JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates Alanis Morissette’s 51st birthday.
Tag: women who kick ass
New Audio: Detroit’s The Lowcocks Shares a Blistering, Politically Charged Ripper
Founded back in 2017, the Detroit-based punk outfit The Lowcocks have established their own sound while sharing stages with several national touring acts, including The Casualties, Total Chaos, Nekromantix, The Koffin Kats, Menstrual Tramps, GBH, The Suicide Machines and The Exploited.
Their latest single “The Forgotten” is a blistering, politically charged, mosh pit friendly ripper, anchored around scorching, power chord-driven riffage, propulsive drumming and a snarled vocal. While “The Forgotten” channels old-school hardcore punk, the song focuses on contemporary concerns with a laser-like, incisive precision: The band explains that the song is centered around immigration detention center at this country’s southern border — and the experience of children who arrive without the safety and protection of relatives.
“The next time you see a four or five year old kid, imagine them running alone, in the dark, scared – and then being put in a cage,” the band’s Annie Oakley says. “Our news cycle moves fast and it’s easy to get burned out, or feel overwhelmed by the world, but these cages are still full of people and these kids are being forgotten, which is where the name of our song came from – it’s a reminder and a promise that we won’t let them be forgotten.”
New Video: DVTR Returns with an Incisive Ripper Tackling Colorism and Racism
French Canadian JOVM mainstays DVTR — Le Couleur‘s Laurence G-Do a.k.a. Demi Lune and Gazoline‘s, Kandle‘s Xavier Caféine‘s and Gab Bouchard‘s JC Tellier, a.k.a. Jean Divorce — burnt up the Canadian indie scene with the release of their debut EP, 2023’s BONJOUR. The EP amassed a plethora of rapturous reviews, landed on a number of Best of 2023 lists and earned the duo the first batch of a growing number of awards in Québec.
Building upon that momentum of the previous year, the duo released an expanded edition of their debut EP BONJOUR (BIS), which featured a couple of bonus tracks.
The Montrealers supported the original and expanded editions of BONJOUR EP with a frenetic and whirlwind world tour over the past couple of years, which has featured sets across the club and festival circuit in Asia, Mexico, Germany and Québec. They’re currently in the middle of an extensive bit of touring across France.
During this remarkably busy period, the duo released a live album on VHS (!) and added more awards to their already crowded mantle — the 2025 Breakout Artist of the Year at the GAMIQ Gala earlier this year.
And they’ve still managed to release new material. They began this year with “Né pour flâner (Born to loiter),” a song that further cements the duo’s uncanny knack for mosh pit friendly, catchy hooks, punchily delivered vocals and furious synth and guitar riffage.
Cementing their reputation for restless and frenetic creativity, the duo return with “Couleur peau (Your Next Token Asian Friend),” arguably one of the more defiant, feisty and perhaps somewhat straightforward punk songs of a growing catalog of breakneck rippers. The song sees the duo happily spitting on and trampling the outdated, ridiculous French concept of couleur peau (“skin color”), a term that according to the band only ever refers to white or beige skin. While calling out colorism, the song is also an incisive criticism of performative and wishy washy White liberals that sees the song’s narrator ready to cash in on White guilt. I’ll be your token Asian pal– if you ante up, the song says. But she’ll also call you out for it, as she’s cashing that check.
The accompanying video by Cedric Demers and Alexandre Normand feature DVTR’s frontperson insouciantly eating a buffet-style table of Chinese food while the song plays — with chopsticks and then a fork.
Throwback: Happy 81st Birthday, Gladys Knight!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Gladys Knight’s 81st birthday.
New Video: Jahnah Camille Shares Languorous “summer scorch”
Jahnah Camille (pronounced as “Hannah”) is a rising, 20 year-old Birmingham, AL-born and-based singer/songwriter and musician, who can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: Overhearing her father’s guitar lessons, she first picked up a guitar when she was four, and by the time she turned 10, she was writing her own songs.
Throughout her life, supportive coincidences have pushed Camille’s creative tenacity. Her mother encouraged an elementary school-aged Jahnah to perform for their apartment’s maintenance man, who then gifted her a red Gibson SG and an amplifier. At a hippie kids camp, she met a mentor, who helped to champion her early crowdfunded recordings.
“My mom was always having me sing and play guitar for people,” says Jahnah. “I’ve always had people who believed in me, and I feel like I’ve internalized that. That’s been really beautiful.”
Later opportunities to open for acclaimed artists like Clairo and Soccer Mommy led to her burgeoning status as a keenly self-examining indie rock singer/songwriter in a Birmingham scene saturated with punk and hardcore bands — many of which she played with in her earliest DIY shows.
“The first year after I graduated high school was kind of horrifying,” says Jahnah. “I had just basically broken up with most of my band. I wasn’t going to college. I was seeing how everyone else that I had known growing up, their lives were changing. I knew that whatever happened in my life, it wasn’t going to be that, and there wasn’t really any proof that things were going in a positive direction.”
