The perfect bill for a show doesn’t exi….wait a minute….Beeyotch, Perennial and Frida Kill all on one night?! Think I need to reassess that statement! As it turns out, punk rock dreams do come true and a bill pretty damn near perfection is possible; I got the proof on a recent Sunday night. I stepped out of the annoying cold (I hate being cold more than just about anything) and into the warm embrace of Purgatory, a queer bar located on a dead end street that is devoid of asphalt and still sports the worn, bare bricks of the NYC of ye olden times aka the 1800s. (As a person who loves history in general and NYC history in particular, big perk for me.) Despite having listed many shows in the pages of FTA at the venue, it was my actual first time getting to go there, work and such always coming up otherwise. The space felt welcoming and inviting from the moment I stepped in and from there on out, things just kept getting better and better.
Beeyotch kicked off the night and while I’d heard their name, I didn’t know what to expect because particularly with locals, I often like to go in without having heard them first, so I admit I had not listened to their recordings prior to the show. I like to form my first impression live whenever I can (which is not always possible but….ya know) so even if I had seen the “shitbird” and “surveillance core” tags on their Bandcamp, I’m not sure I would have known what that meant! Turns out that means that they have a catchy and intense garage punk sound with trippy, intentionally warped and distorted vocals and loads of killer stage presence to tie it all together. This quintet made a solid first impression and I will now be digging into the their 2020 album, Right Behind You, while I look forward to seeing them play again.
Perennial, who hit the middle slot, is a band I did listen to quite a bit before I saw them (since they are not local) and thus was very much looking forward to their set. I recently did a Q & A with them (read here) and remarked there on the influence of Black Eyes, the late great—but recently re-united—Dischord art punks, their label mates Q And Not U, and the frantic jazz-core punks, The Plot To Blow Up the Eiffel Tower. I never got to see any of those bands which has always been a bummer for me (but I will soon see the re-united Black Eyes) because they are among my favorite artists.
But a lot of that disappointment is soothed when I see and hear bands like Perennial who are carrying on their legacy. They definitely have the same spirit of those bands, being arty and weird and smashing genres together, not giving a fuck as long as it sounds good, making something entirely their own in the process. Their live set is top notch and like a chaotic burst of energy flying out towards the audience. They are definitely a band that I am going to be making sure I’m keeping my eyes and ears on. And in exciting news, they’re releasing new music later this year and will soon be back in NYC, hitting Bushwick Public House on 3/25.
Perennial at Purgatory
Closing the night out was Frida Kill, and having been there at their very first show and many shows in between now, I formed my impression of them in the live setting a few years back and they have long since cemented themselves as one of my favorites. They’ve been working on new tunes and introduced one which featured Maria Lina with her giant, belting voice reminiscent of the legendary VH1 Divas—run through a punk lens of course—for stirring effect. (If you never saw her Tina Turner cover band, I feel sad for you.) This was one of the best sets I’ve seen the band deliver and that’s saying something because I’ve seen them a lot! Absolutely killer from start to finish, I still can’t get enough. They also have a new release in the works for later in the year and more local shows, 4/2 at Purgatory again and 4/8 at Main Drag, before hitting the road for Stoop Fest at the end of April.
Up the punx! Catch ya on the flip…
Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Kate Hoos)
No one quite does it like Otoboke Beaver, the whipsmart punk quartet from Kyoto. Their intense and frenetic music infuses elements of punk, disco, hardcore and a healthy heaping of riot grrrl attitude along with lyrics delivered in a similar way to the rapid fire Japanese comedy syle, Manzai, for a unique and wildly originally blend of styles and sarcastic swagger. And on top of it, I’m hard pressed to think of many other bands that have such technical prowess paired with the level of stage presence they have. Whether you’re jumping up and down and watching them run wild on the stage, zeroing in on Yoyoyoshie’s fingers fly across the fret board in complex arpeggiated phrases, grooving to one of Hiro-chan’s sublime basslines or, like me, staring in awe while Kahohiss attacks her drum kit with the speed and force of three drummers combined, this is one helluva band to watch.
I was thrilled they came back to the US so soon after their fall 2022 tour (see pics from their Music Hall of Williamsburg show) and was ready for all the action one of their live shows entails. Much like last time, the room immediately sprang into a frenzy— dancing, moshing, and plenty of fans angling to capture the moment in videos on their phones. The crowd definitely got rowdier than last time, perhaps a bit too rowdy, as my twisted elbow and knocked off glasses can attest, but fortunately my specs didn’t get trampled and my elbow was nothing a few hours with a bag of frozen vegan chicken wings didn’t mend after the show. It’s hard not to get swept up in the electric buzz in the air at an Otoboke Beaver show so I get it. And like I said last time, you better hold on for dear life!
