#Audrey zee whitesides

[thebowerypresents]

Old Friends Get Together for a Joyful Saturday Night at Music Hall of Williamsburg

Ovlov, Grass Is Green, Speedy Ortiz – Music Hall of Williamsburg – January 18, 2025

Live long enough in New York City and any visit to through Williamsburg becomes a walk down memory lane. On Saturday at Music Hall of Williamsburg, Speedy Ortiz singer Sadie Dupuis asked, “Do you guys want a historical statement?” while running through the history what led to this moment, explaining the context in which these bands lived and what came before them. 

The rundown included mentions of meeting Ovlov through a passed-along MySpace link, and shout-outs to all the defunct DIY venues dotting this history. The true importance of all these places was, of course, the friends made along the way. At one of them, Dupuis met and bonded with Devin McKnight (currently of Grass Is Green, formerly of Speedy Ortiz, longtime bestie).

 “There was this very nice guy, Dan, who came to all our shows and was like, ‘What if my blog was a label?’” recalled Dupuis. That label, Exploding in Sound Records, went on to put out Speedy Ortiz’s Sports EP, and Ovlov’s debut LP, Am, was the label’s eighth release. “We all go very, very far back. We all love each other deeply. This is much more meaningful to us than any amount-of-years high school reunion,” added Dupuis. “Someone said, ‘This is the happiest I’ve ever seen you all onstage,’ and I had to be like, ‘We’re always happy but, yes, you’re right.’”

Joy was abundant on Saturday and friends were everywhere, on the stairs and on the stage listening to one another’s sets, past bandmates, labelmates, Dan Goldin of Exploding in Sound Records, El Kempner of Palehound. “We’re an incestuous scene, but not in a weird way,” offered Dupuis. The recently reunited Grass Is Green are a lot of these bands’ favorite band. “It’s such a special thing for Grass Is Green to reunite,” she continued. 

“You’re Yawning All Over My Baby” featured a hard-hitting, thudding and shapeshifting bass, and drums smacking in tandem with squelching guitars twisting in their wake. For all the dynamic shifts, the group’s tightness is especially impressive considering they only recently began playing together again. Speedy Ortiz packed twisting riffs of their own, Dupuis showcasing serious talent trading off fast-but-hard-to-sing verses with hard-to-play guitar riffs, breaking into some jams of joy alongside equally talented bandmates Audrey Zee Whitesides on bass and Andy Molholt on guitar. 

“I am too drunk. This is so surreal. I’ve seen so many shows here,” said singer Steve Hartlett, excitedly waving to the crowd, after Ovlov took the stage. Later, the frontman clasped his hands in a “victory pump.” He’s a man of many gestures. Ovlov pack such a heavy punching torrent of guitar sound and hooky melodies into their songs that they leave you longing for more like a sugar-heavy treat. “Land of Steve-O” and Ovlov classic “The Great Crocodile” specifically rocked in a gone-too-soon kind of way. Dupuis joined for a few songs, including “Chicken Coop.” 

“Do we have one more minute or one more song? Oh, phew, I thought we only had one more minute,” said Hartlett, getting clarity before playing the final number, fully ready to rip the finale in just a minute. Over the course of the night, each band played a 45-minute set, normally not enough time for any one of them but enough to allow for an egalitarian celebration of all. There isn’t much else to say when seeing them all get their due other than: It’s about time. —Dan Rickershauser | @D4nRicks

Photos courtesy of Anthony Grant | @gallerybytm 

[dordourandi]

[dissecthebird]

ok but what if you bought the t-shirt. what if you did do that. would that rock or what.

it IS a good t shirt! i just bought this instead

[image description: a black t shirt with text handwritten in white all-caps text reading “I DON’T WANT TO LOOK OR BE CIS.” /end image description]

[laurellynnleake]

