For anyone out there who, like me, is still mourning the break-up of Mika Miko, I decided to post the video that made me fall in love with their infectiously precocious brand of indie-punk: Business Cats. The amicable split was announced in October and serves as just another example of how great this band was. I know I for one am looking forward to any and all future projects from Jennifer, Jessie, Michelle, Jenna and Seth.

As for the video, it was directed by stop-motion super duo Molly and Mariah (who you may remember as directors of Sleater-Kinney’s “Entertain”).

The never ending quest for great music

Tragic. I heard Mika Miko for the first time yesterday and while doing research I found out they just broke up less than a week ago. Listening to their album We Be Xuxa I had to double check the release date (which was May 2009) because punk bands don’t sound like this anymore. Most of the songs are no more than two minutes, creating chaotic bursts of energy. Their influences include Black Flag, Grace Jones, ESG, Reagan Youth, Bad Brains. Even though Mika Miko is no more it does make me optimistic about up and coming punk bands.

Mika Miko Myspace

Cover to Girl Groups, Girl Culture (Routledge, 2007); image courtesy of routledgemusic.com

For financial reasons, I was only able to swing one day of Fun Fun Fun Fest so I’m blogging while many in this fair city are catching some good music in Waterloo Park. Although, admittedly, if you’re gonna do one day of the festival, I think yesterday was the way to go. I got to check several bands I’ve never seen before off my list: No Age (who I’ve missed by a marrow margin at least three times), Jesus Lizard, Pharcyde, Les Savy Fav, and Death.

But if you have the scratch, please make sure everyone sees one of Mika Miko’s last shows ever on the black stage at 2:55. I might try to get down there later just to hear it from the other side of the fence.

Mika Miko’s exceptional presence on this year’s bill seems as good a place as any to remember that, as Melissa at GRCA astutely pointed out in her recent post, this year boasts a very dudecentric line-up. So I’ll review Jacqueline Warwick’s book Girl Groups, Girl Culture: Popular Music and Identity in the 1960s book in the hopes that at least one historically significant girl group or all-female band will reunite for next year’s FFFF like Death did this year. And like the Shangri-Las did at CBGB’s in 1977.

As much as I hate comparing women’s work so as to pit them in opposition, Warwick’s book is a tremendous example of how effective it can be to narrow the scope of the cultural moment being covered, something I wish Charlotte Greig would have considered when penning her book on girl groups. While Greig truncates the history of the girl group era in order to broaden the definition of what a girl group is, Warwick focuses primarily on this brief but important moment in history (roughly between 1958 and 1965), considering its ongoing influence as an epilogue.

By taking this approach, Warwick considers the girl group era and its participants from several different, often surprising, areas of inquiry. As a result, she proves the cultural signficance of a popular form dismissed by many as superficial, polished, and phony who instead tend to favor rock music’s supposed transcendent raw authenticity, and argues strongly that this binary construction is inherently gendered. Duh, and amen.

Warwick posits that one of the most important things about the girl group era was its insistence on putting girls and young women in the spotlight, introducing a complex, celebratoryn and at times contradictory performance of what the author calls “girlness”. Often, these ladies were working class, and of African American or mixed racial and ethnic heritage. They had few options for financial mobility and minimal career prospects being marriage, motherhood, clerical jobs, and day labor. Forming vocal groups together and cutting records gave them access to other opportuntities toward professional advancement and personal growth, expanding the idea of girlhood as an identity across race and class lines. 

Sometimes these groupings resulted in the cultivation of considerable, devoted fan bases that, in The Supremes and The Ronnettes’ cases, were comparable to Beatlemania. Some of those fans were even other male-only rock bands, like The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and later, The Ramones. Take that, pop-rock, girl-boy binaries!

In other words, I’m telling you to read this book.

