The Friday Dispatch
Lucidvox, Exene Cervenka, Good Looks + win tickets to see Mitski, LCD Soundsytem and Death Cab in London
How war and separation led Lucidvox to level up
It’s rare to get all four women from Lucidvox in the same place at the same time these days. Not long after Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolled into eastern Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian band scattered westwards: singer and flautist Alina Evseeva moved to Israel and guitarist Galla Gintovt to her in-laws’ home in southern Germany, while drummer Nadya Samodurova and bassist Anna Moskvitina have built new lives for themselves in Serbia.
Like many of their friends in the Russian underground scene, Lucidvox spoke up early against the war in Ukraine, recognising the critical importance of the moment. Still, like many other peaceful Russians, they have been on the sharp end of an indiscriminating cancel culture that leaves little room for nuance. As well as being shunned by certain promoters and receiving “shitty comments” on social media, the band’s audience on streaming platforms has noticeably shrunk, though Samodurova points out that this probably has a lot to do with their physical absence from Russia as well.
Their latest album, That’s What Remained is, then, at its heart an album that strives for clarity and connection on a deep-set level. It’s an album that wants to be understood, full of grown-up songs about what it means take the reins of your own hope, set against a backdrop of alienation enforced by the global pandemic and the outbreak of Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine. “Even though we’ve moved to Europe we still feel stuck,” Samodurova explains. “We feel stuck in our heads, in a way, because we don’t know what to do with this changed situation. We don’t know how we will exist, and I don’t mean day-by-day but in a more global sense. What is it that we need to do in our lives? I don’t know yet.”
Exene Cervenka and the last days of X
Before joining X in 1977, Exene Cervenka had no real ambition to be in a band, least of all a lead vocalist.
Although she sat in on the band’s first rehearsals, she was mostly in a dark corner writing poems and getting drunk while singer/bassist John Doe and guitarist Billy Zoom tried to figure out what the earliest incarnation of X might sound like. It was Doe who pushed her to join him behind the mic, and by the time Dave Grohl’s cousin DJ Bonebrake joined as the band’s official drummer the following year that same year, Cervenka was as much a member of the band as anyone. It’s impossible to imagine X without her, and vice versa. “I’m very fortunate that I fell in with John because I would not be alive otherwise,” she says, bluntly. “I wouldn’t have made it out of my twenties, and if I somehow had, I don’t know what I would have done with my life. But it would not have been as rewarding.”
Dropping out of high school at 16 and leaving home at 18, Cervenka had her world turned upside down when her mother passed away after a short illness. She briefly moved back in with her father to help take care of her two younger sisters, but when a chance came up to move across the country to Santa Monica with a friend, she couldn’t have taken it fast enough. It was shortly after that she met Doe, at a poetry workshop in nearby Venice, and the path was laid for the emergence of her true form as Exene. “I had no intention of ever being normal, and I couldn’t hold a regular job,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m just really grateful that I’ve been able to make a living doing all the things I love to do.”
It's been 44 years since X released their debut album Los Angeles, widely regarded as a canonical entry in the history of American punk. Other than a cover of The Doors’ “Soul Kitchen”, Doe and Cervenka co-wrote every track, and as a songwriting team they were unbeatable. There has never been a wordsmith in the punk scene quite like Cervenka, and her maximalist commitment to unprettiness could sell any song on any subject, political or personal.
After decades of traditional band ups and downs, that X’s latest album, Smoke & Fiction has arrived with all four original members seems almost too good to be true. The fact that it will most probably also be their final album is less pleasing, but what a way to go out. Even after 40+ years, the feeling of excitement of putting out a record still comes with an element of fear, Cervenka admits. “It’s like, ‘What if nobody buys it? What if nobody likes us?’ but, as John says, that’s not the point of making a record, and he’s right. Still, it’s a lot of hard work, and everyone who has had a part in it wants it to do well. You don’t want to make a great record that gets forgotten about after two weeks or whatever, so I do hope it has some legs and that people find it.”
Good Looks finally get a break
Neither pandemics, freak accidents, nor the heavy weight of the music industry can bring Good Looks down. No matter what life throws at this group, they somehow manage to keep going.
