A guide to Iron Chic discography, the DIY sound of the 10s
Let’s discover American band Iron Chic, their discography and their Do It Yourself side
A brief introduction, maybe someone will wonder why write an article about a band like Iron Chic, which certainly did not invent anything and is not even considered the founder of its own genre. It would after all be more relevant to talk about Menzingers, Pup, Off With Their Heads etc. However, one thing struck me about Iron Chic namely the common points with a band from Genoa that I love very much, Cocks. Both bands, with the necessary distinctions, have evolved their sound in a similar way, slowly but progressively, both have gained, thanks to the DIY ethic, the respect of politicized and non-politicized hardcore bands (Iron Chic have toured several times with Propagandhi) and both bands have a strong sense of the more melodramatic melody, something that, let’s face it, my generation has always liked.
Orgcore, a term which I will try to use as little as possible but which is useful here to understand the field we are playing on, is not exactly my cup of tea.The fact is that it is definitely the punk genre that belongs to my contemporaries, i.e. those born between the 80s and 90s. Obviously none of these bands invented the DIY approach to the concept of melodic punk, it’s something that existed long before, but let’s face it, it was dying out.
On the one hand, the genre has generated too many useless sidebands, 30 year-old pussies with a laptop and a neatly trimmed beard who think punk is a blog updated while seating at a Starbucks, sucking their Internet connection, but on the other hand it has given birth to a series of very interesting phenomena, it has contributed to the evolution of pop punk which seemed to be stuck in the early 2000s and has distanced it from the ephemeral phenomena of metalcore and new emo. That’s why I think it’s important to talk about a band, maybe not fundamental, but that tells an (extra)ordinary story of passion, albums and a career built step by step or, to quote the Cocks, “Day by Day”.
It’s 2008, and Latterman’s adventure is coming to an end after three very important albums for the kids living in the late 2000s. An empty era from the punk point of view: the only interesting genres at that time were stoner and post metal. It was at that time that the emocore (which most people call “Orgcore”) sound was born. It was , the natural answer to mainstream emo (sorry Ian and Guy for the appropriation of the term) which was dying along with metalcore at that time, and thank goodness for that. Off With Their Heads have just made their grand entrance into the scene with “Hospitals” and are about to release the even more focused “From The Bottom”. The Menzingers are on their first album, things seem to be turning again in favor of a less commercial approach to punk.
Right at the beginning of the 2000s, bands like Latterman and Dillinger Four didn’t give in to colored wisps and hyper-productions, preferring to carry on the banner of Ramones-style punk à la Screeching Weasel, but also punk more à la Get Up Kids, basting it with mixtures in variable parts of American folk (Against Me!) and new school emo à la American Football, which we find more in the works of Latterman.
The look of the flannel shirt, wool cap and beard, which over the years has become almost a travesty, was, at least initially, a good response to the maniacal attention to clothing promoted by the majors, with Mtv showing on its channels Green Day wearing shirts two sizes tighter than in the 90s. Videos like that of Jesus of Suburbia referred to an image of punk more similar to the commercial and visual one of the Sex Pistols than to the more aesthetically unpretentious hardcore or grunge.
As already mentioned, Latterman broke up and Canino joined various projects to form the excellent RVIVR, while Douglas played drums for a short period in Small Arms Dealer, where he met vocalist Jason Lubrano: the time was ripe to pick up the guitar again and form Iron Chic.
Lubrano and Douglas recruited Gordon Lafler on skins, Joh Mee on bass, and ex-Latterman Brian Crozier on second guitar, and in a short time Demo Tape ’08 and Shitty Rambo Ep were released. Obviously, we’re not dealing with two demos of four kids in a garage, Douglas’ experience in songwriting is now decennial and the band’s songs are immediately functional and perfect to be played live and to make the band known through the distribution of the small but appreciable Mike Bruno’s Dead Broke Rekerds. The excellent production by Douglas himself in his Hobo Studio and the artwork by singer Jason Lubrano would immediately become a real trademark.
In spite of the excellent reviews received after the release of the EP, Crozier and Mee decide to leave the band due to misunderstandings that have never been clarified, and Mike Bruno, owner of the record label, promptly took their place on bass. 2010 seems the perfect time to produce the first Full Length: Not Like This.