One thing I appreciate about Warwick’s book from the outset is the celebration of the female voice. As I’ve long believed and argued extensively in this blog, we cannot give short-shrift to singers. While they can assuredly be tokenized and objectified, but they can also be empowered, embodied, and forge their own agency. Heartenly, she finds much going on with the voice, a distinct instrument no matter how it may have been manipulated or homogenized by label owners like Motown’s Barry Gordy and producers like Phil Spector and his overwhelming wall of sound. She hears the genteel precision of Diana Ross’s soprano, the urgent purr of Ronnie Spector’s husky alto, the untrained wavering of Shirelle Shirley Owens’s pitch, the gutteral inflections on Supreme Florence Ballard’s tone, the put-on nasal affectations of Broadway-trained groups like The Angels, the racial dimensions of Dusty Springfield’s blue-eyed soul, and the teenaged monotone of Shangri-La Mary Weiss.

She also hears these girls singing to one another, often in their own forms of feminine dialect and for the purposes of providing support and advice. On record, acts like The Dixie Cups, The Crystals, Betty Everett, and The Velvelettes would pepper their songs with seemingly nonsensical words and phrases like “iko iko,” “da doo ron ron,” “shoop,” and “doo lang doo lang,” often provided by backing vocalists as a means of support for the lead vocalist, who might be intimating her feelings about burgeoning romance or her conflicted feelings in the aftermath of a break-up.

Often, these girls were providing one another moral support and providing advice as well. While Warwick notes that advice songs tended to be the domain of girl groups with African American members like The Velvelettes, The Shirelles, The Chiffons, and The Marvelettes, they often imparted wisdom to their audiences that they learned from their mothers or their sisters, as well as sharing what they’ve learned from their own experiences. In doing so, these songs provided a counterargument to the assertion that girl groups only sang about boys and also expanded female discourse in popular music by including the words and experiences of generations of women into then present-day pop songs by girls.  

It cannot be ignored that while many girl group songs were written by men, not all of them were. As mentioned elsewhere, Brill Building stalwarts like Cynthia Weil, Ellie Greenwich, and Carole King were of paramount importance to the era. Many of these women, like Greenwich, wrote about seemingly teenage issues like young love and treated it as legitimate, at times giving it life-and-death importance, as she did on The Shangri-Las’ “Leader of the Pack.” 

King is a particularly interesting case as well. Before striking out on her own as a solo artist, she wrote many important songs for girl groups. Some songs, like The Crystals’ “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” address the troubling and dangerous aspects of patriarchy and oppression, and have been covered to harrowing effect by bands like Hole and Grizzly Bear.

Other songs King penned gesture toward the era’s prescience regarding shifting cultural attitudes toward feminism, female agency, and sexual autonomy, as on The Shirelles’ anthemic “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” 

Girl groups were also clearly singing with one another, as girl groups often were comprised of siblings and relatives who wore matching outfits and performed intricate choreography to suggest that these girls were a unit, despite at times having clearly defined lead singers and stars who (especially in Diana Ross’s case) were thin and had a more conventional look and sound.

It was this image coordination that made The Ronnettes able to ingratiate night clubs when they were underaged, gave them the confidence to perform at those night clubs, and provided them with a sense of belonging that made them tough enough to brave any New York City street. It also makes this sense of actual or engineered sisterhood and camderadie seem especially fragile when success encroaches on it, as the tragic dimensions of Estelle Bennett and Florence Ballard’s post-girl group lives remind. 

Warwick shies from making any explicitly queer connections to girl groups beyond passing references to Springfield and Lesley Gore’s orientations and their relationships with the closet. I would have liked a bit more discussion of the queer dynamics of the groups’ homosocial bonding both on- and off-record. A brief appraisal of queer fandom (seemingly most pronounced among certain circles of gay men, though not exclusively) would also have been appreciated.

That said, I do appreciate Warwick reminding her readers of girl groups’ continual impact. As this is the section of the book that gets less focus, it would be worthwhile to read Warwick’s and Greig’s books together to get a larger sense of how punk, hip hop, and contemporary pop music were influenced by girl groups.

