Written by Shea Roney | Photo Courtesy of Charlie Paso
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by the Raleigh-based duo, Charlie Paso.
The beings that live in a Charlie Paso song are filled with a deliberate sense of belonging, scrappy and incredibly sincere in their own little ways. Back in May, guitarist Duncan McDonald and drummer Nina Sarsozo released their second LP, Pray Until Something Happens, which found the duo grappling with grief in the face of loss. Through ecstatic sounds, distortion like rotting wood and sweet melodies that find the cracks, Charlie Paso offers a collection that lingers in our ears with each melodic infatuation, each conscious sound that breaks the facade of daydreams and disassociation, brimming with life and all that we have come to understand of it.
About the playlist, the duo shared;
“These songs are an assortment of immediate influences that affected and guided us during our latest album cycle and some classics that we keep very close to the heart. An ode to melancholic optimism, primitivism, and regional splendor.”
Written by Sarah Mueller | Photo Courtesy of Secret Address
Since the mid-April release of their debut EP, A Typical Day…, Philadelphia’s Secret Address has quickly risen to become one of the indiepop bands that I’m most excited about. On the self-proclaimed “noise twee” band’s debut, the duo of Emerson Bright and Will Vani mixes the fuzzier side of C86-style indie with 60s surf pop to arrive at a sound that immediately stands out in the genre.
Earlier this month, Secret Address played their first show; afterwards, I reached out to talk to them about their place in the Philadelphia scene, future plans for the band, and more.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Sarah Mueller: Would y’all like to introduce yourselves to people who don’t know who Secret Address is?
Emerson Bright: I’m Emerson Bright, I play guitar, drums, keys, and I sing the songs for Secret Address.
Will Vani: I’m Will, I play bass and a little guitar, and I write some of the songs, but Emerson does most of the songwriting and instruments and arrangements. I also did all the art direction for the band.
SM: First off, y’all had your first show last week; how did that go?
EB: I was really nervous about it, because we were playing with a bunch of bands that we love. Like, Ringtone is kind of like a power pop band that has a lot of deconstructionist emo influences. They’re all really great musicians on a technical level and scene veterans, so it was cool to be on a bill with them. It’s all people that I know and have admired for a while in Philly. And then Lightheaded and Laughing Chimes are not local, but they’re huge influences; they made my favorite record of last year. With Laughing Chimes, we’re both from the Midwest so it’s awesome to see a band that great coming out of Ohio. We’re playing with all these bands that are huge for us, and I was nervous, but I think we locked in.
WV: I thought it went really well. And the guy from Lightheaded bought two tapes; one of the things about the show is that we made handmade tapes. We had 20, and we sold out at the first show, which was really cool for us.
EB: We were really pleasantly surprised by being able to play with people we look up to and it resonating with that audience and the other bands. It meant a lot to us. Also, shoutout to the other four people who are in our live band.
WV: They’re so good at every instrument they play.
EB: Andy, Jackson, Kelly, and Blake round out the live band. We do all this stuff on the record that’s like overdubbing and lots of space-y reverb and wall of sound. To replicate that live takes a lot of good chemistry between the players and a big band, and they’re the best musicians I know. They really stepped up, and it was phenomenal to get to play with them.
SM: Was this both of your first times performing overall, or have there been other bands before this, together or separately?
WV: Kind of a long story.
EB: We met, actually, while playing in a previous band. And then some of the other people in the live band are from a different band I used to be in.
WV: I was a big fan of that band, called Roseheath. They made more traditional chamber pop, more similar to Jellyfish. But Emerson and one other person had creative differences.
EB: I really wanted to make more lo-fi music that was inspired by the C86 and Elephant 6 stuff that I loved, or Pet Sounds. And I wanted to work on tape, with physical instruments. My main songwriting partner in Roseheath wanted more polish and industry standard production on what we were making. He still plays in the Secret Address live band, and I still play in another band with him called Ghostship Dreamland that’s more of what he wanted. We still work together and we’re still friends, but being creative partners was not going to work out. Will and I used to play in a band called Dumb Angel, and it was very 60s-inspired rock and roll stuff. The story of that band is a bit crazy; we’d be here all day.
WV: It was a good experience to grow with each other, though. I’m happy where I am with this band, because we’re both making music we want to make.
EB: I agree, we took what we learned from both of those bands into Secret Address as an example of “what were the problems with these experiences, and what do we want the new project to feel like?” I think we learned a lot from the other bands we’ve been in.
