01. Allo Darlin’, “Capricornia” (YouTube)

“Could you ever understand how you ended up here/Any friend you ever had has disappeared/And the tug of a heartstring is the line that pulls you home/And you bear witness to the ones you used to know.” Allo Darlin’ has been a mainstay on any and all “end of year” lists I’ve made since starting this now deeply neglected blog. I think what I love most about Allo Darlin’ is the ways in which Elizabeth, as a songwriter, is able to blend the specific and the universal, is able to put the story of her own life (however intentionally or unintentionally) in conversation with the stories of the lives of everyone who is listening. I know that “Capricornia” tells a story about Elizabeth’s life, but I can hear my own story, too — lost friends, young deaths, hometowns that feel unspeakably foreign, a slowly diminishing sense of self, a worry that you will never be quite the right person in quite the right place, no matter how hard you try. “Capricornia” is unspeakably beautiful and sad and I can think of few songs (new or old) that hit me harder this year.

02. The Babies, “Mess Me Around” (YouTube, live in Cleveland)

Sometimes there is a desperation to things — it’s hard to articulate. It’s like an itch under my skin, like a fever that won’t break. In early 2012 I saw The Babies and the moment this song began, I knew it was the one. I listened to a bootlegged version from that Cleveland show obsessively, howling in my car, “They’re gone mess me around, Lord.” Berating myself, “You’re a dumb fuck, you fucking idiot.” 2012 started rough and, sometimes, it feels like it stayed rough. Like that desperation simmered for 12 long months and is getting ready to boil over.

03. EMA, “Take One Two” (YouTube)

This is what I wrote about the video for “Take One Two” the first time I saw it (February 15, 2012): I can’t watch this video and not think of what things used to be like — how those are our tiny bedrooms and our bad makeup and our Jesus pictures with darts thrown at them, our own tiny private rebellions strung together in the hours after school and the hot, stifling Ohio summers. I can’t watch this video and not think of fist fights, of breaking glass, of the moments that defined my teenage years — half fear, half adrenaline, half the beauty and terror of my friends and I jumping out of windows and driving aimlessly late at night and wading in the river til the water came up past our waists. Experiences that don’t add up right when you check the math. Experiences that are unknowable, unmappable unless you have been through them too.

(As I test I watched the video again just now and I cried at my kitchen table. I saw a lot of good shows in 2012, but EMA was far and away the best — leading the crowd through a series of unexpected encores – “The Whole Wide World,” “Miss World,” “Outta Me.” I cried in the car on the way home.)

04. Guided By Voices, “Quality of Armor” (YouTube (studio), YouTube, (live in Cleveland – can you spot my fist? It is small, but it is raised))

I cannot remember a time when Guided By Voices was not a staple of my life — I think back to the earliest years I can remember, to my first awareness of music as a thing that was around me, and GBV is there, always. There as much a part of my identity as an Ohioan as loving the Cleveland Browns in spite of every painful loss. The last time I saw Guided By Voices, a stranger grabbed me by the hair and kissed me on the mouth and I was so, so mad, so hurt, so violated. It was like someone punched me in church, you know? Like everything I loved was being torn apart in front of me. And I was thinking, this is it. This is it. Everything is terrible and everything is ruined, but at the very end of the night they played “Quality of Armor” and it was like being rebuilt, like I got a new stronger heart, a tougher set of bones. For the rest of the year, this was the song I turned to when I needed strength.

05. Drake, “Take Care” (YouTube)

It is late November and Matt and I are driving through Westlake. We just stopped at a drug store because he wanted to buy an ice cube tray. He doesn’t think you can get them at the drug store, but I am confident. We find them in an aisle that has paper plates and plastic forks and “As Seen On TV” products. It’s dark and his car still has new car smell. We are flipping through the radio and I hear the opening notes of “Take Care” and say, “No, no, no, stop, stop, stop.” This is the first time I have ever had a boyfriend who will indulge my penchant for Top 40 Friendly music. Planes blink by in the night sky and Matt says, “I saw Drake coming out of an elevator once, but I didn’t know who he was.” I think of all the nights in the last year that I have gotten into bed, pulled the covers up, and heard Drake’s voice on an endless loop — “My only wish is I die real.” This year I tell myself over and over again: be real, be real, be real. This was the year of taking care — of being good to myself, of learning to let other people be good to me, and it doesn’t get any realer than that.