Last week I had the pleasure of seeing @malblum kick off their fall tour with Titus Andronicus at AS220 in Providence! That’s Mal Blum in the middle on guitar, and I believe Audrey Zee Whitesides (left, also on guitar), Barrett Lindgren (bass), and Ricardo Lagomasino (drums). It was an exhilarating short set and the art-gallery crowd was WAY into it! I drew one of Audrey’s guitars while waiting for the show to start - then afterwards I came home and did some quick edits with a white paint pen thingie, while the experience was still fresh. Later I realized no one actually played the guitar I drew but I still had a lot of fun drawing it :P

[innovacancy]

Mal Blum AS220, Providence, RI 22 October 2019 Pity Boy is one of the most introspective, human records not only of the year but of the decade. While singer-songwriter Mal Blum’s tales are often born from their experiences of transitioning to the non-binary person they are today, navigating a world in which they feel and are particularly invisible, these auditory vignettes are portraits of the human condition that will feel immediately familiar, sometimes painfully so, to all who’ve found themselves having a hard time navigating the world and relationships. Their first album since 2015’s You Look a Lot Like Me, Blum’s return in 2019 with Pity Boy has seen them tour both as a headliner and in support of acts like Lucy Dacus and Titus Andronicus. It’s the latter tour that brought them to Providence’s AS220 performance space on a rainy night in mid-October, an array of young people at the front of the room eagerly awaiting one of the most exciting voices in music who sings about the emerging world (emerging not as a genesis, but into the public eye more than ever) of living life unmoored from traditional gender constructs.  Through the years, Blum’s music has expanded from quiet, acoustic-led indie rock to Pity Boy’s bristling, fiery punk energy. It’s immediately evident that this is the first album Blum recorded as a band rather than solo. Their vulnerability has always been the heart of their music, opening up to the audience, and even with peppier arrangements, louder guitars, and a more confident delivery, Blum’s heart is open and on display as much as ever. Self-dissection of this caliber is rare, admirable, and community-building, projecting a voice in which LGBT+ people can find validation and from which those of us outside that community can glean understanding. Blum humorously introduces ‘See Me’ as a song about being a “trans ghost”, which elicits a laugh from the audience due to the gig’s proximity to Halloween, but the humor belies the truth that as not only a trans but also non-binary person, Blum faces a level of marginalization that most, this writer included, can never truly fathom. Visibility is a major theme of Pity Boy. On ‘Things Still Left to Say’ Blum frames it personally: “Do you miss me when I’m not around? Because you don’t see me when I’m here,” they sing. ‘See Me’ finds a more generalized sentiment against the world at large: “Why cant they see me? Why can’t they see – I was right there”.  This categorical erasure sits alongside plenty of other human drama as well. “Hurt people, hurt people – yes I think I know the type,” Blum says on ‘Salt Flats’, the slow-burning, excoriating heart of the album. “Twenty-seven is eleven, just on different meds,” they say, encompassing the album’s theme of cycles all too hard to break. Another heartrendingly pointed moment on the record arrives in ‘Not My Job’, where Blum contemplates killing off their “better”, altruistic self to finally end escape a cycle of codependency, painting a picture of someone strung up by their own good intentions.

Despite Blum’s clear skill for articulating sadness, there’s a joy and black humor to the music that balances out their continued exploration of life’s difficulties. The final tracks of Pity Boy are titled ‘Gotta Go’ and ‘Maybe I’ll Wait’, a playful and meta self-negation, and during every song the band is wild and animated, no one more so than guitarist Audrey Zee Whitesides, who jumps up and down infused with the energy of fast songs like ‘Things Still Left to Say’. There’s pain in Mal Blum’s world, to be sure, but it’s not without hope. Wounded but defiant, Pity Boy is a picture of someone connecting the dots of their own life, a snapshot of the pain, understanding, and healing all in one.

[morhdd]

gay trans lady punk rock, never stop.

i fucking love this band.

