Album Review: Mika Miko - We Be Xuxa
Around the time I got my hands on L.A.-repping Mika Miko’s third album, We Be Xuxa, I’d just finished a week or so of heavy Joan Jett rotation. My vinyl copy of Bad Reputation was wearing mighty thin. I’m still not sure whether this connection was a serendipitous coincidence or an unfortunate one.
Joan Jett rampaged through the early ’80s, rolling in just after the Sex Pistols and Ramones hit their stride. In fact, Paul Cook and Steve Jones of the Pistols backed Jett on some early recordings. And there are bootlegs (official and unofficial) of Joan jamming out with the Ramones to her hit “Bad Reputation” (NERD ALERT: It’s the theme for “Freaks and Geeks”). Throughout all this, Jett (from most stories I’ve read) was just another one of the guys. Never being cited as “the girl punk,” she was just one of the damn finest punk vocalists going.
On the other hand, Mika Miko are almost always cited as “girl punks.” But, I suppose that’s only right, as the Jett influence here is heavily filtered through Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill and the rest of the Riot Grrrl movement, which emphasized feminism as much as it did punk. So, that first twinge of guilt/sadness at reducing Mika Miko to gender-specific roles (when compared to Joan Jett’s sheer brilliance) is suddenly washed away when noting the female empowerment of the Riot Grrrl movement.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, the specifics of the record can be analyzed more easily. And at 22 minutes long, We Be Xuxa seems about as focused as a spastic teenager on the first day of summer vacation. It’s alternately, sincerely wacky and insanely sincere; a few tracks are dark and brooding while the others are bright, sharp and poppy; there are shouts and croons, yelps and growls.
The first five tracks are simple enough. The structures are succinct, the guitars distorted and thick, the vocals intense. The bass line on opener “Blues Not Speed” slinky pop and rumble drives things forward. The call and response chorus of “I want a-turkey sandwich” on the aptly titled “Turkey Sandwich” keep things light and breezy. “Wild Bore” is a revision of a sublimely aggressive track from last year’s EP, 666. “Sex”, apparently a cover of a song by So-Cal punk legends the Urinals, shows off Mika Miko’s familiarity and comfort with punk’s grimier side.
“Totion” follows, full steam ahead, lapping up the waves, surfy bass line skimming lowly underneath the surreal chanted/echoed vocals. “Keep on Calling” has a similar smooth, sexy slither, something you could imagine the bad kids in old anti-pot after-school movies dancing to.
But nothing on the album comes close to the No Wave-y bliss of “Sex Jazz”. The rollicking, scattered yet pounding drums, this time provided by GASP male drummer Seth Densham provide sufficient punch. The vocals are barked out and scrappy, the braying saxophone (which does pop up here and there in Mika Miko’s catalog) living in the glorious shadow of James Chance.
And then, the album closes just as quickly as it started. With a remix of “Turkey Sandwich”. Maybe not a remix, but a revision, with hauntingly deep male backing vocals and cash register-clatter percussion. And yes, it’s just as weird as it sounds.
In the end, We Be Xuxa falls in some weird world between Bikini Kill and the Blackhearts, a world where James Chance and the Urinals are cornerstones of the arts. A world where people enjoy partying, love kicking ass and really want a turkey sandwich.
Rating: 
Check Out:
“I Got A Lot (New New New)”
Buy:
We Be Xuxa
Oct 19th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
[...] outfit with six years and three full-lengths to its name (the most recent being this year’s We Be Xuka), has decided to follow in the footsteps of a-ha and call it a [...]