Clitter Critters, a 3-piece describing themselves as loud, fun, and questionable riot grrrl punk released their self-titled EP April 11th. I say this with great sincerity: I’ve had it on the brain ever since, especially track 2, “Stuff We Do”. The EP is 4 songs and just under 12 minutes, but it left an immediate impression on me after my first listen. And that’s saying something, because my top 2 favorite albums of 2023, Perphery V: Djent is Not a Genre by Periphery and Heavener by Invent Animate had to grow on me after at least a month. A month! And I can sing those songs in my sleep now! It was then I realized I had a real earworm on my hands.
My first introduction to riot grrrl was when I was in high school, back in the far-off lands of the mid 2010s before Netflix became a wasteland of original content of questionable quality. I was more adventurous with my media choices as a teenager with unlimited free time, and watched just about anything with an interesting enough poster. One of the many documentaries I watched back then was The Punk Singer (2013), which was about the birth of the riot grrrl movement and specifically Bikini Kill and its frontwoman, Kathleen Hanna. I can’t remember much about the documentary, other than I think Fall Out Boy was in it and that I learned Lyme disease is no joke. But certain things did stick with me: the girl power-ness and unity of it all, and how cool it would be to make a zine.
Music, like a lot of things, is very unfortunately male-dominated, especially in the heavy music spheres. Any time I see a group with any ounce of estrogen in it, though, I try to make note. For instance, on my 23rd birthday, the night when I left with a stiff neck from headbanging far too much and bruises on my legs from being pushed against a stage speaker for a solid hour (best night of my life, by the way), I saw the band Dying Wish as support for The Devil Wears Prada on their Zombie tour. Before one of the songs, Emma Boster, a tiny blonde woman who I previously saw stage-diving and who I was currently watching blow her lungs out onstage, shouted “This one’s for the girls and the gays!” My attention – which was already fully on this woman – was piqued. I am one of those! I am a girl! This is for me! I felt like that one guy in that Junji Ito manga about the holes in the cliff. This was made for me. Since then, I’ve had a great appreciation for bands in this space where women are at the forefront.
Enter Clitter Critters, featuring Lacy on bass, Sarah Grace on guitar, and the one non-girl member Austin Tingle on drums. I know he is a real, live human person – I’ve not only seen him drumming in person for CC, but also for Kicking and on guitar for Die with Nature – but considering the nature of the group and also the fact that all the questions are answered by Lacy and Sarah Grace, I like to think he’s like a Mechanical Turk, an automaton they pull out of storage every once in a while to dazzle the audience. I think it’s funnier that way. (And hopefully they agree…)
The band formed 8 years ago in 2016, which feels like several geologic epochs ago. They’ve undergone a lineup change since then, with Sarah Grace’s now-husband swapped with the Mechanical Turk Mr. Tingle. Despite the passage of time and lineup change, they say the heart of the band is unchanged.
The members of Clitter Critters also make up part of Kicking, another really dope band that you should definitely see when given the chance. The vibes are definitely different, with CC having a louder, more in-your-face delivery, but the heart is definitely still there. Although Kicking occupies the members of CC’s time a bit more than this project, it still serves as an outlet. “I don’t write lyrics or front Kicking, but I get to do those things in CC,” Lacy explains. “The same holds true for Sarah Grace. Austin Tingle is the real triple threat: drumming for CC, drumming for Kicking, playing guitar and doing vocals with Die with Nature.” Like I said, the dazzling Mechanical Turk, except instead of being a fraud built by a Georgian-era hoaxer, he’s just a dude who is a multi-instrumentalist.
My first (and as of writing, only) time seeing this trio was one cold December night at Urban Foxes where they performed alongside locals The Remants and a group from Memphis called Spacer. Firstly, their name gave me a giggle. Then, like after listening to their EP, I left really liking them. I’ve been wanting to see them again ever since, but unfortunately their most recent performance was the same night as the awards ceremony where I was nominated for something (I won second place – please clap), so I had to miss out on it. But hopefully you, reader, will give them a go when they perform again. I have been told their voices hold the power to frighten men in the audience.
