The Ramones – Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E10: David Heatley

David Heatley is a cartoonist, illustrator, graphic designer and musician whose comic work has appeared in or on The New Yorker, The New York Times, Mome, Kramers Ergot and McSweeney’s. His high school band Velvet Cactus Society had a couple of records out on Shimmy Disc in the 90s and for his 2008 graphic novel My Brain is Hanging Upside Down he recorded a soundtrack under his own name including a cover of The Ramones song from which he borrowed the title. He has also been a member of the band The Bischoffs. In 2021 he launched his animation production company Dream Puppy, Inc. and a television show based on his 2019 graphic memoir Qualification is currently under production by Gaspin Media. In March 2023 Heatley released his latest album If…, a collection of songs that seem to explore the concept of love, requited, not so requited, potential, as manifest in one’s life and the implications of that feeling in one’s life and how it affects how you live it. Its baroque pop and bossa nova sounds sounds like something from an earlier era but its sensibility and treatment of the subject matter is very modern and tinged with the kind of self-awareness and at times a touch of irony but never about love itself. In this interview we discuss his music and his life as an artist and his influences including his connections with the legendary Providence, Rhode Island DIY space Fort Thunder.

Listen to our interview with David Heatley on Bandcamp and follow the songwriter/artist’s doings on his website linked below where you can listen to the new album in its entirety.

davidheatley.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E40: Nastyfacts

Nastyfacts, image from liner notes of the 2022 reissue of Drive My Car

Per the group’s Bandcamp page, “Nastyfacts were part of a Brooklyn teen punk scene that included the Speedies and The Stimulators. Their core line-up consisted of Cherl Boyze on bass and lead vocals, guitarists Brad Craig and Jeff ‘Range’ Tischler with Genji “Searizak” Siraisi on drums. These last three also sang back-up. They began playing music together while attending St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn.” And the band’s sole release during its initial run was the 1981, three song 7-inch Drive My Car originally engineered at Media Sound Studios in NYC in 1980 as produced by Ramona Lee Jan known for her work with The Ramones and Brian Eno among others. The record became a bit of an underground hit and championed by the likes of John Peel and with music appearing on old punk compilations like Killed By Death. Boyze was an 18-year-old queer POC in a band with people in the mid-teens or younger at the time of the release of the record and touring wasn’t exactly on the agenda and as would happen in the normal course of events the band drifted apart and Boyze went on to other musical projects and styles, relocating to the Bay Area and is now known as KB. But for that period when Nastyfacts were around they regularly played CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City and other venues willing to host all-ages shows. One thing that set the band apart from other punk bands of its milieu was obvious musical ability and KB’s melodious vocals. Fast forward some decades and Drive My Car has been reissued again on Left For Dead Records on November 18, 2022 available on limited vinyl 12”, CD, cassette and digital downloads via Bandcamp.

KB has since become the founder and director of Queer Rebel Productions (est. 2008), a queer and trans artists of color organization (QueerRebels.Org), was the bassist in the pit band (The Felicia Flames) for a recent production at Z Space in San Francisco of The Red Shades: A Trans Super Hero Rock Opera and is now a member of The Homobiles “The Bay’s Mainstay Queer Party Punk Supergroup” according to The East Bay Express with Lynn Breedlove formerly of queer punk legends Tribe 8.

Listen to our interview with KB about the band and the record and what the artist has been up to since those early punk days on Bandcamp. And to learn more about Nastyfacts and order copies of Drive My Car, visit the Bandcamp link below the interview.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E24: No Age

No Age at Glob Aug 28, 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

No Age is a noise rock/art punk duo based in Los Angeles, California. Drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt and guitarist/vocalist Randy Randall had been in a band called Wives from 2001-2005 that had been a staple of the underground/DIY music world at the time. But Spunt and Randall scrapped the name and took their then musical ideas and recast their efforts as No Age with their first shows under the new moniker in early 2006 with their second show at the legendary DIY space The Smell in April of that year. From the beginning there was a refreshing lack of pretension and exuberance in the sound of No Age. Like a fusion of The Ramones at its most raw and the lo-fi experimentation and tape collage aesthetic of The Microphones. Within the often grainy and charmingly unvarnished early recordings one could hear a joyfulness and embrace of lived experiences that could contain and express a broad range of emotions and ideas in a manner often spirited and tender. There was always an element of vulnerability to No Age’s version of punk that transformed the music into something immediately accessible, like an unspoken invitation into a shared experience of thoughts and feelings it’s easy to think of going through alone and in isolation. No Age as artists and as a band have always approached its music and its operation as a band with a community spirit and that underlying ethos is something one an hear and feel in all of its albums and at its live performances. The group’s 2007 debut full length compilation of its early EPs and singles Weirdo Rippers (FatCat) is a fantastic introduction to the core No Age sound with a title that captures what you’re in for hearing, that is to say exciting music for people who embrace being different from mainstream expectation. From 2008-2013 No Age was signed to SubPop which helped to push the band to wider audiences. The most recent No Age album People Helping People (Drag City, 2022) is one of its most daring to date and bringing into the mix more fully the musique concrète element heard from its beginnings with gorgeously dream-like tape collages set alongside its signature vital rock songs. It may be the most fully realized No Age album to date and sonically among its most arresting.

Listen to our wide ranging interview with Randy Randall of No Age on Bandcamp and connect with the group at the links below. No Age performs at the Hi-Dive on Wednesday, November 16, 2022 with John Wiese and New Standards Men.