From a musical point of view, the band has exactly understood the needs of the audience of the time, now far from the brutality of macho hardcore, bored by the most badass skate punk and eager for sincere, emotional and powerful songs. The speed is not extreme, the midtempo songs are perfect to be sung by heart, and even if the lyrics are not the extremely melodic ones of pop punk, they are equally sung and screamed, creating, especially live, an involvement with the audience kicking and sweating like in front of the fastest 80s hardcore band.
This album opens with a short intro followed by the impactful phrase “I want to smash my face into that god damn radio, it may seem strange but these urges come and go”. The urgency to play, to write and to create is again an important theme after years in which for many bands it seemed more important to have pictures on MySpace than to go around playing, sweating and drinking cheap beer with friends.
There’s no shortage of tight moments like “Time Keeps On Slipping Into The (Cosmic) Future” or “Know What I Mean, Jellybean?” The songs aren’t at breakneck speed, the years of hyper-technical melodic hardcore and easycore have just ended, now every musical choice is made to make a better song, not to show off one’s musical skills: the ingredients are a fat and distorted bass driven by clear and powerful drums, a guitar that moves between arpeggios and chords without overpowering with overly metal distortions, simple solos of Lookout school (I Always Never Said That is the perfect example ), and a strong poetic vein in contrast with rough and scratchy vocals.
The result is a perfect debut album that will become a reference for the following years and that will be reissued almost every year for the next ten years, selling at least 10,000 copies in the United States through Dead Broke Rekerds and at least 2,000 in Europe through the German Yo-yo records.
After the release of the album the band went to Europe where they got an unexpectedly warm welcome, perhaps due to the good work done by Yo-yo records and partly due to the fame of Latterman.
We’re in a new era that paradoxically has a lot in common with the 80s, relatively few records are being sold and punk music is no longer a full-time employment option, the great illusion of the previous 20 years has vanished in the blink of an eye. Douglas records at the Hobo studio by day and works as a janitor by night, the others juggle jobs in the arts and pizza deliveries, the desire to carry on a band must be even greater and every choice must be wise and reconcilable with the double life of artist and ordinary person.
In the following three years the band released various secondary material:
A split with the English Pacer for the split on 7″ series of the All On Vinyl number 2, a series with forest animals depicted on the cover, where we find Elway, Gamits and Murderburgers among others.
The 7″ (Cosmic) Future exclusive to Yo-Yo records, which contains a track already present on Not Like This, an unreleased track and a cover of Jet Ski by Bikini Kill.
Finally, the EP Split N’ Shit was released in the USA and, like the rest of the band’s catalogue up to that point, was made available on Bandcamp with an optional donation, the public can decide whether to download it for free or pay for the files, a bit like some anarcho-punk bands at their banquets let the buyer decide the right price of the merchandise, Iron Chic rely on the support of their fans and their honesty. In an old interview Jason talks about how interesting it is to see how much people pay for a digital EP, from the goliardic $6.66 to the bizarre $4.20 to the $0.25 probably sent by someone from Genoa.
Having hired Rob MacAllister as second guitar, the New York band went into the studio for their second album, but Mike Bruno’s small label was a bit tight and couldn’t guarantee an adequate distribution, so Boston’s Bridge Nine, which at that time was trying to widen its purely hardcore catalogue with some fresh sounding bands, came into play.
After six months of recordings at Hobo Studio, The Constant One, was released, an album that continues the line traced by Not Like This, slowing down the rhythms but solidifying the wall of sound. The themes change, the atmosphere is less oppressive and the final message is, above all in its contents, more positive. The lyrics deal more with human relationships and maybe for this reason they are much more personal, a double-edged sword because in fact the album is less involving from the emotional point of view of the listener.
A very good album in terms of punk rock writing and perfect in terms of sound, but it doesn’t keep up with the previous one despite some thrilling songs like Wolf Dix rd, Spooky Action At A Distance and Sounds Like A Pretty Brutal Murder, which not by chance close and open the two sides of the album, a peak that is not repeated throughout the album. There is no lack of experimentation, such as the track A Serious House On Serious Earth, where they play à la Smashing Pumpkins, not bad, but the feeling is that here Iron Chic are travelling a bit far from their own territory. The album wasn’t a total misstep, but it dampened the energy of Not on This, which was propelling them to the top of the world scene, but nonetheless the band continued to grind out dates, play fiery concerts and write songs.
