From #2:
BANGS - Tiger Beat
Fun, fun, fun! And good clean fun at that - kinda like whipped-cream
wrestling (what? youUve never heard of whipped cream wrestling?) as
opposed to mud-wrestling... the color of the whipped cream is "cleaner" to
the average joe or jane, it's a ton tastier, and even though mud feels
great sometimes, I'm always in the mood for whipped cream.
This album is great, and Tobi Vail's sister, (for any Bikini Kill
fans this is cool, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, then blow
this reference out your ass) Maggie, plays bass (plays it very well) and
sings. Now, this isn't a "she rocks only cause she's so-and-so's sister"
thing, it's more like a "she rocks and happens to be so-and-so's sister"
kinda thing (just wanted to clear that up). Other band members who are
equally as rockin are Sarah Utter (guitar, vocals), and Jesse Fox
(drums).
My faves are 'S.O.S' (I don't want to be your petty
heartbreaker/But I know that I'll never be/That girl on your
turntable/That girl on your T.V.), 'He's a Groupie' (I'm gonna start a
rumor milkshake/I'm gonna spread it all over town), and 'Lend Me Crumpets'
(And do you really think/I'm impressed by your moves/At the roller rink?).
To sum this album up and be totally cliche about it, it's short
but sweet.
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From the latest issue:
Corinna: We'll start out with the basics. How did you guys get together?
Maggie: Sarah?
Jesse: Sarah started it!
Sarah: I started it. About a year and a half ago I was playing music by
myself and I was getting bored of it, and I had some ideas for songs. I
hadn't been in a band for a while. I knew a lot of people who were great
musicians and whatnot, but they were all pretty involved in what they were
doing, ya know, their bands or whatever. So I wanted to make a band of
people who had time to do stuff and who were really interesting. I had a
veauge idea that Jesse played drums. We grew up together, and I remembered
that he played drums in high school, so I figured he must be a really good
drummer by now. We had some mutual friends. We didn't hang out in high
school or anything, but we had some mutual friends, and at a party one
night I asked him if he would want to play. So we started playing around
and I just thought 'we should get a bass player' so I asked my friend
Jessica if she knew anybody that wanted to play music and she said that
Maggie really wanted to do something. I called Maggie up... and that's how
it happened. I orchestrated it; my master plan.
MV: But I had never played bass before.
SU: [laughs] She had never played bass before, but she got a bass and it
all worked out.
C: Influences?
JF: All the good stuff! [everyone laughs] Do you want the bands? Everyone
has their own influences.
MV: Yeah, we're all actually very different. Elvis Costello, the Ramones,
tons of local bands, Bikini Kill, yeah, Cheap Trick...
SU: Cheap Trick! I love Cheap Trick! I love classic rock; Cheap Trick,
Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Blue Cheer, and then I also like a lot of 80's pop
bands like Sugar and Def Leppard. I guess Def Leppard aren't exactly pop,
but they're pretty...
MV: They're totally pop.
SU: Pretty fluffy.
C: Did you see the Behind the Music special on them?
SU: Yeah, it was great! I love Behind the Music. I watch any of them no
matter what.
JF: All my drumming influences are just metal drummers, like Metallica, ya
know, classic stuff like that.
MV: I'd have to say that the Go-Go's are a major influence, though.
SU: I'm really freaking out lately about Gary Nueman. Oh, and Chryssie
Hynde!
C: Really?
SU: Yes, really.
C: I don't like her very much... but, have you guys ever been to Niagara
Falls?
SU: Nope,
MV: Nope,
JF: Nope.
C: it's my favorite place in the whole world! You have to go!
JF: Really? Wow.
C: [laughs] Sorry, I ask everybody that.
SU: Have many people been there?
C: Not really, which is kind of weird 'cause it's a big tourist
attraction.
SU: It seems sort of out of the way, though.
JF: It's not out of the way so far as Canada.
SU: But that's out of the way!
JF: I have been to Canada. A couple times.
C: I seem to be running out of questions. I had some other ones, but
they've pretty much all been answered. Like the AC/DC thing, cause
everybody said your new single sounds like AC/DC, which I don't see at
all.
MV: I don't see that.
SU: Just wait until you hear the Tight Bros. From Way Back When.
C: Anyone else have a question?
Nick: If you could have a car, would you rather have Kit or the General
Lee?
MV: the General Lee.
N: Yeah!
SU: Oh, I dunno. That's so hard!
MV: It's creepy to have a car that talks with a confederate flag flying in
the window.
SU: That's true, if I had that in Olympia I'd totally get egged.
N: My personal idea is if they could find some way to combine...
SU: Combine the two... A talking General Lee!
N: Exactly. I like the way you're thinking!
*This goes on for a few minutes, and I can't understand what anyone is
saying. There's way too much overlap.*
C: Are you fans of PeeWee Herman?
SU: I *love* PeeWee. I have a lot of PeeWee stuff in my room. That was my
favorite show... PeeWee's Playhouse.
