Guest Mix: Little Musket
Little Musket’s brand new album has officially arrived to Dadstache Records. In celebration of the release, we invited Catherine of the band to create a playlist of tracks that inspired the record and the band as a whole. Below, stream the playlist and peep why Catherine chose each track, too.
Losing Grip - Avril Lavigne
I saw Avril Lavigne at Gillette Stadium in 2003 from the second row, and it was maybe the best day of my young life. From that moment my life was changed. I have to thank Avril for kicking it all off.
Three Small Words- Josie & the Pussycats
The songs, the looks, Kay Hanley, the Y2Kness of it all! I’d never written anything very upbeat so I listened to this soundtrack a lot because I wanted to try and write something as catchy as these songs. This movie makes me dream of playing in a bowling alley too so if anyone has that connect please HMU.
Dookie- Green Day
This is just a classic. Literally the whole band is obsessed with Green Day. When we recorded Cum Rag my pedal was picking up a radio frequency and the station was playing “She,” so I guess we have an accidental Green Day sample on the album (don’t sue us.)
Jagged Little Pill- Alanis Morissette
What can I say about this true masterpiece that hasn’t already been said? This CD has been in the disc drive of my car for 2 years straight and I don’t get tired of it. I just wanted to try to bring that Alanis level of 90’s angst to this album.
Wildflowers- Dolly Parton, (The Trio)
My guiding light, my icon. I love her so much I had to write a whole song about her. This is my favorite Dolly Parton song. I used to listen to it in high school when I was sad about not fitting in but this song helped me realize that feeling like that was a waste of time.
Heft- Japanese Breakfast
I was listening to Psychopomp a lot the spring before I wrote this album, but this quote in particular from Michelle Zauner set the tone for my writing process . She talks about her mother passing away and says, “the lyrical content is quite dark and heavy-handed. I think in a lot of ways the emotional state I was in brought a real lyrical darkness…and there was a real desire to balance it out with material which was more sonically upbeat.” I thought about that a lot. I wrote almost everything on the album the Summer before my senior year of college. Over those few months, I lost someone with whom I had a very complicated relationship with, and immediately after shipped off to spend a month in New York to learn the ins-and-outs of museum work. I felt like an alien being carted around to different institutions where I clearly did not fit in. I lost faith in art spaces and in the career path I was on and experienced the biggest tailspin of my life in a city I didn’t know. I brought my electric guitar and practiced my scales every night as a way to work through everything I was experiencing. When I finally got back, I spent the entire summer feverishly writing and demoing music. I had a need to make something all-consuming and immediate. I cranked my distortion pedals all the way up so I could feel bigger than a person filled up with grief and I think Psychopomp is a record that does that too.
Jeep Song- The Dresden Dolls
After I wrote “Home for the Summer” I realized that the delivery and tone of it reminded me a lot of this song with the backing vocals, borderline musical theatre key change, and cheekiness of it. The original version was actually way more Beach Boys-ish but I feel like it sort of sounded like a car jingle or something so I changed it up a little bit. I think the core idea of a surf rock doo-wop song about getting drunk in the woods persists though.
This fictional band is the blueprint of my adult life. Pinkslip! The Wango Tango auditions! Jamie Lee’s guitar solo! RICHARD’S MOM! I also love that there are inexplicably three guitarists. There’s a lot of stuff from the 2000’s or from kids movies on this list and I definitely think that was a bigger influence than I’d like to admit.
Clear (Blue)- Ozlo
This is my guitarist Jess Schmid’s band and they are an incredible musician and songwriter! I played one of my first solo shows with my new material that September with Ozlo. and I just remember being blown away by their music and the energy of the crowd, and especially the guitar! My playing is very rhythmic but Jess has this ability to write these amazing angular riffs that have so much character and I think that translates to our album too, especially on Fever Blister and Stoney Baloney.
One Beat- Sleater Kinney
That drum intro gets me every time. I love Corin Tucker’s voice and definitely tried to channel her wailing vocals on more than a few tracks off this album. I think in a way because our band has no bassist Jess and I were writing some very Sleater-Kinney-esque guitar parts that duck and weave into each other to fill out our sound.
Feeling Fruit- Palehound
The first few years I wrote music I had a tendency to write long cryptic folk songs. One of the things I really wanted to do when I dove into writing on electric guitar was to be braver with my writing and say what I meant. The vulnerability of Palehound songs were one of the things that helped me feel confident to do that, especially this song. It beautifully captures what it feels like to be grieving and still have to go about your day-to-day. I found a lot of comfort in hearing something that was so relatable and knowing that I wasn’t alone with my feelings. Writing Burn Out I wanted to pay that feeling forward to anyone who’s dealt with grief.
50 ft Queenie- PJ Harvey
I love PJ Harvey’s first few albums and the WILD. FEMININE. ENERGY. of it all.
My Sister- Juliana Hatfield Three
This song goes HARD. This whole album rides the line between making catchy songs with good hooks but not losing those punchy guitar elements, and this track is the gold standard of that to me. Our drummer also Steve pulled a lot of inspiration for his parts from The Lemonheads and all of Juliana Hatfield’s projects too. We love her.
Local Music
The Boston scene has some truly incredible music coming out in the past few years. It feels to me sort of like a reflection of the indie world at large right now because queer, trans, and women-identified people are really dominating in my opinion. I feel like a late bloomer because it took me a long time to find my way around the queer DIY shows in the city. I played at a lot of horrible dive bars and male-centric basement shows and quit music every other month because I was being harassed or followed home after shows and felt generally unsafe. After I started becoming more involved in the community I was so inspired to finally take the plunge and make some loud, punk music. Some of the bands that inspired me most then and continue to do so are Banana, Gracie Givertz, Dazey and the Scouts, Prior Panic, Sidney Gish, Ozlo (obviously,) Squitch and so many others.
I threw all of these and a couple of extras on this playlist. Enjoy!