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manifestoe-blog · 7 years ago

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A couple of months ago I interviewed my one of my closest friends, the lovely Nina White, about an album of her choice in pursuit of getting to know her better through her relationship with music in her life. We discuss No Doubt’s ‘Tragic Kingdom’ in relation to female anthems, ska revival, being a little bit punk, the frightening prospect of having to sing on stage with your ex about your relationship, and the impact of the album in her life thus far.

So Nina, tell me about the album that you’ve chosen.

I’ve chosen Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt, which was released in 1995. I was only 3 when it was released; however they slowly released singles from the record until 1998 so I am guessing I was pretty late to join the party. My mum bought the cd for me, and it’s fair to say that I thrashed the absolute shit out of it until I was about 16. I honestly listened to it all the time; it was always on some kind of rotation, whether it was in the car, or in the six stack, whatever.

So you were listening to it pretty consistently for that solid 8 year period?

Yep, pretty much - it was one of those albums that I have never gotten sick of. Actually, a few days after you asked me to do this, I pulled it down from the shelf and played it in the car, and like four tracks in it started skipping. That poor CD – it looks as if it was strapped to a tire and driven on tarmac. I think it actually did really well to get through four tracks! It has survived a lot of years… coming on twenty.

This was their first really popular album. They spend 2 and half years recording this album in 11 different studios and by all accounts it was utter chaos. The name Tragic Kingdom is a nod to Disney Land which they grew up almost literally I the shadow of in Anaheim – always too poor to go, but able to hear what was happening there from their houses down the street.

No Doubt were just so different to everything else I was listening to at the time because this was music that was written and lead by a woman, and while there was other female driven music rocking around at the time like say, Courtney Love or Garbage (who I was peripherally aware of, but not into then) Gwen wrote songs that were more relatable to me at that age. . She also managed to do that in a really fun and interesting way - and their visual language always really stuck with me as well. They were playful and chaotic and experimental and seemed to enjoy fucking with people’s expectations of what they were supposed to look like, and what they were supposed to sound like. I think the thing that draws me back into it every time is their exuberance, they’re wild.

Pre “Gwen Stefani, The Brand”, baby baby Gwen, is everything that I wanted to be in life. She's powerful, she doesn’t give a shit. She is just up there having a good time, stomping around in those bloody big boots with such contagious energy. I don’t think that their music is particularly punk, but their attitude definitely was. And the best thing about this album in my opinion, was that it was her first time writing (before that her brother was their songwriter), so everything is genuine and authentic because it was her first time. It was before she could even have the chance to construct something marketable. It was about her life, the shit that was going on, it was just her first coming out as who she was. The way she was performing is just so incredible; it was more masculine than anything else that I had seen at the time, yet she was able to do so without denying her femininity in any way. She was merely presenting herself the way that she is, and having fun doing it.

What are some of your highlights of the album?

Well, my highlights are different now to the highlights I had as a kid. In saying that, the first track Spiderwebs has always been one of my favourite songs off the record. It just sounds really fun and funky, but it’s actually pretty subversive. The track is basically about being pursued and harassed by a guy that you have no interest in. I really liked it as a kid because of how much of a banger it is, but now as an adult I like it because I can really relate to being dogged by someone and told you should take it as a compliment, when you really just want to tell them to fuck off.

Just a Girl is another obvious one because it has become a bit of an anthem. Just a Girl, Sunday Morning, and Don’t speak were the most recognizable songs from the album, and Just a Girl is the more punk track, when I was growing up everybody knew that song, and everybody knew Don’t Speak. To be honest, I didn’t really like “Just a Girl” as an adult until I saw a video of them performing it live, and it was like “FUCK YES. LOOK AT WHAT YOU USED TO BE! Dammit, Gwen.” It made the whole thing come alive again as something more than just a well thrashed track on a ‘90’s greatest hits’ playlist.

Anyway, I guess the whole album is centered around two main themes: coming of age, and the transition of an intimate relationship. I think these themes are the reason why it has continued to be relevant through different eras of my life. Don’t Speak is always going to have some kind of universal relevance; if you have an argument with a loved one or you break up with someone, any kind of emotional friction.

Or like in Sunday Morning, you’ve got themes of coming to terms with who somebody is and how they treat you. And how, I suppose, you may have been in a love bubble where you are allowing somebody to treat you a certain way, and as things progress you start to notice the power balance in the relationship. The whole thing is just so damn relatable, and almost dystopian. “I thought I knew you, I got a new view, I thought I knew you well, oh well.” It really captures that moment where the fog clears and you see someone as a person, not an ideal.