Previous to this new EP, they have released the two singles “Skopin’ Dudes” and “Dope Night”. “This is our first EP,” they said when asked if this would be considered their debut, “we previously released a two-song single in October 2022 that was recorded locally by our friends in the band Surfwax.” Clitter Critters is available on your favorite streaming platforms, but there’s something else too: a limited edition tape, something exciting for all you physical media lovers out there. “Those tracks, along with the four new EP songs, are part of a limited tape released with Noise Merchant Records out of the UK.” You can buy the tape for an economical 5 quid (or roughly $6.21 for us yanks) on their website. It’s a limited release, so, y’know, hop to it.
This release has been a long time coming since Clitter Critters’ formation in 2016, and the material has been with the band for a while. “Some of these songs have been with us since the beginning,” Sarah Grace said when asked how long the EP has been in development. As far as the actual production process, Lacy said, “We started recording these songs with Tre Pepper in Midtown around August 2023 and they were finalized in February 2024.” However, as I am learning, recording the songs is only half the process. “We needed at least a month of pre-release work, reaching out to social media/blogs/reviewers/etc. Thankfully I’ve been keeping up contact with various tape labels and outlets to share our progress with the EP to allow for quick turnarounds with merch, artwork, and all those ‘business’ things that DIY bands get into.” There’s probably some thrill to it all for someone out there, but the business/admin parts of being a musician sound truly exhausting. So, kudos to them for that!
For them, creating music is all about feeling the magic, having a good time, and doing whatever you want with it. “Whether it’s the riff or a turn of phrase, it’s those special moments of making something you feel is unique to you and your band,” said Lacy. I asked them how they felt about the term “girl punk” as a descriptor, because sometimes (and maybe this is all in my head) some bands are shoehorned into the “girl [genre]” category because there are are women or femmes in it. They offered a different perspective on it: “Since the birth of punk, women & marginalized people have been at the forefront with punk’s dissemination and evolution,” Lacy explained. “Yes, it feels restricting within the discourse about the music, but it has never restricted/informed our expression of what punk/riot grrrl/feminism is for our music.” Sarah Grace agreed, saying “Girl punk shouldn’t be a restricting term because there is no one sound for it.”
As for how the Jackson DIY scene has changed since their formation, as much as things change, they also stay the same. “The Jackson DIY scene is relatively the same,” Sarah Grace said. “Not as good as it can be but some good souls trying.”
Lacy’s outlook was a little different. “The scene has evolved, in the sense that there are more bands and more diverse crowds coming out to local shows. Not just for Clitter Critters, but in general, and that’s rad!” She also spoke about the need to branch out, not just in Mississippi, but nationally as well. “We all need to continue to do the work of connecting to out of town bands, encouraging them to consider coming through Mississippi, and offering to help book shows or connect them with folks in the state that can help. I try to do a lot of that through social media, keeping an eye on who is touring and seeing if they are hitting the south, messaging bands that are interesting and offering help.”
As for what’s coming up for Clitter Critters, for Sarah Grace, it’s more writing, more jamming, and the occasional show. For Lacy, it’s much of the same, including recording a Christmas song with Surfwax. As for those upcoming shows, “There are a few shows on the books,” she said, “but Kicking has recording plans too so we make the time for that and fit in CC when we can.”
For what they want folks to do when it comes to Clitter Critters, Lacy said they would love to see lots of smiling faces (and intimidated men) at shows. “We need more people screaming ‘DOGS LIFE’ at us.” And I will hope to be there as well, barring an Emmy nomination or something crazy like that. She continued, “A general call to action: Go out to live music, support artists directly through buying their merch and music. If you have a weird idea that you think is cool, guaranteed there are others that would be into it, just look at us!”
Sarah Grace agreed, hoping more people come out, listen to their jams, and “enjoy the thoughts from these two broads.”
JXN UNDERGROUND 