MV: It was my parents favorite show. They wanted an excuse to watch it, so
they'd wake me up at like 9, and that was when I was in high school -
staying out late, ya know - I was 16. And theyUd say "PEE WEE'S ON!!!" on
Saturday morning, and I was like "You can watch it by yourself"
SU: In sixth grade I had this friend, this boy, and we would sit in the
back of math class and recite all the lines. We even had this secret
PeeWee handshake.
MV: Who was that?
SU: Frank Creeden.
MV: Wow. We all went to the same school-
SU: Yeah.
JF: PeeWee... Oh lord.
Frankie: In grade school, or Jr. High School, are there bands that you
loved but nowadays you just wouldn't even talk about them?
MV: I'm not really that embarrassed of it, but I went through this serious
"glam" phase. Ya know, Poison, Bon Jovi, Motley Cru...
F: What about any pop?
SU: I was never into New Kids on the Block, or Debbie Gibson, or Tiffany.
MV: I was into Debbie Gibson and Tiffany!
SU: I just couldn't understand it.
JF: I used to love Rush, Led Zepplin - all the classic boy...
C: cock rock?
JF: Yep. A big fan of cock rock.
C: [laughs] How's the tour going?
JF: Goin' good.
C: Any horror stories?
MV: We can't even get into that!
SU: We've just been touring with two different bands, the first part of
the tour was Dub Narcotic...
MV: Trouble, both of them!
SU: The first 6 days it was Dub Narcotic, and the last 8 have been with
Murder City Devils.
MV: They're both awesome, but they both bring out trouble.
SU: There's a lot of drinking with the Murder City Devils...
F: How much fire did the Murder City Devils...?
SU: Every night during this one song they light the drums on fire.
F: The drums? I saw them set their keyboards on fire and their roadie lit
his crotch hair on fire.
SU: Oh, yeah, I used to live with him and he'd do that a lot.
JF: They melted my poor drum. They waited to light it so I had this pool
on my forearm, when they finally lit it, I hit it and it just *woosh!* It
melted my drum head.
MV: The only real horror story I can think of is this guy Billy in
Boston... He's totally insane. He put on our show last time we were there.
He's really notorious... He's really, trully insane. I don't think I've
ever met anyone that insane in my life.
SU: He was in the front jumping around, singing, and throwing himself on
the floor. Then he threw up on himself, in his shirt, and on the way out
he gave me a sloppy barf-breath kiss and then head-butted me really hard.
[everyone laughs]
JF: The poor guy was just on a lot of medication. Pills are just pouring
out of his pockets.
SU: That was our only horror story, but we did have a lot of great, crazy
nights.
JF: The only time we broke down was...
SU: Billings, Montana.
MV: Yeah, we had Heather Dunn, from Dub Narcotic, with us...
SU: We kidnapped her, so of course we broke down and they played their
show without her.
MV: We got there for our show.
SU: We just hung out at the casino all morning and had bloody marys, while
our van got fixed. It was great.
C: What is something you really hate? (i.e. pet peeves)
JF: Maggie hates a lot of stuff.
MV: No...!
JF: [mocking Maggie] I haaaaate that.
MV: Well, I have some strong feelings about things. The only thing I can
think about, though, is scratching your finger nails on nylon. I hate
that!
SU: Do I do that?
MV: No.
SU: I like everything.
MV: No you don't.
SU: Well what are my pet peeves? I don't know! Oh, I hate bad hygiene! It
really gets to me when people won't wash their hair. [she looks at my
hair...]
C: What?! Are you saying that I don't wash my hair?
SU: No, no! [laughs]
MV: All the Murder City Devils sleep in their clothes, and they never
shower.
SU: I asked to borrow their shampoo one night and they all laughed at me!
And they all sleep in all their clothes- how could you possibly sleep in
pants? I couldn't stand it.
MV: It's not just the pants, it's just you're really sweaty and then you
get in the sleeping bag...
SU: Yeah, it's disgusting. I like most everything. [laughs]
C: How were you influenced by the riot girl movement?
SU: Jesse?
JF: Well, let's see, I'm actually not. But, I grew up around it. I've
always grown up around strong women. My mom runs the women labor school,
so I've always grown up around all these women who were, you know,
organizing labor union rallies and stuff like that. So to see women in
rock music kind of taking it to an extreme seems normal, and the way it
should be.
[looks at Maggie]
MV: Me?
JF: Guilty by association.
MV: It influenced me pretty heavily, but in different ways. I'm related to
one of the "key figureheads" [laughs] in the riot grrrl movement. I found
it definitely inspiring. It got me thinking about a lot of ideas that I
don't think I would have necessarily thought about before. But there was
also a really strange, extreme chapter of it that wasn't really in
Olympia, but it happened in other places.
C: Yeah, like I heard stories of boys at riot grrrl shows and the girls
would just come up to them and be like "I hate you because you have a
penis"
MV: Right, there was a lot of weird stuff like that. But, you just never
know where someone is coming from.
C: Do you consider yourself a riot girl band?
MV: No.
SU: Not at all.
C: What would you label yourself if you had to?
MV: Rock.
SU: We're a rock band.
C: Alright, I think everyone is tired, and I think that's all.
JF: Time to eat Chili!
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