Three Imaginary Girls - Don't Stop Believin'

Some Of Us Are In This Together

Chris Estey — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:20:18 +0000

7.5

http://www.amazon.com/Some-Us-Are-This-Together/dp/B004H83IJG/?tag=wwwthreeimagi-20

I love and hate the bipolar skronk of Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death. I have ever since I bought their "Diamonds In The Mine" (a Leonard Cohen cover) 45 at Easy Street Records a few years ago. That first bitter taste of their smeared mediation between old world magic and new chaos, between folk and punk and noise and song and anti-song, can be found in their hasty approximation of a song based on moral outrage and spat out brusquely.

Years down Highway 99, after a smattering of releases and a sputtering of shows, on the new Don't Stop Believin' full-length Some Of Us Are In This Together, the dead hooker's bruises still haven't healed. Who can expect them to? Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death is as cold as they come. It's still-born squalor, between abyss and existence. The ten tracks on Some Us Are In This Together are as tribal-loyal, exclusive, paranoid-defensive, and elitist as the LP title sounds. Drummer Andrea Zollo (ex-Pretty Girls Make Graves) is at the center of the activity, pounding away like an embittered Moe Tucker pummeling on an abusive boss's balding cranium with a Walmart price gun, allowing Corey J. Brewer (guitars, Cold Lake) and Joel Cuplin (bass, Constant Lovers) to churn death-pasta into a bile casserole.

I actually respect vocalist Spencer Moody following up his classic rock band Murder City Devils with this, certainly an archetypal PiL to his Sex Pistols, improvised and conceptual, not surf nazi jock rock for wastoids. Morality is just another weapon in his songs, bleating and hoarsely demanding: "Hey Asshole," "Don't Lust After Other Women," "If You Believe In Blood." Notice how those song titles kind of lead up to a full statement? As the bio says, "Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death do what they want, tour when they feel like it, and will never, ever break up."

Do I want them to? No. Do I want them to add a little & Nico to their White Light/White Heat? Yes. I have trace memories of lovely psyche-pop streaming out of the clanging and raging in the basement of the Cha Cha before a mutual loved one died. (Maybe that's saying something right there. Maybe I imagined it.) That's evaporated, if it ever existed. No sassy "Femme Fatale" for these foes, it's all feral "Sister Ray" now. Well, we're in deeply hungover times, covered in rashes, and somebody lied to us.

Just remember, kids, Jonathan Richman heard something else in the Velvet Underground in that scrawling seventeen minutes too, and made a "Roadrunner" out of it. You've just given us a full length of misery, now how about seven more inches of pleasure?

Local psyche-rock snogs Japanese punk pop: The Purrs, Shonen Knife, The Pharmacy at the Tractor {September 8}

Chris Estey — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:51:42 +0000

Gird your weary loins, as you have approximately one day after Bumbershoot 2010 to prepare for a multi-genre mini-festival at the Tractor. Shonen Knife is headlining, and after recently watching their live DVD Live At Mohawk Place 2009 about a dozen times (featuring excellent work by new drummer Emi), I am anxious to see the Japanese punk pop trio of goddesses light a fire to classics such as "Banana Chips," "Giant Kitty," and the new, no-need-to-explain band anthem "Super Group." I highly recommend getting the DVD (on MVD) to see the band touring behind the album has that last song as its title track, as it lovingly captures the band lo-fi with delirious high energy and sass.

Products of the Eighties

Imaginary Shrie — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:45:16 +0000

7.8

http://www.dontstopbelievin.net/teamgina.html

teamgina2.png

Team Gina's newest release Products of the Eighties sports a unicorn on the front of the cd. Unicorns are possibly the coolest fantasy animal ever, and while I don't prescribe to a hot pink and neon green color palette and I'm not in the habit of wearing fishnets under leg warmers, this retro-dance jam duo makes the eighties almost seem cool (again).

After meeting and bonding over identical first names, in spelling and pronunciation, Team Gina was born. Their mantra seems to be ridiculously danceable feminist hip hop delivered by means of raw vocals over sparse Casio beats. Picture two headbanded, heel-wearing sexies sucking on gigantic lollipops and hitting on your kid sister outside of the sneaker store: this is Team Gina.

