London’s GoldBaby play the kind of breezy fuzz-pop that raises the hairs on your arms, and the soles of your shoes too. They’ve been storming the DIY gig scene lately, fast becoming what the PR slicksters call ‘ones to watch’. So we’ve gone and booked them for a LOUD WOMEN show at the Hope & Anchor on 11 April, so we can all get to see ’em before they get enormous! In the meantime, Gold Baby’s powerhouse SiânAlex, told us in her own words all about their gorgeous new single, ‘Dogbone’.
Dogbone is the sound of screaming that you don’t care about something, when the fact that you have to say it at all, shows how much you do.
It’s weird, I didn’t realise that until I’d written it. I thought I was writing a song about how sad it is when memories are reframed by the things that come along afterwards that change the way you look back on them. I kept coming back to this idea that memories can change colour with time. I wanted to feel sentimental about certain things and I just didn’t anymore; I felt numb and I thought it was the saddest thing ever. But by the time we’d recorded the track, I realised that all that energy I’d used trying to tell myself and everybody else how much of a shit I didn’t give, was only proof of how much I still cared. It was therapeutic.
Listening back, I can hear how much my mentality at that time played into the songwriting and arrangement and how it’s influenced what the band has become. I’d been putting my heart and soul into Gold Baby and we just had such unfortunate luck with band members which meant that for a long time nothing took hold, we were always rebuilding. Each time someone left, I took it personally. I wondered what more I could be giving, and I compromised a little more of my creative vision. I was trying to be accommodating but by the time I started writing Dogbone I was seeing it in a new light – my fear of ever being the boss, my over-awareness of being fair and accommodating was like driving in a bus with no direction and asking people if they wanted to get on board.
I was listening to a lot of SpeedyOrtiz and HopAlong at the time, two of my favourite bands, both led by strong women who’ve spoken either in their music or in interviews about being a woman working with others in music. I think it’s a real insidious habit for women, one we sometimes don’t know that we have, to undermine ourselves and our ideas or abilities for the fear of being bossy or naggy. I was writing Dogbone at a time when I finally had a little fire in my belly, an overwhelming desire to kick out, take up space and stop deferring to others. I was angry, mostly with myself. I sat down and wrote this guitar part I couldn’t play yet and went on in the studio to record way too many guitar parts that we ended up cutting. I felt like I was throwing myself through a wall I’d built in my brain, just to show myself what I was capable of.
That seems like a long time ago now, in the way that things sometimes do when circumstances feel very different to the ways that they once did. Gold Baby now consists of myself, Scott and Sara. Sara came on board shortly after we recorded Dogbone and Scott and I worked on Dogbone together with the brilliant mind of Ian Flynn, who produced the track. The band feels like a family now, and together we’ve been writing, rehearsing and gigging as much as possible over the last six months, building something strong, open and honest together that feels like what Gold Baby was always destined to be. Now we’re just looking to the future, making plans to gig, record and get out there as much as possible.
We’re currently recording an EP for release in the spring and are writing our first album. We can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on and are very excited to take 2020 by storm.
Siân Alex x
Dogbone – Gold Baby – Lyrics
Am I supposed to be sentimental? Am I supposed to keep the way I felt Keep all the photos inside my wardrobe door.. There was the first time, decayed in my mind Why does the hangover have to come last? We could have framed it, but then you changed it The wind blows and some things stick like that
And it doesn’t mean shit to me now It doesn’t mean shit
I got enough friends I’ve got enough things I’ve got enough memories to peruse I cleared the house out I got your stains out yet all I see is you
And it doesn’t mean shit it doesn’t mean shit
You are not the only one You’re not the hope that I hang myself from You’re not too long in bed or the song in my head You’re no-one
You are not the dogbone Or the wishbone Or the rerun Or the shit on my phone
The Franklys are our favourite Anglo-Swedish garage-rock band, and we’re super-excited for the launch of their brand new EP ‘Framed’, out April 5th – check out the awesome video for lead single ‘Not Guilty’ and pre-order your copy here. The band tell us that “lyrically, the record takes a look at the current state of the world’s affairs, whether that be on a small scale, such as in ‘Small Town, Small Talk’, or on much wider reaching issues. For example, ‘Mayday’ takes a swipe at the massive mess of the Brexit vote and its subsequent fallout. The songs deal with an increasing obsession with gossip, news and a lack of empathy fuelled by portrayals of unobtainable perfection found on some social media.”