Otoboke Beaver at LPR
Like most of their recent live shows, they kicked off the night with “Yakitori,” the killer groove punk rager from their excellent 2022 album, Super Champon (one of my favorites of 2022). I was delighted to hear many more favorites over the evening from that album especially “PARDON?” the brilliant fuck off dis track to Anglo-douche fans/YouTube commenters who cruelly make fun of the band’s English skills, and the equally as brilliant, equally as fuck right off ode to men on the internet (or otherwise) “Dirty old fart is waiting for my reaction” (a song that was, unsurprisingly, definitely lost on some of those in attendance at the show). Other highlights were “I won’t dish out salads,” “I don’t want to die alone” along with “S’il Vous Plait” and “Don’t light my fire,” both from 2019’s Itekoma Hits.
And the absolute highlight of highlights to beat all other highlights was “I am not maternal,” a song that, as a childless-by-very-conscious-choice middle aged woman, is my goddamn anthem. The disco breakdown whipping the already fired up crowd into total abandon and getting deep inside my heart. Middle finger raised throughout, vocalist Accorinrin let everyone know just what the fuck was up. It’s not hard to see why this band has resonated with so many, even earning accolades from rock luminaries like Dave Grohl.
They once again had local band, Ratas En Zelo, open the show, playing their signature bouncy accordion fueled punk tunes which kept the crowd bopping for their entire set. They have been working on a new album and debuted a few new songs including “Cheesus” and “Punk Polizza” about jerks who tell them they “aren’t punk enough” because they are women or use an accordion in their band. I for one think that’s r i d i c u l o u s and this band is punker than any band of bros any day. I’m really looking forward to the album which the band is hoping to release later this year.
All you need is love, as the saying goes. But a band like Otoboke Beaver also reminds me that you also need some rage in this life, or rather the outlet to express that rage, and even better, to dish it out like a sarcastic cannonball. Middle fingers up and hearts full <3
The Super Champon tour finishes in North America on 3/14 before they make a stop in Hawaii and take a break. They will hit their home country, Japan, for a pair of dates in April before heading off to the UK and Europe in May.
Read this interview which features Otoboke Beaver talking about Super Champon, getting real on their feelings on a range of topics.
Tami Hart has always had a knack for writing plaintive songs that pull at your heartstrings. The queer singer songwriter started writing songs as a teenager in the 90s “as a means of survival and escape from the trappings of a very conservative upbringing in South Carolina.” I long ago became familiar with her work via Mr. Lady Records, a now defunct lesbian run label that released some crucial albums in my life (and countless other queers I’m sure) between 1996 and 2004. Hart and I are a similar age so I was a baby queer back in those days too, and her two albums, No Light In August (2000) and What Passed Between Us (2002), were formative releases for me, an expression of youth and longing that I found much comfort in and a safe place to hold my feelings in, knowing that they were okay.
Hart spent the very beginning of the early aughts touring behind those excellent albums with the likes of Sleater-Kinney, The Butchies and the Indigo Girls and winning praise from luminaries like Kathleen Hanna who shared that No Light In August is “One of my all-time favorite albums. Written by a teenaged Tami Hart in the 90’s, her guitar playing is like a stripped-down Nirvana, filtered through a big-hearted gay kid with an absolutely massive unforgettable voice, trying to find herself in a hateful world. Tami’s technically perfect singing is heightened by her vulnerability and gorgeous lyrics. Once you hear just one song, you’ll want to play it over and over again. This is a record that should’ve gotten 10 Grammy awards, but barely anyone knows about it. Absolutely gorgeous and essential.”
Those two early albums were the only solo albums she ever released though, and I always wondered if there might be more someday. The wondering is thankfully over because now, after many years of playing in bands like Winning Looks, MEN and Teen Vice, Hart is back making the Southern, country folk inspired music of her youth, full of sweet harmonies and twang. She released some early demos in 2022 and has an EP of brand new music coming soon, Thanks for Saying Hi (4/7 Cruisin Records). Today she has released the brand new single “Sorry For Your Heart,” a gentle country rock ballad that features a full band arrangement with Kate Ryan (Flown) on drums and Adrienne Lloyd (Hunter Valentine) on bass. She shares that the EP as a whole is “a game of country mouse and city mouse, as both love letter to New York City with twinges of post punk as well as a deep bow to her Southern upbringing with heart on sleeve echoing of country melodies.”
