Split Feet / Photo courtesy of Split FeetSplit Feet aren’t important. “Important” is too often what we call politically aware bands that we’re not planning on listening to all that much, or at least not as much as AC/DC. It’s a way of saying “you listen to this spinach. I don’t need to because, as an expert on all things good for you, I already know how to identify all forms of boring and vaguely acrid greenery.” I’m not saying I’m definitely going to listen to Split Feet more or less than AC/DC—it’s a long(ish) life and I guess we’ll just have to see. But the point is that Split Feet, while they are the kind of smart and political band that could be “important” aren’t a chore to listen to or a band I’d put on in lieu of voting; they are, you know, very pleasurable listening. Pleasure is important. So Split Feet are important. But in a fun way. Look, I’m just saying I like the band Split Feet a lot.Split Feet is ostensibly fronted by Jes Skolnik, the lead singer and rhythm guitar player, who’s a former MRR columnist and current writer/editor for sites like Impose and Pitchfork, but it’s made up of a number Chicago punk/DIY luminaries (Christine Wolf on bass and backup vocals, Keara Shipe on drums, Taylor Kelley on lead guitar, and Melanie Barrows, who previously played bass and is a beloved song contributor) from such great bands as Blizzard Babies and Daylight Robbery. What do they sound like? Well, they have a few caveats about bands they don’t want to be compared to. That’s because the whole system is lazy and dumb and incapable of writing about any band with a woman in it without using the words “riot grrrl,” so let’s just fucking getting this out of the way; Split Feet sound (vaguely) like Sleater-Kinney… IF YOU’VE NEVER HEARD A KILLED BY DEATH, KILL ROCK STARS, OR MESSTHETICS COMPILATION IN YOUR FUCKING LIFE. Hell, if you’ve never heard punk. Have you heard punk? You totally should. It’s pretty great. So are Split Feet. They also claim that Daniel Ash is a huge influence, and, while I’ve never seen the band in sunglasses, I have no reason to doubt them.Continued below…Split Feet was kind enough to allow Noisey to premiere their new video. The boss-as-all-hell song is “Selective Mommery,” and the video, a kaleidoscope of whirring and spinning toys and gadgetry and flashing lights (let me add a quick seizure warning), is directed by Katie Kapuza. As I’m seemingly incapable of describing any serious issue without a glibness that frightens the conscience, Skolnik was kind enough to provide her own description of the song and video.“At one of our earliest practices we had been bonding sadly over the fact that all of us had been shamed in some way by our parents and/or grandparents and/or other similar parent-y authority figures in our lives as children for not looking Pretty Enough and being The Right Weight to Attract A Man (tm), which is a pretty medieval parental worry: in the end, it's about your daughter being marketable rather than your daughter finding a life partner to navigate this weird fucked-up world with, because that can look like all kinds of things, and sexual attraction and partnership don't just look like one thing either (nor does physical beauty). Even parents who are very kind and conscious can feel this social pressure, this idea that a 'successful' kid grows up, gets married (heterosexually, monogamously), and all of us internalize that idea and pass it on from so many different angles. It's really gruesome. So that's what this song's about.The video is fast and nauseating and disorienting on purpose. We are all machines with guts spilling everywhere, all mis-wired, all misfiring.”Split Feet’s album, Shame Parade, is out now on Accidental Guest Recordings. Watch the video for “Selective Mommery” below:Zachary Lipez loves 2 punk. Follow him on Twitter.
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