Jeff’s band Teenage Symphony and asked him to collaborate. Jeff: Once we started talking about influences, it made perfect sense to work together and I was already a fan of her music in Christian! Teenage Runaway.
CC: Describe your artistic process. How do you go about layering all the sounds on your songs? Where do the lyrics come from? What feelings are you trying to convey?

Generally either Jeff has chords and a song structure and i add lyrics and melodic pieces or i have a “finished” song that he embellishes and arranges. Unfortunately Jeff sticks me with all of the lyric writing duties. The content is usually based in reality but dramatized for fun.

This is of course, just a sample of the entire interview, more of which can be read at the bottom of this post and the entirety of which can be viewed in our September edition of the Cannibal Cheerleader punk zine. Stay tuned!

Fight Bite – “Strings”
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CRUISERWEIGHT ALBUM OUT OCT. 7th
Our favorite Austin pop-punkers Cruiserweight have announced the release-date for their much anticipated followup to the seminal Sweet Weaponry. Big Bold Letters comes out Oct. 7th and the special CD release party will be performed at Emo’s on Oct. 31st, so prepare for a ghoulish celebration that will no doubt feature at least one member of CW8 dressing up as Rocky Balboa. Check out this Cannibal Cheerleader-produced video below and see what I mean!

Cruiserweight – “Vermont”
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PREY FOR SLEEP RETURN TO AUSTIN
According to the newest post in the Prey For Sleep Myspace blog, frontman Hunter Townsend and crew have returned from Ohio with brutality accomplished. Check it:

“I’m taking a break from tracking vocals right now to let my voice rest a little before we get back in and double everything and add some tones… this is our last day in the studio, and our last day in Cleveland… I’ll be sad to leave here, that’s for god damn sure. We’ve had an awesome experience hanging out at the HM office and we’ve gotten some solid advice and been pushed a little harder than anyone’s pushed us in the past. I can already see us growing as a band because of this. They probably didn’t know what to make of us for the most part… there’s a vending machine here that they sell Natty Lights from for a dollar a can, and we fucking bought the thing out on the second night of recording. At least we didn’t have to tip! They don’t know how us Texas boys get down. I can’t even begin to describe how happy we are with the recording… everything sounds so fucking solid, so fucking brutal, it’s beyond words. We start driving back at 5 AM tomorrow… Monday night we’re back in Austin! Everybody make sure and check us out on September 4th at Red 7 with The Destro and Bleed The Sky… it’s going to be a fucking great night and we can’t wait to see everybody again and jam in our hometown. We’re playing early, no excuses. Just come out and have some fun with us! Everybody be safe, stay metal, and take care of each other. We’ll see you soon!“

The band’s playing Sept. 7th at Red 7 here in Austin so do not by any means forget to attend this show, or you’ll look like the background for the Cannibal Cheerleader website. You’ve been warned.

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INTERVIEW WITH FIGHT BITE (CONT’D)
Here’s more of that Fight Bite interview for you interested blog-readers. Enjoy!

CC: You seem to be getting a lot of press lately from influential blogs like Gorilla vs. Bear and Stereogum. How do you feel about all the new attention? Has it affected the size of your fanbase? When can a band say “they’ve made it”?

It has been unexpected and strange. we never thought the recordings would go farther than our friend’s stereos. we certainly haven’t “made it.” We’re still spending time and money that will never pay off but that’s what musician’s do. Jeff: The attention is definitely nice and has given us more confidence about what we do. It’s been cool to see new faces at our shows and meet new fans.

CC: To expand on the idea of ‘making it’, what’s it like for an independent band in America today? What are you days jobs? How do you reconcile your day-to-day with the need for artistic expression? Is it worth it even when the money’s not rolling in?
I (Leanne) work as a freelance photographer. We’re pretty boring people. Music is pretty much what we do outside of work. I wouldn’t be a photographer or a musician if i was looking for a good payday. Jeff: Right now the only job I have is grading SAT essays every now and then. Having a creative oulet like Fight Bite will always be more important to me than finding a a good day job or steady income. When I’ve had full-time jobs, I found that my creative projects suffer because of lack of time or motivation.
CC: What bands do you enjoy? What bands influence your music? Do you have any other interests like film or literature?

We have some mutual influences like ABBA, the Carpenters, Wire, and New Order. I (Leanne) am into pretty much everything good from Ruth Etting to Madonna. I (Leanne) am interested in photography, film and stop motion animation. I’m making a music video for Swissex Lover. Jeff: Besides the bands Leanne mentioned, i think we are both influenced by film and music in films.

