The last time I attended a Stools show was on February 14th, 2020 at Outer Limits Lounge. Somebody in the audience passed out after their first song and I left because it was stressing me out. People were freaking out, but turns out the guy just had low blood sugar or something – he was fine. That being said though, if you’re gonna pass out at a show, it’s probably gonna be at a Stools show. The Detroit-based garage rock revival band is known for their high-octane performances that feel like having a front row seat to a drag race. These invigorating shows are what drive people to see bands live in the first place, and are undoubtedly what fans have been missing the last fifteen months of shut downs. Luckily, The Stools – Will Lorenz, Charles Stahl and Krystian Quint – have just released their first 12” Live At Outer Limits, which brilliantly captures their rapturous performance and is almost as good as the real thing.
The album was recorded on December 28th, 2019, and released digitally in May 2020; the vinyl came out a few days ago and has already sold out on their Bandcamp, but you can still grab a copy via Big Neck Records. The band seems genuinely surprised by this success. “I am always surprised when I see so many orders come in, because I really don’t know what to expect,” says Lorenz. “Without playing shows all the time, it’s easy to forget that people outside of our little bubble exist and buy records too! I hope some of the success is due to the snapshot in time aspect of it, a little more than we originally intended though since you can’t see us play for now.”
Lorenz says that the choice to press their live show wasn’t exactly scientific, but simply due to the fact that it was their longest release to date; the band has favored releasing their songs four or five at a time on small runs of 7″ EPs, including 2019’s When I Left (via Third Man Records), as well as Car Port (via Goodbye Boozy Records) and Feelin’ Fine (via Drunken Sailor Records), both from this year.
He also credits the band’s endearment to local punk bar Outer Limits as a driving force. “As a band we share a love for live albums as well as Outer Limits Lounge in general,” says Lorenz. “Everybody who works there is great and the sound is always perfect. We just waited until we had a chance to fully book our own show there [to record], but we had had the idea for a while.”
For a band that started out as a manic idea between Lorenz and Stahl, the Stools have reached many milestones faster than some bands ever do. You could make any number of assumptions of why this is, but if I had to guess, it would be because of the band’s genuine chaotic energy. At a time when it felt like garage rock was giving way to shoegaze and “indie rock” (whatever that means), three young guys from Grosse Pointe, Michigan bonded over a shared love of the White Stripes and Black Flag. These influences (as well as youthful angst and energy) are palpable in the band’s live performance.
The record encapsulates the punk microcosm that resides within Outer Limits Lounge. Nested on the outskirts of Hamtramck, MI – a tiny city that lies within Detroit City Limits – the bar literally and figuratively emits the “outcast” vibe that is historically associated with punk rock music. But, once inside, the humble digs serve as an oasis for “music nerds,” fringers, or pretty much everyone. It’s cool but not exclusive, messy but unthreatening. The Stools’ baby-faced frontmen encapsulate these dichotomies and their music serves as an allegorical safe space welcoming rejects of all kinds – or anybody who wants to scream along in their car.
Chandra Oppenheim was a one-of-a-kind type of child sensation. Unlike today’s child stars that come to fame because of their popularity among their peers (think Justin Bieber or JoJo), Oppenheim was revered in New York’s 1970s underground post-punk scene. As the daughter of famed American artist Dennis Oppenheim, she was influenced more by her father’s contemporaries than her own. At the age of twelve, Chandra released an EP with bandmates Eugenie Diserio and Steve Alexander (of Model Citizens fame), sold out a show at Berklee College, and opened for avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson. The 1980 EP, Transportation, is a snapshot of the new wave/post-punk/noise movement, as told through the unfiltered eyes of a middle-school girl. But instead of sounding juvenile, Oppenheim’s forthright lyricism offers an innocent and universal perspective on everyday life.
In “Kate,” Chandra delivers Talking Heads-esque lyrics depicting the intricacies of young female friendship, societal beauty standards, and the male gaze. It’s a song that’s as brazenly relevant today as it was thirty years ago – a fact that is as astounding as it is unnerving. “Subways” paints a disorienting picture of getting lost underground – a song as anxiety-inducing as any adult could have written. It seems that Chandra, before the age of thirteen, accomplished a level of artistry that most musicians strive for. But then what?