SM: I’ve heard a lot about the Philadelphia scene from others, but not so much about the twee side of it. Could you tell me a bit about that?
EB: It’s interesting in that the Philadelphia scene is at a transitional point right now. In 2022 and 2023, there was a lot of hype around TAGABOW and the whole Julia’s War shoegaze scene. That was the sound of Philly for a while, and the hype and the innovation in that space seems to me to have died down. But no one is exactly sure what’s going to replace it yet.
WV: We’re just big fans of jangle pop; a lot of New Jersey bands lean that way. Lightheaded is a good example of the jangly side; jangle pop and power pop are adjacent to twee.
EB: That’s the thing in Philly. We got interviewed by a local zine that told us that we were the only twee band in Philadelphia right now.
WV: It’s kind of true, though there’s other similar bands.
EB: The New Jersey scene, right next door, has amazing bands that play in the city all the time. I saw a band called Shampoo the other night, they just put out a 7”. It’s incredible stuff, like Dolly Mixture or Margo Guryan, the sunshine-y, 60s influenced side of the genre.
WV: There’s a shoegaze band, Mary’s Laser Beam, that makes more traditional TAGABOW-esque stuff, and now they’re trying to lean more into twee, from what I’ve heard. My roommate is mixing it for them, and they cited Secret Address as an influence.
EB: I was flattered by that too, when I heard about it. I’m excited to hear what they come up with.
WV: I don’t know if Philly knows what twee is yet, and we’re just trying to make them aware that you can make music like this.
SM: Now that you’ve recorded music and released music, what’s the main difference between the two acts? Is it just the number of people on stage, or is there more to it than that?
WV: We’re louder!
EB: In the studio, we dial back the noise. Our noise pop in the studio comes mostly from working on tape machines or using effects pedals in unconventional ways, as opposed to straight-ahead distortion. We love shoegaze and noise pop, and we lean into the side of us that’s influenced by Lilys or Blue Rev live. It’s more of a loud, crunchy guitar band. Shoutout to our second keyboard player, Andy, who has a box of effects pedals that he’s twisting during the show.
WV: We got plywood from Home Depot and made a board.
EB: We spent all night building it for him, and he has good intuition about where to put those atonal parts. We’re very inspired by the Olivia Tremor Control and Animal Collective like that. It’s weird, because I associate those two with being studio bands, but for us it comes out more in live performance because we have a guy whose job is to do it.
SM: On the subject of A Typical Day itself, everyone I’ve talked to thinks your vocals stand out, Emerson, and particularly the falsetto. I think for me it seems unconventional, because I associate twee vocals with almost more of a flatter affect, like the Alvvays self-titled, or Cub, which you don’t. Could you talk a bit more about how you came across your choices vocally?
EB: It’s funny, because it’s not actually falsetto. I just have a very bright, high voice; I’m not singing in falsetto. It’s just the way I sound. There was a time that I wasn’t leaning into that as much in melody writing, but in my last couple bands I’ve been leaning into having an androgynous voice. I don’t make too many conscious choices about my vocals, I just sing in a way that feels right. The Alvvays debut is a record I love; I don’t hear Molly [Rankin] as having a flat affect on that record at all. She sings in a very earnest, cloying way. I love all of those vocal performances, though my formative influences are from the 60s: Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, or Brian Wilson, obviously. It’s not really a choice for me to sing in that high register, it’s just where my voice sits, but it’s a choice for me to lean into it as much as I do. And I do that because it’s what my favorite singers did. There’s a quality of longing to it, when you’re softer and quieter in such a high register, that I like to express in my music. I’m glad people like the singing; I recently went through a vocal injury that put me out of commission for a year. I’m still not sure if I sound the way I did before, so it’s good to know that people still enjoy my performances.
SM: I was relistening to A Typical Day recently, and I noticed a buried spoken-word bit in “Let’s Go Exploring!”, could you tell me what that is?
WV: It’s a really good story. The title of “Let’s Go Exploring!” is a reference to the final Calvin and Hobbes strip; we’re big Calvin and Hobbes fans. We actually found a video on Youtube of a little kid reading it aloud, and we thought, “Wow! This is perfect,” and it just fit perfectly within the song. We just put it to the microphone and played it out, and it adds a childlike nature to that section that I really enjoyed. It was intentionally buried, because we didn’t want to make it too obvious, but it adds to that section.