Reminiscent of Gravy Train!!! or Peaches, with a hint of Jewish white boy rapper MC Paul Barman, Team Gina lay it down with glitzy panache, but not without worthy purpose. The Ginas meld slumber party worthy shout-alongs with liberal political leanings in a very self-aware, and for lack of a better word, FUN way. They're educating us about AIDS while slathering the track with synthy Milli Vanilli beats. They righteously hail the wonders of breasts, theirs in particular, touting "if my tits were a hotel they'd be four stars". Maybe I've been listening to too much Team Gina, but "Boobies" is a breast cancer awareness advertisement waiting to happen.

Pop culture, especially eighties pop culture, seems to be a favorite topic of the Ginas. Dropping references to everything from the Garbage Pail Kids to Saved By The Bell to the Oregon Trail computer game, Team Gina professes their love for a much loathed, or much loved depending on how you look at it, decade of excess. It's not all games for this smokin' lesbian outfit though. They have a liberal message to spread, though they don't bang you over the head with it. They simply lay down some phat beats and cheerleader chant their funktronica way into your heart. Their mission is fun, and their message is tolerance and knowledge --> which is power!

Team Gina's newest release Products of the Eighties sports a unicorn on the front of the cd. Unicorns are possibly the coolest fantasy animal ever, and while I don't prescribe to a hot pink and neon green color palette and I'm not in the habit of wearing fishnets under leg warmers, this retro-dance jam duo makes the eighties almost seem cool (again).

T-minus 8 days: Exile in {Imaginary} Girlville: Team Gina

ChrisB — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:21:37 +0000

Catch Team Gina and eight more of our Northwest favorites (including Throw Me the Statue, M. Bison, Lucy Bland, Tea Cozies, Star Anna, Tennis Pro, Visqueen, and Lesli Wood of Ms. Led) at Exile in {Imaginary} Girlville at Chop Suey on Wednesday, June 25.

Lots of exciting Team Gina news

ChrisB — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:22:15 +0000

The album is called Products of the '80s and it will be released on Don't Stop Believin' Records.

!Gross!

Chris Estey — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:08:12 +0000

7.8

http://dontstopbelievin.net/

pleasureboaters08jun.gif

!Gross! is the kind of urban-versus-rural aural shit that oozes out of black holes like Kent and Renton (where Pleasureboaters happen to be from). Noisy boys chopping it up in the basement, deeply inhaling the grainy crank — it's all about the torqued bash clipping against the bass warble, avant-garage thrash-on guitar suddenly sputting into wavo inflections and radiation surf licks, spicy pulled up paces near the entropic end of each sausage-song chunk, rhythms and ranting till you're as blue in the face as the sixteen year old in the bathroom, cops being called by neighbors for the third time tonight.

Pleasureboaters do this out where there are pollution-withered trees and multiple miscegenated baby mamas, truck stop speed, and burritos as big as your head. Life's coarse pleasures are too much; laugh as we try to cram it all in, and how are we going to keep affording it on two hundred dollar unemployment checks and under the table housepainting jobs? You're sick of what your girlfriend's money can buy you at the 7-11 anyways. Ricky Claudon's voice is a still not too raspy manly yelp and sort of "Metal Box" all the way through, save for the almost-Pixies melodic "Elliptical Realism" (which if Top 40 was as possibly unpredictable as it was when New Wave first happened, would sound grat introduced by Casey Kasem — "Keep reachin' for the stars!").

This is a continual ranting complaint of debris-littered nothingness; there was once a comic called "Louis Reil" about an apocalyptic revolutionary who was martyred in the liberation of French Canada, and some guy got caught by the military and until he was executed he would keep profanely poking at his jailers till they finally just killed him out of infernal annoyance. A lot of bands tried for that sort of thing in the '90s, but Pleasureboaters give an awful lot of good company with that sputtering protest, driven by warm slinky bass and very excellent time changes that don't jar as much as seduce in peaks of form like "Andalou" and something-like-Flipper "Cigarette Song" (MY *pick hit of the week*, bump). "Cigarette Song" is pure stalking anti-soul, why punk drained white and sick, with its crisp string doodles and dabs. "Dear, I fear my time with you is growing short." Burning up time, as The Stranglers once threatened. "If I was a cigarette I'd burn you," another '80s underground dance hit once translated from the girls' perspective.