CC: Describe what making your debut LP was like. Does it include the majority of your song catalogue or do you have other tracks floating around? Describe the time, energy, and expenses that went into it.

We have some stray ones lurking about. The process was pretty slow and painstaking. Some songs have more than 30 layers. we recorded in Jeff’s room onto his 8 track tape recorder. He did all of the mixing. The only expenses were the mastering and printing and the 75 cents it cost Jeff to buy the cassettes we recorded on. Jeff: We spent almost six months recording everything for the album, including several songs we thought didn’t fit Emerald Eyes. Even though it was a lot of intense work, it still ended being up the most fun I’ve had recording.

CC: What message are you trying to convey? Is there a mythos or theme to your music? Your music has been describe as the ‘theme to an unmade Sofia Coppola film’ – how accurate do you feel this description is?

I (Leanne) am into the implicit. Sure, these are all songs describing specific events in my life or feelings that I’ve had, but I’d rather employ some cliches to create a classic universal than speak in tongues and bore everyone with my internal mythology. As for Coppola I take it as a compliment. I’ve never had to buy any of her sound tracks because I already had 90%of the music Jeff: Yes, I think that’s a nice compliment too. I’m drawn to directors like her, david lynch, noah baumbach, and terrence malick because the sound of their films is often just as important as what’s on screen.

CC: What musical genres do you most identify with? Pop’s enthusiasm? Punk’s fierce independence? Shoegaze’s dreamlike quality? Or does your music really have no genre?

I think we identify with pop from the 60’s and 80’s as a model and general influence. Our approach is more or less informed by anything from punk to dance music but those aren’t obvious in this project. Shoegaze is the sort of genre that i can’t quite pin down. I guess that might describe the sissy, emotional, dreamlike qualities in our music. We enjoy a postgenre identity. Anything goes.

Remember, bonus questions will be in the September issue of the CC zine! Order yours by emailing me today! Comments?

“We uploaded our new track: “Hypertension”, to promote our forthcoming 4-song EP on M’Lady’s Records this Fall.

Germs of Youth will be releasing a 7″ single: “Six Years Doing Time” b/w “Negative Creep” and maybe another?

PPM is releasing a DVD compilation, “New Video Works”, with videos by:
ABE VIGODA, BARR, BLACK BLACK, DEERHUNTER, ERASE ERRATA, FINALLY PUNK, HAWNAY TROOF, HIGH PLACES, DAVID HORVITZ, JAPANTHER, KIT, LUCKY DRAGONS, MIKA MIKO, NO AGE, POCAHAUNTED, THE SADS, SILVER DAGGERS, SISSY SPACEK, SOFT BOILED EGGIES, SOFT CIRCLE, SOILED MATTRESS AND THE SPRINGS, DAVID SCOTT STONE AND XIU XIU

We plan to tour the UK/Europe before the year is over, but school/work/nomadic endeavors has kept us put for the time being.”

Holy snap, just when we though we’d never hear from these awesome ladies again they go and churn out 4-song EP and plan to appear on a DVD comp with some of our Cannibal Cheerleader favorites (Mika Miko, High Places, Xiu Xiu, etc). Here’s to you girls, we’ll definitely be picking up the EP!

Finally Punk – “Manatee”
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GRAND OLE PARTY TOUR WITH BLACK LIPS
In what’s sure to be an epic tour for the ages, Southern flower-punks the Black Lips are heading out on tour with Cannibal Cheerleader fave Grand Ole Party for some California dates. Here’s hoping this duo swings through Texas and soon!

Grand Ole Party – “Look Out Young Son”
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TREASURE MAMMAL BACK IN THE STUDIO?
Recent mumblings on the Treasure Mammal Myspace along with confirmations from Abe himself point towards the fact that our favorite spazz-rocker/motivational speaker is in the studio recording tracks for what might hopefully be the followup to the excellent You Wish I Was Channeling Your Spirit. Of course, anything our friend Abe touches turns to gold, including the recently uploaded Improvisational tracks with Corey of the Mae Shi which are a testament to the experimental creativity of the T. Mammal. Check ‘em out on the ‘Space y’alls.

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THE CANNIBAL CHEERLEADER ZINE IS OUT
Where can I find this monstrosity? How can I get my hands on this limited edition first run of the Cannibal Cheerleader magazine? Well yours truly will be hard at work tomorrow planting the zine at strategic locations. These include:

Waterloo Records
The Parlor
MonkeyWrench Books
Sound on Sound Records
Book People
Kerbey Lane (Guad location)
SpiderHouse Cafe
FlightPath Coffee Shop
Epoch
Zen’s (Guad location)

Because the zine is expensive to make I will only be dropping off a few at each location so grab it fast! However, if you’d like your own copy delivered to you, just email me at cannibalcheerleader@gmail.com and I’ll shoot one your way. And if you find a copy, be sure and hang onto it and let me know what you think.

