Sunday, December 9, 2012

West Coast Tour Dates!

Here we go! Headed to the west coast in less than a month to play some shows with our dear friends Whore Paint. Katy and I have never been out west with our band, so we're super pumped to see old and newish pals, beautiful trees, hang for 10 days with hilary, meredith and reba and get to play a ton of rad shows - all while driving over 2500 miles.

So here's the list. All with Whore Paint except January 4 in Seattle:

January 3 // Vancouver, BC (shows tba)
January 4 // Seattle, WA @ the Comet with Helms Alee, Uh-Oh and Bad Girls
January 5 // Bellingham, WA @ the Shakedown with Lozen, Uh-Oh
January 6 // Portland, OR @ the Know with Hot Victory
January 7 // Davis, CA (2 shows) @ KDVS-FM & @ Davis Bike Collective
January 8 // San Francisco, CA @ SUB/Mission Art Space (2183 Mission St) with Hot Tears, Ragana and Endemics
January 9 // Los Angeles, CA @ the Smell with Bastidas!
January 10 // Montone, CA @ Loko Lounge with tba
January 11 // Oakland, CA @ The Hive (1420 10th Street) with No Babies and Yi
January 12 // Portland, OR @ the Record Room with The Body
January 13 // Olympia, WA @ the Flophouse with FBD

Spread the word!

x,

d.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

West Coast and Upcoming Shows

hello world,

so two updates here.

1) we are playing DC on Friday November 2 at Comet Ping Pong.
    we are playing Baltimore on Saturday November 3 at Holy Frijoles with Big Mouth.

2) we are going to the west coast of the USA in early/mid January. Want to book a show or lend us gear or drive us around? get in touch. trophywifetheband(at)gmail.com.

and also i love THIS VIDEO

xo,

df and ko

Thursday, September 27, 2012

this band

y'all listen to this. i cant get enough: http://hopalong.bandcamp.com/

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

first review of sing what scares you

woah!

Trophy Wife’s Sing What Scares You, Reviewed

Diane [Foglizzo] and I write songs as a way to work through [our] intense friendship and creative partnership,” said Katy Otto in a recent interview. Anyone who's seen a show by Trophy Wife—her band with Foglizzo—can confirm that their music embodies that idea perfectly.
Foglizzo and Otto play shows facing each other, not to exclude the audience (they usually play on the floor of the stage, too) but more as a technical necessity: Their pummeling, cathartic, holler-along songs are full of time changes, rhythmically staggered harmonies, and other moving parts set off by subtle cues. When they're locked in a groove, the communication is seamless: The energy that pulses in the four or so feet between them feels so tangible and electric, it's almost like a third instrument.

Many of the songs on Sing What Scares You, their most powerful record yet, are about the spaces between people—relationships in the most universal sense. The cavernous rumble of Foglizzo's guitar sets the tone for "Boundaries" and “Turncoat” (“I thrive when you thrive/I grow when you grow”) while Otto's rapid-fire snare hits drive the epic, multipart "The Gunpowder is at Yer House" ("You don't want my limbs/I don't know how else to give"). Like the best Trophy Wife songs—and the most passionately tumultuous relationships—"Gunpowder" is all about the push and pull of extremes; dark thunderclouds of noise that suddenly break and reveal unanticipated glimmers of light.
Still, Sing What Scares You isn't big on artificial sunlight. "It Gets Better…?" is exactly what the title implies: a skeptical take on the much-publicized "It Gets Better" anti-bullying campaign, which Foglizzo and Otto have publicly critiqued for peddling queer youth a misleading sense of optimism. “It is what it is/What it is/what it is,” Foglizzo screams on the track, chucking off the rose-colored glasses. Her vocals are lucid but heavy, tuneful yet intense: Imagine Kim Dealat the summit of deserted mountain, shouting every Pod lyric at the sky. The songs’ emotional intensity and thought-provoking bite are sharpened by the fact (rare, even in more political-leaning punk) that you can understand almost every word she’s singing. “It is what it is” turns out to be a fitting credo. You don’t need to Google Trophy Wife interviews or scour the liner notes to get a sense of their stance on “It Gets Better...?”— just listen to the song.
Embracing darkness rather than sugar-coating or ignoring it, Trophy Wife's music aims to present life and relationships with a refreshing and uncompromising sense of realism. Sing What Scares You charts a detailed, craggy emotional terrain of endless peaks and valleys. And yet, ironically, the record is a testament to one thing that does get consistently better: Trophy Wife.
Trophy Wife plays at 2 p.m. on July 4 with Southern Problems, Lozen, and Hugh McElroy at The Rocketship, 1223 Decatur St. NW.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Monday, June 18, 2012

check it.