!Gross! takes you back to the mysterious chants and destruction of the previous decade's art-emo, but its the bottom end that helps it transcend nostalgia. "Unrivaled Subjectivity" is simply listener-pleasing enough to be a hit, till they make sure it bites the curb like the rest and bring the boot down. Again, "Rockpaperscissors" has that perfect melodic guitar-bass entwinement, suggesting we should "Meet at the Circle K." Then it goes apeshit again. There's definitely a bit more No Wave in this than the average Drive Like Jehu inverted funk. "Cockhair" even sounds like the best The Fall could do around 1981, and more. These three boys are doing their homework, or maybe they just know how to swing, so this isn't the flat noise-rock that certain media slobbers all over that spikes up every couple of years.

Speaking of nothingness (and I was, above there if you'll look), did you know they stored it and moved it last month? They've been working on the nothingness theory pretty hard since at least 2002 but now they caught the little bastard and are pushing it around. Not unlike Pleasureboaters.

These three boys are doing their homework, or maybe they just know how to swing, so this isn't the flat noise-rock that certain media slobbers all over that spikes up every couple of years.

Three Imaginary Girls Best Northwest Releases of 2005 Readers' Poll Results {30-21}

three imaginary girls — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:00:00 +0000

#30 M. Ward — Transistor Radio
(Merge Records)

{official website} * {buy it}

#29 Minus the Bear — Menos El Oso
(Suicide Squeeze)

{official website} * {buy it} * {review}

#28 The Elephants — The Elephants
(Self-released)

{official website} * {buy it} * {review}

#27 The Pharmacy — B.F.F
(Don't Stop Believin' Records)

{official website} * {buy it} * {review}

#26 The Withholders — Stay In My Corner
(Lit Rag)

{official website} * {buy it} * {review}

#25 Mono in VCF — The Voltage Control EP
(Self-released)

{official website} * {buy it} * {review} * {interview}

#24 Speaker Speaker — Again & Again & Again
(Self-released)

{official website} * {buy it} * {review}

#23 Some By Sea — The Saddest Christmas
(Kringle)

{official website} * {buy it} * {review}

#22 Luke Temple — Hold a Match for a Gasoline World
(Mill Pond Records)

{official website} * {buy it} * {review}

#21 In Praise of Folly — Means/Ends
(Lujo Records)

{official website} * {buy it} * {review}

See all the winners in the TIG Best Northwest Releases of 2005 Readers' Poll (see winners #30-21 here).

B.F.F.

Chris Estey — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 08:00:00 +0000

6.7

http://www.myspace.com/dontstopbelievin

pharmacy.jpg

"Auntie Kimya has a big fat fucking crush on her little nephews, the Pharmacy" - Kimya Dawson (Moldy Peaches)

There's a rock opera in B.F.F. somewhere, played by nerds. Not real nerds, mind you, but social ones, with too many Descendents and Frank Zappa albums in their record collections and all of the Aqua Team Hunger Force on VHS taped from Adult Swim, and bedrooms full of Christmas present musical equipment and empty bottles of Robitussin DM spread around the messy futon. The Pharmacy's MySpace page has gotten 24,888 views as of this writing, they've played out with Dawson (and while on tour collapsed the stage at the Capitol Theatre in Olympia), Schoolyard Heroes, and Paris Spleen, and have upcoming shows with the Cripples in Olympia and the Blood Brothers in Portland.

Brendhan and Scotty (last names not provided) started the band around 2000, and a "Mike Patton obsessive" named Joey came in to play distorted bass and keyboards (makes sense). For live shows, they'd bring in tambourines and extra things for people in the audience to play, and this infectious enthusiasm spills into their songwriting, seemingly full of stories and nonsense at the same time, songs beginning but never ending where they aught. Like the classic San Francisco punk party participation band the Thirteen Year Olds, Scotty only sings lead half the night, according to the website, as their fans take over the other half.

Sounding sometimes like a drunk, less intellectual They Might be Giants, with the same kinds of stylistic and tempo changes, except for sloppier playing and screamo vocal stylee on the choruses and in the background over the fourteen tracks on B.F.F., disco funk and punk rhythms burble up here and there, as an avalanche of guitars and keyboards sputter everywhere else. "Prince" tries to delay its catchy chorus as long as possible, but it can't help being hypnotic. On the brilliant "Anthrax," they tell the perhaps apocryphal story of their van theft, mixed with the general trouble of existence itself ("don't take anything for granted or the world will kick your ass — they say that it's okay but I say don't breathe in").

Disco funk and punk rhythms burble up here and there, as an avalanche of guitars and keyboards sputter everywhere else.