Bum Sums: Femme Punk, Zombie Superheroes

The Female Punk Of Yesterday and Tomorrow

Track #1: “mq9” by Automatic

Last Thursday I went and saw one of my favorite modern post-punk bands, Automatic, perform in Brooklyn. An alternative rock group from Los Angeles, Automatic’s band is composed of three key players: Izzy Glaudini (lead vocals, synths), Halle Saxon (bass, vocals), and Lola Dompé (drums, vocals).

I’ve been a fan of their work since I discovered their first hit “Too Much Money” when Grand Theft Auto Online added an alternative/post-punk radio station called Kult FM back in late 2020. The ‘fictional’ radio station is hosted by Julian Casablancas, his fictional producer voiced by David Cross (that David Cross), and contains occasional horoscope readings by Mac DeMarco. It was the winter after COVID, I wasted so much time driving around in GTA like a pedestrian bored out of my mind waiting for the world to go back to normal.

That’s when I heard Automatic for the first time. Speeding in a knock-off sports car shooting at cops, when suddenly, a killer bass line and fast paced drum pattern make my escape from the police much more cinematic. Then suddenly, I heard Izzy’s vocals layered in between electronic synths and grainy riffs and knew I had to check out more of their stuff. I’ve been a big fan ever since.

Anyways, Automatic just dropped their third album Is It Now? this past week. At the concert, they played plenty of their early (and more popular) songs mixed with several new ones off the album. It’s a refreshing, more consolidated sound from what they’ve released before. A bit more electronic at moments, the synths really stick out now, but both their bass and drum beats are crisp and consistent more than ever before. Sometimes they use a tambourine.

If you’re also one of those people that think we’re kinda living in a weird late revitalized version of the late 70s/early 80s right now (in your face government corruption, mullets, bell bottoms, Adidas sambas), I would argue Automatic’s new album brings back that early 1980s fantasy in all girls, repetitive, clean way. Some of my favorites so far: “Black Box”, “mq9”, “Lazy”, and the “The Prize”.

Anyways, the concert was terrific. After the show my date and I were talking to the tour manager working the merchandise booth. Before we knew it we were outside talking to both Izzy and Halle while they were packing their gear up as the next band Sextile started their set. Sextile was great too, but that’s for another time.

Izzy and Halle were super nice. I lit their cigarettes. They complimented my shirt (it was their band tee I just got at the merch booth). I wished them the best of luck while they finish their tour for their newest album. I think Automatic will continuously grow as the revival of an old sound flipped on its head thanks to three cool alt millennial women.

Track #2: “For Tammy Rae” by Bikini Kill

The trailblazer of the Riot Grrrl era, Bikini Kill is a punk rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington in October of 1990. The band consists of Kathleen Hanna (singer/songwriter), Billy Karren (guitar), Kathi Wilcox (bass), and Tobi Vail (drums).

Riot Grrrl was a feminist punk music genre and subculture that started in the early 1990s. If you’ve seen the 1999 romcom 10 Things I Hate About You, it’s the underground indie music world that Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) aspires to. Kat’s character is introduced at the beginning of the film driving to Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation”. Joan Jett was friends with Kathleen of Bikini Kill, and helped write their most popular song “Rebel Girl”. Also, the film takes place in Olympia, Washington’s underground feminist movement in the 1990s.

While 10 Things I Hate About You is just generally known as an adaptation of Taming of the Shrew (a Shakespeare play that’s misogynist and sexist), I think that having Kat be influenced by the riot grrrl era was a great modern take of the character and a timely way to replace the original story’s prejudice with feminine independence. At the time, it was rather radical to make the riot grrrl era an influence on Kat’s character too.

While I know I’m a straight white guy writing about this, I think it’s really important to remind how the feminist movement of the 1990s was pushed as extremely radical. I’m glad I grew up in a world where it wasn’t as radical to believe in the equal treatment of people regardless of their sex or gender.

But that was also the 1990s, where people like Rush Limbaugh were given platforms after the death of the Fairness Doctrine to spread hate-fueled agendas and coined terms like ‘feminazis’. Brother the only feminazis I would worry about are Candace Owens and Laura Loomer.

Bikini Kill was the first popular group that sonically represented a new era of feminism––specifically third wave feminism. This put them on the map immediately, in both good and bad ways. Kathleen mentioned in interviews that she would often have to encourage women in the audience to come closer to the stage for safety. At some concerts men in the crowd would throw chains at them. Men would verbally and physically assault Kathleen. She would frequently dive into the crowd to remove hecklers.

Bikini Kill was quickly vilified in the 1990s as the face and sound for grungy female punk. And like all great punk, most of their songs are political. Bikini Kill, as well as other riot grrrl artists like Bratmobile and Sleater-Kinney, sang about societal and political issues including rape, domestic violence, sexuality, misogyny, racism, and patriarchy. True punk.

Bikini Kill was also a prominent figure in Pacific Northwest’s budding alternative rock scene that started in the late 1980’s. The exact same music scene that gave us grunge, a new opponent that would soon redefine the alternative sound since (post) punk and heavy metal were becoming oversaturated.