Their distinctive, driving pop-rock sound wins them instant superfans, so we asked them for a sneaky peek in their gig arsenal … We talked tech specs with guitarist Fanny Broberg and bassist Zoë Biggs.
Fanny’s Höfner Verythin 1965
Fanny: My main guitar is a semi acoustic vintage Höfner Verythin 1965. I play it live at every show and use it to record most of our songs. The tone is distinctive and has a great feel and vibe to it. With its big body it is ridiculously oversized on me as I’m very short but it’s super light and has a thin neck so it’s very comfortable to play. A lot of songs have been written on this one! Hollow body guitars can often feedback quite a bit so my mate Kev from the repair shop Stairway to Kevin filled in the hollow parts with foam and that did the trick beautifully. It was in mint condish when I purchased it but is now looking a bit worn and rugged as I flail about quite a bit onstage. In a way I feel bad that it kept so well for so long until I got my hands on it, but a guitar is meant to be played and every scratch gives it more character I reckon.
My go-to amp is Fender Blues Jr and is the best gig amp in my opinion. Sometimes when you need to borrow someone else’s amp and have to do a quick linecheck I find those amps with loads of knobs too annoying to work with, and all I really need is a clean channel anyway so the Blues Jr is perfect with just a few basic knobs. It’s also fairly light and small enough for me to carry to gigs. I crank up the master to 12 and use the volume button to adjust volume to get the cleanest sound out of the amp and use pedals for effects.
Pedal wise I have a pretty standard set up. I use Boss Distortion DS-1 on absolutely all songs and I love it. For some reason it has a reputation for being a shit pedal for teenagers but that is so wrong. It sounds awesome with my guitar and amp and I can’t tell you how many guitar geeks have complimented on my tone and asked what I use and get surprised for not using a ‘fancy’ pedal. The reason why they ask is because all my pedals have been painted red to match my guitar so unless you check closely you wouldn’t know what’s on the board. Except for the DigiTech Whammy pitch shifter which is already red of course!
Fanny’s red pedal board, and Lucia the dog.
On my board is also DigiTech Digital Reverb, Boss Chromatic Tuner, Electro-Harmonix Micro Pog, TC Electronic Flashback which I use for delay (and loop for home practice) as well as Electro-Harmonix Memory Toy for slapback. My favourite pedal of all time though is Electro-Harmonix Big Muff which I use for solos and whenever the songs need a fuzz boost.
Also on the photo is my dog Lucia.
Zoë: My bass set up is a Höfner Ignition Club Bass, EHX bass metaphors pedal, EHX Nano Bass Big Muff Pi pedal, and Ashdown Rootmaster 2×10″ 500W combo amplifier.
Zoë’s Höfner Ignition Club Bass – photo by Christopher Ryan James
The Höfner club bass is my ideal bass; great deep tone, reliable and doesn’t break your shoulders or the bank.
I invested in the EHX bass metaphors pedal last year and for me it’s an all in one dream. It serves as a compressor and distortion pedal, while also having a DI. The Nano Bass Big Muff Pi comes with me when I want to boost the distortion level even more.
Zoë’s Ashdown RootMaster
The Ashdown RootMaster 500W 2×10″ amp is a proper workhorse and has served me well. Super powerful combo, and compact enough that you can move it around fairly easily. Lightweight for a bass amp at 17kg! Lots of options with both passive and active inputs, 5 band EQ control, shape control, compressor and sub harmonics control.
When recording I use my club bass, Höfner Verythin HCT or a Fender P bass.
I don’t have a dog in my pictures, which is upsetting on so many levels.