I would hasten to add country music to the list of genres that were shaped by this era. Given last night’s Saturday Night Live, which featured crossover star Taylor Swift as both host and musical guest (a rare opportunity for most pop stars, unless they are Justin or Britney). Watching her play a brace-faced teenager in a skit about parents who are worse drivers than their kids and her performance of “You Belong To Me” complete with careful, song-appropriate gestures, it was clear to me that the girl group era continues. As Mika Miko performs one of their last shows later today, I’ll wonder where it’ll permeate next.

I’m usually pretty up to date with music news, so it came as a shock to me last night when I found out that Mika Miko had announced their break up last week. Just looking at their recorded history it’s no surprise that I have a lot affection for these LA girl punks; releasing records on Post Present Medium, Sub Pop and Kill Rock Stars is a pretty easy access route to my heart.

Famous for their fantastic live shows rather than their recorded output, they’ll probably be a band thats appeal is difficult to explain as time goes on. Rarely recording a song over the 2 minute mark, their records acted as a platform from which they could deliver great performances, of which I was lucky enough to catch once, earlier this year.

I guess it’s no great surprise that they’ve decided to call it quits, bands like this have a certain lifespan, but it’s a shame that girl punk groups seem to be a rare breed at the moment. The band cited “school, new projects, jobs and relationships” as the cause of their break up, so hopefully something else will materialize out of the split. For now, however, let’s take some time to appreciate what has made Mika Miko one of the most fun bands around over the last few years.

Mika Miko – Business Cats

Mika Miko – I Got A Lot (New New New)

Writer-director Ben Wolfinsohn fashions a deadpan satire of the high-school experience with this low-budget mockumentary that features a who’s who of the Los Angeles indie rock scene. Camera crews follow nerdy teens Caleb (Dean Allen Spunt of the band No Age), Sabrina (Jennifer Thorhill of Mika Miko), Erin (Jennifer Clavin, also of Mika Miko), and Eddie (Bobby Sandoval) as they suffer through the humiliations of senior year while being filmed for a documentary about high-school life. The comedy also features Becky Stark of the indie pop band Lavender Diamond and Mike Watt of the legendary punk trio The Minutemen.

Today’s post is in memory of Mika Miko, who announced yesterday that they would be splitting up to pursue school, relationships, and other projects. Here’s hoping that what could have been their side projects will be warmly received as former members’ main vehicles. My only hope is for something as awesome as I.U.D. or New Age Steppers. If you’re in Austin, try to catch ‘em at Fun Fun Fun Fest.

Thought I’d shine a light on side projects today, those illusive creatures of popular music. The post is inspired by Butter 08, a side project between Cibo Matto’s Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda, Russell Simins of The John Spencer Blues Explosion, Rick Lee of Skeleton Key, and director/graphic artist Mike Mills. They made one album, and it was awesome. So awesome that Grand Royal owner Mike D signed them without hearing a note.

Butter 08
“Butter of ‘69″
Butter
Directed by Evan Bernard

The New Pornographers are another great side project, though they”ve had more staying power than Butter 08. Boasting such powerhouses as Carl Newman and Dan Bejar (justly praised for his work in Destroyer), it also counts Kathryn Calder and Neko Case amongst its ranks, making their work all the richer for it.

The New Pornographers
“Challengers”
Challengers
Directed by Darren Pasemko

These two groups are a bit dude-heavy and rely on fairly traditional instrumentation and line-up configurations. If you’ve got some side projects you wanna celebrate, let’s talk about ‘em in the comments section.

This question is entirely influenced by The Needle Drop, as is this entire segment. Here it is:

What does Punk Rock Mean to You? Examples?

Just to get the ball rolling, here’s what I think. Punk Rock means to me, freedom to act, sound, look, smell, or taste however you like. The elements of attitude, integrity, and passion are clearly displayed. Artists are NOTsigned to major labels, with exceptions to early “Punk” artists. Lastly, music that is cutting edge and/or distinctive. For modern examples, my favorite punk bands are The Black Lips, Jay Reatard, The King Khan & BBQ Show, No Age, Mika Miko, and Wavves.

Pleaseeeee Comment!