Now 50, Oppenheim has reissued Transportation for the second time along with a few unearthed recordings from band practice during that time. After teaming up with her Toronto-based band, she’s been performing the songs of her childhood in various venues across North America – including Detroit’s Third Man Records this Friday, February 1st.
The multi-disciplinary artist opened up to Audiofemme about her life between Transportation and now, and how we’re pretty much all just middle school girls at heart.
AF: What do you remember about the time when you recorded Transportation?
CO: The first set of studio recordings… came out in 1980. I was 10 or 11 when we were recording those songs, that first set. I was probably about twelve when we did the second set.
They do feel like two separate things because, I guess at that age, time passes slowly and there are so many things going on. For Transportation – because the other four songs weren’t released until the reissue in 2009 – I think it was what had to come out and it came out in the form of song. Whatever frustrations I had, fears, just trying to figure life out from that ten-year-old perspective. [It had to do] with what was going on around me too, because my dad [was] a big influence in my life and seeing his work and his thought process and these characters that he hung out with that were a part of my life – that was probably the number one influence. That, combined with being at school, and what my life was with my friends or people I had friction with.
AF: How did you feel recording and performing with these adult musicians? Did it feel different or just another part of your life?
CO: It was very natural. My father would pretty regularly have his kids as part of his art pieces. I grew up doing that and this seemed like a natural extension. It was just now me doing my art. In fact, if I hadn’t been doing that, I think something might have felt strange to me.
AF: After you released Transportation and went on tour – was there a point in time where it dropped off or you changed paths?
CO: What I remember is that the demands of school began to interfere with our band practice. There was this fork in the road – either I have all my focus and energy available for school, or I need to kind of let that go a little bit so I can focus on the band. And I chose the school route, thinking that at any moment that I wanted to have that back in my life, I could. And I didn’t realize that that’s very difficult to achieve, whatever the recipe is of whatever you’re creating and connecting it with people. I went to high school and went to college and maybe did a little bit of music during that time. I was probably always writing but I wasn’t in bands or anything like that. And then, after that, basically began decades of doing music because that’s what I did and that’s what I wanted to do, but nothing ever – it didn’t catch. The cogs of the machine did not sync up.
AF: What was the music you wrote in adulthood like? Was it along those punk lines?
CO: Yes, definitely. Especially I would say, lyrically. There was always this – which I share with my father’s aesthetic – this dark humor. Always questioning – the idea was that as a listener, you might not know – is this supposed to be funny? Because it’s really weird and scary but you can’t help but laugh… that’s kind of what I was going for but again I wasn’t trying to for that, it’s just that’s how it came out.
AF: Do you have any recordings from that time?
CO: I do and it is my big next life project to go through my archives and release some music because nothing was ever officially released. I mean there was one band I had where we actually did the whole thing – I think we have 12 songs on that record. We went into a really nice studio and the board was the same one that was used for one of Bowie’s albums. We did it on tape. It was in the ’90s and mixed and mastered, did the whole thing. But then we didn’t really put it out. And then I had this alternative rock boss nova band. We did an EP, we mixed it, didn’t master it so there it sits. That’s just two of the things. I also did stuff solo and I just have my own little recordings of that. They’re probably good quality enough too. If I get them spruced up I can out them out.
AF: Why do you think none of it was ever released?
CO: I wonder as we’re talking about this if there has to be some – I don’t know, there are millions of reasons. For myself, I’m wondering if there just wasn’t that magnetic pull of an audience asking for it that would’ve brought it over that edge to actually complete it.
I did this because I wanted to make it. But If I pressed it back then to CD or – it’s funny because everyone is listening to cassette everything now, and the ’90s band I was in where we mixed and mastered, I do have cassettes of that. So, like, I go to the extent of pressing this to some format, but then what? Who am I gonna give them to or sell them to? But the other thing for me, which I’m learning over time, is that I’m so into the process, that once I have the result, that’s where it ends. Its almost as if I don’t need the outcome. It’s just the process that I’m interested in.
AF: That makes sense. What do you think prompted this resurgence of the Transportation recordings?