Comments?

“To all of our fans,

We are sad to bring you the news that our upcoming shows in the UK (dates below) are going to be our last as a band. We thank you for all your love and support these past few years – its been a blast but the time has come for the 4 of us to go our separate ways.”

Incredible stuff it seems and unbelievably disappointing. However, we here at Cannibal Cheerleader count ourselves as lucky because we were able to experience and celebrate the band live multiple times. In celebration of this fantastic band we bring you our top five favorite BYOP tracks of all time (read below) and a special essay at the bottom of this update chronicling the meteoric rise of this unbelievable punk act. Godspeed you kids, we know you’ll pop up soon in some other form.

5. Be Your Own Pet – “Becky”
4. Be Your Own Pet – “October, First Account”
3. Be Your Own Pet – “Black Hole”
2. Be Your Own Pet – “Hillmont Avenue”
1. Be Your Own Pet – “Girls on TV”
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THE VIVIAN GIRLS PREP NEW SINGLE
With a tear in our eye we nonetheless forge ahead with other music news, as one of our favorite new acts the Vivian Girls have announced their first single from their self-titled debut, “Where Do You Run To”, which combines all the things we love about these ladies – their girl-group vocal trade-offs, their ramshackle and layered guitarwork, and their surfer-chic groovy vibe. Check it out below and tell us what you think!

The Vivian Girls – “Where Do You Run To”
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NEW BAND CHEER: THE GRATES
We’ve known about the Grates for a few years now, ever since they popped onto the radar with their first LP Gravity Won’t Get You High. However, they’ve recently exploded to the forefront with their newest release Teeth Lost, Hearts Won, and it takes the patented Grates sound and pushes it into swirly new territory. The group, a trio from Australia, essentially fills the void left empty by no new Yeah Yeah Yeahs releases, what with their female lead singer, and combo guitarist and drummer rounding out the band. However, lead singer Patience Hodgson brings a unique vocal bratiness to the table and the instrumentation tends to lean towards a pop sensibility with handclaps and shout-answer choruses in place of arty guitar breakdowns. If the YYYs are rip-snarl, the Grates are kiss-backstab: just a little bit of popster-sweetness with a bloody rock tip. Here are some tracks to feed your hunger.

The Grates – “Burn Bridges”
The Grates – “Storms and Fevers”
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TERROR THURSDAY: PRISON
Oh Viggo Mortensen, you steal our hearts everytime. For lack of a better description, this week’s Terror Thursday feature of Prison was horribly satisfying. Featuring several solid barbed-wire kills, enough gore to make the theater floor sticky, and our favorite hobbit-helper in his first ever starring role, Prison delivers on its simple premise and easily grabs four out of five bloody pon-poms from us. Go rent it!
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BE YOUR OWN PET ESSAY
Here’s our special Be Your Own Pet essay written specifically for our Cannibal Cheerleader zine (out next week all around Austin!). We were gonna make it zine exclusive but given today’s sad BYOP developments we’re releasing it now. Comment people and enjoy!