The Austin-based indie-rock outfit formed around one of those beautiful amalgamations of worlds that tend to create the very best type of artistic projects. For frontman Tyler Jordan, music was always “the path”. “I wanted to be a musician since I was a teenager," he explains. "I had laid out my plan, and I never got off the ride." Bouncing around the Texas and indie music scenes in the time following his graduation, he wandered in and out of bands and circles over the years. At times, he thought about leaving the industry, but years kept going by and he could never quite quit.
At a pilgrimage to the Kerrville Folk Festival in 2015 — one of many stints he’d had at the event — Jordan met his now-bandmate Jake Ames. A close friendship grew out of casual playing sessions, and by 2017, a formal project was put into motion. As bands do, they went through several iterations before arriving at the formation of Good Looks that exists today.
But all the hard work and hoping, for many of the band’s early years, Good Looks couldn’t ever quite catch a break. While the production of Bummer Year was in full swing by 2018, its release plan got derailed by Covid. In 2022, when the project finally came to fruition, Ames was caught in a freak accident crossing the street outside the venue where the band hosted their album release party. The accident left him with a fractured skull and tailbone and had him sent to the ICU, where he spent months recovering, bandmates in tow.
Now, after the release of their sophomore record Lived Here For A While, the band are cruising with more momentum ever than before, with a headline tour and a slot at Pitchfork London later this year to prove it. As Jordan and the band set out to promote Lived Here For A While, they seem fairly confident that if they keep building brick by brick, the rest will come.
Three things to get excited about this week
The band: Bringing theatrics and soaring vocal flips in spades, Brooklyn-based Wetsuit might be your new favourite neighbourhood-band darlings. Known already in the New York scene, they’re racking up higher profile appearances — such as a support slot with Good Looks last night — and are teetering on the edge of a breakthrough moment.
The video: This week, Vancouver-based artist Kylie V unveiled the video for their latest single, “Lucky Streak.” Offering a cinematic look at the Canadian west coast city, it’s a witty accompaniment to an addicting new indie-pop track from a singer-songwriter on the rise.
The set: Last week, over 100,000 people packed into Chicago’s Grant Park to watch the indomitable Chappell Roan perform at Lollapalooza. It was a historic moment for the festival — its highest crowd ever in attendance — and the show-stopping performance drew deserved comparisons to iconic festival performances like Queen at Live Aid in 1985. Catch the magic from home with the recently-released, on-demand version of her set.
Win VIP tickets to every single All Points East show
This year's All Points East is probably the strongest line-up the event has put together in its six-year history. With nods to the past, present and future of visionary, envelope-pushing sounds, it's a canon moment for music fans – curated with a deft hand and set in the indie heartland of London.
All Points East runs over the weekends of August 16-18 and 23-25 at London’s Victoria Park and among the crowning glories of the five-day event are three artists who have shaped the last 40 years of alternative music: LCD Soundsystem, (marking their return to the festival after playing at its inaugural event), the Pixies, and Death Cab for Cutie, whose frontman Ben Gibbard is something of a spiritual godfather to Best Fit.
Elsewhere, Kaytranda and Tems head up the opening night – joined by Thundercat and Victoria Monét – while Loyle Carner plays one of his biggest shows to date, with rep legends Nas and André 3000 along for the ride.
Every sell-out gig you missed this past year is also safely covered too: Mitski's big day at All Points East sees Ethel Cain returning after her amazing Roundhouse shows, while every blog kid’s favourite Jai Paul joins Floating Points, and Jockstrap to play ahead of LCD Soundsystem.
The closing night’s Death Cab/Postal Service double headliner is an indie spectacular: Phoenix! Gossip! The Decemberists! Teenage Fanlcub! Yo La Tengo! Dig into the undercard and there’s even more new-favourite-band joy, with Best Fit tips Wisp, Nia Smith, Towa Bird, Wednesday, Macy and Molly Payton among an actual embarrassment of riches.
There are still some tickets left for the shows and you can pick them up at the All Points East website.
We've also joined forces with the event to give away pair of VIP tickets for every single show to one lucky reader.
Block out your August weekends and enter the competition now!
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists – 20 new tracks, top-loaded from the last five days in music and on repeat in the Best Fit office right now.
Leading the selection this week are new tracks from Orphée, Pest Control, Human Interest, Video Age and coverstar Yuneki.