When I asked why now felt like the right time to return to her solo work, she said it felt like “the timing was right to peak my head out and say hi again. I noticed such a powerful surge of queer and feminist voices in music with artists like Palehound, Hand Habits and Big Thief and especially folk and country-tinged post-punk. It felt like a calling.” The cover art on the EP reflects this peaking out to say hi again, with Hart peering out over a bouquet of flowers, as if to playfully say, “here I am!”
Indeed, this moment of Hart’s return feels like going full circle. In middle age I’ve found that longing and the desires of youth haven’t really ever faded, I’ve just gotten better at expressing them. And in this new EP, I have found the perfect soundtrack, yet again, to be a warm companion to the big feelings and gentle moments in between them that an artist like Tami Hart has always so deftly given voice to.
I’ve always had an affinity for two piece bands. This is partly because I’ve always loved the spartan nature of it, and partly because I also love seeing/hearing how bands are able to turn “less is more” into action. Another big reason is because one of my very first bands was a two piece bass and drums punk band (I played drums) and I just loved how raw and wild it felt at the time. Then later, the first band I played guitar in, Lady Bizness, was a two piece for a long time before we “sold out” and became a trio (ha!). We played the 2015 edition of the annual Two Piece Fest in Philadelphia, an awesome DIY festival that gives love to myriad two piece bands every year; I have the poster for the event hanging in my house to this day. The fest is still going strong, having recently held their “Sweet 16” for the 2023 edition.
All that being the case I figured, why not make a big ass list of duos I love?! And a little criteria here, this is for rock bands, mostly because that’s my favorite genre of music (“rock” being a very, VERY broad term here mind you), and it is also solely for bands that record AND perform as a two piece. This is not for a band of two members that records numerous layers in the studio via multitracking and then puts together a backing band on stage to perform it. No shade to those who choose to do that because plenty of great songwriting duos exist in that realm, but that is not what I’m trying to highlight with this list.
Left off this list are the biggies like The White Stripes etc because you all already know who they are, Jack White was just on SNL and he is doing just fine! I did hit on a few bigger artists, but mainly wanted to shine a light on some of the lesser known bands, current local NYC bands and some now defunct bands—several queercore bands in particular—that I wish had had more attention during their lifetime.
As with all of our lists, this is not ranked, as it is not our ethos to create a hierarchy. It features artists at a wide variety of levels of notoriety and all of them are treated as equals because again, we aren’t trying to create a hierarchy or a monolith, great music is great music, end of story. FTA is, and always will be, about sharing the music we genuinely love and care about first and foremost, we don’t need to assign a rank or a status to anything to do that. I’m also a grouchy middle aged punk and set in my ways, what can I say?!
SPIN also recently put out a list of two piece bands and there are some cool artists on that (with one or two crossovers here) so I recommend checking that out. There were a lot more bands I wanted to mention and I’m always on the lookout for more to discover, so I will definitely have more to talk about aside from these 28 picks (one for each day of February) for a future follow up list. It was important for me to start with these particular bands, but stay tuned because there will absolutely be more; if you didn’t see a band this time, don’t despair, they’re very probably already on my radar for the next one.
Alright, buckle up and get ready for a whole lot of great duos in the list to follow!
Big Business– It feels impossible to have a list of two piece bands without including these sludge metal greats, titans of the heeeeeeavy bass and drums style this format employs so well. They have at times over their nearly 20 year existence expanded to include guitars, but for the majority of their life they have remained the core duo of Jared Warren (Karp) on bass and Coady Willis (Murder City Devils) on drums so they remain firmly within the criteria for this list. Both Warren and Willis were also part of the Melvins for a time, and more recently, Warren has been playing bass with Unwound on their 1991-2091 reunion tour, replacing the late Vern Rumsey. (I’m also a sucker for bands with left handed drummers since there aren’t that many of us, but interestingly, there are no less than four on this list.)
Blacks’ Myths– The instrumental bass and drums duo combines elements of free jazz, heavy drone and a deeply experimental bent to create long and wide-ranging soundscapes, some reaching 20 minutes in length, showing the immense possibilities of this format and that a guitar is not the be all end all for a band. They have thus far released a stellar pair of albums, 2018’s Blacks’ Myths and 2019’s Blacks’ Myths II, as well as a 2020 collaboration with Moor Mother and Jamal Moore, Blue Chain. The band will soon support the legendary Dischord art rockers, Black Eyes, on their reunion tour and I’m very much looking forward to seeing them live again after having seen them open for Mdou Moctar in 2021.
