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Archive for the ‘Be Your Own Pet’ Category

Be Your Own Pet / Birthday Girl (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, October 22, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Be Your Own Pet, Birthday Girl, Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts on October 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: October 22, 2023] Be Your Own Pet / Birthday Girl

I remember when Be Your Own Pet came out in 2006–they were endorsed and supported by members of Sonic Youth.

They played bratty teenage punk and were a ton of fun.  And then they broke up.

They have recently reunited (wikipedia says)

Following a fourteen year hiatus, they reunited in 2021 after being specifically requested by  Jack White to open up on a few dates of his Supply Chain Issues Tour.

Their own blurb says

On the heels of playing to packed rooms and enthusiastic audiences at SXSW, Nashville’s Be Your Own Pet have dropped a new single, “Hand Grenade,” via Third Man Records. The song marks their first new music since the release of their seminal Get Awkward album (XL Recordings) in 2008 and was written and recorded by the three founding members Jemina Pearl Abegg (vocals), Jonas Stein (Guitar), Nathan Vasquez (bass), and longtime drummer John Eatherly. Picking up right where they left off and clocking in at just over 3 minutes, “Hand Grenade” is an exuberant return and leaves no question they are the same band that Pitchfork called “vibrantly charismatic” and Rolling Stone labeled “charmingly raw.”

I had not heard of Birthday Girl which is surprising only because of the band’s lineage.  A Pessimist is Never Disappointed notes:

I think some folks are, rightly, going to check out Birthday Girl because Mabel Canty’s father is Brendan Canty (Rites of Spring, Fugazi, The Messthetics, etc.), or because Isabella MacKaye’s dad is Alec MacKaye (The Faith, Ignition, The Warmers, Hammered Hulls, etc.). But people are going to stay with this band because the music those two make with drummer Tess Kontarinis is sharply realized and emotive. What’s here on the band’s self-titled debut isn’t so much the sound of a new generation of harDCore, as it is that of the heyday of college rock. Less Beefeater and more Bettie Serveert is what I’m saying.

Sounds great.

Unfortunately, I am trying not to go to as many shows in quick succession.  And since I was out last night, I decided to give this one a miss.  I’d like to check out Birthday Girl some time though.

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Cory Doctorow–Little Brother (2008)

Posted in Adventure, American Libraries, Be Your Own Pet, Black Flag, Corporate skewering, Cory Doctorow, Dystopia, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Military, NPR/PRI/PBS, Prison, Record Labels, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Technology, The Muffs, Threats, Upton Sinclair, Video Games, War, Wikipedia, WMDs, YA Books on September 19, 2008| 5 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BE YOUR OWN PET-Get Awkward (2008).

Be Your Own Pet are a bunch of young kids from Nashville.  Get Awkward is their second album.  According to the liner notes, two of them were born in 1988 and one of them in 1990.  1990!  They play three-chord punk music which focuses primarily on having fun and partying.  I like to think that Black Flag’s “TV Party” might be an influence, but really they sound more like The Muffs than anyone else.   Jemima Pearl is one of those surprisingly cute punk singers who explode in a gruff gravelly voice (although never TOO rough or gravely) which makes all the proceedings quite fun.

The songs are short (only 2 songs are over 3 minutes), fast, and generally fun.  Song titles like “Food Fight,” “Zombie Graveyard Party!” “Bitches Leave” and “Bummer Time” should give you some sense of what the songs are about.  I’m led to believe their first album was a bit more aggressive (enough to get Thurston Moore to sign them to his Ecstatic Peace record label).  But this one keeps pretty well to the three chords (and occasional guitar riff) and fun shouting and singing.

It seems like every few years there’s a new young punk band who takes up the mantle of punk rock and BYOP were the most recent (although their web site says the just broke up).  And it’s cool for young kids to have a new young band to look up to.  Much like the theme of the book below, if you’re over 25 you ‘ll probably just think that this band is ripping off [insert your favorite brash young punk band here] but really who wants to listen to 40 year olds singing about parties and whatnot.  So, if you’re looking for a new young band, then, check them out.  There’s not too much new about them, but then, that’s not the point, is it.

And according to Wikipedia, three tracks were removed because they were deemed too violent (!).  Maybe the album is well suited to this book after all.

[READ: September 16, 2008] Little Brother

I have to get this out of the way:  READ THIS BOOK!  It is fantastic and it will motivate you like nothing I’ve read.  READ IT READ IT READ IT.

Okay, I feel a little better.

I read an interview with Cory Doctorow in American Libraries, the magazine of the American Library Association.  It was a short interview about this book, and he said such great things in a few paragraphs, that I immediately went to work and checked out the book.   And, wow, what a fantastic book.

This may be the kiss of death for any young reader, but Little Brother is an important book.  And everyone should read it.  And yes, I know it is fiction, but fiction can be a very powerful tool for waking people up to injustice.  Upton SInclair’s The Jungle was instrumental in the creation of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Food and Drug Administration.  Not bad for a work of fiction, eh? (more…)

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