thanks to alison who wrote this review at boston hassle:

There’s that new, cool thing where a bunch of girls get together and get really weird and have seances and ouija their songs lyrics and only listen to Sisters of Mercy and The Pandoras for like 4-6 weeks straight and start wearing purple lipstick on one lip and black on the other and just sort of have all their shit figured out for a brief moment in their lives. Maybe the line is becoming more defined because way more girls have picked up on it, but Trophy Wife totally have their collective shit together. Their label says the Philadelphia band sound something like a civil war era punk band, but they go one step further. They pick up on the crucial next step in pop music. The past few years has sort of been a shit-show — witch-house, chillwave, dub-gaze — and Trophy Wife seems to understand what needs to come next. They’re a more vicious Grimes, or a more intense Mika Miko, but they move beyond comparisons. Disjointed, freakish but so cohesive, they deprive the listener in an controlled way.  They’re not exactly extremists, but they’re here to ween us off of the tepid pop we’ve been exposed to, while moving us in a new and exciting direction.
-Alison K

mini tour and record release!

Trophy Wife is releasing its second record, Sing What Scares You, on 307Knox Records and our own new imprint, Meet Your Adversary Records. Official release date is July 10 and we are doing some shows with our friends LOZEN, a great duo from the pacific NW featuring Hozoji from Helms Alee. Here are details:

july 4 - DC potluck with southern problems, lozen, trophy wife, hugh mcelroy 1223 decatur st 2pm potluck
july 5 - Philadelphia at Philamoca with lozen, trophy wife, erode and disappear and XanaX
july 6 - New York City at Cake Shop with BELLS, lozen, trophy wife and cycles
july 7 - Providence at building 16 w/ Lozen, Whore Paint, Cave of Colors 9pm
july 8 - Baltimore at Charm City Art Space 10th anniversary with Lozen and more

Monday, May 14, 2012

record release show

it is coming. in july. 


I saw Stinking Lizaveta for the first time 5 years ago around this time in the desert of new mexico before i even knew katy or played in a band or lived in philly. i was blown away by their set but haven't seen them since. and now we will play together at our record release show in july. woah. sweet!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Friday, April 27, 2012

Check out this neat mini-doc by lara tve with Spanish subtitles about prisons in US and footage from a Decarcerate PA rally (Feb 20 Occupy 4 prisoners). 

What's lara tve? Check it: La tarea es impulsar el control social del espectro radioeléctrico desde el territorio, siendo este un soporte de la construcción de la Revolución Bolivariana, de la Comuna Socialista.

Monday, April 16, 2012

australia!

found this website today. yay!


http://dirtybirddistro.wordpress.com/song-of-the-day/

About

After a long stretch of alienation and boredom and a few amazing conversations with a couple incredible people, some more energy was found and Dirty Bird was born. There is no such thing as punk enough, cool enough, queer enough or hardcore enough. We are as strong as our bonds with each other and these imposed hierarchies in our communities work towards alienation  instead of the support and inclusion we need.
Dirty bird seeks to provide visibility for those writing/making art or music who are marginalized in our largely straight white cys male scenes. While it is acknowledged that a distro is a small drop in the ocean of work we have to do to make our scenes/spaces/relationships safer, more inclusive and loving; making room for us to gain empowerment from one another is maybe one step closer towards that.
Dirty Bird is run by a white genderqueer sex working cys femme from sydney, australia whos just realized they are really busy and has since decided that this will be a long term project. This distro is still relatively new with big dreams and a somewhat short catalog that will hopefully grow. Please get in touch if u have recommendations for stuff to carry or if u would like to trade/sell me some of ur stuff!
kx

Monday, March 19, 2012

new interview, just fyi

very nice person did this interview with us recently:

You may know Katy Otto from her time in the bands Del Cielo and Bald Rapunzel, or her label, Exotic Fever Records. I know her simply as one half of Trophy Wife, one of the most inspiring rock bands I’ve seen in well over a decade. My band, Bells≥, had the good fortune to play a couple of shows with them earlier this month, and we’ll do so again this Saturday at Secret Project Robot. I caught up with Katy and her equally awesome bandmate Diane Foglizzo via email to talk books, French, and more.

