Let's have a chat about preaching to the choir. It's that thing where the message you are putting out there with your music isn't really getting past the people who may already know the message. I'm getting up there in my years and experience. By the time we started The Lippies, I had already placed a lot of thought into the bands I had been in before and the songs we wrote. I was in a street punk band that sang about drinking and the struggles of the working class. I was in an emo-type band that sang about personal growth and sad relationship stuff. I did a ska punk band that bounced between goofy songs and left-leaning world politics. My first real band sang about typical hardcore stuff, cuz duh, we were a hardcore band.
I kept all of this in mind when The Lippies started writing songs. Where originally this was supposed to be more of a ‘90s era riot grrrl band, we were writing way poppier music and our singer had a gift for finding the absolute best melodies. We had active conversations about how she could sing about feminist issues and those messages could reach more people under the guise of a sugary pop song. For me personally, this is what I loved about our songs the most. A song like "302" ran like it was a typical "girl meets boy they are a mess" story. In actuality, it's about a trip to the abortion clinic. I loved playing that song and watching fans smile and sing along to that without knowing it was about an abortion. The dichotomy of a sugary sweet sing-a-long pop song that's about such a polarizing event consistently put a smile on my face, especially when played to an audience of folks with more anti-abortion tendencies.
Sometimes you need to burn everything to the ground before you can start building again.
On the other side of that spectrum, I absolutely love love love loud, fast, and abrasive tunes that really are more aimed at the choir. There's nothing better than dancing in the pit with your friends and screaming "fuck you" with your fingers in the air when the message is directly there. The Lippies also wrote a punk banger called "Fuck the Customer." It was loud, punchy, and the chorus was right there in the title. An obvious crowd favorite from the minute we wrote it. A fun little rager about the dichotomy of watching porn while at the same time chastising sex workers. Like, you can't be ok with watching porn behind closed doors and then go out into the world and talk shit about sex workers. It's hypocritical.
I bring all of this up because in my community, there is an influx of newer, younger punk bands popping up. This is what I was hoping would come out of the pandemic. A new, vibrant young scene. A scene that's still developing their voice. Like all punk bands starting out, the music is loud, brash, and a stepping stone. I'm going to sound like an asshole, but most of these new bands are using the same riffs and writing style that I did when I was starting out. Pretty simple, basic tunes. Lots of screaming and yelling. And that's fantastic, cuz you have to walk before you can run. I'm truly excited to watch this whole new scene evolve. It doesn't hurt that one of our beloved all ages clubs is up and running again after being closed for 10 years so these kids have a space to freely create and display their art. And thank Jah for shutting the world down for a minute, cuz everyone was getting complacent, myself included. I hope that this is happening in your scene too. Sometimes you need to burn everything to the ground before you can start building again.
The true purpose of this column was to kinda let you all know that Taqueria San Jose on Division Ave in Grand Rapids, MI had the absolute best tacos in this city and they had to close down cuz they were too awesome and nothing that amazing is meant to last forever! RIP Taqueria San Jose! Hopefully some new kid will start making tacos and open a taco spot someday soon with tacos that are as tasty if not better!