EB: I’m surprised it turned out as well as it did in the mix, because it’s played out of phone speakers into a pretty bad microphone fed into a tape machine, so it’s band-passed twelve ways to Sunday.
WV: That’s the story. It only has 200 views, but you can find it.
EB: If you look up “final Calvin and Hobbes strip”, you’ll find the video we sampled.
SM: On Bandcamp, you give thanks to “the raccoon that fell through the ceiling”, who I assume graces the cover. I’d love to know more about the raccoon!
EB: I lived in this absolutely terrible apartment; if anyone who reads this is moving to Philadelphia, do not rent an apartment from Madison Park! They’ll let raccoons fall through your ceiling! I moved in, and in the first week I heard scuttling noises from my ceiling; I kept calling the landlord about how there’s an animal up there, but he kept saying there’s nothing he could do about it. Eventually, I started seeing light fixtures get dislodged and little raccoon hands reaching out. I kept calling him like “man, there are raccoons in my ceiling and you’ve got to get them out”, and he kept saying he can’t do anything about it. Eventually, I woke up one morning and I heard a crashing noise and little yelps in the bathroom. I went in, and this raccoon was standing in my sink and turned on the faucet and started bathing in it. I closed the door, and I called my landlord, and I said “you’re going to have hell to pay for this”. Then I called animal control, and this lady showed up with a raccoon cage. She goes into the bathroom, and takes this little guy out of the sink, and puts him in his box. You know what? He was really polite, and I liked him a lot. He was sweet, like a little cat. They took him to a shelter and he was raised there to be released back into the wild. I hope he’s out there alive and well and rummaging through somebody’s trash.
SM: And not their ceiling?
EB: And not in their ceiling! I really hope he’s not in somebody else’s ceiling!
SM: What does a typical day look like for Secret Address?
EB: It’s been a while since we’ve had one, because we’ve been so busy.
WV: I just graduated a couple days ago. We haven’t been recording as much lately because we’ve been busy.
EB: In the next week, we’re going to start recording a lot again.
WV: The thing that’s stayed the same is that we live at this house that’s walkable to everyone, so we stay up until 4 am talking the entire night, and it’s awesome.
EB: We play music and watch silly videos, we see each other every day and there’s a whole group that congregates around this house. We’re all great friends. It’s funny, we haven’t had any of the days I wrote about on this record in a while because we’ve been so busy being in the band. We spend less time idly wandering around than we used to, mostly because it’s 100 degrees all the time now.
WV: Yeah, it’s really hot here.
EB: At this point, a typical day for us is mostly making music and then just hanging out here, noodling on acoustic guitars and watching Youtube videos.
SM: What are both of your desert island picks, your choice of songs or albums?
WV: Pet Sounds, for both of us.
EB: Are we giving one list as a band, or both of us as individuals?
SM: However you prefer.
WV: We both have the Alvvays debut on there.
EB: Do we both have an Olivia Tremor Control record?
WV: Yeah, it would be Black Foliage as a band. We’re both really into the Motifs, they’re this twee group from Australia. They’re just amazing, it’s unreal!
EB: Oh gosh, yes, I’m the One You Love!
WV: We both love Animal Collective, a lot of shoegaze.
EB: Which Animal Collective record?
WV: You like Sung Tongs, and I love that one too. I just love all their music.
EB: We’re on enough of the same page that we could do one as a band. How many picks do we get?
SM: I think we’re on five now. A six-CD changer?
EB: Do you like that Lilys mini-album [ed. note: A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns] enough? I think that one’s great.
WV: I probably have a different shoegaze album.
EB: How about The Pains of Being Pure at Heart?
WV: I think that’s pretty similar to what we’re doing with noisy twee pop.
EB: Maybe I’m just picking it because it’s close to that Airport Girl song, but we can’t desert island pick their only song.
WV: Oh! Prefab Sprout! I’d put Steve McQueen in there.
EB: Yeah, it’s got to be. My honorable mention that Will wouldn’t pick is The Last Match by the Aislers Set.
SM: You talked about starting to record again next week. Is it going to be in line with A Typical Day, or more like your live performance, or more of a stylistic left-turn?