All these experiences that are shared in the album related directly to relationships within the band, especially the relationship between Gwen and Tony (the bass player) who had been dating for 7 years and broke up when they were writing the record. They then toured for something ridiculous like three years and had to play ‘Don’t Speak’ a totally autobiographical song about their personal heartbreak in front of thousands on stage every night.

I can’t help but just think about this in relation to all of the talk surrounding Fleetwood Mac and Rumours. They were writing, recording and then performing these intense songs about one another, and it weirdly creates this form of mythic speech around it all, which completely adds a whole new level of intrigue. I think it’s this whole appeal of an ‘artist coping mechanism’, which is ultimately often idealised, but is just so different to what we can get away with in day-to-day life.

Yeah! And I guess it is weirdly insular as well. The community for them is so incestuous, for want of a better word – they live in each other’s pockets constantly with little escape from each other’s bullshit. It’s a far removed experience from most people’s romantic complexities.

All of these themes are symptoms of situations that are often massive grey areas, but ones that we all go through at some stage and to some degree. And to be able to see people dealing with themes in a public and performative manner is just so intriguing.

You were saying before, about the simple fact that she was a woman writing and performing these songs, she was becoming this absolute icon, and it was super important to you hearing this female perspective. Is there a particular song or lyric that comes to mind in relation to how hearing her female perspective has influenced yours?

Yeah definitely, there are two that come to mind. First one being “Just a Girl”, because when I was little, that song was what sparked the realisation in me that being female meant that there were certain expectations you were supposed to conform to. That song kind of slapped me out of the pretty much genderless, tomboy period of my childhood where I could get away with dressing like a boy, playing with the boys and there was no sexuality implied in that. It was kind of like a trigger for me, to be more aware of what was expected of me within my gender, and I just hadn’t had to grapple with those expectations yet. There is a lyric in that song, “take this pink ribbon off my eyes” which directly refers to that feeling for me.

She wrote this song when she was 24, after she had to drive home after rehearsal at a late hour. Her bandmates, all being male, could just drive home and go to bed, but because she was a girl she would have to knock on her parent’s door to let them know that she was safe. The song is really about her coming to the realisation, through all of these subtle everyday experiences, that she was being treated differently. It documented a moment of clarity for her where she realised how much she was coddled and overlooked as a woman and how fed up she was with all the gendered bullshit. I guess as an adult it’s always a nice reminder not to take that kind of shit complacently in your daily life.

The other one that comes to mind was important to me a little bit later in my life, was “Excuse Me Mr.” Its the second track on the album, and it explored the feeling of waiting having to wait around for validation from people more powerful or important than you. Especially as an adult, female, creative trying to make a living doing what I’m passionate about, this song is just such a good reminder not to wait around for opportunities or support to fall into your lap and just get on with doing it yourself.

My sweet sweet Nina, thank you so much for telling me about Tragic Kingdom, this conversation felt like a trip to the Magic Kingdom itself. Would you mind summarising why you love this album in a few sentences for me?

Thank you so much for having me! I love this record because it was the first album that I l truly loved and it has aged with me like a good whiskey. Tragic Kingdom sort of ended up being the unlikely soundtrack to my life. It didn’t necessarily guide me, but it definitely made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my experiences. Especially as I’ve always been a bit of an awkward human, and it was good to know that there were some other awkward shitheads out there with me, doing their own thing and totally killing it. It’ll always serve as a reminder that it was okay to wear big boots, and be goofy, and that the people that matter in my life will still love me and stick around anyway. Yeah, that was pretty nice.

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manifestoe-blog · 7 years ago

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Thanks again, Bob Boilen: ‘First Time and Time Again’

The following acts are three of the best.

These Tiny Desk Concerts were not only my gateway to these incredible bands, but also truly sparked my love for the NPR series itself, and for that I couldn’t feel more grateful. Over to the tunes!

1. Margaret Glaspy

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First up with Margaret Glaspy, this Tiny Desk performance was actually the first to truly grasp my attention - my formal introduction to NPR if you will. I heard this performance for the first time about a year ago, while I was working at a cafe in Sandgate (the greatest place on earth). I used to put it on repeat while I worked the last few hours before closing by myself - and thankfully the customers didn’t seem to mind the occasional clapping that would bellow from the speakers. I was in a pretty strange time in my life where absolutely everything felt like a transition, I was listening to too much Jeff Buckley as a result, and I spent more time waiting for buses than being on them. But when I heard this performance, there was something that really struck me about Glaspy. Perhaps it was the fact that Buckley was slowly eating me up inside, and simply hearing something else was bound to snap me out of a melancholic trance, but I think Bob Boilen puts it simply in saying that, “there is brutal honesty in the songs of Margaret Glaspy that can make them feel cold, but they're so heartfelt.”