How did you two meet and get Trophy Wife started?
Katy Otto: Diane doesn’t seem to remember it the way I do, but I had seen her messing around at some point on an acoustic guitar and was mad smitten. Key changes, time changes – all the things that have kind of become part and parcel to how we make songs. We were working together on a magazine — Give Me Back — at the time that stepped in where HeartAttack left off. We did a lot of writing, editing, and layout – eventually I think I just asked Diane if she wanted to “jam,” as embarrassing as that word is. I didn’t want to scare her away by calling it a band just yet. She didn’t have an electric guitar or an amp at the time, but I lived in a big ole group house full of equipment and musical derelicts, and we got her set up proper. First practice, we wrote a song. I didn’t tell her we’d put out albums, get matching tattoos, tour Europe – you gotta ease people into this stuff!!!!

Diane Foglizzo: I had known of Katy for a while before we worked on the magazine. She was always putting on shows and playing in bands. But I mostly remembered her because she was always that girl yelling out random things to bands at shows! Hah!

I noticed the words: “comblee par les vagues elle ne coule pas” on your website. I put them into a French to English translator and got: “Filled by the waves she does not flow.” First of all, is my translation even close and secondly, what is the significance of that text?

Foglizzo: Wow that translation is awful. It makes no sense! It actually means: tousled by the waves, she does not drown. Or in latin: fluctuat nec mergitur. It is the motto of the city of Paris and is on its coat of arms. I’m first generation American- all my family is French and most of them except my mom and 4 of my siblings still live there. I eventually got this as a tattoo – felt relevant on lots of levels. I guess the correct translation kind of speaks for itself, no? I know Katy relates to the sentiment, so we kind of have adopted it for our band.

Otto: We like incorporating languages that have personal, familial significance to us in our band. We have some lyrics in French, too – and one in German (my grandfather immigrated to the U.S. when he was a child, and speaking German has always been important to me). With this particular phrase, Diane is right – it did resonate with me, too. I was thinking the other day that sometimes people seem to assume that if you are emotional, you are not resilient. The phrase you reference is about resilience. I think that actually, being both – emotional and resilient – is possible. Sometimes not expressing emotion actually can hurt your resiliency, I think.

Foglizzo: Yes, resiliency. That’s the word.

“Four” is one of my favorite songs on your album Patience Fury. Musically it’s crushing and beautiful at once, and the only lyrics are: “Disassemble it and dialogue with me. Hold on (because) you can fix things.” I point to these lyrics especially because it seems to me that you are both working really hard in your life beyond the band to try to fix things. Could you talk a little about what each of you do at your day jobs?
Otto: I do communications, social media, and development consulting for non-profit arts and social justice organizations. Currently, I work primarily as the Communications Director of the Service Women’s Action Network based in NYC – a group dedicated to ending sex discrimination and sexual violence in the military. I also work with New Paradise Laboratories, an innovative internet and experimental theatre company based in Philly. Occasionally I do other projects. I help with some social media for a domestic violence shelter in DC, the District Alliance for Safe Housing. I have helped organizations with strategic plan development as well. I have worked full-time jobs at non-profits in the past, but I started my consultancy a few years ago as a means of synthesizing different kinds of work I like to do and being able to do it for different kinds of organizations.