Bob Vylan– The UK based punk/rap rock duo hits hard and puts on an incredible live show. I caught them when they opened for Amyl and the Sniffers last year at Terminal 5 and they practically blew the roof off the place, playing at the level of an arena rock band (see pics). They were also recently the recipients of the first ever Alternative Music award at the Mobo Awards in the newly created category to recognize Black performers in the realm of rock music, a category and an honor long overdue, since rock is a genre which never could have existed without the pioneering efforts of Black songwriters and artists.
Cinema Cinema– This Brooklyn based experimental art rock duo of cousins Ev Gold (guitar/vocals) and Paul Claro (drums) hits a lot of styles—jazz, hard rock, metal, post hardcore—and don’t have an easily pinned down sound. They also recently celebrated their 15th anniversary as a band. And while they did bring in collaborator Matt Darriau for vocals and woodwinds for their pair of albums CCXMD and CCXMDII, the heart of the band has always been the duo of Gold and Claro. They put on one hell of a fiery set live and will be touring behind a new album later this year. Cause for even more celebration!
Courtney Love– I know what you’re thinking but no, it’s not that Courtney Love, but rather this Courtney Love, the delightful lo-fi twee band made up of Lois Maffeo and Pat Maley of Yoyo A Go Go. (And yes, they were named after that Courtney Love.) They released three cutesy 7inches over their time together, all of which are favorites in my record collection to this day. Decades after its 1990 release, Snail Mail recorded a really cool cover of “The 2nd Most Beautiful Girl In the World,” giving it new life and bringing attention to this oft-overlooked duo, exposing them to a whole new generation of fans.
Death From Above 1979– I discovered this band in the ether of the nascent music blogosphere not long after the release their 2002 EP, Heads Up, though it would be many years—after their 2006 breakup and subsequent 2011 reformation—until I would get to see them live. I’ve long been a fan of the bass and drums setup for bands and DFA1979 is one of the best to try their hand at it, crafting catchy dance punk anthems built around Jesse F. Keeler’s huge distorted bass riffs and Sebastian Grainger’s dual vocal and drum attack. They’re still at it and wrapped up a North American tour at the end of 2022 in support of their most recent album, Is 4 Lovers (see my pics from the Brooklyn stop of the tour). I’m a fan of everything in their catalog, but Heads Up remains a special favorite to this day, the songs contained within both feral and foundational.
Death Goals– One of the newest discoveries on this list for me, the UK queercore duo plays a visceral and inspiring blend of screamo, math rock, punk and metal for a beautifully abrasive sound that explores queerness and what it means to exist in a society that (a good portion of) still wants us dead. They have a brand new album, A Garden of Dead Flowers, coming in May of this year and the first single “Faux Macho” is as catchy as it is raging aka my favorite kind of song.
Divide and Dissolve– Heavy instrumental doom drone metal, I saw this band play at Webster Hall last year with Low (on what would be the late Mimi Parker’s last NYC show, see pics) and they filled every single inch of space with their massive and all consuming sound. Despite being an instrumental band, their message is deeply political and challenges their listeners to examine and explore the continued toxic legacies of colonialism, white supremacy, nationalism and capitalism. Their name is also literal because alongside their message, is the imperative to work towards ways to divide and dissolve these poisonous plagues to our society.
El Ten Eleven– More than any other band on this list, El Ten Eleven really shows the levels that can be achieved with two people and traditional rock band instrumentation. Helmed by composer Kristian Dunn on bass and double neck, with his longtime musical partner Tim Fogarty on drums, and aided by a mountain of loopers and other pedals, the duo does it all without computers or click tracks. They make it all happen live on the spot and have used their exceptional musicianship to create sweeping and inspiring instrumental post rock. They’ve only seemed to have gotten more prolific with time, having released a triple album, Tautology, in 2020 which was followed up with New Year’s Eve in 2022 and the just recently released Valley of Fire (read my review). While their records are certainly a great starting point, this is a band you definitely need to check out live to catch the full effect of how impressively they craft their songs.
Empty Vessels– This uber DIY hardcore/noise/doom band from Connecticut had heavy fucking songs, supremely cool stylized art based on occult and horror movie images (I still have a patch of theirs on an old hoodie) and toured prolifically in the early through mid 2010’s, seemingly endlessly on the road crisscrossing the US. They released two stellar albums, 2014’s Seizures Within Reason and 2015’s Throw Your Shadow, and seemed poised for bigger things.