EB: I don’t think I’d call it a “left turn”, but it’s going to be its own thing. We did A Typical Day on a four-track, so it’s in true mono, and it’s very limited. Now we have an eight-track, and we’re bouncing back and forth between the two, so you can expect a stereo image on our future work, and slightly better fidelity. We recently got a Casio SK-5 sampling keyboard from the 80s, and a tape machine with a varispeed knob that you can do loops in. We’re going to be more influenced on the next EP by Elephant 6, like Olivia Tremor Control or of Montreal. It’ll be a bit like laptop twee, but without the laptop, seeing how far we can push cassettes as a medium to make experimental soundscapes. At its base, it’ll still be the bright poppy melodies of the first EP, but we’re trying to expand the palette a bit.
We’ve got a full length after that, and it’ll be more similar to A Typical Day with better fidelity and a bigger scope, and more influence from Pet Sounds and Brill Building stuff, that can get more delicate and orchestral. We’ve got a lot of sounds we want to explore. Particularly with twee pop and shoegaze, there’s this situation where they were originally derisive terms for bands that considered themselves just “indie pop” bands, making the sounds they wanted to. I think the issue, at least with shoegaze, is when they start a band now they’ll say “we’re a shoegaze band, and that means we need to have octave fuzz and reverse reverb on everything”, whereas the original bands were just doing whatever they wanted, which is what put them outside the box. We just want to do the sounds in our heads, just whatever is exciting to us at the time is what we’ll make.
SM: Is there anything else that you think readers might like to know?
EB: We just wanted to say that we love your website [Indiepop Atlas]; I go on there and read about new bands all the time. I think you do excellent work for the indiepop community; I like that you’re very honest about how you feel about everything. It’s not just a catalog of bands that you do or don’t like, you give these excellent incisive thoughts on everything.
WV: We loved your review of A Typical Day, because it was critical but positive.
EB: I felt like it was exactly the kind of review I wanted. We just wanted to say we appreciate your work as well: we’re big fans. Otherwise, we’d love to play anywhere. Reader, if you book shows, reach out to us! We love playing and we love driving around to new places! It was good to talk to you!
Written by Shea Roney | Photo Courtesy of Jake Barczak
Back in May, Jake Barczak released Rainbow Autel, a record built on “reckless infatuation” and a knack for sound melodies. For as minimal as they are, the subtlety of these songs does not get lost in the weeds. Strikingly different when compared to Barczak’s other project, Bullseye, Rainbow Autel comes off the heels of their self-titled debut LP. exchanging the jangly guitars and robust dynamics that have made a name for the New York-based band, Barczak now plays from the marrow of each song, the simple and worn in, knowing how far to lean back in the old porch chair before it’s too late.
They say history is always written by the winners; but who can even afford the materials these days? Rainbow Autel is easy to identify. Its range of love, loss, and bind to American exceptionalism comes nicely with the wooly instrumentations of robust acoustic guitars and jangled banjo. But whether it’s in the withering heartland orchestral of “The Living Body”, the epic tell-tale of neglected service on “Jackie”, or the lost infatuation of “Look At My Tongue Now”, it’s an album written for the losers of the everyday. For our relentless epiphanies.
We recently got to chat with Barczak about the project, storytelling, and the Midwest.
You recently released a solo record, Rainbow Autel, which notably follows the debut LP from your other band Bullseye. Where do these songs fit in the timeline of these two projects?
As a whole, the songs on the solo record are a lot more recent–the Bullseye stuff has songs on it that are as old as 2020. Rainbow Autel is all from the past two years.
Leaning a shoulder into classic folk structures and stripped back production, what made these songs discernible to this project compared to anything you were writing for Bullseye?
Probably the most obvious distinction during the songwriting process is that all the RA stuff was written on an acoustic guitar… Also I think in the last couple years I’ve been (re)-listening to a lot of folky acoustically-oriented stuff so that played a role too. Some of the songs are fingerpicked/have travis picking… so for those it was never really a question of whether Bullseye could play ‘em, I feel they were only suited for the solo set-up. I think it’s definitely related to writing with an acoustic guitar in hand, as opposed to an electric, even one that’s not plugged in… but the vocal stuff that came out seemed further away from rock music than the direction Bullseye has taken, so that made it feel further appropriate to make it its own thing ya know.
“Relentless Epiphanies”; what inspirations influenced Rainbow Autel? What stories lent themselves to these songs? Were any unpredictable in the grand scheme of these songs?
