IDESTROY – We Are Girls
Punk-rock was supposed to free music-making, ending all discrimination around race, gender, and even playing abilities. While it did do some good, we have to face it. Most of us still listen to music through our eye-sockets, and we’re hung up on tradition as if we’ve been tasked with defending some holy fate.
IDESTROY are an angry punk band, and part of their disenchantment with the music world has to do with the constant discussion about their gender. Great all-girl bands have existed throughout the history of rock, yet the press still treats it as a novelty.
Musically, IDESTROY use We Are Girls, as a vehicle for their classic pop-punk leanings. Power chords reminiscent of The Runaways, the musical one-two punch of the Ramones, and even a classic rock directness of the Donnas can all be found here along with the group’s own unique personalities.
Stepmothers – (I Dream I’m) Innocent
Punk rock groups may have been accused of kicking out sophistication right out the doors of the big pop music club. But, while this is not entirely untrue, they also brought songwriting back to base, making it fashionable to once again address real topics in the way that real people do.
Honesty could be found in the bands’ writing, but not so much in their attire, as pictures of the leather-decked late 70’s punk rock group, Stepmothers, will show. The Manowar-resembling quartet, however, managed something of a forgotten classic with the (I Dream I’m) Innocent.
A simplified and amplified with a title and theme bringing to mind a more famous Tom Waits composition, Innocent features many of the tropes punks would have been knocking about with at the time. The speed, power riffs, and shouted vocals are all there. But, if you listen carefully, this is really a folk tune, set to the rhythm of those times. Well worth remembering with a reissue.