They posted on their Facebook in September 2017 to celebrate their five year anniversary as a band and mentioned that they were working on new material…and then that was it. Nothing further was posted, nothing was released, no more shows happened (that I am aware of) and no follow up post ever came. A few people later commented on that post asking if they were still playing which went unanswered. So it’s a mystery what happened to this band because they seem to have fallen off the face of the earth entirely, but I sure hope they someday post an update or make more music. In the meantime, the two albums they did leave behind are quite the legacy.
Fagatron– This is a band that is long defunct and that I never saw live; I’ve always been bummed about that. They hailed from Lincoln, Nebraska in the late 90s and early 00s, which incidentally was the end of the heyday of some “distro dude” with a table full of records at a show (though with the vinyl resurgence, maybe it’ll make a comeback). I came into possession of their self-titled 7inch at a show where another queer band had copies of albums and such by other queer bands much like the “distro dude” (but nicer). With a name like that, and a cool silk screened cover, I couldn’t resist. The bass and drums duo delivered on that release too, six gritty, heavily distorted punk rock tracks that sounded like they were recorded in a garbage can or at least a dark, dank basement in the middle of nowhere. I was in such a style band at the time, and a baby queer myself, so this one really resonated with me in a lot of ways.
The original was released in 1998 (yes, I still have my copy) and was re-issued in 2012 by Punk Start My Heart. This is also about the time it made it to Bandcamp with a download of all 36 of the band’s songs from across their 7inch EP, a split 7 inch with another queer two piece, Ninja Death Squad (more on them below), and their self tilted album. Today, just 9 songs are still up for download (not sure why on that) but their album is streaming on Spotify and a lot of songs are also on YouTube so most (though not all) of their catalog is readily available albeit in a bit of a scattered way. There’s also the treasure trove of Discogs where new stuff seems to pop up all the time. I may have never seen this band live, but they sure do hold a special place in my heart in terms of formative bands.
Gibbons– I have a ton of love for this endearing pop punk/emo duo and I’ve been going to their shows (and played on the same bill for a few of them along the way) since pretty much the beginning. They always make me smile, because after all, there’s not many bands that can so seamlessly incorporate the Air Bud franchise into a song. (Sadly that song remains unreleased as of now but has been one of their live staples for years.)
godheadsilo– I saw this band’s name for yeeeeaaaars, but it wasn’t until the Covid lockdowns hit in 2020 that I finally really explored them. That is a bit of a shame because of course I immediately fell in love with them (given that they are an heavy bass and drums outfit) and they rose to the top of the heap of my favorite duos. Better late than never I guess! One of the very first pieces I wrote for FTA (that was one of our “soft opening” posts before more widely announcing ourselves to the world) was about this band where I go into much more detail about things. You can read that here. Here’s hoping 2023 might finally bring me the chance to see them live.
The Haggard– A short lived queer hardcore duo from Portland, there’s not much out there on this band these days, but in their brief few years of existence I was able to catch them live a few times (35mm negatives are in a box in a closet in my house) and they managed to release a few 7 inches and two albums, A Bike City Called Greasy in 1999 and No Future in 2001. Their music is not all that readily available currently because it isn’t on streamers, but I did find a full stream of No Future on YouTube that I recommend checking out for the grit and the growl. (I magically still have my old 7inches and the CDs which, if you feel like shelling out a few bucks on Discogs, you can pick up too.)
Hella– The first time I saw this band was late fall 2001 in Olympia, WA and it was right before they released their explosive debut album, Hold Your Horse Is. I was immediately completely gobsmacked and it began a long love affair with instrumental bands and also with weird, experimental, complex music that defied easy categorization. The band would go on to release numerous albums and EPs over the next ten years and drummer Zach Hill in particular would have a prolific output with myriad other projects.
It all started with the three song Leather Diamond demo CD in 2001; it is one of my great regrets that my original copy of this was not more closely guarded and got lost over the years. Fortunately for me though, ye olde internet is a cornucopia, and today the audio is readily available on YouTube. Cleaner recordings of all of these songs would go on to appear on Hold Your Horse Is but the versions here feel downright primal.
Heavens to Betsy– Before she contributed her signature howl to Sleater-Kinney, going on to become an indie rock icon, a very young Corin Tucker fronted her first band, Heavens To Betsy. They hit right at the heart of feminine rage and were part of the original wave of riot grrrl bands alongside contemporaries like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile. They left behind a legacy of several comp tracks, 7inches and their lone full length from 1994, Calculated. The comp tracks are a little harder to track down these days, but both Calculated and the 1993 7inch These Monsters Are Real are readily available on streamers.