It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it? I had it together enough to post an end of year list, but I haven’t blogged much since (though I’ve heard plenty of great new — and old — albums and have gone a handful of amazing shows).

I’ve been getting loads of publicity emails and have been automatically archiving most of them without even opening them — blogging has started to feel too much like work & I hate work and that’s probably why I haven’t blogged since January.

But you know what doesn’t feel too much like work? Listening to Eric Gaffney’s recently released collection of old demos, rarities, etc. I impulse bought it via Eric’s Bandcamp after coming home from work tonight and I’ve been listening to the track “Fast Times at Riot Girl High” on repeat for like the last 15 minutes.

We all know I have ~complicated feelings~ about riot grrl, so let’s not even have that conversation. Instead let’s talk about Eric Gaffney — about those songs of his that sound like the emotional equivalent of a teenage volcanic eruption, that remind me of the boys I grew up with (scabby knees and unkempt hair and Megadeath tshirts, smoking weed out beyond the football field), that make me think of myself as a teenager, hunched over in my desk, furiously scribbling in a falling apart spiral bound notebook.

I moved this summer (yes, again) and listening to Eric’s Leftovers feels a little like moving. Like going through boxes and boxes filled with scraps of paper and Polaroid photos and fliers torn down from wherever they happened to catch my eye. There are things to keep here and maybe some things to throw away. There are things that provoke significant emotional responses and sometimes you feel sad and sometimes you feel wiser and sometimes you feel elated — like the moment in “Fast Times at Riot Girl High” where Eric howls, “BIKINI KILL – BIT BY BIT GONNA CHANGE THE WORLD.” And whatever your feeling, it just feels good to finally feel something.

Eric Gaffney (JC & Friends), “Fast Times at Riot Girl High” (DOWNLOAD)

M’Lady’s is now taking orders for the 7” — the first 100 copies of the single will be in hand-marbelized and letterpressed sleeves designed by members of Grass Widow and Nature.

In addition to the Grass Widow/Nature split, M’Lady’s is currently taking preorders for the Shotgun Seamstress box set. Shotgun Seamstress is one of the seminal zines regarding punk & race and I’m super excited that M’Lady’s has put this anthology together. All six issues of Shotgun Seamstress have been printed and packaged together in a box with a bonus mixtape. There aren’t too many zines that I would assign a “required reading” tag to, but Shotgun Seamstress is one of them and if you haven’t had a chance to read it, I couldn’t think of a better way for you to encounter Osa Atoe’s zine than in this anthology set. The anthology is limited to 100 copies, so I would recommend preordering it if you’re able to.

You  can preorder both releases from the M’Lady’s website & they’ll ship at the end of February. Order now & give yourself something to look forward to this winter!

If you like what you hear, you can pre-order Sees the Light from Hardly Art on either CD or LP. Pre-ordered LPs will be pressed on opaque yellow vinyl and will be shipped with a download code.

You can stream the song above, but if you click through to the Soundcloud page you can read some beautiful thoughts from Elizabeth Morris regarding the inspiration for the song and the sound she wanted to capture on Europe (the forthcoming sophomore album from Allo Darlin.) Elizabeth mentions Kirsty MacColl’s cover of “A New England” as one of the sounds she wanted to capture on this album and you can definitely hear echoes of Kirsty — sweet, yet wise & perhaps a little too knowing for her own good/happiness — in this. I can’t wait for the full length & am beyond excited for Allo Darlin’s US tour, which will finally bring them to Cleveland. You can catch them at the Beachland Tavern on Wednesday, May 15th. You can get tickets directly from the Beachland (online or in person) or from Music Saves. A full list of tour dates is below, all dates are with Wave Pictures.

If you’re behind the game on Allo Darlin, check out their website & their bandcamp page, where you can stream all of their releases.

Tour Dates

04/24 New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
04/25 Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie
04/26 Washington, DC – Black Cat Backstage
04/27 Chapel Hill, NC – Local 506
04/28 Atlanta, GA – 529
04/30 Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon
05/01 Austin, TX – Mohawk
05/03 Santa Fe, NM – VFW
05/04 Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
05/05 Los Angeles, CA – Echo
05/06 San Diego, CA – Casbah
05/08 San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop
05/10 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
05/11 Seattle, WA – Vera Project
05/14 Minneapolis, MN – 7th St. Entry
05/15 Chicago, IL – Schubas
05/16 Cleveland, OH – Beachland Tavern
05/18 New Haven, CT – Cafe Nine