Breeders are back for twentieth anniversary of LAST SPLASH
Webster Hall
125 East 11th St. between Second & Third Aves.
Thursday, December 19, and Friday, December 20, $30, 8:00
www.websterhall.com
www.breedersdigest.net
www.speedyortiz.bandcamp.com
Twenty years ago, indie supergroup the Breeders exploded onto the scene with their second full-length album, The Last Splash, which featured the monster hit “Cannonball,” reaching platinum heights propelled by an ultracool video directed by the impossibly hip team of Spike Jonze and Kim Gordon. Consisting of bassist Josephine Wiggs from the Perfect Disaster, drummer Jim Macpherson, and twin-sister guitarists Kim and Kelley Deal from the Pixies (Kelley replaced original Breeder Tanya Donelly of the Throwing Muses, who went on to form Belly), the band created a punchy, infectious sound that influenced such other groups as Nirvana, whom the Breeders opened for on a European stint. The Breeders are celebrating the twentieth anniversary of The Last Splash, which also includes such gems as “Invisible Man,” “Flipside,” “No Aloha,” and “Drivin’ on 9,” with the release of the deluxe box set LSXX (4ad, May 2013) and a tour in which they are playing the record in full. They’ll be doing so at Webster Hall on December 19 & 20, adding all of 1990’s Pod as well. But be sure to get there early, because you won’t want to miss Northampton’s Speedy Ortiz, a band whose music evokes the heyday of the Breeders.
Speedy Ortiz will open Breeders shows at Webster Hall (photo by Noe Richards)
Named after a street-gang punk in Jaime Hernandez’s Love and Rockets comics, Speedy Ortiz is currently on the road in support of its debut album, Major Arcana (Carpark, July 2013), a ten-song treat in which the band is constantly changing tempos and volume, offering tantalizing surprises every step of the way. Guitarist and lead singer Sadie Dupuis writes the music first, then adds lyrics that fit into her shifting melodies. “Was it the teeth or my tongue that said / ‘Go shut your lips, let us take a rest’? / Oh, my mouth is a factory / for every toxic part of speech I spew,” she begins on “Tiger Tank,” adding, “Oh, my face is a label / to convey how very awfully I’m doing.” In its short three-year history, Speedy Ortiz hasn’t been doing awfully at all, releasing the cult hit “Taylor Swift” (“Blood-shaking, clot-making viper that feeds on a mouse / Poaching the eggs of the snakes that I slayed in the South), an EP called Sports that includes songs about basketball, indoor soccer, and curling, and the speaker-rattling Major Arcana and have the EP Real Hair, featuring “Everything’s Bigger,” scheduled for early 2014, reteaming them with Pixies producer Paul Q. Kolderie, who worked on the “Taylor Swift” / “Swim Fan” single. Dupuis, shredding guitarist Matt Robidoux, Christmas-born bassist Darl Ferm, and drummer Mike Falcone will be opening for the Breeders at the Webster Hall shows before going off on their first European tour.