Pinkwash's loud, crashing prog-punk (Hear Here)
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Have you heard Pinkwash? They’re a loud, guitar-and-drums duo that mixes white-knuckle punk with something less predictable. But what? The beats are busy and complicated. The riffs are fractal and mathy. Am I crazy or are we barging into prog-rock territory here?
Have you heard Pinkwash? They’re a loud, guitar-and-drums duo that mixes white-knuckle punk with something less predictable. But what? The beats are busy and complicated. The riffs are fractal and mathy. Am I crazy or are we barging into prog-rock territory here?
“You are not crazy,” says singer/guitarist Joey Doubek. “Ashley and I are both drummers and really enjoy messing around with atypical punk rhythms.” “Ashley” is Ashley Arnwine, best known around here for crashing and pounding the kit with Bleeding Rainbow. Doubek, meanwhile, made his bones with Washington D.C.’s long-running Hume, defined by its spacey and proggy leanings.
“Pinkwash started a little over a year ago, when we finished constructing a practice room in our basement in West Philly,” says Doubek. In June, they released their five-song debut, Your Cure Your Soil, as a cassette on Sister Polygon Records and a $4 download at pinkwash.bandcamp.com. Worth it.
These tracks make smart use of thumping stick work, heavy grooves and Doubek’s throat-rattling vocals. He’s a barely controlled screamer, a pit bull testing his leash. He often escapes his carnival-barker base level in favor of some righteous, preacherly indignation. Start with “So Long” — if you don’t like it, you’re wrong.
As for the lyrical content, it’s hard to say for sure, but you can bet it’s at least a little political. Arnwine schools me on what “pinkwashing” is: It’s when companies slap pink ribbons on their products with the vague goals of “raising awareness” of breast cancer and “donating a percentage of the proceeds” to research. The term can also be used to describe the appropriation of LGBTQ culture by organizations with only a skin-deep allegiance to the cause. All this distracts “from real issues, promoting marginalization and objectification, making people dumber and playing a stupid part in destroying the universe,” she says. “Fuck capitalism. What a mess.”
Pinkwash plays Fri., Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m., $5, with Space Chumpy, Ex. By V. and Polyon, Lava Space, 4134 Lancaster Ave., lavazone.org.
