Show Recap #1, shows we've done so far (part 1)

We started at a birthday party in a ballet studio and now we get to do cool indie venues! Ballet Arts Center of the Arts, Bar Freda, and Mama Tried.

We’re on a show-lull right now since our drummer Zéev is having an amazing time traveling through Europe, and what can a punk band do without a drummer?????

(write songs. yes we’re working on new songs!)

Since I want to start doing show re-caps after each show, I thought this would be a good time to get all the ones we’ve done before I started this Substack out of the way.

So here’s edition ONE of the Show Recap serieeeeees!

It turns out it is nearly impossible to book your first show lmao.
Because there is absolutely no evidence of our ability to bring an audience, let alone actually play music. Duh!

I know there’s the pipeline of making/recording tracks first, building an online following, and THEN booking shows but I am sorry I shrivel up and die if I don’t perform live so the necessity to start playing shows before RECORDING (a slow, expensive process!) was high high high.

Also, I just know that what our band brings to the table is a great live experience. As much as the current state of entertainment begs us to “find our niche” in an online-compatible way, our niche might be that old school “you just gotta see them live.”
We aren’t making music that “seem to say everything I’m feeling” or is easily clippable or stitchable or perfect for doing a #GRWM over or whaaatever. In fact, after our most recent show, the singer of Manimals (who we were on the lineup with and I am now a huge fan of) said “You guys were all over the fucking place in a really amazing way.” and honestly, I would never actually want us to be described as “cohesive.”

As the Talking Heads said, Stop Making Sense!

Aaaaaaanyways, my refusal to just sit my ass down and do what starting-out bands are supposed to do, led us here:

A ballet studio in Midtown Manhattan.

Were my band members enthused when I told them I booked us a birthday party at Ballet Arts Center for Dance?

Ehh. They were pretty concerned about the acoustics.

But my friend hosts a birthday fundraiser for National Asian Artists Project every year, and what better way to launch THIS ASIAN ARTIST’S PROJECT (alright…).

It actually ended up being super fun, and solidified our vibes as agents of chaos.
The lineup of this show as mostly musical theater performers. So 99% of the show as a very lovely cabaret style accompanist x wonderful vocalist collaboration.

And then there was us, guns blazing, screaming, thrashing, ready to go.
The important thing about situations like this is that you gotta commit to the bit of being exactly what you’re calling yourself. If you say you’re a punk band, you can’t then be a punk-band-that-feels-sheepish-about-going-after-a-perfect-rendition-of-Sondheim! We can’t adjust to the rooms’s vibes! We brought our own amps! For 10 minutes, we’re going to transform this ballet studio into a grimy punk rock dive bar, and your nice shoes and fundraise-ready dress can deal with it!!!!!

Everyone actually loved us. I think non-theater people forget that a lot of theater people are actually pretty cool and open to chaos.

A beautiful older woman who had just sang The Ladies Who Lunch came up to me and said “I used to get vomited on every weekend at CBGB and you brought me right back.” Fuck yeah.

And now that we were able to create evidence of my ability to do a solid back bend, we were able to book SHOW #2.

BAR FREDA

Bar Freda is a great little venue in Ridgewood (the current hot neighborhood!). It’s small but has great acoustics and it’s the perfect size where a smaller crowd can still feel packed and energetic.

This was our first “official”/public show so a lot of my friends came out 🥺❤️
Which obviously made it automatically a blast.

We were a liiitle stiff considering this was our first full set show and we hadn’t really figured out what our onstage dynamics were. Also, the stage is on the smaller side and The three of us up front are movers. So I think all three of us were still testing the waters of how much mobility each of us can have while maintaining balance.

The lineup was
us, Foot$tuff, Amalia Juliane, and Thrower.

Everyone was really nice, and of course we’re grateful to have bands who have already built an audience sharing a lineup with us. We were still the Highest energy band, so once again, just a dark horse chaotic energy.

Bar Freda Photos by Eric Fernandez

Personally, I wasn’t entirely sure how committed everyone else in the band was feeling about all of this up until this point. I wanted to start a band. I wanted to make the music I wanted to make. I made everyone come to practice once a week. I was starting to get nervous that my hype over this band was just a kind of narcissism that comes from getting to do something that I want to do. What if everyone else is unnerved by the earnestness with which I am trying to make us an actual band? You know, classic spiraling of someone who was once accused of being a “dictator” for taking my middle school all-school choir competition too seriously and asking people to stay after school to practice.

So I was honestly so happy and relieved to see everyone look pretty happy about the show. When Zéev said, “This was fun! Let’s do more shows!” I could have cried - he is such a cool-guy, I cannot read him most of the time.

YES LET’S DO MORE SHOWS!

So we made our way to Sunset Park, Brooklyn

for an outdoor show at MAMA TRIED

I had never been to Mama Tried before this show, but once I posted the fliers to socials, the coolest people I know who have great taste in music started DMing me saying “I love that place!”

This is a backyard/outdoor venue, and yes there’s a little roof over us but not over the audience. It was pouring earlier that day so I was preeeeetty worried we’d get rained out (Mama Tried does move the shows indoors when it rains, so it would’ve been rain-or-shine), but the sun came to support our show and we had a great turnout!

The lineup: us, Early Riser, and Creek and Kills

Mama Tried photos by Aurea Young

Our keyboardist Duncan is from Australia and is tapped into the New York Australians scene (? is there one? Don’t quote me) and is a very popular guy so he always brings a lot of audience and a handful tend to be Australian.

But at THIS SHOW there were non-Duncan related Australians who were in town for a month long study abroad and happened to stumble into our show. They bought shirts! Ahhhh! What were the chances of them seeing us during their short time in New York?

I love live because I really get to cross paths with people.

Indie filmmaker Leon Chase was another person who had just stumbled upon this show. He told me that he hasn’t been this excited to see a new band perform since he saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at Mercury Lounge (one of my dream NYC venues btw…) in the early 2000s. Flattered!
Like the woman from Karin’s party, it feels so cute when old heads are like “Punk is back!!!!” when they see us. I like when pre-internet people are really excited about our LIVE-ness.

Anyway, this post is getting kinda long so I’m going to divide this into two parts.

Stay tuned for recaps of our shows at ICONIC Chinatown Food Court, Our Wicked Lady, chaotic Rockaway Beach Boardwalk, and the Yoga studio turned-the bar I spent karaokeing my early twenties away…