Chris

So Mika Miko have split up. This saddens me because I loved them. A LOT. Such a shame when bands you love, that are tallented,call it a day.

This has led me onto listening to a band that from the first time I listened to them, I fell totally in love and played their debut album to death during my first year of university (I feel old now!)

A year ago exactly, The Long Blondes split up. I’m pretty sure I shouted various profanities as the computer screen and cried a little bit. Playing both albums on rpeat for a week. I felt like I lost a band that..could say what I couldn’t. That felt what I felt without me feeling alone. I know, I know, this makes me sound stupid and weird. But I’m guessing you probably have a band that mean the world to you, and you feel the same way about them like I did (and still do) towards The Long Blondes.

One thing that gets to me is that I never saw them live. I met them (bar Kate Jackson, she was sick) and Screech Powers was infront of me on the train from Birmingham to Manchester the day I met them in Manchester. I also skipped a lecture to be at the signing. I did this a lot, I’d say I don’t condone such behaviour, but I really do.

The Long Blondes, although they werem’t around that long, they gave us two fantastic albums. And yes, Kate Jackson is beautiful, there I said it. Dorian wrote some witty,clever lines that reminded me of Morrissey, which is probably why I love The Long Blondes dearly.

Dear The Long Blondes, my record collection seems quite dull without you. Please get back together and/or Kate, release some solo stuff you’ve been promising us!

Weekend Without Makeup (live).

Five Ways To End It (live)

What a terrible fucking day. It’s hardly the most important thing in the world at the minute, but Mika Miko have announced that they’re splitting up. The band announced this over the weekend, completely oblivious to the fact that i managed to miss them when they supported Black Lips a few months back.

The band had this to say for themselves (from LA Times):

“There’s no bad blood at all, we’re all still really good friends” said guitarist Michelle Suarez. “We’ve just been a band since high school and all of us are ready to move onto different things. We started the band for fun and wanted to end on a positive note.”

Which is a nice sentiment in an age where bands mainly split because they can’t get record contracts/hate each other beyond all belief, but still. We Be Xuxa was re-issued earlier this year, and it was brilliant. if you’re into the whole scene that’s bubbled along at The Smell for all these years or noise-punk sounds like your kind of thing (which it should be), then download some Mika Miko below:

Mika Miko – Turkey Sandwich mediafire

A farewell single is on the cards

As announced through The LA Times yesterday, lovable art-punk noiseniks Mika Miko are to call it a day after six years, two albums and a clutch of bracing EPs. While this news will come as a surprise to those, like us, who foresaw great things for the band following their latest effort We Be Xuxa, released just a few months ago, Jennifer, Jessie, Seth, Michelle and Jenna seem to want to follow divergent paths. As Michelle told the newspaper, “There’s no bad blood at all, we’re all still really good friends. We’ve just been a band since high school and all of us are ready to move onto different things. We started the band for fun and wanted to end on a positive note.”

Always more impressive on the stage than off it, Mika Miko have just one more definite live appearance at the Fun Fun Fun Festival in Austin, Texas, on November 9th, though fans in the Los Angeles area should get one last chance to see them at notorious venue The Smell, date TBC. A last single is also planned, though nothing definite has been confirmed. They may be clocking off too early for some of us, but their place in history as creators of the world’s least likely song about turkey sandwiches seems forever assured.

Alan Pedder

The always awesome label PPM have done it again. Not only have they given us records with amazing artists like Mika Miko, Wavves, Soft Circle, Abe Vigoda just to mention a few!  Their latest release with White Shit is no exception.

Scuplted Beef is White Shit’s debut lp. 9 songs of well played hardcore featuring members of Big Business, Melvins, Karp, Monorchid, Wrangler Brutes etc. Definitely worth checking out!

/ David

So, I’m still a little brain-drained from working on Cinemakids this weekend. I helped a group of nine-year-olds make a short movie about skatin’ dudes and pie fights (or, more accurately, walked them through the basics of making their own movie, tried to keep them positive and focused, sometimes mediated arguments, and sometimes provided them with Oreos). It was fun and if you want to see the movie ”Team I Want Some Pie” made, along with the other participants, the screening is on November 7th.