CO: So, the history of that is Cantor Records in Canada. It was a new label and this was the first record they wanted to put out – it was Aaron Levin’s record label. He contacted me out of the blue. Somehow, he tracked me down. I’m not on Facebook, so no one would be able to find me anyway, but it was long before that. So, he found me somehow through my father. That was 2009 – we reissued Transportation, plus the four tracks we unearthed in 1992 were released. Then from there, that’s how I met my current Toronto-based band. It was time to re-press that reissue because it was sold out and that’s when Telephone Explosion contacted us and asked about this deluxe reissue and asked if there were any other tracks and that’s when we brought out those demo tracks.
AF: What’s it like performing these songs you wrote as a pre-teen as an adult?
CO: It’s funny because I was just thinking about that. When I first started playing with the band in 2013-14, I really was in disbelief. The music was live. I had not heard live musicians playing this music in three decades. It was really hard for my brain to believe it. At first, I had to re-learn the songs and I probably hadn’t been singing all that much at that point in my life so I had to get back singing. So, it was challenging and the keys were high so there was that bumpiness to kind of get through. And now we’ve been playing a lot so it feels really comfortable and things are gelling really nicely so now I can relax into it and completely enjoy it and not trying to be remembering lyrics and everything. Really, for all of the songs, I’m able to immediately connect with myself at that time and the feeling of it. It doesn’t feel like someone else wrote them, other than that I wouldn’t be able to write lyrics like that now. I wouldn’t be able to access that strong connection to whatever that creative force is. In my way I do, but it’s years of all this stuff that bogs down the creative process. But other than that, it almost feels like there isn’t a passage of time. In a way, that is me and that’s how I still feel today about things. If not, more so, I mean some of the lyrics feel like premonitions of what we’re currently dealing with.
AF: Have you been writing any new material?
CO: The odd thing is that after writing songs almost every day for my entire life, over the past couple of years it hasn’t been there. Talk about missing something – it’s very strange not to have that. In a way, I don’t have my bearings. Recently, it’s started to come back. There’s a drip and a drop – a little something starting to come out now.
AF: What do you think led to that period of not really writing?
CO: Well, I worked on a performance art piece for ten years. I was still working on music, just not that particular piece. Anyway, that undertaking kind of did me in creatively. It drained me in a way. Normally, I’m fed by creative output but in this case, I guess I needed some time to recuperate. I had to actively end it because it was not serving me. I do have a recording of that – that one did get released actually. But there’s no way to find it. I make these things but then they’re not available. If someone wanted one and asked me for it I’d give it to them but, otherwise, they’re not available.
AF: Will you play any of the music that you wrote in your adult life on this tour?
CO: No, and that’s very intentional. I feel like people who like Chandra and Transportation – I want to keep that as its own thing. So, I will only play things from that time period or things we unearth from then.
Order Chandra’s Transportation EP here and keep an eye out for more tour dates.
Forged from the weightiness of post-war blues and the primally riotous audacity of 60’s garage punk, Detroit‘s scuzz rockers the Gories return to their hometown his Friday. Mick Collins, Danny Kroha and Peggy O’Neill formed the Gories (sans bass) back in 1986 and released three records between 1989 and their tumultuous break-up in ’92. During their undisclosed reign as underground groove-punk royalty, their influence was more wide reaching than their dismal record sales or crusty notoriety. Like true punks, the Gories’ reputation was marred with scowls and “wtf is this shit” variety, mostly due to their raunchy, primitive approach to rock. It’s an attitude that would later have Detroit’s prodigal son and father of Third Man Records, Jack White, exclaiming that the Gories “made people with Les Pauls and Marshall amps look like idiots.”
After a 17 year hiatus (during which punk died, was reincarnated into radio-friendly sewage, died again and is only now beginning to wear its old skin) the Gories reunited in 2009 for a European tour and again in 2010 to hustle their grime across North America. Since then they have played a handful of shows, though sparingly, but enough to remind us that true punk never really dies and what the Gories have given us is more than half-assed nostalgia on life support; it’s a tantrum.
