Mac, our fearless editor, threw a tape on my desk. "Listen to this. It's pretty phat."
"Fat?" I said, "like it won't fit into my Walkman?"
"As if! Dude, I mean, like, gnarly. Hey, I'm going to the mall for a slice of 'za. Wanna come with?"
"Nah," I said, a sense of déjà vu creeping into my brain. "I'm actually not feeling so great. I think I'll take the afternoon off."
"Whatever, man. That tape is hella fly, though. Let me know what you think."
I had to get the hell out of there.
I grabbed the tape and hurried out the door. My black Chevy Cavalier, the one with the rust hole in the trunk clear to the street, was parked on the curb. I hopped in a sped off, trying to shake the uncanny feeling that had taken over my head.
I started jonesing for Bagel Bites.
"Music," I thought, "music will help." I jammed Mac's tape into the deck. Cross Stitch. It was good. Bikini Kill good. Like the Breeders and the Kelly Deal 6000, but with less slow artnoise and more rock. Like Archers of Loaf met up with Throwing Muses and Sleater-Kinney to make beautiful, off-kilter, not-quite-punk indie rock. "Pretty dope," I thought.
I was really getting into the tunes when the tape deck started eating the cassette. "Shit," I swore to myself and pulled the tape and a tangle of ribbon out of the stereo. "Not again!" I looked up in time to see a Zubaz-wearing doofus drinking a Crystal Pepsi get crushed under the grill of my car. Shit.
Not again.
It was my recurring '90s nightmare, right down to the mercy killing of a man wearing terrible pants. Only this time it came with a bitchin' soundtrack.
* * *
To be honest with you, I've got a hazy view of the '90s. For one thing, I was too young and lived too deep in the hinterlands of the Southern Tier to really engage the broader culture and trends. For most of the decade, I was an awkward, red-faced turd with a mullet doing my best to drown out the "sizzlin' country" and holy rollers that pervaded the radio waves. To that end, I'd throw one of my parents' Def Leppard or Guns N' Roses tapes into my yellow and neon-blue knockoff Walkman ("Color Tunes") and endure.
It wasn't until I left for college that I discovered what I'd been missing. College radio and indie rock opened my eyes and ears to a world beyond hair metal and honkey tonk bullshit. It was like leaving my tiny world for another planet. The mother ship had finally come.
Cross Stitch takes me back. Not necessarily to the '90s, when Riot Grrrl was in full swing and bands like Sonic Youth were making guitar noise for shaggy, flanneled hipsters. That just wasn't me. But I love the sound from that era. And Cross Stitch would have been very much at home. They sound like one of those secret bands we only find out about when an older brother or sister or a super-cool crush puts them on a mix tape and clues us in. They've borrowed the mantle of pree-2000 indie and they wear it proudly.
There's a definite feminist vibe running through these tracks, but it seems more, I don't know, mature? Nuanced? Back then, Bikini Kill et al. were the vanguard of third-wave feminism with a "fuck you, I'm a woman, and I rock" attitude. Which was fine at the time. Cross Stitch seem less aggressive, but no less girl-positive. The fact that they've labeled themselves "craftcore" (a tag they share with but one other artist on Bandcamp) suggests that, this time around, the party line is closer to: "If I want to wear a skirt and crochet a tea cozy, that's my business. Now, fuck you, let's rock!"
There's a certain amount of irony here. I can't tell if the whole craft thing is tongue-in-cheek. I'm sure part of it is. I look at Cross Stitch the way I look at modern Sitch 'n' Bitch or Steotch: maybe you're being ironic with this whole girly, arts and crafts business, but you've got to spend a lot of time and genuinely enjoy your work - just a little - to get Jabba the Hutt's needlework jowls to look just right.
You can find Buffalo's best craftrock quartet on Bandcamp and Facebook. Check out their self-titled below. My only complaint is that their six-track digital EP is too damn short. I want more Cross Stitch, and I want it 20 years ago. Preferably on cassette.
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