Hmm.. that phrase is some nonsense (meaningful to me lol) that I jotted down a while ago–like the burden of meaningful realizations is funny as a burden. I suppose that’s growth. But sometimes it’s like comically concentrated, ya know. The stories that lent themselves to the songs were largely pretty classic I guess– some important periods of love, travel. And in some cases digging a little deeper (?) or maybe older… and recalling some existential/loss questions in my life and vicariously through others’. I think “Jackie” was slightly unpredictable. I did not expect to write that song, and it came out in sort of a flash. Haha people keep clocking one of the very direct influences on that song… it’s certainly clockable 😉
You lead with a poem on the album’s bandcamp page, ending with the line “You have a power”. Where do those thoughts of surrender and infatuation feel most consequential in your life? Has it always been obvious?
Man, I guess I’ve learned in my life thus far that there’s quite a lot of relinquishing, and yeah, surrender that ought to go into a relation between people. I think perhaps when we’re younger, or maybe just my neurotic ass, there’s blindness or ignorance around the type of interpersonal peace this can afford– just letting it/them be. Uh… I guess “you have a power” resonates to me now in this way. I’d say it hasn’t always been obviously this type of surrender. I suppose that an earlier version of this would be feeling like you’re at the mercy of love or some other relationship haha. But that shifts to a more… yeah maybe like reckless infatuation -> peaceful surrender actually. TMI!
Now based in New York, you came from Minneapolis. Do you still have a kinship to the Midwest? Does it at all have an influence on what you create or the stories you tell?
Yeah I love the midwest. I’ve been reconnecting with friends in Minneapolis recently and making a lot of new ones in the broader Midwest. I definitely feel a strong connection to all these folks. And yeah… I think, famously, there’s a certain sort of humility and kindness that’s midwestern. I don’t know if it shows up in my songs, but I’d like to think they have a bit of that in them. Or at least that I do lol. There’s also the Dylan thing of course, though he like eschewed his Minnesotanhood or whatever… That said acoustic guitar music broadly speaking to me feels super at home in the Midwest. I’m actually working on a song right now for a second solo tape, hopefully out later this year, that’s a pretty blathering ode to the midwest (also coded as a love song, of course). Hah it’s silly, but I try to be more lenient with my silly tendencies these days.
Listen to Rainbow Autel out now as well as snag it on cassette.
Written by Shea Roney | Photo by Averi Love Little
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by the Chicago-based group, Current Union ™.
Current Union ™, the amalgamation of siblings Reid and Kira Isbell (twin coasts), has become one of Chicago’s best kept secrets. But to hell with that label. As the city forges its youthful faction of renegade blues and pop-rattled liaisons, CUT’s explosive instrumentals and post-punk provisionals find common ground between control and chaos. And to their credit, the latter is glorious. Now operating in full force, it’s an alchemical shift, as blood cells count heads and melodic dispositions take aim, Reid’s sharp guitar and Kira’s syncopated drumming are pushed further to the edge by the thrashing of Seamus’s saxophone, Jackson’s turgid bass, and Isaac’s sonic manipulations. Their sound arises from refusal to be afraid, to be cautious, and to capitulate in these dark times. But rather, the band has forged their own way, their demands to dance emphatically and to break the binds of any and all expectations are as clear as ever before. Current Unit ™ may seem like they are building up higher, but they are already big.
About the playlist, CUT shared;
“The falconer cocks his rifle; follow the notion to your own retreat. Screeching echoes and pulsating rhythms: the rocker’s dub and dance club. Like a sound that draws blood, a CUT is as physical as it is volatile.”
Written by Lexi Howard | Photo by Cameron Garrison
M sits leaned back in his chair, dressed casually in all black. He’s got on a pair of trousers that even a JNCO wearing zoomer would admit are baggy. Deep in thought, he watches strangers walk by through the coffee shop window as late afternoon sun pours in. He looks at me and picks up where he left off. “You always know what you should be doing, what you have to do. You know in the moment; you’re not stupid. Anything else is an excuse. And still we toe the line and sometimes cross it,” he says as a matter of fact. That’s the ethos behind Purgatory, the debut EP from Boston-based project Pew Pew, a release that touches on themes around humility and guilt over six churning, beautifully dissonant post-punk tracks. Or as M put it, “the dissonance between what should have been and what is.”