She plays four tracks from her latest album titled Emotions and Math: the title track ‘Emotion and Math’, ‘Love Like This’, ‘You and I’, then closing with ‘Somebody to Anybody’. To me, I get more from this performance than the recorded album, as I think that there is something extremely special in the curation of these four songs together. The first three songs explore the complexity of having feelings for someone, a broken down relationship, and a relationship bound to end sooner or later, while the closing track ‘Somebody to Anybody’ explores the feeling of self inflicted detachment, which often comes after experiences explored in the first three tracks.

Singing, “I keep my head down and both eyes wide, I don't look up just side to side. And I stay well kept so they can see there's nothing wrong with me, it's just that I don't wanna be somebody to anybody” - she is speaking to me wee vulnerable soul.

Glaspy’s songs make me feel a little bit heartbroken and defeated, but also make me feel so dang strong and human.

2. Big Thief

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I thought about making a separate post for this performance and Big Thief altogether - but I just decided I can feature them more than once because the world is kind. My hesitation not only came from the fact Big Thief is now one of my favourite bands, but because this Tiny Desk, is probably my top performance of all (maybe). For me, this performance by Big Thief completely represents my love for Tiny Desk. While Margaret Glaspy was the first one to truly grab my attention, and I feel as though I owe this performance my left leg. This was my introduction to Big Thief, and they have quickly become one of my favourite bands of all the bands. When hearing this performance for the first time, I was completely hooked on every single word sung by the lead singer, Adrianne Lenker. Since then, my fascination with this band hasn’t wavered in the slightest. Its been over and a year, and I still haven’t been able to move past the initial feeling of hearing her voice for the first time.

My housemate Roshan had recently been listening to their latest album Capacity, and has made me quite aware of the fact that I know next to nothing about the band. I don’t know what any of the songs are about, where the band members are from, when anything was released, heck - I didn’t even know the name of the lead singer until a week or two ago. And look, maybe next year I’ll be able to know what their songs are about, maybe I will even know where they are from, but for now I am still in complete awe of every song, and how every word she sings makes me feel like I am short of breath.

Good ol’ Boilen describes the songs of Big Thief, as having a ‘muscular warmth’, and while I don’t really know what the heck that means, I couldn’t agree more. They play three tracks from their 2016 album Masterpiece: title track ‘Masterpiece’, ‘Paul’, and ‘Lorraine’. Like I said before, I'm not sure what any of the songs are about even a year later, but these three just sock it to the soul. Maybe I do secretly kind of know what they are about, but look, I honestly feel a bit afraid to think about it too deeply, because I feel like an emotional trap door will be opened, and I won’t know how to bloomin’ close it. These songs make me feel 15, and 79 all at once.

“Old friends, old mothers, dogs and brothers. There’s only so much letting go you can ask someone to do. So I keep you by my side, I will not give you to the tide, I’ll even walk you in my stride, Marie”

weep weep.

3. Florist

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And just when I felt like my weak mortal body was going to ache beyond recovery from ol’ Big Thief, Florist came along to mop up my bod, give it soft and gentle kisses, all while feeding it triangle sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

The delicate and intimate songs of Florist are nostalgia served on a silver platter. To me, every single one of their songs evoke the same experience as smelling a familiar scent. They are tender, transportive, and manage to take you straight to a specific feeling, thought, emotion, time and place. Working their way through three tracks, Emily Sprague and the Catskills play ‘Vacation’, ‘Cool and Refreshing’, and ‘1914’. The performance is soft, humble, and patient. Everything my lil heart needs to lap up of an evening.

I realised that I have much less to say about Florist and their NPR performance, but i’ve come to the conclusion that it is merely because they calm me down. While Margaret Glaspy and Big Thief provoke all kinds of thoughts and feelings that are necessary, confronting and exciting, Florist is absolutely pure comfort, and I always find myself coming back for more.

SO, for building a bridge to the tears, the hugs, the motivation, the love, the lyrics, the babes - thanks again, Bob Boilen. you animal.

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