Foglizzo: I try to maintain a healthy balance of many things (some times more successfully than others). It helps me stay excited, focused and it is super exciting when i can connect the dots between my various projects. At this moment, my main paid work is with Girls Rock Philly, a music based empowerment camp for girls, as their program coordinator. On the side, i also work at Giovanni’s Room, one of few remaining queer bookstores in the country and i think the largest and oldest at this point. I also nanny, when I can fit it in, because I love hanging with kids. As important to me and if not more sometimes though are the things I do not for pay: I’m in school at the community college here in Philly studying American Sign Language Interpreting. I also work with an organization called Decarcerate PA, working to stop the building of new prisons as well as change the laws, policies and sentencing guidelines that have led us down the road of mass incarceration, incredibly felt here in Pennsylvania. As for “Four,” that song came from a super personal place. I sort of speak to two main people in the song. My mom and Katy. “Disassemble it…” to my mom about me coming out to her. “Hold on you can…” to Katy (and to myself and to my mom) about not giving up when shit feels hopeless.

Otto: Diane and I write songs as a way to work through an intense friendship and creative partnership. One thing we have talked about wanting to do lately is interview other people we know who are in creative partnerships. This seems like a really interesting subject matter to us both, but is not the kind of thing that we think our society is that interested in highlighting. There is a strong focus on romantic partnerships, but it would be neat if friendships that also have a creative component were discussed in more detail. They take a lot of work, self-knowledge, effort, and communication. They are worthy of inquiry.

In what ways do you think your careers intersect with the band and vice versa?
Foglizzo: Hmm, well I know that I wouldn’t be in a band and feel so comfortable playing music if it weren’t for the Girls Rock movement, which didn’t exist when I was a kid but did something to me when I was helping to start the first camp in Washington, DC. I’d never been in such a positive effective and supportive environment of women and it really changed me. It was hard and had its ups and downs but at the end of the day, whatever it was we always worked through it. I went to an all girls’ school from 2nd to 12th grade and left there not having any idea of what being in a community of supportive peers and friends (especially women) was like. And now I work at Girls Rock Philly and also am in the most intense creative relationship ive ever had with another lady in my this current band Trophy Wife. But I feel like my answer to this question seems too easy!

Otto: I know that in my life I have occasionally opted for a career path that will allow and value focus on my artistic life. Because of my work in the nonprofit world as a consultant, I have had some of that freedom. My nonprofit work is about building a better world that values people. I think we express those kinds of ideas in our art. We also think a lot about embodiment in our band – we take up space, we make ourselves whole. I want a world and professional life that support that kind of embodiment for everyone – particularly people often left out of dialogue and leadership by mainstream institutions – queer people, youth, people of color, women.

Clearly scholarship is very important to both of you and I’m sure you’ve both read a ton of philosophical and sociological texts, but what do you pick up to read for fun?
Foglizzo: I like reading queer young adult fiction. Though honestly, thinking about it, they would be classified as page turners rather than fun reads, a lot of them end up feeling pretty heavy. David Sedaris? He makes me laugh. Err, I think I could use some suggestions actually. You know who I do love though that I find hilarious? Eddie Izzard! Cake or death?

Otto: Oh boy. For fun I at times read People magazine, which my mom did growing up. I know it is kind of a guilty pleasure but – wheeeee. So good. I still read Bitch magazine cover to cover, too. Also, I am sick of reading things on computers, and things being marketed to be read on computers. I like reading Bryant Terry’s cookbooks. He is a vegan, African-American food justice activist and thinker who combines recipes with songs to listen to while making them, art and films that inspire him, etc. He is the bomb.

Photo: Jana Sotzko

dc show - benefit for DC Trans Coalition

Trophy Wife
War On Women
Fell Types
Teenage Foot (formerly Hey Girl)

And it'll be Friday, 4/27 at the St. Stephen's Church at 16th and monroe NW.

funds for DCTC (dc trans coalition). check out this for a vision statement: We envision a world where all people – regardless of real or perceived race, socio-economic class, occupation, immigration status, (dis)ability, education level, age, sexual orientation, or any other factor – can self-determine their gender identities and expressions free from criminalization, discrimination, poverty or harassment. We believe all individuals have the right to figure out who they are and what makes them comfortable, and to make autonomous decisions about their own body without interference, fear, judgment or coercion.

Monday, March 5, 2012

wikipedia

this wiki is about the trophy wife from the UK, but there is fun note at the top. just noticed it. smiles! thanks whoever wrote that for clarifying!