The rising Birmingham-based artist’s sophomore EP, the Alex Farrar-produced My sunny oath! is slated for a June 13, 2025 release through Winspear. The EP comes on the heels of a run of tour dates with Blondshell and previous shows opening for TOPS,Soccer Mommy and Clairo — and the success of her debut EP, last year’s i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl.
My sunny oath! is set in the pressure cooker of new adulthood and is reportedly features a defiant collection of alt-rock, lo-fi grit and sardonic grunge that channels Jahnah Camille’s influences, including The Sundays, Liz Phair, Minnie Ripperton and Japanese Breakfast among others.
In the lead-up to the EP’s release, I’ve written about two of its previously released singles:
- “what do you do,” a 90s/120 Minutes MTV-era indie rock inspired anthem, anchored around a classic grunge rock structure paired with the young artist’s remarkably self-assured vocal turn and uncanny knack for an enormous, well-placed hook. “I wrote this while trying to understand the feeling of losing control,” the rising Birmingham-based artist says, “I was paralyzed by a need to control how other people saw me and needed to write about it.”
- “sit with you (pain),” a song that begins with a lush and dreamy, singer/songwriter, acoustic guitar section with gently rumbling feedback that slowly builds up into a full-throated, bombastic, feedback and grungy power chord-driven anthem. While continuing to showcase a young songwriter, who can craft a big, rousingly anthemic hook and chorus, the song is anchored in deeply lived-in and earnest hurt. The song “is about cutting someone out of your life who you still care for deeply,” she explains. “All of your critiques and drawbacks are still secondary for the love that you have. I wanted to make a habit of doing things that were good for me even if they hurt.”
My sunny oath!‘s third and latest single, the slow-burning and languorous “summer scorch” sees the rising, young singer/songwriter pairing a dreamily yearning delivery with strummed guitar, a simple yet propulsive backbeat that builds up to a big string-driven bridge. While evoking the stickiness of a humid, deep South summer afternoon, the song is rooted in real, lived-in, self-doubt, fear of rejection and desperate hope.
“I wrote it about a crush that I never even talked to,” the rising young singer/songwriter explains. “I was just like, ‘Would I be able to keep myself? Can I be trusted with a romantic relationship?’”
The accompanying video by Harrison Shook, is a hazily shot visual that follows a brooding Jahnah Camille on and near a stool in front of suburban-styled house and what appears to be an abandoned warehouse. The visual also evokes a similar humid, haziness.
Throwback: Happy 68th Birthday, Siouxsie Sioux!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates SIouxise Sioux’s 68th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 54th Birthday, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 54th anniversary of the birth of Lisa Lopes.
Throwback: Happy 77th Birthday, Stevie Nicks!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Stevie Nicks’ 77th birthday.
New Audio: Dublin’s Martina and the Moons Share Shimmering and Yearning “Baby Turtle”
Led by Spanish-Scottish frontperson Martina Moon, the rising Dublin-based indie outfit Martina and the Moons can trace their origins back to when Moon relocated to Dublin to study at BIMM University. During her studies, Moon met and quickly connected with her then-future bandmates, Ruby Levins (bass), Zahira Ellis (drums) and Sarah Morgan (guitar). The Dublin-based quartet quickly got out of the game, establishing a sound that blends elements of post punk, indie rock, 90s Britpop and the 60s and 70s Laurel Canyon sound paired with gorgeous melodies and a youthful aggression and angst.
Moon, who cites Paul Simon, Lady Gaga, Catatonia, Radiohead, Bruno Mars and a lengthy list of others influences, pens lyrics that touch on themes of alienation, being misunderstood, being an outsider and yearning with a deeply, lived-in earnestness.
So far, the band has played opening slots for Porridge Radio and Thumper. The quartet played Whelan’s Main Stage at Ones to Watch. And adding to a growing regional profile, they played this past year’s The Great Escape Festival, receiving mentions from BBC Introducing and praise from Golden Plec and from Hotpress, who named them one of their Hot for 25′ acts.
Building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the members of Martina and the Moon recently signed to Dublin-based artist developmental label Rubarb Music, who released their latest single, the Ruadhrí Cushnan-produced “Baby Turtle.”
Recorded at Camden Recording Studios, “Baby Turtle” is a slow-burning, meditative tune featuring a shimmering and jangling guitar melody, a brooding bass line and dramatic, angular drum patterns serving as a lush bed for Moon’s breathtakingly gorgeous and achingly yearning vocal. Still drawing from post punk, “Baby Turtle” is anchored around a decidedly cinematic and dream pop leaning and a deep-seated yearning to be truly understood.
