The last time I wrote about both of these bands, I was in awe of the vicious noise they swept over me. It almost became something abstract in my drunken state, a significant moment. This feeling is echoed in this night as well. Both bands rip through their set. Except this time it’s harder and meaner. They’re playing Tufnell Park’s Dome, which is more than twice the size of last time’s Shacklewell Arms. But at the same time, they’re still just two great bands who are in it to play great music.
Both bands play opposite ends of the noise punk spectrum, Joannna Gruesome choose to paint noise and feedback over their vicious pop melodies, wheras Perfect Pussy prefer to bludgeon you to death. But an important moment occurs when both Meredith Graves and Alanna McArdle hop onstage during each other’s set, and kiss each other on the cheek at the end. It’s a simple gesture that signifies something greater, that they’re in this together. Girls do it better. Girls do it together. A ‘f*** you’ to macho bull***t.
That is what both Graves and McArdle are always trying to do: make macho ‘punk’ bros take a long look at themselves and what their space is about.
McArdle wrote an essay for Pitchfork regarding the male-entitled violence in Mark Kozelek’s song ‘War On Drugs Suck My Cock’, and McArdle has repeatedly slammed the macho behaviour seen in punk shows today, from the alienation women face to aggressive moshing and crowd-surfing. This perhaps explain why the crowd are stationary for the entirety of the show. Out of confusion and wariness for the most part. McArdle’s online comments have often left to misreading from people saying she expects total lack of movement from her audience, which is not the point. Have fun. Jump about. Loosen up. Just don’t hurt people. Bands have been calling for this since the days of Fugazi in the late ‘80s.
As the show ends, the guitars create roaring feedback for both a fleeting moment, and an infinite moment. People can do naught but stare. Instruments are packed away as Graves thumps her chest with the mic. The hurricane of feedback ceases. The end.
This is a review/commentary and is by no means the public opinion of Her Campus or any of it’s affliates.