“It’s like a super cool book club but band club and specifically alt-garage fan band club: nichey-niche intense.” So concludes Jen McNeely of She Does The City’s Sheezer review, which isn’t really a review at all. It’s more like a collection of stories about being a young woman and being a Weezer fan, complete with moments of jumping on the bed with your girlfriends while listening to the Blue album.
I have stories like that too, and as Sheezer’s notoriety has grown, I’ve begun to hear from those long lost buddies of mine. “Did you know there’s a Weezer cover band that’s all women? You have got to come to Toronto to see them with me sometime,” read an email from a friend I hadn’t heard from in years.
I never made it to the big city, but just my luck: Sheezer came to Peterborough, playing a crowded Monday night show at the Red Dog. They shared a bill with super-sexy sequined electro pop sensation, Rouge, which features Peterborough Folk Festival darling Kelly McMichael.
I was extra-stoked to see Sheezer after Magali Meagher brought along the all-lady all-party band Betty Burke (of “I can make you come / but I can’t make you stay” lyrical genius) to open for The Phonemes at The Cannery last month. Along with Meagher, Sheezer is a Can-Rock supergroup: members Dana Snell, Robin Hatch, Laura Barrett, and Alysha Haugen have teamed up to play Blue and Pinkerton covers, but their resumes include The Hidden Cameras, Gentleman Reg, The Bicycles, and Sports: The Band. Holy shit!
And you guys: Sheezer rocked it so hard. Sheezer sounds just like Weezer used to, not at the huge amphitheatre concerts I went to post-Green album, but on the car stereo with my best friends singing along. The crowd screamed all the words up at the stage, and Sheezer rocked it out right back at them, not unlike the parents’ basement house party days when my pals and I would sing the words to “Buddy Holly” into each other’s faces. Accuracy is obviously a point of Sheezer-pride: the stage setup included a bottle of mouthwash to get that authentic gargling sound on “El Scorcho.” Barret mumbled “authentic party conversation!” during “The Sweater Song,” and the distortion on “Only in Dreams” was so accurate as to be virtuosic.
I talked to bassist Laura Barrett about what it’s like to tap into this deep well of lady music and nostalgia, and especially what it’s like to play songs like “No One Else,” which has lyrics like “When I’m away she never leaves the house.” Barrett tells me that part of the fun is being able to subvert those sexist perceptions just by rocking out. “When we’re onstage playing those songs it’s obvious that we’re not that kind of woman,” she says. She tells me about a Halloween show when the band dressed up in Sailor Moon costumes as a playful comment on Cuomo’s famous obsession with, well, “half-Japanese girls / you do it to me every time.”
Along with ‘90s nostalgia, all-girl-bands are coming back. Sheezer fits into a growing movement that is attempting to document and re-invigorate music by women, like Sara Marcus’s history of riot grrl, Girls to the Front, can attest. Barrett says there’s a noticeable contrast between playing in Sheezer and being the only woman when she plays in other bands. She says that Sheezer shows end with a group hug. And I suspect the fans notice a difference too. Monday at the Red Dog held more women and more queer people than rock shows in this city are used to.
Listening to Barrett speak, I realized that the last Peterborough all-girl show I saw was when Rock Camp for Girls had their end-of-camp showcase this summer, and I worry that we might be missing out on the girl love. Even Peterborough’s super-badass All Girl Band doesn’t have all girls in it! Please tell me that I don’t have to wait for those Rock Camp kids to grow up before all-girl bands are as common in this city as all-man bands. Say it ain’t so!