And sometimes being a little brain-drained is good. It’s inspiring. And because today is Monday and we might all be a little slow getting back into our weekly routine, I thought I’d make a quick list of rad stuff I’m stoked about or inspired by. Feel free to share your rad lists as well.

Sadie Benning. Thanks to grad school and Kill Rock Stars, I know who this is. Benning is my go-to “girl filmmaker,” however essentializing that term may be. But I kept thinking about her work all weekend and how, if you have a vision and a Fisher-Price camera, you can start making movies at any age (an experimental filmmaker parent may also help, but not necessarily guarantee inspiration). If you don’t know her work, I highly recommend looking at some of her shorts. You can also watch her work in Julie Ruin’s “Aerobicide” music video.

On that tip, Molly Schiot has made some great videos too. Might I point you in the direction of Mika Miko’s “Business Cats” and Sleater-Kinney’s “Entertain”? Also watch the interview footage Schiot put together of Pat Place and Cynthia Sley of Bush Tetras talking about being tuff feminists on the lower East Side in the early 80s. This interview plus a recent screening of Downtown ‘81 convinces me that I’m not tough enough to have lived in New York and the early 80s, and neither are most people of my generation. These women lived “Too Many Creeps.”

Oh hai Jane Campion. I’m looking forward to seeing Bright Star. Additional points of interest for apparently configuring Fanny Brawne as a proto-punk fashion icon.

Haters be damned, I still wanna see Jennifer’s Body. The reviews aren’t in, but I think we can assume I’m still going to see Whip It! next month as well.

Karen O, music supervisor of Where The Wild Things Are. How is Spike Jonze’s new movie not going to be awesome? Regardless, I know the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman’s musical contributions to the movie will necessitate its own post. Can’t wait for it to come out! To tide you over, you can hear the new single, “All Is Love,” on MySpace. Thanks to BUST for originally posting the item.

Dolly Parton box set – We’re getting closer to its October 27th release date! This release comes out mere months after Archeophone released their Sophie Tucker anthology.

The Gossip are coming to ATX next month, two days after Parton’s box set is released. Yet another reason why October is for winners. We can only hope that Beth will pull out the wig and cover some Dolly.

I missed Mad Men last night because I was cheering on the KOOP Kilowatts. I suspect others may have missed last night’s episode too due to the Emmys (or at least had to back-and-forth it). Regardless, apparently Betty and Don’s angsty eldest daughter Sally discards a Barbie doll her mom gives her in last night’s episode. Ugh, you totally don’t get my ten-year-old girl needs, mom. Season three has been Sally’s season, in my mind.

"Oh, just wait for my teenage rebellion, mom and dad" -- Sally Draper makes cocktails; image courtesy of flickr.com

Oh, on that tack, I need to rewatch season two and see the documentary on women’s liberation that was included in the DVD set. For more on the subject, Mary Kearney just wrote a great Flow column on it. I wonder how Sally will be impacted by these changes.

I recently bought Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Cheapo. Yes, that does mean that I listened to “The Big Sky” on my drive to work.

I have been pairing this with Julie Ruin’s “Valley Girl Intelligensia,” bringing us back full circle to grrrl germs.

“I Got A Lot (New New New)” – Mika Miko

Here it is, another Song of the Day with the full 3 step experience…

Step #1: Listen

Step #2: Watch

Step #3: Purchase

iTunes |  Amazon

(Hint: Full album is $3 cheaper on Amazon…just sayin’)

I’m a sucker for lo-fi. You can’t go wrong with punk tunes that have purposely bad sound quality. Mika Miko fits the bill. The singer is drowned out by the fuzz and noise of her band, and the songs blow along fast and shapelessly. However, for the genre No Age is better. Same with Times New Viking. And any number of other lo-fi rock outfits. While Mika Miko provided a nice blanket of static, they don’t offer anything too remarkable. If you’re not a sucker for lo-fi, you can live a full and productive life without ever hearing Mika Miko.