So we, Lonesome Hot Dudes were asked to write a guest blog for the super cool loud women. Honoured. Here we go!
We are a five piece band from Vienna and Graz and this is our first fresh 7” release on vinyl out on Cut Surface and kim-pop records – ‘Obey’.
We recorded the two songs within three days in our charming rehearsal space** in Graz, along with another one – ‘No Tears” (which is not on the record but to be found on the last Cut Surface sampler. The next Cut Surface compilation will be out on 29th of August, watch out for it!). Low budget, lo fi – all instruments were recorded at the same time. Only to ‘No Tears’ we added overdubs (feedback guitar) and added a screaming voice afterwards to the part that we use to call the ‘hardcore-part’ (wild, right?).
The singing was recorded extra and as I remember, we supported Reni to get into the singing vibe by making a circle around her, pushing her with dancing and body language.
Guitar amp was a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Guitar Lina’s baby, a dark red Fender Mustang from the 70s, Eva is using a fretless blue Music Man StringRay bassguitar. Isa’s Saxophone is a Selmer Super Action 80 Series II.
The person recording and mixing was Tom (Thomas Grassegger), a nice guy who is often doing the sound for all kind of punk concerts in Graz. He also made sound for several of our concerts, and out of a sudden he texted us, that he could not get ‘Obey’ out of his head since the last concert and how happy he would be, if we’d let him record the song with us. We found that very sweet and fixed a date.
Dino Spiluttini made the vinyl mastering.
The Cover Artwork for the vinyl was drawn by our drummer Lena*. The drawing is inspired by the photography Artwork Cover of X-Ray Spex‘s Germfree Adolescents. We love them and are obviously influenced by such amazing (Post-) Punks. And we are even using a Saxophone!
One of the two tracks of our record is called ‘Books’ and reveals singer Reni’s thoughts about reading and feminism. Here is the brand new video to the track, shot by Cordula Thym.
Gossip side info: Veza Fernandez who is performing in the video is Lena’s girlfriend. Also she is a choreographer and dancer and Lonesome Hot Dudes Lina and Lena* were dancing (true story) and making music in her dance theater piece ‘when eye becomes mouth’.
The other song is called ‘Obey’, an inner monologue about saying ‘No’, or not saying it, or saying it but not being heard.
Here is the video to the track.
Some scenes are shot in bassist Eva Ursprung’s Atelier House ‘Schaumbad’ (means ‘Bubblebath’), other scenes at the riverside. Our friend Gudrun Becker made the video, we made the choreography by having each of us inventing a move, the others had to go with it, no matter how weird. The shooting was a lot of fun even though the background-story of the film location is sad: despite massive protests of the local community over almost a decade, a power plant is being built out of speculative capitalist reasons. This is destroying the river and its surroundings, as well as air quality and neighbourhood quality in the small city of Graz. Most of the trees you see on the video, have been cut down in the meantime, so this is an ‘historical’ document!
Talking about saying no: in 2016 we were part of a project about exactly this topic. A zine and music compilation on cassette released on Wilhelm show me the major label. A lot of people were involved in this and lots of loud women and cool bands on the tape, contributing with their songs about saying no. Many of the songs were made just for the occasion and were recorded in the same basement** as ‘Obey’. Stream the cassette here! Side A and Side B. And there is also an online version of the zine if you want to browse through, with drawings and words (in German, English and Spanish) and a gorgeous poster by Clara Biller in it.
Wilhelm show me the major Label by the way also released our very first record, a split tape with the Viennese Hip Hop duo EsRAP. A sister and brother with very powerful lyrics in German and Turkish, about (Austrian) politics, racism and sexism.
Ok! it was nice being guest blogging! Thank you very much.
Lena* identifies non-binary, so actually we are not exactly exclusively an ‘all women’- band, as we are often referred to.
**This basement is a feminist punk pearl in Graz – not only that Lonesome Hot Dudes, Just Friends and Lovers, SchrAiraum and Red Gaze are rehearsing there, it is also the place where feminist Jam Sessions are happening every month, for girls*, women* and transgender, regardless of musical experience.
