08-wild-flag-crystal-ballroom-portland by colinmac83 on Flickr.
“At one point, an audience member handed Brownstein a shirt that proclaimed, ‘I Love Spelt.’ The ‘Portlandia’ star immediately quipped back, ‘This is totally not true! No one likes spelt. We’ve passed spelt. We’re into Ezekiel bread now.’”
Paste’s 25 Best Live Acts of 2012
23. Wild Flag
In a year when women demanded to be heard both politically and musically, Wild Flag was the loudest live act this side of Pussy Riot. After releasing their self-titled debut last year, Wild Flag’s 2012 tour served as a celebratory victory lap for the band. With every rebel yelp and raucous riff, nothing instills awe and inspiration quite like watching Brownstein, Weiss, Timony and Cole parlay a riot-grrl past into a fierce feminist future.—Jessica Gentile
I wrote about how awesome Kelly Clarkson is for BuzzFeed.
“I saw Kelly this summer again on tour, at Jones Beach in New York. (I sat through a Lighthouse set for her. That’s true love.) And I saw Wild Flag, too, this summer.
Both shows lifted me up. I appreciated all of their wiles no matter how subtle or broad, from Carrie Brownstein’s defiant boot on the monitor or the way Mary Timony shreds without being blatant about it, to Kelly’s rallying girl power choruses, which every audience member sang along to enthusiastically.
And they all share that same gratitude for the opportunity to perform. There is also zero condescension to the audience. I felt equally joyful after both shows, although their performances targeted different pleasure centers within me. Kelly makes me happy to be alive, and Wild Flag makes me feel like I can do anything if I put my mind to it. Half the time in this life I am just grateful for the chance to feel anything at all.”
- ROOKIE MAG: I don’t know if this is an insulting question to ask, but I feel like it might be OK because I’m older than you. Do you think about getting older in rock music with dignity? It seems so hard to do.
- CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: This is like a landmine question for me, because when Wild Flag started, I was in my early 30s. That still feels pretty young. I’m the same age, roughly, as Jack White, Britt Daniel from Spoon, James Mercer from the Shins. Sufjan Stevens is a year younger than me. There are a lot of people who are right at my age. It’s a nice age. But when Wild Flag started, the adjectives being applied to me were like veteran, and it felt very diminishing. I was really angry, because it feels like it happens in music especially. There are a lot of females on television, like Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey—they’re right there at 40, and they’re fine.
- ROOKIE MAG: But they get a lot of shit, too.
- CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, they do. I think it’s just very difficult to butt up against sexism and ageism, especially where they intersect. The optimist in me wants to think that they don’t exist; and then I’m like, Oh my god—no one ever talks about Jack White like he is over the hill, or a “veteran.” In the New York Times review of a Wild Flag show they said something like I was “still wiry,” or “still agile,” and I’m like, what am I, 80 years old?! Like, hobbling out onstage? It was awful. I was very angry about it.
But the MVP is do-everything Rebecca Cole. Besides playing electric piano, Cole holds down the bottom end with her keyboard bass lines. She joins [drummer, Janet] Weiss for terrific girl-group harmonies that give the Flag its pop appeal. And she looks like one of the band’s fans, dancing and bouncing, mouthing the words when she’s not singing, trading smiles with her bandmates and cheering them on. Every great band needs a Rebecca Cole.
Pitchfork Music Festival 2012 Day Two Recap
by Richard Giraldi at Loud Loop
“Wild Flag were… undoubtedly the best set of the weekend so far. Final Verdict: 9.5”
Pitchfork Music Festival 2012, live review | Wild Flag
by Mia Clarke at Time Out Chicago