Oozing with sexual deviance, masked by the hip-shaking, beer-bottle smashing juxtaposition of aggravated shimmy and shake, “Nitroglycerine,” from the band’s sophomore record, I Know You Fine, But How You Doin’ manages to box the un-boxable sticky, sweaty, no-fucks-given tale of Detroit’s premier garage punk pioneers. A perplexing mix of John Lee Hooker and the Cramps, the Gories hoot and howl while channeling some Velvet Underground-level chaos as the guitars suffer battling seizures, and the drums find home in a constituent heartbeat-beat reminding us that the band’s homeostasis, although compromised, is far from expired. The lyrics “She’s volatile/she’s my baby” are delivered with some 1950’s innocence or doo-wop cadence but is quickly dismantled by a rapid-fire sex-beat that keeps us guessing even 26 years later.
Get weird with the Gories 1990 video for “Nitroglycerine” below and catch the Gories with Pretty Ghouls, Mexican Knives and Trash DJ’s at El Club Friday August 5th, 2016 | Tickets $20
I’m not okay. I’ve said this out loud and silently in mirrors at least a three hundred times over the past week. I’m. Feeling. Mean. Winter is hovering around like an unwanted party guest and I’ve exhausted pop radio’s repetitive and empty saccharine excuses. When you feel that the world is against you and your most indestructible desire is to destruct, destroy, and stick it to the man, there will always be punk music to be the anguished devil on your shoulder telling the angel to GTFO. These feelings are necessary. Embrace them when they rear their disruptive heads and tap into that under-the-skin earthquake of whatever it is that’s pissing you off, and remember that music’s got your back. I’ve curated a soundtrack of thrashing, unsettling, and provocative punk straight from Detroit‘s veins, both past and present to amplify and detoxify.
Labeled as one of the reigning pioneers of hardcore punk in the midwest, Negative Approach formed in ’81 and had a lasting impact for the scenes to follow. They broke up in ’84 but have returned over recent years to perform some of the most amped up shows in Detroit’s history. “Nothing” encapsulates what has made Negative Approach legendary with its screeching guitar, saliva soaked screaming, and anti-conformist, nihilistic give-no-fucks attitude.
Timmy Vulgar of Third Man Record’s beloved Timmy’s Organism is considered the hardest working punk in the industry. Previously Vulgar lent his twisted visions to the late 90’s Epileptix and Clone Defects and the warped roughness of Human Eye and the prig-punk punch Reptile Forcefield. But with Organism, Timmy has gained serious momentum throwing inhibition to the wind with psychedelic riffs paired with stabbing percussions, all framed by Timmy’s own brand of in your face vocals. “Heartless Heathen” is infectious.
Protomartyr is known for their 70’s post-punk, Motor City garage rock fusion. From 2012’s No Passion All Technique, “Jumbo’s” is Protomartyr at their best. Guteral, echoed, vocals drowned out by drugged bass lines and clashing high hat heavy drums are the antithesis of pro-establishment. Protomartyr carved out their own sweet spot by making angst accessible and catchy.
Formed in 1997 by Amy Gore, Gore Gore Girls incorporate harmonizing with a surfer punk edge in “Hard Enough” off of 2007’s Get The Gore. At a time when punk in Detroit was losing its voice, these girls broke through the stagnation of the late 90’s and gave new life to garage-rock era by infusing caffeinated instrumentals and unapologetic vocals that feels like a thrasher film meshed with a break-up mix tape.
Maybe one of the most forgotten vestiges of sleazy glam-punk, Trash Brats never wanted to be taken seriously. But over time, their music still remains in the dusty attics of our collective music story. This steady and slow jam from ’90 cries “They say that Jesus saves, but tell me who?” over static punk chords that are as iconic as they are ironic.
I remember my mom blasting this as a kid. My parents were punks and The Meatmen were THE punks. From their ’95 album Pope on a Rope, “I Want Drugs” rants off names of drugs from heroin to demerol as if it were a coked out nursery rhyme. The Meatmen were raunchy, vile, and a vital piece to Detroit’s punk puzzle.
Timmy Vulgar might be considered the hardest working punk in the biz, but I know Child Bite to be the most relentless band of modern traditionalist punks around. They are seemingly always on tour and are forever pumping out unforgiving fuck-you anthems, like this track off of their 2014 release Strange Waste.