Japanther– The feral art punk band was prolific over their 13 year career and famous for their telephone receiver mics. They are a band I always kept an eye on from afar, sadly never seeing them live because much of their career coincided with me trying to do the “adult” thing and also having a “career.” (And a boring one at that. I fortunately abandoned this foolish notion around 35 and have been living my best life ever since.) While I do regret that, they left behind a lengthy discography and there’s plenty of live videos of them out there. And with all the re-unions going on these days, you can never say never anymore.
John (Times Two)– So named because both of the members of the band are called, you guessed it, John. Billing themselves as “Four arms, four legs, two heads, wood, metal and plastic. A band of two Johns from Crystal Palace, London, UK” this duo features one John on drums and vocals and the other on guitar, for a gruff voiced, punk grunge attack. My first intro to them was via their 2019 album, Out Here on the Fringes, and I quickly dove in on the rest of their catalog which includes two more albums and an EP. They recently released a double single “Theme New Bond Junior”/”Hopper on the Dial” and they’re very high up on my list of bands to see live. Hopefully a new album is on the way for 2023.
Keefchamber– I discovered this awesome NJ sludgy stoner, doom duo in the place many great discoveries of my life have been made, at a house show in the middle of the afternoon. Their recorded output is still limited but I’ve enjoyed everything they’ve done. Their past releases leaned heavily into a dirgy and slow drone bass style but their latest release, IngurgitateReality, has seen them shift to a faster tempoed sludge punk with guitar instead of bass, still relying on their strong metal chops.
Lightning Bolt– I’ve said before in the pages of FTA that you can’t have a conversation about experimental/noise music without mentioning Lightning Bolt and that feels true of any conversation about two piece bands as well. “The Brians” aka Brian Chippendale on vocals/drums and Brian Gibson on bass, have been at it since 1994, forming when they were students at RISD in the creative hotbed of Providence, RI. Three decades on and their music and their shows are as incendiary and wild as ever, and the truly berserk energy of their sound has some kind of magic healing power over me as was proved by a live set I caught at the end of 2022. I walked in the room in a bad mood (because of other life BS) and left feeling refreshed and renewed, the icky feelings quite literally rattled out of me. See pics/vids from that night here.
Lung– This cello and drums duo from Cincinnati is an absolute powerhouse of heavy riffs and lush, operatic vocals courtesy of singer/cellist Kate Wakefield, backed by her longtime collaborator, Daisy Caplan on drums with plenty of massive beats that perfectly complement the compositions. I was floored from the moment I first heard them—at a show in 2016—and have been continuously awed by them as their catalog has grown to now include four exceptional albums and a split EP. They are also one of the hardest working bands currently making music, touring prolifically and maintaining a strong DIY ethos. Read our review of their most recent album, Let It Be Gone, which was also one of our favorites of 2022. (Their previous album, Come Clean Right Now, made our 2021 list.)
The Need– I absolutely loved this freaky queer metal/punk duo of Rachel Carns (of Kicking Giant) on vocals/stand up drumkit and Radio Sloan on guitar/vocals (who would go on to play with Peaches among others) and was recently absolutely delighted to discover in my research for this piece that their cover of the Judas Priest epic “The Green Manalishi” was available on Bandcamp after I long ago lost my copy of the comp it originally appeared on in 2001, The Structure Of Scientific Misconceptions / The System Of Scientific Misconstructions, which contained a number of experimental and art rock tracks. (I may or may not have taken a minute to stop what I was doing to re-acquire a copy of it on Discogs while writing this entry.) They released a couple of 7inches and EPs over the years, most of which I still have, and today their two albums, 1997’s The Need and 2000’s The Need Is Dead, are easily accessed on streamers or Bandcamp.
Ninja Death Squad– Another short lived queer hardcore band, NDS released a few 7inches and two full lengths over their life, 2001’s Appreciate Our Art (which is not available on streamers) and 2004’s Bridge 12 (which is). I know very little about this band overall (and it seems a lot of other people don’t either since the 2004 album isn’t even listed on Discogs) and never saw them live. I learned of them because they had a split 7inch with Fagatron; years later I picked up a copy of Appreciate Our Art on Discogs and was happy to finally dig into more of their music (and the VERY 2001 “first time laying this out on a computer in MS Paint” style CD booklet).
