B-Sides: Potty Mouth!

It’s easy to imagine that Potty Mouth are, er, a gross band, but a quick listen to their Sun Damage EP reveals them to be far from indecent. The record is a letter of intent addressed directly to the dead-serious post-punk set, citing ’90s punk clatter as relevant education.

Sun Damage, like so much punk, draws a line in the sand between grown-ups and kids. The members of Potty Mouth position themselves squarely in the youth camp, citing musical inexperience in interviews and putting together a deliberately ramshackle visual aesthetic, but their music belies any sort of immaturity. Their tightly woven compositions sound smarter than so many bands that aim to recreate the sound of youth—and that’s where Sun Damage succeeds. The ideas might be off-the-cuff, but they don’t condescend to fans by dumbing their music down.

Potty Mouth—who, full disclosure, contacted me for review (hey, the music is that good!)—are striking out on a North American tour later this month. Check out tour info and other Potty-nalia on their tumblr. And after that, go start a band! Let this quote about the inception of Potty Mouth, from then-future-guitarist Phoebe Harris, inspire you: “I saw that [bassist Allyson Einbender] had started to play bass, so it was like, ‘Oh! She just did it! Why can’t I just do it, too?’”

Check the video for Sun Damage’s “Kids” and read a description of the song here.

July 26 - Washington, D.C.
July 27 - Pittsburgh, PA
July 28 - Columbus, OH
July 29 - Bloomington, IN
July 30 - Chicago, IL
July 31 - Detroit, MI
August 1 - Toronto, Canada
August 2 - Buffalo, NY
August 3 - NYC
August 4 - Philadelphia, PA

Previously: Regina Spektor, White Lung’s White-Hot “Sorry”