The set record saved altering, proper up till showtime. Laura Jane Grace needed to cram greater than 20 years of music — each solo materials and from her influential punk band In opposition to Me! — into quarter-hour. Her band was used to this gleeful chaos. Grace’s spouse, Paris Campbell Grace, Drive-By Truckers‘ Matt Patton and The Ergs’ Mikey Erg make up the Mississippi Medicals, a loving and stabilizing drive for a catalog of songs about American injustice, inventive frustration, identification and damaged guarantees… but in addition hope by means of collective motion and private revelation. On this Tiny Desk, you will see them play newer songs (“I am Not a Cop” and “All F***** Up”), but in addition throwbacks to “Pints of Guinness Make You Sturdy” (a private request) and a fully highly effective model of “Black Me Out.”
An In opposition to Me! present modified my life. Earlier than Grace’s set, I shared a narrative a couple of candy, sheltered suburban child who spent his freshman 12 months at reveals as an alternative of learning for sophistication. (I misplaced my school scholarship, however, hey it labored out for me in the long run.) Reinventing Axl Rose had simply come out, however everybody knew each single phrase. Within the small front room, the mass of our bodies moved like excessive tide, pushing and pulling as we gleefully sang, “ ‘Trigger, child, I’m an anarchist / And also you’re a spineless liberal.” We knew that the world will be rotten and merciless, but may very well be lovely, too, in how we battle for freedom collectively. At one level, the swell spilled over and I fell out the again door, then was shortly pulled again up as a result of that’s what we do when somebody falls.
Strolling again to my dorm room afterward, beaming and bruised, I had a realization: Punk is advanced and contradictory; it’ll fail and frustrate you… however it’ll additionally set you free. That paradox nonetheless haunts and challenges me, however I put on these songs — and all which have come after — like armor.
SET LIST
- “I’m Not a Cop”
- “All F***** Out”
- “Supernatural Possession”
- “Pints of Guinness Make You Sturdy”
- “Black Me Out”
MUSICIANS
- Laura Jane Grace: vocals, guitar
- Paris Campbell Grace: vocals
- Matt Patton: bass, vocals
- Mikey Erg: drums, vocals
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Lars Gotrich
- Director/Editor: Maia Stern
- Audio Technical Director: Josephine Nyounai
- Host/Sequence Producer: Bobby Carter
- Videographers: Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Elizabeth Gillis
- Audio Engineer: Carleigh Unusual
- Photographer: Estefania Mitre
- Tiny Desk Workforce: Hazel Cills, Kara Body, Ashley Pointer
- Government Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Sequence Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
- VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