Rating: * * *

For the non-LA people out there, there is a yearly street festival on my block called Sunset Junction, that’s been going on for almost 30 years. It’s supposed to help fundraise for the community, but it’s been a source of drama too – neighbors complaining about the traffic, loss of revenue for local businesses, not being free anymore, and lack of transparency on how money raised is actually spent, etc!

here’s the line up for this year:

I am not too familiar with many of the bands on the various stages for this year. I think they try to mix it up to get a wider array of attendees. I assume they try to get LA based bands to play, as well as big headliners that are usually from out of town. They’ve had bands like Sonic Youth and Blonde Redhead play in the past.

This year the group that stole the show for me was “Arrested Development”, the hip hop group from the early nineties, that headlined Sunday night. I had no idea what to expect, and went to see them as a novelty because I had already seen Built to Spill a few times. AD were soooooooo much fun! This is coming from a girl who knows pretty much nothing about hip hop. This is more a pop blog I know, but I can’t deny how entertaining they were live. One of the best shows I’ve seen, and I would easily go see them again! They had African Dancing, and Speech was sooo smooth. MMmmmm….He still looks good 10 + years later and sounds great too! They have a new album coming out and they sang their old hits like “Tennessee” and “Mr. Wendel”.

I didn’t stay all day saturday, but my roomie and I enjoyed Bugaloo Assassins who are from LA. They combine latin music with Irish punk/ska influences. They were fun. She also said Connor Oberst sounded great and Jenny Lewis was a guest performer.

I also caught Mika Miko who I had been meaning to see for awhile now. On the flier, there was a typo and it said “Mica Miko” – ha. They’re cute and fun, very reminiscent of girl punk groups of the 70s like X-ray Spex, crossed with early 90s riot grrl punk rock. I liked how one of the singers is always rocking mom jeans. It’s hard differentiating between the songs because they sound pretty similar to me, but I had a rockin’ good time. I also like how they have two singers and sound like they are trying to sing like old dudes. Fun, fun, fun!

The Sonics, a cult garage rock band from the 60s, were fabulous and sounded great! I didn’t know they had 3 singers. They looked like dads performing at a free park show, but they were excellent performers and so fun. Very rock n’ roll! Everyone was having a good time. They played their old hits like “Have Love, Will Travel”, “Psycho”, “Strychnine”, and “The Witch”. Definitely worth seeing, and I’m glad they’re still out playing and sounding excellent!

This year was definitely memorable and fun!

The 29th Annual Sunset Junction Street Fair is slowly approaching so get your tickets quick because you can’t miss this!

Check out the awesome line up and it’s all brought to you for $15! That’s  a bargain!

Not only will you enjoy fantastic music, sensational food and friendly peoples but you will also get to soak up all of the great California weather.

And if you think the fun will end there, you as mistaken as are you will be conveniently located in the heart of Hollywood where the party doesn’t end on the strip. You can always peruse the many, many clubs, pubs, cafes, bars and restaurants  around the vicinity and keep the fun rolling all night long!

Here’s the info:

AUGUST 22 & 23, 2009
3700-4300 Sunset Blvd
4000-4200 Santa Monica Blvd
Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA 90029

Website

Band: Mika Miko
Label: PPT
Release: 2009

1. “Blues Not Speed” – 9.4
2. “Turkey Sandwich” – 9.3
3. “I Got A Lot (New New New) – 9.6
4. “Wild Bore” – 9.2
5. “Sex” – 9.5
6. “Totion” – 9.5
7. “On the Rise” – 9.6
8. “Beat the Rush” – 9.7
9. “Johnson R. Cool” – 9.1
10. “Sex Jazz” – 9.4
11. “Keep on Calling” – 9.3
12. “Turkey Barnyard Mix” – 9.5

Comments: Sounds like an all-girl version of early Black Lips material, except a little bit more punk and a little bit more catchy. It’s no wonder why Ian St. Pe said this is a band he is really digging.

Grade: 9.4