Here’s a fun grunge fact: The drummer for Bikini Kill, Tobi Vail, was dating this other local musician in the state of Washington in the early 90’s. His name was Kurt Cobain. Because of both the music scene and her bandmate’s relationship, Kathleen of Bikini Kill was good friends with Kurt too.

One night, Kurt and Kathleen hit the town and got super drunk. Kathleen––who was hanging out with Tobi earlier that day––remembered this stupid name for a deodorant they saw in a local store. Later that night, a wasted-Kathleen wrote on a wall with a sharpie that “Kurt Cobain smells like Teen Spirit”.

Ever since I’ve discovered them, I’ve been hooked on Bikini Kill. Most of the songs I love by them are what you’d expect for early 90’s punk: hardcore guitar riffs, screaming female vocals, and abrasive drum beats. It sounds great, but like a solid amount of punk, can get rather repetitive production wise. Even when that’s what you are in the mood for. Man I love punk.

While most of Bikini Kill’s terrific songs rely on rage fueled punk, my favorite song without a doubt is their 1993 debut album Pussy Whipped’s outro “For Tammy Rae”.

A song about love and loss, “For Tammy Rae” feels like a heart warming pain in your chest. Or like when you dive into a lake on a winter night that’s so freezing cold you feel more alive than ever. Kathleen sings with a much more melodic and somber tone than her usual vocals. The track’s grungy bass and mellow guitar seamlessly build up into a hug full of subtle drums.

It sounds timeless for a song from 32 years ago. Lyrics like “I know it’s cold outside. But when we’re together, I’ve got nothing to hide” and “Hold on tight, I will never let you down. It can’t rain on our side of town” pair perfectly with the melancholy trapped in the song’s air. I don’t know who you are, but thank you Tammy Rae for inspiring the birth of this killer song.

With Great Power Comes Great Gore

October is somehow already here. To get yourself in the right creepin’ and crawlin’ mood for spooky season, there’s a pretty fun mini-series right now on Disney+ called Marvel Zombies that I think you should check out. Whether you’re a comic loving dork or have only seen Avenger’s Endgame when everyone else was, this show rocks.

Based off a one-off comic series in 2005, the four episode television series is a refreshing take on one simple premise: what happens when Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have to fight a bunch of zombies?

But the show isn’t just a half-hour animated version of the Avengers hanging out killing already dead civilians. It mashes the worlds of sci-fi horror and superhero fantasy together into one greater premise: what happens when Earth’s Mightiest Heroes become a bunch of zombies?

I started the series with small expectations. The show is animated in the same style of the popular Marvel anthology series What If…? where most episodes are like “What if Captain America was…a woman?!” or “what if Peter Parker was…Uncle Ben?!” or something kind of interesting but also rather tame.

In fact, Marvel Zombies follows what happens in the What If…? episode “What If…Zombies?!”. But unlike its predecessor, Marvel Zombies is not afraid to utilize the beautiful art form known as animation to explore the gritty, bloody, grotesque visuals of a zombie ridden world.

It follows a bunch of semi-well known characters from the Marvel Universe: Ms. Marvel, Blade (actually he’s Moon Blade in this Marvel universe, where Khonshu/Moon Knight’s powers have chosen the vampire hunter Blade instead of Oscar Isaac), the Hulk, Iron Heart, Shang Chi, Jimmy Woo (Randall Park’s character from the Ant-Man movies), Red Guardian/Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) and all sorts of fun cameos. Like a lot, but not an annoying level. The show actually makes surprise appearances exciting because the world they are in is already so fucked you’re just glad to see someone that’s not a zombie.

As much as that last paragraph made me sound like I am the deodorant industry’s number 1 enemy, the show simply is horror-comedy fun mixed with the gore of your comfort character. With rather fast paced storytelling, the show wields the common art style of 3D CGI animation layered with 2D comic visual styles (in another word, Spiderverse) and greatly uses it. You watch plenty of your favorite superheroes-turned-zombies get ripped to shreds as a small team of heroes try to save the planet before its too late.

Unlike most of Marvel’s recent film and television projects, this is one that feels more honest to both the comics and the world. The characters show no mercy. The story is consistently all over the place, but it knows you’re just their to watch superheroes use their cool ass abilities and go full throttle on the undead. I think the TV-MA rating let the creators really use as much material without letting it get too sanitized.

I have a lot of critiques on it, but I won’t share any negative opinions because simply I think more people should check it out. The visuals alone are amazing. My biggest pet peeve is that the “season” is only 4 episodes long. That’s just a movie at the point man. Anyways, you should watch the show if you have a few hours to procrastinate. It’s pretty fast paced too if you’re worried about your attention span getting burnt out or whatever bullshit excuse you have for not watching TV in 2025.

That’s all for this week on Bum Sums! If you enjoyed reading and think a friend would too, forward them this email. Beg them to sign up. Hunt them down if necessary. If you want your own weekly column, or any other fun ideas, contact us. We want to make this the best community building newsletter out there. Stay tuned for more stories next week.

Written by Max Van Hosen.