Hat: This song is about a relationship ending, and even though it ended because of choices and mistakes your partner made the burden is still on you to remain the strong one and keep them in a healthy place mentally. Their emotions are kind of holding you ransom and means you’re not allowed to be angry and upset with them for what they did, they’re protecting their own mistakes by physically showing you how badly they’re doing as a reaction to their mistakes. The lyrics also talk about letting your guard down and feeling like you you’re usually great at reading signs and seeing things coming but you’re kind of blinded by love and the trust you’ve invested in someone over many years.
Also it’s about the sensation of feeling like you’re falling and the person that would usually stop that from happening and hold you up is the person that is causing you to fall. A bizarre feeling, which means you can only rely on yourself to feel level headed or positive again. Which is where the title ‘Sunriser’ comes from – you can’t rely on other’s actions, apologies or regrets to give you closure or raise the sun for you. The song kind of flips between feeling like you’re falling apart and then being hopeful like “hang on, I think I can do this, but I don’t wanna tempt fate”. And going back in time trying to capture the comfort of the past or make things back to how they were before isn’t what will help you feel alive again and move forward with your life. Shortly after this all happened I went on a sunny European tour with the band.
Boyfriend’s Car
Jen: This song was inspired by a dream I had, it was quite a standard post-apocalyptic Walking Dead influenced dream where the streets were empty, the streetlights were off, society had collapsed and there was a general feeling of dread but also I have to admit, excitement. It got me thinking about how often this scenario is played out in the popular imagination – the collapse of society and return to fighting for basic survival. I think as much as it is a fear, it’s also a fantasy (albeit a naive one). Burning it all down, starting over, or just us all letting go and letting it crumble, finally being free of society’s rules and for many, finally being free of capitalism.
Of course something that extreme would be awful but it’s so hard of anything less than a zombie apocalypse doing away with capitalism. I think a lot of people feel the tension of a system that isn’t working, that’s barely held together and feels like it could collapse at any moment (like with the financial crisis), but never fully does. It’s held together by the people at the bottom rung being forced to settle for less and less (including hours and hours of unpaid labour, going into debt to subsidise their low wages, and begging for scraps of government welfare) while the people on the top rung talk about ‘growth’ and what a good and efficient system capitalism is.
I worked as a shop assistant for a large high street chain, and the company memos always boasted about how high the profits were and how many shareholders they had. But every closing shift in every store had 3 or 4 workers doing an hour of unpaid overtime to get the shop clean and tidy for the next day. Of course all our labour was bought at a much cost lower than it was worth, that’s how capitalism works, but think how many companies get away with squeezing workers for extra hours that are not on their books just so their CEOs can boast about how well they’re doing and what smart and fair business leaders they are? And that’s a minor thing, relatively.
Edge of Everything
Jen: This song started as a basic song about how it feels to live on the very edge of London, in Uxbridge but then ended up being a bit more poetic. It feels like I’ll never leave Uxbridge and everyone else who lives in London is appalled at how far away it is but obviously to us it feels like the centre of the universe. But even within Uxbridge Harriet and I have felt like outsiders, being those weird vegetarian left wing boat girls, we feel like we’ve been living in this undefined marginal space for our whole lives. I think that West London is kind of erased from contemporary cultural narratives about London. It’s like it lacks an identity. But it’s not like it’s a barren wasteland, loads of cultural stuff happens and has happened here (famous films made, legendary records pressed, huge South Asian communities, Eastern European communities etc.) and a huge chunk of London’s workforce live here but it’s like… who’s gonna feel proud saying they’re from West London? It’s almost a meaningless identity.
