While plenty of digital ink has spilled lately about the 2000s’ era of indie sleaze and its impact on music, we’re probably not paying enough attention to the sketchiness that dominated television programming of the same era. Blondshell, the new project from New York City-raised, Los Angeles-based artist Sabrina Teitelbaum, shifts the narrative towards the tube with the potent “Veronica Mars,” a noisy alt-rock ode to early-aughts cult television and just how it pretty much fucked us all up something wicked. It’s the first Blondshell offering via new label Partisan Records, and it rips n’ grips over its economical 1:57 runtime.
“I was obsessed with the show Veronica Mars as a kid and I was revisiting it around the time I wrote this song,” says Blondshell. “I wanted to sing about that childhood era when I was being exposed to a lot more than I was comfortable with. [The lyric] ‘gimme shelter’ refers to the song but I’m also saying please give me shelter from graphic TV and film, from New York City, overwhelming lyrics, etc. I think the song is just about having my boundaries crossed and the effects of those transgressions (for example, growing up to think men are hot if they’re assholes).”
As we protect Blondshell from New York City, someone might need to do the opposite, as she headlines an already sold-out Mercury Lounge on Wednesday (December 7). Fire up “Veronica Mars” after the show deets, and take our heads-up: An early 2023 tour with Suki Waterhouse brings her to Boston’s Paradise Rock Club on January 29. That’s one for the calendar.
BLONDSHELL + NISA :: Wednesday, December 7 at Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston St. in New York, NY :: 6 p.m., 18-plus, $12 :: Event page :: Ticket link
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