Tag: Lisa Prank

RSVP HERE: Pom Pom Squad Livestream via LongNeckLass Twitch + MORE

When Mia Berrin was only 15, she saw a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words “Pom Pom Squad” and the name stuck with her as she began to write songs during her senior year of high school in Orlando, Florida. Now a staple of the Brooklyn scene, Berrin’s band Pom Pom Squad is filled out by Mari Alé Figeman on bass, 

Shelby Keller on drums

, and Alex Mercuri on lead guitar. Contrary to the classic image of a cheerleading squad, Berrin’s squad is a vehicle for emotionally charged grunge anthems that release inner demons and rush toward radical self-acceptance, as seen on their two EPs Hate It Here and Ow. They also explore the softer side of alternative in their 2020 Valentine’s Day single “Red with Love” and recently released cover of “Crimson + Clover.”

You can catch Berrin performing a stripped down set on LongNeckLass’ Twitch tonight at 7pm EST alongside 2nd Grade, Baseball Dad and Lisa Prank. They also have the best Bandcamp limited-edition merch items including a summer squad uniform and a long sleeve “Internet Tour” shirt (which we all seem to be on these days). We chatted with Berrin about the making of Pom Pom Squad’s recent music videos, the creative community’s role in BLM and her dream writing location.

AF: I love both music videos you’ve released in 2020- “Red with Love” and “Crimson + Clover.” How did they differ in terms of recording and filming? What do these tracks mean to you?

MB: Thank you! Red With Love was pre-quarantine – it was recorded as a full band and the music video was filmed at the (now defunct), The Dance with a big group of fans and friends. It’s weird that filming in a crowd seems like such a novelty now! “Crimson + Clover” was basically the opposite. I recorded it alone and filmed the video with my partner using only stuff we already had in the apartment. Both songs are about ~love~ but are stylistically really different. I think Crimson is a little bit of a sneak preview of where my brain has been lately.

AF: Now that it’s uncertain when we’ll be able to play shows in NYC again, has your relationship with the city changed and how do you imagine the creative community in Brooklyn evolving?

MB: My relationship with the city has changed in that I barely leave my house and have very little desire to. To be honest, I didn’t have much of a desire before, but my anxiety has gotten a lot worse. Brooklyn is so overwhelming to begin with that I didn’t really feel like I had the opportunity to finish thoughts! Having a lot of time on my hands has made it a lot easier to write though. I feel like maybe the creative community will evolve in that there isn’t much room for comparison anymore – playing the show circuit here makes you really aware of what everyone else is doing and what’s “trendy”. It feels good to be isolated in that I can hear my own instincts more clearly.

AF: Has the COVID lockdown and current social justice movement changed and/or fueled your creative process in any way?

MB: Absolutely. I think it’s really hard not to be angry and hurt right now, so I’ve been writing from that place recently. It also makes me feel a need to escape through my music, so I’ve been rebuilding my world sonically and giving myself a place to rest that’s separate from everything else. I think on the other side of the coin, this moment in time also makes it really, really hard to write, or get out of bed.

AF: What are your thoughts on the creative community’s role in the BLM movement and how do you think we can use our platforms in the most effective way?

MB: From my own experience, I’ve been using my platform to try to spread information and as a starting point for research. I think especially in this moment, it’s important to step back and try to learn about what’s happening in front of you. Art and artists can be huge catalysts for change and can encourage people to shift their perspectives.

AF: I saw in a previous interview that you write best when you’re as far away from NYC as possible. What would your dream writing/recording space be outside of the city?

MB: Basically the Jayne Mansfield Mansion, but with a meadow or a view of the mountains outside. Somewhere extremely kitschy and unnecessarily lavish.

AF: What can we expect from your livestream tonight?

MB: A pretty stripped down version of some of the songs from our last EP, Ow, and maybe some new stuff I’ve been working on ;-)

AF: What are your plans for the rest of 2020 + beyond?

MB: Staying safe and working on a big project I am very, very excited about!!

RSVP HERE for Pom Pom Squad 8/14 via LongNeckLass Twitch 7pm EST w/ 2nd Grade, Baseball Dad and Lisa Prank.