At the same time, they released the single Spooky Action At A Distance, which featured a cover of Bonzo Goes To Bitburg on the Bridge Nine edition and Goofy’s Concern by Butthole surfers on the Yo-yo/Drunken Sailor edition.
It will take four years for a new album, but in the meantime, there are plenty of secondary works: a split with Low Culture, the Ys EP released especially for the 2015 Australian tour containing two unreleased tracks and the usual cover (this time Dog Bite by Dead Kennedys) and finally Radio Recordings, a 12″ single recorded during the BBC sessions and sold on the occasion of the 2016 European tour, where one can listen to Cry Baby, a song from the 2008 Demo.
Finally consecrated and back from tours all over the world, we reach 2017, a year of grace and excellent punk rock releases that fortunately accompany the opening of Flamingo records.
Jesse Litwa takes over from Rob MacAllister on second guitar, the rest of the quintet is as solid and mature as they come, merging the urgency of Not Like This with the sophistication of The Constant One, the result is killer, You Can’t Stay Here is a masterpiece from every point of view, from the production to the songwriting to the artwork. Third album and third label, Side One Dummy is as close to a major as any other label in the independent punk rock circuit. The album has a handful of reissues in its first two years only.
Eleven solid gems with no dead spots, with electronic inserts and small ambient digressions to give a sense of continuity, you never get bored. There’s no boredom not even in the more reflective parts like in the purposely stumbling beginning of You Can’t Stay Safe, which then turns into an unstoppable march supported by a granite bass (slightly less distorted than in the past but with an even more massive and enveloping sound). Another track whose charge doesn’t diminish, even after several plays, is Ruinous Calamity, an apocalyptic Folk song that slowly roars in a riot of desperate guitar feedback, cymbal explosion and baritone voice.
This track is an excellent example of how the passage through the three albums has honed a certain sophistication from Douglas and Lubrano. A song like this in the early days would surely have ended with a screaming Jason, while his singing, which here winks at the late Johnny Cash, rises in intention and conveys more effectively than a shout the grandeur of the song, a considerable step up from the ballad attempts on the previous record.
There’s no shortage of good midwestern tunes to pogo with and sing at the top of your lungs, To Shreds, You Say? To Shreds, You Say? which closes the album, is a punk rock bomb that has the communicative effectiveness of the songs on the demo combined with the class gained in almost 10 years of activity, once again a huge bass shakes the guts even if t throughout almost the whole album the guitar is the master, taking its moments at Dinosaur Jr, surpassing in effectiveness the performances on the two previous records.
On May 7, 2021 a News appears on the band’s website, “We spent the whole pandemic writing just one song” you can find the song on Bandcamp, this time for a fee to give a support to those who are back from two years of inactivity and have no pockets full of royalties: productivity has never been Iron Chic’s strong point, but maybe it’s a good thing, They’re not an immediate band, their records can leave you indifferent at first play, and then reveal themselves over the months in all their nuances, it took me a year to absorb You Can’t Stay Here, proof that sometimes engaging in listening is good and helps you love more music instead of snubbing a lot of it to rely on our usual tastes.
In 2018 they released a split with Toys that kill that contained 4 unreleased tracks, tracks that were not included in the previous album for consistency reasons.
Who knows if 2022 will be the year of the fourth album and who knows if it will take me a year to absorb it or if it will be more “catchy”, as it is fashionable to say now. At the end of the day, maybe it matters more to me that the band goes on than the actual result, because it would be proof that there is some hope, that you can make intelligent music, sell a few thousand copies, tour the world even without being a walking cliché or yet another band of assholes.
Article by Albe Flamingo
Credit photo: Nicole Kibert / www.elawgrrl.com
Support us:
We are a self-managed project and you can support us, if you like, in the following ways:
– you can take a look at our catalog and order records, CDs, books, pins, and more;
– you can join our open call with a previously unpublished article.