Heather’s Left for Dead
When you’re a DIY band everyone says that 90% of the experience is sending emails and 10% is the music. This is true, but there’s also SO much more admin and details to keep everything running smoothly and on time that no one talks about and are actually too boring to list. The DIY ethos and work ethic has been running through our blood since we started the band. But a pretty terrible side effect is not having time and space to be creative- which is why you’re playing music in the first place! This song is about neglecting the creative, carefree part of yourself- kind of like your inner child or alter ego. There was a point where band work took up so much of my time I felt like it was killing my creative side. Which I called Heather, because when people get my name wrong they call me this haha. As soon as I’d stop doing the planning side of things I’d freak out as stuff would start falling behind schedule, we’d miss out on opportunities and in turn band members would feel a bit freaked out too. The chorus is also about how female musicians don’t go down in history, they don’t make it into the ‘hall of fame’ then men occupy. They’ll go down in a small part of musical history as a niche, a footnote. So if Heather was left for dead, not many would really notice.
Exposure
Jen: This song comes from a frustration at people who have so many opportunities and so many resources but refuse to put themselves on the line – to expose themselves by doing the right thing and taking action. It’s about when men find success but put off helping to create more opportunities if it might mean sharing or giving up some of their privilege – for example within the music industry. It’s also about people who have a platform not using it to make change. And it’s also a bit about people who have amazing talents but are too scared of what people will say if they really went for it, so they play it safe.
Disown
Jen: This song is a conflicted one about having social anxiety, paranoia and shutting yourself in because of it. When I first wrote the lyrics I thought I was writing a song to someone else, but when I listen to it I feel like every line could be me nagging myself to not stay in and get bitter.
Sad Bride
Hat: I used to have reoccurring nightmares that I’d suddenly be married to someone and I feel like I was suffocating or stuck. In the dream it would either be my wedding day or I’d have been married to them for years and just was planning my way out. This isn’t a diss on everyone’s experience of marriage, just how I feel about it. And I also think about how many of my friend’s parents are divorced…sometimes I wonder if they hadn’t got married and felt that pressure if things would be different – a divorce seems like such a painful and expensive thing to go through, but no one thinks about that when they choose to swear to be together forever, a promise that seems irresponsible and unrealistic for two adults to make. The song opens with ‘it’s my big day, not my birthday’ because tradition and society dictates to us that it’s almost a rite of passage from birth that one day you will be with one person forever, so we’re giving into history and tradition by following the rules of monogamy. There’s a reference to Tammy Wynette in the middle 8 as Jen and I grew up listening to her music- particularly her classic ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E’. Also Sad Bride likens a wedding to a funeral within the themes of the song. The title is actually named after when my dog sits behind this sheer white net curtain at home and he just looks like a sad bride dreading the big day.
Tinfoil
Hat: This song is about accidentally overrating men when you first meet them. Your brain projects interesting traits onto them when you’re chatting and you get caught up in compliments which keeps you interested. Then in hindsight you realise that in your interactions YOU were the funny one all along and they were just bouncing off you to please you and perhaps just sleep with you. Also you realise their compliments may have been a bit creepy and you’re only just coming to terms with that. The song likens this type of man to tinfoil, because they reflect your own personality back at you and they’re kind of light, flimsy and do not have much substance themselves. And they kind of blag their way through getting things because gender is on their side. This may not be their fault, but the patriarchy’s, as always. When you give into these men and spend hours talking to them you kinda feel like you’ve failed as a feminist haha, but you justify it and try to gain the higher ground again by kinda laughing about them with your friends when secretly you still love the attention from them. How embarrassing!
Entrepreneur
Hat: The song starts off talking about the feeling of being self-employed and you’re doing 5 people’s jobs at once. Which means a neglect of self-care and repeating bad habits.
Jen: I’ve been in a lot of business studies lectures for work and there’s a really unrealistic optimism (I wanna call it propaganda, really) around this new economy, the huge level of unemployment has been rebranded as an ‘entrepreneurial’ economy. Many people are excluded from unemployment statistics because they are classed as ‘self-employed’ or they were forced to sign zero hours contracts – most of these people are not making enough money to make ends meet but they are essentially on their own, free to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, to do the lottery. All the ‘entrepreneurs’ listed as heroes by these business studies lecturers are the exception, not the rule, and they are not admirable people. One example being Richard Branson who was allowed to fail again and again before he succeeded because he was born rich.