It’s also very easy for me to draw a line from foundational bands like Fagatron, NDS, The Haggard or The Need—all crucial yet little known queecore duos of an earlier era— to a band like Death Goals who are exploding with queer energy in 2023. Even if they never heard any of those bands (I don’t know since I haven’t asked them), the parallels are certainly there for me and I’m happy to see this legacy of my youth continuing.
Peter & Craig– The long-running duo makes catchy and raw punk rock songs and have a discography that dates back to 2005 with a number of fun, lo-fi releases to dig into. More than that though, they are also the brains (and brawn) behind Two Piece Fest, keeping the festival going for many years in both Philadelphia and Chicago, celebrating hundreds of dynamic DIY duos over that time.
Quasi– You can’t have a list of two piece bands without Quasi, end of story. The sardonic duo of Sam Coombs and Janet Weiss released their first album, R&B Transmogrification, in 1997 and recently released their 12th—and first in ten years—Breaking the Balls of History, proving they still got it even after 25 years. Read our review.
Royal Blood– Probably the most well known band on this particular list, the UK duo personifies rock star swagger and “big riff energy,” but they’ve always been a band I’ve loved purely because they make loud, heavy music with just bass and drums, a thing—you might have picked up on by now—that I love. I was first turned onto them in spring of 2014 when someone sent me an MP3 of “Out of the Black” along with a few more songs that would go on to be included on their (at that time) not yet released debut album, 2014’s Royal Blood, and I was lucky enough to see them at one of their very first NYC shows (if not the first) at the tiny Mercury Lounge in 2014. (A show that, if the rumors I heard that night were true, Jimmy Page was in the audience for.)
I was surprised when I found out that they were getting really big because I didn’t pay attention to any of the growing hype around them, and wasn’t really paying much mind to music press in that era either. I just rocked them on my iPod classic and kept it at that. Things came full circle last year when I was able to catch their headlining show at Terminal 5 (and get paid for it to boot, a double win). They do get some occasional live assists on keys so that did blur the criteria a little bit, but for the most part they still operate purely as a duo so I allowed it.
Trophy Wife– The post hardcore duo from Philly hasn’t released anything since 2015 and I have not seen them play since 2016 (at the same show I discovered Lung), but they remain one of my all time favorite bands. With only two people, they achieved a poise and a power with their music that some bands of even five or six people can only hope to match. I once risked getting caught in a snow storm to see them at the late great venue, Silent Barn, as a blizzard was bearing down on the city in 2014 and was lucky enough to share the bill with them at Two Piece Fest in 2015, a true highlight in my many years of playing shows.
Venus Twins– The only band on this list that may actually leave you seeing double because they are the truest duo of all, identical twins. Brothers Jake and Matt Derting—on drums and bass/vocals respectively—know how to crank the noise and own any stage they step foot on. I’ve seen this band live many times and that really is the absolute best way to experience the unbridled noise punk fury they unleash, in the live setting, an untethered raw chaos in your face. The are like the twin babies of Lightning Bolt and Hella combined, with DFA 1979 as their cool uncle, for a sonic explosion that can barely be contained. See pics from some of their recent shows here and here.
Perennial hails from New England and makes intense, chaotic and beautiful noisy experimental art punk. They released their excellent second album, In The Midnight Hour, last year and I absolutely loved it. Ahead of their upcoming show in NYC, vocalist/multi instrumentalist Chad Jewett was nice enough to do a Q & A with me over email to talk about the band’s sound and influences and a bunch of other things. Take a read below and catch the band on Sunday 2/26 at Purgatory along with Frida Kill and Beeyotch.
Tell me a bit about the band, how you got started, who you all are, why you decided to form.
Perennial is Chelsey (electric organ & vocals), Chad (electric guitar & vocals) and Wil (drums). We’re all from Western New England. Perennial came from a really sincere desire to form the kind of band we all wished existed. There were all these artists and sounds and aesthetics that we really adored, and we formed Perennial as sort of an art project to put all of that stuff together: 60s soul and 90s Dischord stuff and free jazz and electronic music, and so on. We always dug bands that had matching outfits, so we have matching outfits! That sort of thing. When we’re designing flyers or album art we get to channel our love of French New Wave style, etc…
And finally, we wanted our live show to be the heart of what we do: something really dynamic and exciting and memorable. We play for about 20 minutes each time, and the goal is to never stop moving that whole time, to always make sure that whatever we’re doing on stage is exciting and engaging for the folks kind enough to watch us play. We want to earn the time people give us.