Sonically, M described Purgatory as being “very tight with repetition that degrades and then disintegrates.” But through the middle stretches there’s always a nice melody. “Every song has to have one thing that I go, yes, that,” he says pointing emphatically. “If the song doesn’t have that, then there’s no point.” Take the title track, for example, which first lays a pattern with M’s vocals mixing melodically with bassist Tanya’s over 90 seconds before establishing a new, darker set of riffs and harsher vocals. Finally, a synthesis emerges as Tanya’s sweet vocals return and the two previous melodies, guitar riffs, and drum parts merge imperfectly and teeter on a razor’s edge before falling off.
Photo by Cameron Garrison
Pew Pew started over 2 years ago after an impromptu jam session when drummer Eamonn Burke showed up to a cancelled practice that was scheduled for Boston omnichord rock band Ohio State Fair, on which he also plays with M. The duo played a couple of riffs together and “that’s pretty much when the band started.”
Through community, M knew that Night Moth and Squitch bassist Kit Malmberg might be available as the latter project wound down. “I think I asked them if they like Protomartyr or something like that.” They were down. “And then I wanted another guitar player and Kit was like, I know this guy, Jon.” Jon Wallis, of Jonny Tex and Hereboy. The four-piece worked out a handful of songs together, led by M. “I write the skeletons of the songs but I am hesitant to call them mine,” said M. “A lot of the most productive stuff was when we were getting tired of each other. We were like, let’s just swap instruments. Kit would grab a guitar. And then, ‘oh, that’s what we needed’,” M said of Kit’s contribution to the outro on one of their early tracks, “Cheers”.
That summer, less than six months after forming, the group got in the studio to record. The group released a couple of tracks from those sessions — “Cheers” and “Gank” — but M felt that some of the songs weren’t quite ready to release. “It was just maybe a little early to record.” So the group sat on those songs. Then Kit moved to New York, and M connected with Ohio State Fair and Dino Gala bassist Tanya Orlova to fill the vacancy.
After almost a year of performing together, the reconfigured group got a last minute studio spot. “Little Nice Studio posted that they had a last minute cancellation and said someone can take it for cheap.” The group played a 5 band bill in Boston, then got up the next morning and drove to Rhode Island with recording engineer Nate Scaringi. “That [it was last minute] was honestly good because I probably would have kept over thinking it otherwise,” said M.
The four-piece recorded the EP in its entirety live in about 9 hours. “We just went in the room. No fancy stuff. One amp each,” said M, noting that they recorded vocals separately in their practice space and during mixing sessions. “I wanted it to sound grittier than the first stuff that we put out, which was more high fi. I think [recording it live] added to how the whole thing sounds because it’s very raw.” The EP was mixed by Ian Norris, who M was excited to work with. “Ian has written some of my favorite music of all time with his band Taurus Judge, and he has a great ear. He’s a great engineer. It felt good to have someone very excited about this style of music.”
Purgatory is made up of songs that the group came up with after Tanya joined, plus one that they re-recorded. M noted that his bandmates each bring a unique element to the songs. “Practice is where we flesh the songs out. Each of them has something that someone else came up with that made the song. Like the drum part on ‘Purgatory’. Eamonn came up with it, and it’s incredible. I love it.” said M.
M added that the group takes melodic inspiration from Tanya’s vocals. “Even the guitar parts often come from the harmonies that Tanya [came up with]. [On the song ‘Purgatory’] I think all of Jon’s guitar part and the whole ending came from Tanya singing the chords that they wanted to hear,” said M. He added, “It was stuff that we weren’t hearing ourselves, but they have the ear for that. They’re trained, they’re a musician,” he said. “We both missed Kit and we were also happy that Tanya got to take over that spot.” M also noted that Jon has come up with a guitar tone that gives the band a unique sound: “Jon has figured out this kind of odd, distorted guitar. It can be very harsh and sound off when sound checking alone, but then with the band, it works. It’s those little things like that. I couldn’t imagine coming up with a song and then not having those tools at our disposal.”
M said that his experience touring with Brooklyn-via-Boston slowcore/shoegaze band Joyer and Alexander, the project of Boston songwriter turned poet Alex Fatato, helped build connections that turned to friendships in the DIY scene across the northeast and midwest. “I met people years ago that are helping us book our debut tour now [in the Northeast] and in Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh. They remember me and they’re like, ‘I’ve heard you’re in this band. We should help you out.’ It was a godsend to start a project of my own after already having some experience in other people’s projects.” He added, “I mean, it’s a little corny, but it does speak to the value of this whole DIY network, this community. I wouldn’t have had that same luck [booking this tour] otherwise.”
