[ATTENDED: October 3, 2019] Des Ark
I had never heard of Des Ark. This show was a double bill of Screaming Females and Team Dresch and I had kind of forgotten there was another opening act. So I didn’t look into them at all.
I was amused when the drummer came out and was texting on his phone before their set began.
Turns out that drummer is Ashley Arnwine who I had seen play with Waxahatchee (that band was fantastic, too). He is also in the band Pinkwash.
The other two guys in the band were brothers Chris Taylor and Mike Taylor who were both in Pg. 99.
But these three guys are just with the band for this short (5 day) tour.
Des Ark is really the creation of singer/guitarist Aimee Argote. Des Ark has three albums out Loose Lips Sink Ships (2005), Battle of the Beards (2007) and Don’t Rock the Boat, Sink the Fucker (2011). In between these she released three live albums from Durham, North Carolina radio station WXDU: WXDU v. 1 (2006); WXDU v.2 (2007) and Live at WXDU Vol. 3 (2013). On these she plays new songs which may or may not make the next record.
Note the dates. That last WXDU record was from 2013. And, it turns out that Des Ark hasn’t played live (despite being amazing) for over three years. Why is that?
because main member Aimee Argote quit music for the past three years. She posted a lengthy statement explaining on her hiatus on Instagram, which reads in part: “I left music because I felt unsafe, exhausted, unsupported, poor as shit, and my body was super, SUPER fucking broken. I had no plan, no health insurance (w/ chronic health issues), no stability, and I knew I would never have consistency in my life or in my relationships if I was going to keep touring as much as it would take for me to make a [pretty shitty] living.” She also later added, “Being talented isn’t enough. It simply isn’t enough to keep me or others safe in an industry that tries to destroy women, POC, and queers at every turn.”
But I didn’t know anything about this when Aimee came out on stage and started playing and singing. (more…)
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I was surprised and excited to hear the Team Dresch were doing a tour of our area. They were playing at Monty Hall (a venue I love) as well as Union Transfer (a much bigger venue that I love). It was a little hard to parse that they would play a venue with a capacity of 200 followed by a capacity of 1,200, but there ya go.
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