About half way through Saturday night's set, Terri (guitar/vocals) of the Red Aunts had something to say. "A few months ago we were in Arizona and our van blew up. Some guy from the Alibi (a weekly paper in Albuquerque) said we were tired and didn't want to come here. We were trying so hard to get here. So this next song is for him. Fuck you." She looked on her magic markered arm as she flashed the bird and then muttered, "I don't even know what we're playing next."
The next song was "Midnight In The Jungle," one of the tastiest cuts off their latest, best and last release: Ghetto Blaster. A sonic assault slightly on the plus side of 30 minutes, and the aural testimony of a band that never seemed to fit into the holes most music writers were so willing to stuff them in. The band is calling it quits after this tour. And, in usual Red Aunts fashion, they're not going out quietly.
"I need to say something so I can catch my breath," Kerry Davis (also guitar and vocals) related near the end of their set last night. "We decided to drive here from Denver last night because it was so fucking hot." The lights on the stage had been turned down all night because of the heat in the Launchpad--it was, naturally, a hot night in the New Mexico desert. "So we were driving along, put in the Dr. Octagon tape, and then, thump-thump-thump. Fucking blow out. We get it changed and decide to stop and sleep in this parking lot we come up on. So when we wake up this morning we all look up and we've been sleeping in the parking lot of a store that sells mattresses and couches." The band is laughing about this and everyone flips the bird at the memory of the storefront of ire, "Fuck you!" When they finish laughing, Kerry adds, "Okay, I've caught my breath now. We can go on."
The Red Aunts' first CD on Epitaph, "#1 Chicken", was the first free CD we got for review at Lies Magazine. There is some contention to this (my brother says it was Down By Law), but for the purposes of symbolism and hospitality, I'm gonna stick with the Red Aunts. Since that time, I've seen the band five times in three different area bars over about three years time.
When the Aunts came through the first time in June 1995, we bought the band a pitcher of Guinness (back when downtown bars had pitchers) and chatted with Kerry after their set. They were opening for The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black. Bad music, nice show. Kerry talked to us about rocking out to Iron Maiden in high school. We were still rocker hippies back then, sporting long hair and fist pumping fury. I don't really remember much else about that night, probably because we had at least two pitchers before skulking behind the El Rey with Kerry for a smoke.
Between the first couple of shows came Florida--which was three months in a hot humid hell of self-containment and paranoia. The Red Aunts came through Albuquerque a few weeks after we'd moved back. They were as bratty as ever, and the third show was peppered with bitching about not having the Drags on the bill, contact lenses, bright lights (always a problem) and, well, there was that guy who was standing right in front of Terri murmuring, "I wanna fuck you" over and over again. Not pretty.
I've seen them play for packed houses, empty bars and then there was last night. Somewhere in between. It wasn't packed, but it was comfortable. All the bands played quick sets. The Chinese Love Beads were so quick, we missed them. The Eyeliners (Albuquerque's own all-woman punk band, and sometime touring partners of the Aunts) ran through their usual brand of pop punk. And then there were the Red Aunts.
"Another thing about the Alibi," some shirtless punk with no hair and a big sun tattoo said into the mic after climbing up onstage. "Their writer said the Red Aunts sound like L7 and Babes In Toyland. If you've been listening tonight, you know they're anything but." He then jumped off-stage, possibly hoping for a little bit of body surfing, but finding his feet on the concrete floor when everyone moved out of his way.
It's easy to say every all-woman band sounds the same. And if you don't listen to the music, it's probably a hell of a lot easier (we've all got to reference something in our reviews). I wish I could explain the strange place in music the Red Aunts dwell in. Sure, it's punk. It's bratty. It's rooted in blues, 50s sock stomp and the slash and burn of hardcore. But most of all, it's different. And that confuses people.
Originality has no place in a world that builds more walls than doors. Everyone wants to categorize and make it nice and neat for all the suburbanites to walk through. Point the flashing arrows and they will follow. It's okay to do that to mass market crap like Godzilla. It's criminal to do that to people who are actually trying to accomplish something real and true.
A lot of good things came to an end in the last year. Most of them voluntarily. Lies Magazine (to be less than humble). Seinfeld. The Dingo Bar. Soundgarden. The Fat Chance. Lollapalooza. Many others I've lost track of in the haziness of Sunday morning. Add the Red Aunts to the list.
Last year was a year of death. This year? Quitting. I feel it's all moving into a life of nostalgia. A search for the good times, when all the good times are gone. Punk is immediate and penetrating. Just before the last song, Terri quickly said, "Okay, this is it." A few minutes later it was all over. I had a mind to find the Aunts and say something. Thanks, good show, something. But they had disappeared. Probably for the best.
It's best to move on now. No sense in getting all mushy. It was fun. It was a time. It was a fun time. And I know life will never be the same. And I also know the Red Aunts will never be on retro 90s albums, or played at Time Warp 90s Thursdays in five years or so. I think they're glad about that. I, personally, am very happy to have the memory for myself and a few hundred other strangers. We're moving down separate roads now, never to cross paths again.
So thanks to the Red Aunts. It was a nice life, wasn't it?
Matt Worley thinks Killpeopleproductions is a pretty good name. Fuck everyone else.