He went on about how so many folks in the local scene have gotten Pew Pew exposure despite having little recorded music. “In terms of the local scene, getting to meet Jason [Trefts] from Illegally Blind [has been impactful]. That guy believes in us. It’s great to have him help us out, put us on his own cool shows. We got to play with [Western, MA-based] Landowner and [Philadelphia bands] Eraser and Mesh before we had music out. It felt crazy,” said M. “Ian [McGregor] who books Deep Cuts, [under the moniker] Eye Design, he’s also brought us some good bills. We opened for FACS, a Chicago band. Jon kept joking, ’This is like opening for The Foo Fighters for us’. That’s kind of how it felt.”
Maybe it is corny, but from the beginning, the story of Pew Pew is one of community. “It’s kind of shown that it ultimately just matters to meet the right people,” said M. “It doesn’t have to be the right people in an industry sense, just someone who has good taste by your own definition. That connection can align you with others who share your taste.”
M leans back again. “I sent you the art, right?,” he asks. I pull it up on my laptop. “That’s my grandma in the middle, with the red flower. It’s a picture of the contestants of Miss International, Long Beach, California, in 1964, and my grandma participated as Miss Peru. It was a newspaper cutout or something. My grandma does this thing with all her black and white pictures, she’ll be like, ‘It didn’t look like that. Let me color it.’ And then she colored it, and it just looked perfect.” Who said purgatory couldn’t be sweet.
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by the Florida-based duo, pal.
Through all the noise, the inclusive harmonies, the meaningful acoustic spells and the interchangeable fidelities, pal elicit the most contagious daydreams and infatuated anthems in their short yet mighty collectives. Back in 2024, pal released a tape with Rope Bridge Records that contains nearly their entire catalog. In it you will find the band putting value to the simple and often overlooked, as the duo expand on their environment with a rippling sense of curiosity, an inebriation caught between the security and anticipation that feels to only exist as the sun slowly clocks in for the day. And to their credit, their work exudes with an inherent sense of kindness, offering a quiet respite, a still moment that sticks to you like the hair of a dog, as each piece is picked off one at a time with the care and attention it needs. Filling us with gratitude and yearning for that next special moment with someone we love, pal is here in the meantime to fill that space. Peace and love, always.
About the playlist, the duo shared;
“These are some of our current rotations and some classics we fall back on.”
Written by Joy Freeman | Photo Courtesy of palefire
In true DIY fashion, my interview with palefire hits a connection snag on Zoom five minutes in. From a bedroom in Denton, Texas, Jacqui Torres re-materializes on my screen. “The best part of DIY is that it comes from real people,” she enthuses. There is an art to the imperfection here.
Torres’ debut LP as palefire, full heart, big empty eyes, is entirely self-made, apart from a mix /master and drums from her partner, Echo Goza. I shouldn’t be surprised when she tells me the stunning strings are played in-house too. She’s a classically trained cellist.
After twelve years of playing and time spent in Boston studying the instrument professionally, she shares, “When I write a song, I hear it before I even start playing anything. So I definitely just heard the strings.” Elliott Smith’s XO is cited as a primary influence.
The intimacy in palefire shines through from the intro track, the lo-fi “hello world!!!!” It sounds like a phone call with a friend, an invitation into the whimsical vulnerability of the record. This recording is a departure from her previous two singles, a lean into a slightly poppier sound and a splicing down of 7-8 minute demos into digestible snippets.
When I tell her that the scope of the album leans from Clairo-reminiscent to Kimya Dawson, she laughs. Elliott Smith stands out as a focal inspiration yet again. “Within the last two weeks of writing the album, I was listening to a lot of more twee indie pop people. Touch Girl Apple Blossom, Brittle Stars, The Sundays.” Torres leans into this aesthetic, designing her own album cover with pastel color palettes and light-leaked photos.
Songs like “Sweet as a yankee” play into Torres’ home state. Her response to my mention of Texas is initially a hesitant, “bleh.” Then, she pivots. “I feel like being in Texas motivates me musically. As I’m writing and as I’m recording or playing shows, I’m just like, ‘Okay, I just need to finish this, and then maybe I’ll get booked on a tour, and I can get out of here’…but I’ll probably stay here forever. I love my friends.”
“My Peace” is another favorite of hers, and her most vulnerable on the album. “I definitely just wanted to paint a certain scene or ambiance of cuteness, but also, kinda sad and sweet. Bittersweet.”
