Spielfreude etc.

Wild Flag, apart from being one of the most anticipated things currently on my list of pop cultural stuff that I look forward to (as you might have guessed, actually getting to see the beginning to the epic end of Harry Potter and the next season of Skins UK / the first season of Skins US, are also featured prominently on that list), is also a very interesting example for a discussion of how music is now distributed / how fandom works when you can read about concerts a couple of hours after they've taken place, see pictures, watch videos of new unreleased songs months before the record is actually coming out. I have never actually looked forward to the first record of a band before, because I am not involved in the local music scene, and while I do sometimes catch bands before they become famous, it is never this early into the process. I look forward to Wild Flag because Sleater-Kinney will always be my favourite band, and I did keep track of the individual band members' new projects after the "indefinite hiatus". 

The first trace of Wild Flag, although hints of a band containing more than one member of S-K were probably visibile before this, was Carrie Brownstein's farewell note on Monitor Mix: "Finally, I have a new band called WILD FLAG." This picture shows all the members of the band: Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss, Mary Timony, Rebecca Cole.

They are currently touring the West Coast of the United States, starting from Olympia (where most of Carrie Brownstein's musical adventures have started, as she stated at the first show), and it will probably be months before their first record comes out, and years before they will ever tour Europe. Still - the internet provides the possibility of ALMOST being there, in spite of the geographical distance. Other people tell their stories to those who can not be there. Shaky videos with insufficient audio provide a hint of what is to come - and this specific kind of energy, of drive, of talent, doesn't get lost just because the quality of the recordings isn't that great. If anything, the shakiness provides for an additional layer of immediacy, of somehow being close to what is happening.

Of course it helps that I have been obsessed with the idea of a 1990s revival that doesn't just focus on the surface of things, but on the ideas, on the energy, the DIY spirit of claiming the right to go on stage and tell stories.