I know it’s perhaps a bit trite to ask about influences but I genuinely always want to know. I hear a bit of Q and Not U and Black Eyes in your sound, are those bands or that “crew” of Dischord bands something that has informed your work or is that me projecting a bit? I also hear elements of the hardcore/jazz fusion of The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower in songs like “Lauren Bacall in Blue,” and “I Am The Whooping Crane”
All three of the bands you mentioned are huge influences, and honestly are pretty foundational to our starting the band: 90s Dischord, the more angular post-hardcore and dance-punk stuff of the early 2000s; those are the sounds and bands and aesthetic movements that we’re enamored with. We’re so glad you mentioned the jazz elements on the new record. That was a big focus for us crafting In The Midnight Hour as an album: making a punk record that could also bring in all these other sounds and approaches and layers.
In terms of influences, I’ll try to keep the list as brief as possible, knowing of course that it could be a thousand bands long!
The Blood Brothers, MC5, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Hives, Otis Redding, The Jam, Stereolab, Wilson Pickett, Small Faces, Ornette Coleman, Black Eyes, Beat Happening, Q and Not U, Sam Cooke, The Make-Up, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Eric Dolphy.
You put out your second album last year, In The Midnight Hour, which I really loved! What was the process of getting that together like with the pandemic looming/in full force? Did that affect anything in terms of the writing or recording process? I imagine that must have been pretty hard if not impossible to ignore.
Thank you! We’re so glad to hear you dig the record! We had the album about three-quarters finished before the pandemic hit. Once it did we took a step back from actively recording for safety’s sake and didn’t really return to the studio until months later. That was hard, as was not being able to play shows for a while since live performance really is our raison d’être, but it did mean that we were able to really listen to everything just for the sake of listening. It forced us to pause and give what we had a bit of time to settle in our minds and to see what we liked and what we might want to update. So once we were back in the studio in 2021, there were some choruses we changed, or parts we substituted or different approaches to sounds to finish the album. The album we ended up putting out was better for having the extra time to just sit with it.
What is your song writing process like? There’s a lot going on in the songs, how do you determine who does what for each?
Generally one of us will come to practice with an idea: it can be a riff or a vocal part or even just a goal, like “I want something that sounds like The Clash,” and then the rest of us start helping build it from there. For the recorded versions of songs it’s the same philosophy: we think of the songs as collages that we’re all adding elements to. Chelsey has suggested drum parts; Wil has written guitar riffs, etc…
The live versions of songs are generally more minimal; more immediate and streamlined. Chelsey and I are generally running around and jumping off of things and dancing, so we condense the more complicated stuff and keep the heart of what the song is.
What are your plans in 2023? Any new music in the works?
We have a few East Coast tours of varying duration planned for the summer and autumn, and we’re currently working on the full-length follow-up to In The Midnight Hour.
We also may or may not have a 7” that we may or may not be announcing soon.
Perennial (photo courtesy of the band)
What music/artists/books/podcasts/shows are you excited about right now?
Right this minute I’ve been listening to a lot of Saint Etienne, The Jam, Sonny Rollins and Blur. I just got done reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte for the first time, which was a trip. I’m currently reading a book about the history of London, which is really interesting. Chelsey is currently reading Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. My podcast routine is pretty much The Best Show, Comedy Bang Bang, some educational stuff like In Our Time, and the occasional music podcast.
What do you get up to besides the band?
We’re all pretty avid film and literature buffs. Chelsey and Wil are also big Nintendo devotees. Mostly we read books, listen to records, hang out with Perennial’s mysterious fourth member, Wasabi the Cat.
Are you involved in any other projects musically or otherwise?
It’s pretty much Perennial! We average around 4-5 shows a month and are in various stages on two different recording projects for Perennial, so it takes up a lot of our creative time and energy. Luckily, we really did start this band as something flexible enough aesthetically to be able to explore and try out lots of different artistic ideas, so it works nicely that way.
The world is a tough place these days, it’s hard to stay motivated a lot of the time. How do you stay inspired to keep going despite all the bullshit of life and the challenges of being independent musicians?
Honestly, a huge part of it is the three of us love being around one another, love making music together, love driving to shows and eating snacks at 1a.m. and looking at one another right after playing and enjoying that feeling that we all put our all into those past 20 minutes. I never get sick of working on Perennial. It’s a joy for us.
Any parting thoughts?
Thank you for the great questions!
In The Midnight Hour is available now via Bandcamp.
Perennial (photo courtesy of the band)