While doubtless may be punk’s indelible spirit of cavalier attitudes and ramshackle musicality, pinning down the exactitudes and definitions of the genre in an admittedly gray area like rock music can at best be described as difficult given the myriad of styles present in the modern scene. Punk, for better or for worse, has been mixed, misshapen, turned, torn, revitalized, revived, and reborn innumerable times under an infinite number of monikers, effectively declaring the word, in its original use, null and void. However, let it be known Nashville’s Be your Own Pet are punk rock. Not pop-punk, not emo, not post-punk, or punk-retro, or what have you. Be Your Own Pet are Buzzcocks punk rock, Sex Pistols punk rock, phoenix from the ashes of punk rock, so punk rock as to remind us what we were missing that whole time punk was trying to change it up, not realizing it had a good thing the whole time. Fronted by spazztastic Jemina Pearl and populated by a ragtag band of high-school-aged losers and vagrants, Be Your Own Pet and their library of fuzzy, fury-filled tracks fit just as well into the aesthetic of ’77 as any of the best bands from that era, and their penchant for artistic reference and an intelligently formed sound draw strong correlations to the Situationist movement that inspired the likes of Malcolm McClarren in punk’s heyday. The poem “Kubla Khan” speaks to the unfettered beauty of the written word, with it alliterative prose and inspiring language, and so it seems fitting that Be Your Own Pet would title the first song on their first album, “Thresher’s Flail”, after a line in the masterwork, given the foursome’s adherence to punk inspiration and naked rock ambition. Perhaps most refreshing about the group is its talent for making an admittedly basic set of riffs and hooks sound so unbelievably original and creative, speaking to both the watered-down weakness of modern punk and the firm musical foundation that the punk genre is built upon. Be Your Own Pet have seemingly managed to recapture the essence of what made punk great in the first place, and they’ve done so without sounding derivative or unoriginal but instead blazing forth with a newfound sound that utilizes rudimentary instrumentation, begets virtuosity, and replaces it with energy and a powerful delivery. The earliest of punk groups were populated by artists and poets, art school dropouts and UK record store owners. This Nashville foursome, heirs to families well-entrenched in their local independent music scene and blessed with more smarts than guitar-licks, began the Be Your Own Pet odyssey with some limited 7’’s, such as the excellent Damn Damn Leash before they landed in the lap of one Thurston Moore, who was quick to identify their youthful exhuberance as a sign of artistic integrity. With the release of Be Your Own Pet, the group’s self-title debut, press began to take notice, most notably with the age of the performers, all under 21 and most still in high-school, and the quality of music they’d amassed in their short lives. Strangely it might seem that to be young is a detriment when it comes to creativity, that somehow the more information taken in the more creative the output. However, there still remains much to be said about he influence of less influence, how a band might come to be in a bubble, how the youthful naiveté of a band like Be Your Own Pet might translate into a wildly creative force, given their unspoiled psyches. America’s culture seems obsessed with disenfranchising one of their most important and intelligent assets, that of men and women under the age of 18 or 21, believing that arbitrary numbers determine level of maturity or capability in today’s modern world. Kids fight the wars, make the changes, clean up the shit, so it would only make sense that the most outspoken and unhinged art forms come from the youth as well, and Be Your Own Pet is a prime example of this, culminating in their sophomore album Get Awkward, a seeming concept album about the reality of high school life and the mixture of maturity and madness in which adolescents live. With tracks bouncing between the subjects of knifing your best friend to blowing your brains out in a rage, Get Awkward remains a spectacular testament to the violence of youth, all the while celebrating the silliness of the mundane and the humdrum, obsessing over a breakup in “Creepy Crawl” and cheating on a lover in “Twisted Nerve”. However the crowning achievement of Get Awkward might just be the track “Food Fight” which summates the BYOP world perfectly, a combination of innocent youthful expression, violent outburst, and Situationist-referencing social commentary. The boredom and resulting expression of a nation’s young is reflective of a world of convenience become a world of sameness, and the signal of the food fight, a much storied and even cliche action, becomes a tirade against the norm in the hands of Be Your Own Pet. BYOP break convention at every turn, whether it be with rhyming structure, song length, lyrical content, or even stage presence. The simplicity in which the Nashville foursome approach their music comes across as a furious whirlwind of rawness in live form, with guitars crunching out wall-of-sound, atonal chunks of power over the heads of an astonished and often confused audience. Indeed, this often marks BYOP shows, a level of nervousness and tepidness in an otherwise engaged audience, many of whom seem shocked at the level of intensity presented before them. The approved ‘metal-head’ signals, the ‘now would be okay to mosh’ signs are not present but the music feels fast and hard. The crowd seems pretty evenly mixed in terms of sex and race and the jock machismo of modern punk bands seems mysteriously absent, replaced by hipster hesitation. Therefore, at a Be your Own pt show one can expect to be filled with an unquenchable thirst to spaz about as peers all around refuse to move for fear of being the only one to have read the signals of the moment wrong. Clearly though Jemina Pearl and co. delight in their audiences’ surprise, playing to their shocked sentiments with vomiting on stage and guitar juggling antics. The level of disconnect between audience and band reflects the forward-thinking musicality of BYOP as well as the regressive state of modern punk music. This isn’t packaged punk, punk rock made by the companies buying and selling rebellion, this is out and out revolution in simple form. Not revolution with guns and knives and blood and anarchy, but loud guitars and frenetic shrieks. BYOP stand atop a precipice of punk and are at the helm of a zeitgeist in the musical movement, championing a real return to form long since promised but rarely delivered upon, and they’ve done so by returning to the ethos of original punk while refusing to cheaply mimic their sound. In the battle against corporate rock, waging war on Warped, Be Your Own Pet lead the charge and we here at Cannibal Cheerleader are throwing all of weight behind them.

Any thoughts? See everyone next week!