“‘Baby Turtle’ is a song about many things, and I have found that looking at it from different moments in my life since I wrote it has changed the way I perceive it,” Martina and the Moon’s Martina Moon explains. “It was originally meant to be just about baby turtles hatching and crawling down to the sea, Once I started researching turtles more I found that a very small percentage of the turtles who hatch make it to adulthood. They are such beautiful little creatures. I then look at it from where I am at the moment, just striving for self-fulfillment and trying to make a living far from my home and family, Maybe I am the baby turtle in the end. I made the choice of trying to pursue my music career, which was so hard to get people in my life to come to terms with. I feel like that’s an issue most people in the creative industry face at some point in their lives, especially when they don’t come from a wealthy background that allows them to fail at something without consequences. But when you love something so fiercly it lingers within your core. The narrator of the song is someone who wishes the best for that person who they love and is leaving, That person is my mum, that person is my best friend María from home, my teachers in high school or my younger self. I hope my potential isn’t wasted, but I am living my truest life.”
Throwback: Happy 81st Birthday, Patti LaBelle!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Patti LaBelle 81st birthday.
New Video: Smut Shares a “120 Minutes”-era MTV-like Power Ballad
After spending years in the Cincinnati DIY scene, Smut — currently Tay Roebuck (vocals), Andie Min (guitar), John Steiner (bass), Sam Ruschman (guitar) and Aidan O’Connor (drums) — caught the attention of Bayonet Records, who signed the band and released their sophomore album, 2022’s critically applauded How the Light Felt. The album brought the band to Chicago, a city with more room for their growing sound.
But despite their early successes, they still faced the struggles of the modern working musician: instability, financial precarity, objectification and more. The band channeled a period of touring, personnel changes and personal upheavals into their third album, Tomorrow Comes Crashing.
Slated for a June 27, 2025 release through Bayonet Records, Tomorrow Comes Crashing marks the band’s first album with O’Connor and Steiner and reportedly sees the band re-energized and trained on the limitless potential that comes with making music with people you love.
The members of the band focused on capturing the big emotions that come with falling in love with music for the first time. The result is ten of arguably their most intense, bombastic and focused songs to date.
The Chicago-based band recorded the album’s material “as live as they could,” alongside Momma‘s Aron Kobayashi Ritch in a Red Hook, Brooklyn-based studio over a breakneck 10-day session. Roebuck. Right before they went off to New York, Roebuck and Min got married, with the rest of the band by their side.
“We have so much energy right now,” Smut’s Roebuck says. The recording sessions were a true labor of love — driving from Chicago with all their equipment, returning from 12 hour studio days to sleep on friends’ couches and floors, Roebuck completely blowing her voice by the end. Fittingly, the album is culmination of the band’s long-held DIY spirit — with the band creating a record that encompasses the intensity, moodiness and emotions of their journey so far.
Last month, I wrote about album single “Syd Sweeney,” a track named for an inspired by the actor, that’s anchored around Siamese Dream-like power chords, rolling and propulsive drumming and enormous, beer-raised-high-in-the-air, shout-along worthy hooks and choruses paired with Roebuck’s rock goddess-like delivery before ending with a thrash metal-like coda that would make Billy Corgan smile.
The song is about how profoundly strange it can be to be a woman, to be misunderstood by people, who don’t even know you — and probably will never know you. Roebuck says: “Women in entertainment are exceptionally talented, smart and beautiful, because they have to be. Sometimes they want to explore sexuality and vulnerability in their work. Then the pitchforks come out, how dare they be amazing AND sexual? You can only be one or the other! Why is talent and hard work seemingly erased once you’ve seen a woman naked?”
“It makes sense then to interpret it as a horror film, where we have the dividing tropes of final girls and sexy bimbos who die first for being too damn sexy,” Roebuck continues. “We put the sexy woman in the movie so we can see her be sexy and then kill her for it. It’s a lose-lose. Being a woman in art is to be objectified one way or the other. Success is the monster chasing you, waiting for you to be a little too sexy, knife ready.”
Tomorrow Comes Crashing‘s latest single “Touch & Go” is a full-throated, 120 Minutes MTV-era power ballad that showcases the band’s knack for pairing rousingly anthemic hooks with, big riffs and earnest, lived-in lyricism and songwriting.
“‘Touch & Go’ is a broken fantasy that was pretty directly inspired by ‘Time to Pretend’ by MGMT,” Smut’s Tay Roebuck explains. “The pursuit of success and the daydreams we have of ‘making it’ are pretty easily shattered once you put that fantasy in the modern world. The song ends with the realization that the best part of music will always be the community you build with it.” In the song’s last moments she sings, “The basement flooded / The coffee burned / The van is broken down / We all take turns / Touch and go.”
Fittingly, the accompanying video looks and feels as though it could have aired during 120 Minutes.
New Audio: Music 4 Diana Shares Heartfelt Ballad “Mil Años”
Diana Jiminez is a Colombian-American, New Jersey-based singer/songwriter and creative mastermind behind the emerging recording project Music 4 Diana. Jiminez’s latest Music4Diana single “Mil Años” is a slow-burning ballad that showcases Jiminez’s gorgeous vocal and deeply heartfelt lyrics.
The emerging New Jersey-based artist explains that the song was written to pay tribute to her father. And as a result, it captures a sense of gratitude while being anchored around a message about love, legacy and the eternal bond between a daughter and her father.