I ask how she honed her production skills independently after leaving school as a classical musician.
“I dropped out, and I was like, ‘Okay, let’s rebuild this foundation. Why do I do music in the first place?’ And I got to talk to a lot of my friends, and a lot of them were producers. I got into Logic, and I made my first song. It’s still on SoundCloud. I don’t know how to freaking get into that account and take it down,” she jokes. After she met Echo playing lead guitar for his band, she learned how to mix. “You can make something catchy. You can make something heartfelt. You can make something simple. You could use a four-track. I feel like depending on the atmosphere I wanna create, I can just do it now. It is so nice to have that artistic liberation, you know, not just with the songwriting, but with the production.”
Initially, palefire was a shoegaze project, but after a few months Torres decided to pivot.
“Everything will always be changing, but everything will always be me, because I am the person who writes and produces it.”
Full heart, big empty eyes is available now on bandcamp. The album will be available on all streaming on July 13th.
Writing and Photos by David Williams | Live May 21st at the Empty Bottle
Sometimes less is actually more, especially in the case of Miss Grit’s dynamic live performance. The New York-based artist, also known as Margaret Sohn, only needs a guitar, a pedal, and a projector to mesmerize the sold-out Empty Bottle crowd on May 21st. Sohn came on my radar after her daring debut record, Follow the Cyborg, a concept album about a machine’s journey to “awareness & liberation.” The main subject of the science fiction story was fifty percent human, fifty percent machine, but the music was one hundred percent enthralling.
Now, Sohn is touring off her latest album Under My Umbrella, which was released earlier this year. The songs feel like a truer version of herself, not singing from the perspective of a cyborg, but one that embraces being human. Shedding her robotic cloak gives Sohn the freedom to show the world just how real her talent appears to be.
The songs from Under My Umbrella vibrated throughout the set. Sohn’s voice is truly stunning in person and captured the attention of the audience from the jump. The live songs captured the intricate and delicate details as on the album, engineered by Sohn’s longtime collaborator Aron Kobayashi Ritch from the band Momma fame.
Miss Grit delivered a brooding performance jam-packed with fuzzy electric guitar shredding, glistening techno beats, and all served to display her dynamic songwriting. Being an opener, you’re most times behind the eight ball in trying to keep the focus on your performance. Sohn displayed the poise, confidence, and overall skill set of a performer that won’t be opening for many acts going forward. A star is on the horizon, waiting to be born.
Check out our gallery of photos from Miss Grit’s set in front of a sold-out Empty Bottle crowd.
Earlier this year, Chicago’s own Ratboys shared Singin’ to an Empty Chair, their grandly acclaimed sixth studio album. Composed of singer and songwriter Julia Steiner, guitarist Dave Sagan, bassist Sean Neumann, and drummer Marcus Nuccio, Empty Chair wields textures underneath each sonic strain as Ratboys dig into these bruised but deliberate songs, rediscovering value in the language of music and the meaningful connections that come out of it.
Back in February, Ratboys hit the road for 8 weeks, taking along Chicago’s Andy “Red” PK on pedal steel, to share their rock n roll goodness all across the country.
We gave Raboys a camera to take on tour. Here is what they sent back.
Listen to Singin’ to an Empty Chair out everywhere now. Snag a copy on vinyl, CD or cassette via New West Records.
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by the Louisville-based band, PARKiNG.
PARKiNG, the trio of Lizzie Cooper, Boss Benson and T. Moore, create music that is harsh, and gloriously so. The band’s debut LP, PORTRAiTS, released one year ago this month, feels as timely as ever in the hum of western collapse. Defunct, distressed, observant, surreal, but human; PARKiNG home instrumental fixations to combat the dead ends, algorithmic lashes, and the has-beens and the has-been-nots caught between our ever-separating formalities and devotions. And through the searing noise, the breaking infrastructure and melodic demands, PARKiNG builds a podium but declares no winners. Rather, the young band offers refuge in the complexity of these songs, giving space to fill when isolation and unease absorb our world, and pushing us to each take a step up and get a better look at what’s ahead.
About their playlist, the band shared;
“Influence and praising others expression has opened our eyes to glance out at the majestic vast sea of artistry and the waves of construction that follow. Like a sculpture we have become carved and engraved with the strains that passed through our cores. Attend to with intent.”
the ugly hug 