More great live streams this week…

8/14 Best Coast (Crazy For You 10 Year Anniversary Party) via Seated. 9pm EST, $10, RSVP HERE

8/14 ..And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead via their website. 9pm EST, $9, RSVP HERE

8/14 The War on Drugs, Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear, Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, Waxahatchee and more via Vote Ready. 7pm EST, FREE, RSVP HERE 

8/14- 8/16 Allen Stone, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie, Los Lobos, Gangstagrass, Shakey Graves, and more via Philadelphia Folk Festival 12pm EST, $75 +, RSVP HERE 

8/16 What Now: An Antiracist Teach-In with Ibram X. Kendi and Isabel Wilkerson 8pm EST, $50, RSVP HERE

8/17 2020 Ain’t Canceled: August Intersectionality Series via Zoom. 8pm EST, RSVP HERE

8/18 Serpentwithfeet via YouTube / KEXP at Home. 3pm EST, RSVP HERE

8/19 Thursday, Cursive, And So I Watch You From Afar via Youtube. 6pm EST, RSVP HERE

LIVE REVIEW: Diet Cig @ The Echo

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Diet Cig at the Echo. All photos by Ashley Prillaman

In the late Nineties, CDs cost around $20. Without the means to buy much, my CD “collection” included Green Day’s Dookie, No Doubt’s Return of Saturn, and Celine Dion’s magnum opus Falling Into You. This distinct lack of variety caused me to listen to these albums on repeat for six months at a time. I still find myself listening to certain songs or albums for months on end, until my brain finally screams at me to stop. Diet Cig’s 2015 EP Over Easy and their subsequent singles “Dinner Date” and “Sleep Talk” were on my rotation for much of 2016. This April, the band released Swear I’m Good At This via Frenchkiss; although it’s the band’s first full-length album, it already shows a sense of maturity is setting in.

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“I think this band installed some hardcore wokeness, like politically, which is cool,” lead singer Alex Luciano, 21, said in an interview with Spin Magazine. The song “Sixteen” address slut-shaming, with lyrics like “When I was sixteen I dated a boy with my own name, it was weird/And I didn’t think you had to go to town/and tell everybody’s mom that I’m sleeping around.” The playful, high school dreamer sound of their first EP remains throughout, yet based on the subtle evolution of tone, I was excited to see how Diet Cig translated live.

Lisa Prank, aka Robin Edwards, opened for Diet Cig. There was something odd about watching a woman with a crown on, singing solo with a backing track. Prank’s voice is dry and direct. She plays well with the crowd, thanking her backup band with the note “They don’t get paid. It’s actually pretty brutal.” The audience was down with Lisa Prank, shuffling their feet, nodding their heads. Yet overall, the plaid-wearing crowd was ready for the main act.

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Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” was playing on the venue soundsystem just before Diet Cig went onstage. My date and I debated whether this was chosen by the band, but our argument was quickly settled when we caught lead singer Alex Luciano dancing wildly by the merch table. Her energy, magnetic and frenzied, carried into the performance with opening song “Sleep Talk.” Pom pom earrings, a babydoll dress, and blue eyebrows completed Luciano’s hodgepodge Nineties look. She smiled, a wink in her eye, as she let the crowd know there’d be no moshing at this show; without the aide of a moshpit, fans danced frantically in one place, like the inflatable tube guy outside a car dealership.

“I feel like I was just high from the room, honestly. Y’all are like smoke stacks here with the holidays,” Luciano reminisced about her last time in Los Angeles (which happened to be 4/20). The atmosphere of the show was straight of an episode of Dawson’s Creek: Luciano, the adorable, quirky lead singer of a band playing prom, her delicate, breathy voice overshadowed at times by formidable drummer Noah Bowman, 24. “Link in Bio” was a highlight of the show, with girls shouting from the darkness “I’m done with being a chill girl! I’m trying to take over the world! Don’t tell me to calm down!”

The band wasn’t joking with the “woke” comment. “The best way to treat someone you hate is with radical kindness,” Luciano grinned after a beat, “Turn to someone next to you and say ‘Let’s smash the patriarchy!'”

As excited as I was to see my “on repeat” favorite songs, the showstopper single of the night was “Barf Day.” It perfectly encapsulates the fresh feeling of high school angst, as life moves forward into adulthood. “Just one birthday card sent to me/I missed my own surprise party/It’s me, I’m only twenty-one years old and now I’m drinking alone,” Luciano sang, her voice melting into Bowman’s warm, rhythmic beat. In the last moment before their final song, she looked at us and implored, “Remember to call your mom.”

Diet Cig’s full-length album Swear I’m Good At This is out now on Bandcamp. They’ve got three more dates on their West Coast tour but will hit the road aha

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