Agent Ribbons, “Birds and Bees” (On Time Travel and Romance, 2006)
It didn’t take much for Agent Ribbons to work their way into my heart. Natalie Gordon and Lauren Hess are so stylish and exuberant you could watch them with the sound off and be entertained—though of course, you’d be doing yourself a disservice. “Birds and Bees” is a case in point of what makes the pair so thoroughly listenable—Natalie’s guitar tone is as warm as a winter blanket, Lauren’s drumming simple but deceptively clever. And of course, there are the lyrics, whose lovey-doveyness is undercut by a devilish streak that finds Natalie objectifying her beloved the way countless male songwriters have done to their female muses.
Peggy Sue, “Lover Gone” (Lover Gone EP, 2009)
Though technically a trio now, rounded out by drummer Ollie Joyce, Peggy Sue was founded on the artistic partnership of Brighton lasses Katy Young and Rosa Slade (who go by the sobriquets Katy Klaw and Rosa Rex, though they really don’t need to). Perhaps the most striking part of this, the title track from their new EP, is its brevity—less than two minutes to recount a four-year relationship whose ending must have hurt but good. And yet, their delivery is alarmingly confident, even matter-of-fact; “Lover Gone” is sad and sobering for sure, but forgoes tearful confession for clear-eyed acceptance.
. I’ve read the Fugazi chapter of 
many times, because its portrait of a group of musicians committed to quality and ethics in their work inspires the bejeezus out of me. Like most of Leo’s albums, Living with the Living stands among very few things I’ve found that can conjure the same feeling.
was released, and along with three friends stood agape for its duration—it was such a pop crossover song, and yet it was grounded in such a revolutionary spirit (sample lyric: “Some are dying for a cause / But that don’t make it yours”). That show ended early with the eruption of an apocalyptic thunderstorm; when I returned in 2005, the weather was more temperate, and I had the unbelievable luck to run into Clementine, a sweet and lovely French girl I’d met in Paris that summer, who was visiting the city with her family and had just happened to choose that show as the way to spend her last night in New York. We talked music all night, solidifying a friendship which is still intact today, as the Pharmacists played on in the background. But we both turned our attention to the stage when Leo announced, “We literally wrote this song this morning,” then launched into “The Sons of Cain.”
on Tuesday. It’s been three years since 