[newnoisemagazine]

Fear Of A Queer Planet: Featuring Audrey Zee Whitesides

Audrey Zee Whitesides is a New Yorker by way of the South, an embodiment of DIY punk ethos with an academic background in poetry, and an artist with the ability to make slyly political statements in a deeply personal and irresistibly relatable way. She is a multi-instrumentalist, lending her vocal, lyrical, and guitar prowess to the queercore/transcore trio Little Waist; playing bass for the momentous punk rock darlings, Worriers, and incisive singer-songwriter Mal Blum; and helming her own acoustic solo project as Audrey Otherway.

Read the full column here.

[30xlace]

Audrey Zee Whitesides

Honest?: Nature Preserves in Contemporary Culture

Pay no attention to art                        The moon, large in living, is reflected             for its familiarity and ease of preparation                               The thesis is this: a controlling impulse,             often moral                  And a continuous circular brushing             The morning, poxy-fingered, asks of us             I think of beginnings. I am weak             before a helpful and funny sailor             History argument For example, I call it “garden” and “un-garden”             because “un-garden” in the natural             human state             Whether or not one reads Genesis; possibly             At fault in the quaking earth             There are almost but not quite sufficient legends             Overhearing, “She’s crazy on birth control”             The first things are not simple, though tamed             Moving without opening, because paint             is applied in a suggestive fashion             A strut, a turn, something just shy             enough to believe             She hears a swan of static and is able             to keep brushing uncharged teeth             A place to keep not going For example, a row of bushes easily perceived             “at attention”             My dad, forester, explained,             “We have to cut or burn down             the large trees so the undergrowth             can have a chance             We use earthen ditches to control the fire,             which cannot cross them”             Sales, points of reference             When history, argument             She comes up A smell of chemical rose             Even a garden communicates;             perhaps I should say even an un-garden             communicates given my human bias             Subdued, paid enough attention,             though I’d deny it             On the other hand, stimulation argument             The ground is hot, only too fat in the middle             A tightening over strata             Words to defuse a situation             Then look back             How unfortunately timed, and the needle             slips the design             Workshop notes: fix flat characterization             So I became more, with my personal impatience,             audience with dress eyes, little extra fee             Everyone was very excited             for summer to begin, so much so             that they forgot ribbons and uncelebrated             their hair went             Growing over the cobblestones,             because they are there to follow             Hold on; adolescent, disregarded Finally, pay no art             I hath seen infirmity in the less             “A maid,” she walked, “youthfully”             And nature was it drew it to me             The words had been full             and the water bird most astonishing in its use             I abstained, moving into the familiar’s witch

[birdsoflace]

"She hears a swan of static and is able to keep brushing uncharged teeth A place to keep not going"

[dordourandi]

Mal Blum and The Blum

7/7/17

The Silent Barn

[fuckyeahqueermusic]

Audrey Zee Whitesides-"No Recognition"

First off, apologies for the awful video. I took it with my phone and am bad at filming things. Sorry!

But, more importantly, last night I went to Bureau of General Services Queer Division, an awesome queer bookstore near Chinatown in New York to see my friend and fellow Syracusian, Elliott DeLine, read from his first book and a new piece he's been working on (and if you haven't read any of his stuff, I highly encourage it. He definitely has a voice and perspective that I personally haven't seen in a lot of trans fiction and autobiographical writing).

Audrey from one of my new favorite bands, Little Waist, also performed a short four song acoustic set, playing a few Little Waist songs. She also played a cover of the John Prine song, "Paradise," as an ode to her home of Northern Kentucky, which was the source of the toxic chemical spill affecting West Virginia. Listen to it, it's an amazing and heartbreaking folk song. And if you aren't listening to Little Waist yet, what are you waiting for? It's good stuff. 

If you're in the NYC area, Little Waist is playing a show this coming Tuesday with several other trans punk bands to benefit the Brooklyn Transcore stage at Punk Island this year

[dordourandi]

Audrey Zee Whitesides

7/7/17

The Silent Barn

[dordourandi]

Mal Blum and The Blums (Audrey)

Sunnyvale

4/12/2017

[dordourandi]

Audrey Zee Whitesides

@ Williamsburg Music Hall

8/11/17