cover photo: Tits Dick Ass
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If ever there was a time to ritually watch a music video by trio known as the Cedar Street Sluts—who once served as GG Allin’s backup singers and then spun off into their own act just like Vanity 6 did with Prince—perform GG Allin’s original composition “Sluts in the City” on an cramped “sketchy alleyway” soundstage complete with a blatantly fake “bum” (the newsboy cap being his most bummy feature) eyeing the girls nervously as they bump and grind and pose like three office workers from New Hampshire who decided to dress up like Sheena Easton and go out to karaoke and sing “Sugar Walls” as they sing in nasal-toned unison about how “I’m a bitch, I’m a sleazy whore” and “We’re the Cedar Street Sluts! We hate everyone!” then Valentine’s Day is probably the day to do that cuz you best believe I’m in luv, L-U-V…

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…and you will be too if you watch the video above but that’s not the only reason we’re brought you here today cuz this song is but one of 69 utterly filthy, irreverent, anatomically obsessed and totally awesome paeans to love and hope and sex and dreams brought together via the magic of music streaming in an original Deli playlist that we’re calling DELIntines Day: Lewd, Rude & in the Mood featuring no less than 68 additional viral hits (there’s a whole mini-set of songs contained within on the subject of venereal diseases) such as “You Fingered Me Weird” by DickLord, “Sit On My Face Stevie Nicks” by the Rotters, and “Oral Sex With A Caterpillar” by Jerry Jamrag & The Afterbirths so you see the level of depravity we’re dealing with here…

…and speaking of depravity there’s two count ‘em two NYC bands that lead off the playlist with two brand-spankin’-new songs about tainted love RELEASED TODAY with the two acts in question being Homade and Tits Dick Ass and I don’t believe it’s hyperbole to say both these songs are the Zen perfection ideal of what a Valentine’s Day song should be, i.e., full of snotty disregard for the heteronormative, Hallmark-card pieties of a holiday that telling erases the already fine line between coupledom and consumerism to which the best forms of protest are the practice of either total debauchery or willful withdrawal (both well represented on the playlist!) and by the way when it comes to the latter Happy International Quirkyalone Day to those who celebrate…

…and who better than slutty-and-proud-of-it “bad girlfriends” to lead us out of the wilderness which happens to be the primary subject of both songs as made clear by the mere title of Tits Dick Ass’s “GF from Hell” and in case you were curious about the province of the band’s name TDA are named after the old parlour game where someone names three celebrities and then everyone pretends they’re Ed Gein who’s just murdered the three celebrities in question and now must decide which of them has the best Tits, Dick, and Ass (respectively) since he’ll be using their body parts to finish assembling the Frankenstein’s monster he’s been working on in the basement so you can see why the game is sometimes called Fuck, Marry, Kill for psychopaths…

….but anyway back to TDA—known in some circles as the Hardest Working Trans-Fronted Feminist Punk Rock Band in Show Business—this tranarchy-endorsing power trio fronted by Julia Pierce sound like a million hollars by scholars of squalor on this their sonic-steamroller of a debut single (plus they don’t look too shabby either, I mean, who doesn’t love a drummer in bondage gear?) and really I can’t recall a punk rock combo who were both this doomy and this dancey since 45 Grave first haunted the shabby storefront clubs and gritty dens of iniquity of Eighties LA/Hollywood with TDA coming off on the whole like an amped up/turned on/pissed off version of Joy Division covering “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” with detectible filaments of Birthday Party, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and early Hole also to be found in their sound…

…and now lastly but not leastly and only moderately yeastily, this brings us to the officially designated Bratz of the Lower East Side, a four-piece collective known as Homade who’ve been featured in these pages before in both full-band and side-project form and truly the Homaders have outdone themselves once again with thire new single released just today called “Broken Hearts” (a longtime live fave) with lead singer Lola D. fully embodying the photo found under the word “tongue-in-cheekily superciliously bad girlfriend” in the dictionary with a stirring sung-spoken monologue that starts off all David Johansen/Mary Weiss like with Lola declaiming “Boys never wanna just kiss / they wanna cuff me” and then once the music kicks in “you dick-game is aight / but I’m scared that you love me” soon admiringly that “I get off to broken hearts and broken things”…

…which totally embodies the Sluts in the City/Quirkyalone ethos described above as the song builds and builds like a boulder careening down a mountaintop in an electrifying blur of schadenfreude sorcery and lucky for New Yorkers everywhere if you feel like getting felled by TDA’s steamrolling sonic attack and Homade’s careening Heartbreak Express then you can do just that tonight at The Broadway as the bands celebrate V-Day with a double single-release party alongside local faves Pons and Theophobia which is but one of the numerous VD-celebrating-and-eviscerating performances planned for tonight so be sure to check your local listings (in any city or burg!) or simply visit the Deli’s Instagram page and check the feed for the relevant flyers… (Jason Lee)

 

photo by Daniel Weiss

The cat’s out of the bag. Homade knows your secret. 

This fact is made abundantly clear in the opening moments of the foursome’s new single “Eggshells (I Know Your Secret)” with the parenthetical phrase repeated enough times for you to get the point. And while soon it’s revealed that they’ll keep your secret (phew!) they'll only do so “so long as you do just what [they] say” (d’oh!) and what’s more not until they've got you walking on eggshells and kissing their collective feet so clearly we’re not dealing with good faith negotiators here.

—> CLICK HERE TO HEAR “EGGSHELLS” <—

Granted that latter threat may serve as enticement for some but either way Homade clearly relishes the opportunity to hold the revelation of said secret over your head, erm, feet, as indicated not only by the song’s not-yet-tea-spilling lyrics but also by the coy, teasing Bratz Doll tone of their delivery and also by the music itself because if ever a song sounded like it was taunting you while taking devilish delight in doing so it’s this one.

—> CLICK HERE TO HEAR “SALLY” <—

But here’s the thing: Homade has a way of making your potential ruination sound alluring, maintaining a delicious musical tension throughout that's only bolstered by the song’s lack of release in both musical terms and secret-keeping terms. Plus they clearly have a knack for morality tales with sing-songy vocals and grunge-encrusted-yet-etherial musical aesthetics because “Sally (Live At Holy Fang)" which is the other half of the double-single they released concurrently with “Eggshells," also ticks off these particular boxes—a fractured fairy tale about a girl who “fell down a well [and] went right to hell” recorded live that ebbs and flows enticingly over the course of nearly five minutes. 

And for further confirmation you should also check out Homade's debut single “Blue Fish” which sounds like it was literally recorded underwater with its slithering bass line and shimmering pointillistic guitar bubbles percolating to the surface and if this all sounds like your particular cup of tea (spilled or non-spilled) or maybe your “cup of cuttlefish" sticking with the aquatic theme here then by all means give these songs a listen. (Jason Lee)

Homade play the Holy Fang "Animal Home" festival on August 20, 2022 with an all-round amazing lineup of performers...

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MORE SONGS ABOUT SECRETS!!!
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