Take What You Want (And Then Leave)
Hat: The song starts off talking about the dynamics between some friends. That if you do too much for someone without asking for anything back eventually they feel so guilty they’ll try and find something to be annoyed with you about. And you don’t want to have to sit there and list all the things you’ve done for them and sound petty and give into that, as that’s not why you did those things in the first place.
Jen: Then it becomes about rich Tories who seem to want to grind the country down, selling off the public services bit by bit to their mates (like Richard Branson) with no consequences for themselves because they don’t have to live here, really, not in the same way that the rest of us do.
Not My Turf
Hat: This is an anti-TERF song. When we were writing the album we were saying we wanted a song about gender. But we felt like a lot has already been said, which is great, but felt like we could bring nothing refreshing to the table. Another huge problem when trying to put lyrics together about the experience of being female or non-binary is that TERFs have occupied a lot of feminist language for themselves. And we disagree with them completely, but naturally some feminist ideologies will still cross over even if you fundamentally disagree on important stuff. But the point is, that’s not our turf as our feminism is intersectional and does not exclude the trans experience. The lyrics are about spotting a TERF in feminist scenes through red flags and dog whistles in their language and how we are not on the same side as them or fighting the same fight.
Following on from her stunning debut single Bitch U Look Good, Rebecca Lou returns with her latest cut, Under The Moon, out now via We Are Suburban. We asked her to tells us about it in her own words ...
I love writing gloomy stuff, and ‘Under The Moon’ came about while I was reading my old teenage diary and was really blown away by my own intense teenage poems I had written down when I was younger. You tend to forget how suffocating and emotional teenage love can feel. When you get older, that intensity, at least for me, diverges. When I wrote the song I was listening to a lot of Chelsea Wolfe and was really inspired by her doom-ish and witchy vibe, and kinda linked the reference between the two, and out came ‘Under The Moon’. I think the song is really emo and over the top in a really cool way. Let yourself get sucked into that teenage-reminiscent emotion that we all know so well!
Introducing Dublin's BARQ, whose double A-side Sassy Mouth / Earthquakes is out now. Lead singer Jess Kav told us about it in her own words.
“Sassy Mouth” has been the most vocal I have been in lyrical content about the social change happening in Ireland and the world right now. Our world currently feels like its experiencing a tumultuous time where healthy debate is not always prioritised. Instead, we end up in black-and-white echo chambers unable to show empathy with ideologies that don’t fit our world view.
To feel anger is natural, which people can sense within our song. In “Sassy Mouth”, I discuss ideas about bodily autonomy, that we make reality, but we also have the power to break and change that reality. It is in our power. In the second verse I list multiple archetypes used to reduce the female identity. I go on to remind us that these are all ways to demean our roles. We are not just a “bossy bitch” or a “siren” or some enigmatic meta-human, we are multi faceted individuals with hopes and dreams for ourselves and for society as a whole. Inherently we all want to live in a place that feels safe and accepting. “Sassy Mouth”, in a way, is an anti-shit-slinging hadouken, intended to remind us all that we can overcome the bullshit and move forward with strength and compassion.
So we, Lonesome Hot Dudes were asked to write a guest blog for the super cool loud women. Honoured. Here we go!
The Cover Artwork for the vinyl was drawn by our drummer Lena*. The drawing is inspired by the photography Artwork Cover of X-Ray Spex‘s Germfree Adolescents. We love them and are obviously influenced by such amazing (Post-) Punks. And we are even using a Saxophone!
Lena* identifies non-binary, so actually we are not exactly exclusively an ‘all women’- band, as we are often referred to.
'Counting Pennies in the Afterlife' is out now.
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Following on from her stunning debut single Bitch U Look Good, Rebecca Lou returns with her latest cut, Under The Moon, out now via We Are Suburban. We asked her to tells us about it in her own words ...
Introducing Dublin's BARQ, whose double A-side Sassy Mouth / Earthquakes is out now. Lead singer Jess Kav told us about it in her own words.