![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Kittenhead.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA Kittenhead Exclusive<\/p>\n
By: Matthew MacDermant<\/p>\n
Recently, I had a conversation with Kivi from Kittenhead; a raw lo-fi cadre of badass rockers dropping in with one brilliant track after another about things that matter. Fresh off their set at Pride Festival, where the band received a rousing response, Kivi was very enthusiastic about Kittenhead\u2019s present and future. I\u2019m grateful to have shared a bit of that enthusiasm with her. <\/span><\/p>\n The band has serious presence. Their songs make you move, but they also make you think. Their content is stellar and quite broad. There are political anthems, social commentaries, love songs, thrashy garage songs, and just plain fun songs. As Kivi said, \u201cI play music because it brings joy to my life. I am devoted to music, creativity, and action.\u201d Kittenhead gives us the best of both ends of the spectrum. They are a group that simply rocks, producing what people often dub, \u201cmusic for music\u2019s sake.\u201d Yet, they are really saying something with their music beyond it fueling mosh pits and crowd surfing. Kivi, Victoria, Dd, and Danny really are saying something as a band. Their work is a statement. There is this well-balanced blending of the carefree and the deep with them that escapes many groups. It\u2019s a feat to pull off and they nail it.<\/span><\/p>\n I asked Kivi about that statement and about what Kittenhead stands for, fights for, and hopes to build. She said, first and foremost, \u201cWe are leftists,\u201d and as such, \u201cwe fight for people over profit, the dignity and equality of all people, the health of our environment, the right to food, justice, healthcare…\u201d We fight adamantly against, \u201cthe war on women, the war on the working class, the war on all marginalized people.\u201d She spoke about the fear and judgement that is driving us apart and pushing us down, the mechanisms of control, and the constant violations and violence we see all around us. There are many songs which illustrate these points and Kivi mentioned a few of them.<\/span><\/p>\n On the album \u201cWe\u2019re Here,\u201d Kittenhead wrote a song called \u201cAngel\u201d which speaks to the struggle of everyday people trying to make it in a system completely stacked against them. The lyrics are all about the struggle of working people just trying to make ends meet. The whole society is \u201cbuilt on the workers bones\u201d and \u201cnow they want your soul.\u201d This speaks to the alienation all of us working people feel day in and day out. The process of making profit with our body, mind, and soul is dehumanizing and Kittenhead is speaking out for a world without exploitation, where each person can live in dignity as human being instead of as an overworked and underpaid part in a monolithic machine.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTinman\u201d is a song that talks about the incredible violence in our society. There is so much hate, racism, homophobia that pervades everyday life even though legal protections have long since been put into place. There is still so much fear mongering and still so many marginalized people painted as criminals or as threats to some mythological American way of life. We can\u2019t open our news feeds without seeing yet another victim of this violence. Kivi told me that the inspiration for the song came from the brutal beating, torture, and ultimately murder of Matthew Shepard, who when found was described as appearing like a scarecrow. Tinman being the most famous scarecrow, perhaps of all time, is what I surmise gave rise to the song\u2019s name. Like many of Kittenhead\u2019s other tracks, \u201cTinman\u201d packs a serious punch. It is raw, emotional, eye-opening. I also love the well-placed rap track added to this song. It really hits the spot.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNot Your Bitch\u201d is one of mine and so many other peoples\u2019 favorite Kittenhead tracks. It\u2019s a refreshingly in your face punk anthem with great backing and killer lyrics. It covers the gamut of bullshit that women have to deal with everyday, from mansplaining to objectification to the plain disregard for female voices on any subject. It\u2019s both a political and social mantra (I am not your bitch, I\u2019m a full actualized human being) and also an incredibly fun, dancy, mosh-pit sing along. NYB just gets in your head, has you humming the tune to yourself, while also keeping your head shaking in agreement with the resistance to patriarchy in modern culture. When I inquired about this further in my interview with Kivi, she pointed out to me that, yes, it is certainly about the abuses and inequities that women face, but that it also applies to people of any identity anywhere. In our society, each of us is made to feel like someone\u2019s bitch. People are constantly putting themselves on a pedestal, standing above us, and trying to dominate us. It is an anthem against all types of hierarchy. Either way, I\u2019m on board. Even in such cases where I am not directly oppressed, I agree fully that \u201can injury to one is an injury to all.\u201d Amazing Song!<\/span><\/p>\n Kittenhead is extremely talented. They showcase so many different styles of music, so many lyrical forms, and they have such a badass style. It is exciting to see their rise as one of Southern California\u2019s coolest punk rock bands. Now that a full length album is out and their touring regularly, I have a feeling we\u2019ll start to hear a lot more about them, see them play more festivals, and generally broaden their audience to a national following. As a new fan from the opposite coast, I hope this to be the case. Philadelphia, New York, DC are all fertile ground for Kittenhead\u2019s raw, in your face, fun, truth-speaking style. Keep putting out the tracks. This stuff is genius.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Kittenhead Exclusive By: Matthew MacDermant Recently, I had a conversation with Kivi from Kittenhead; a raw lo-fi cadre of badass rockers dropping in with one brilliant track after another about things that matter. Fresh off their set at Pride Festival, where the band received a rousing response, Kivi was very enthusiastic about Kittenhead\u2019s present […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":8937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-revue","category-rock"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8938,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8936\/revisions\/8938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}