June 19, 2017

Art School Jocks Don’t Mess Around

The band’s new album serves up a bracing cocktail that’s perfect for these anxious times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDtq20EqFeA

Art School Jocks

Art School Jocks

Father/Daughter

Courtesy of Riot Act Media

Calling their music “existential basement pop,” the all-female Atlanta quartet Art School Jocks makes a striking debut with this rousing five-song EP. While they like a casual garage-rock vibe, with raw, shambolic beats and shaggy unison vocals, the songs don’t mess around. The unnerving standout “Just a Gwen” pushes back against potential threats, advising, “Carry your keys between your knuckles/You never know who’s trying to follow you home,” and, “Cover your legs up/Watch your drink,” adding, “I want to feel comfort walking alone.” Throughout, the combination of engaging music and brooding lyrics (when you can decipher them) makes a bracing cocktail that’s perfect for these anxious times. More, please.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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