Exclusive: The latest track by LA indie-punk duo Broken Baby should not be listened to while driving.
To call LA's Broken Baby a riot grrl act isn't quite right -- just because vocalist Amber Bollinger's sharp, reedy vocals evoke aspects of bands like Le Tigre and Bikini Kill doesn't mean they necessarily embody that scene's ethos. Maybe it's the middle ground they take between punk, alternative, and indie rock that makes their music smack of riot grrl, with guitarist and co-writer Alex Dezen's urgent strumming channeling the disparate influences and genre-less tones of early-'90s female-led punk. But whatever you want to call them, Broken Baby's music is sonic lightning, full of confrontational excitement that gets the listener riled up and agitated, even if they don't know exactly by what.
The band's new single, My Head's A Television, is like the adrenaline surge that pushes one from a jog to a sprint. Dezen's guitar is a tireless mechanized warble that feels nonstop even as it attaches itself to Bollinger's vocal melody. Amber, meanwhile, sounds like she's going to mow you down, her shouted stream-of-subconsciousness lyrics providing a frantic collage of modern life. The song is an anthem for the times when all the little things build up into one giant tidal wave crashing over you.
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"We had this dirty verse riff banging around for a while, and a vague lyric idea that was kind of reminiscent of Black Flag’s Gimme Gimme Gimme, but didn’t know how to connect the two," says the band of My Head's A Television. "Then it kind of came together one day after listening to Place Position by Fugazi. There was something in the way Guy [Picciotto] yelps 'Legal! Illegal!' in the second verse that’s been stuck in my head since I was like 15. We used that as the starting point for the chorus and made it our own thing. The blackout pause at the end of the first chorus is the little bread crumb we left."
Listen to our exclusive stream of My Head's A Television below:
Catch Broken Baby live at one of their upcoming tour dates with Tummyache:
January
10 - Dallas @ TDB
11 - Austin @ Cheer Up Charlie’s
15 - Los Angeles @ The Satellite
16 - San Diego @ Soda Bar
19 - San Francisco @ Neck of the Woods
20 - Fresno, CA @ Strummers
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