Track By Track: Tacocat on Lost Time

Third album Lost Time is a mixing pot of rampant emotions and pop culture references, brought to life with a roguish charm and a vivid punk energy.

"It’s people stuff. It’s normal. It’s nothing and everything. It’s life," the band state. Creating music out of the routine, from The X-Files through to dead-end jobs, and from period pains to endless nights spent dancing, Tacocat make the day-to-day seem not quite so dreary after all.

Stream the album below, and read what frontwoman Emily Noakes had to say about the inspiration behind the tracks beneath.

Dana Katherine Scully

Classic, old-school X-Files. Scully is so so so. The lipstick! The exasperated sighs! The shoulder pads! She’s fascinating. The smartest person on the show and a deep, deep skeptic. But also kind of a contradiction. She could straight up be elbow deep in an alien autopsy and still be searching for a scientific explanation. Get it, girl. Did you know her character started the 'Scully Effect', a phenomenon that inspired more young women to choose fields in science and medicine?

FDP

Yes indeed, another song about periods! This one’s for the First Day of Period, specifically. The day that, for many period-havers, is extremely gnarly and painful. But, y’know, you’re expected to waltz into work or school or whatever, pretending that you’re not fire-cramping and bleeding through six tampons. Oh! And you’re not supposed to say anything about it. If you had the flu or food poisoning or something with the similar physical symptoms (I’m not even getting into the mental feels rn), you definitely wouldn’t be expected to give a presentation, take a final, run a marathon, or… you know… go about your daily life. If men also had periods, at least three days of the month would be government mandated menstrual leave and every bathroom would have tampons as plentiful as toilet paper.

I Love Seattle

We wanted to write a Seattle love song for a while, and with the “FYI, the Northwest portion of the United States is going to fall into the sea in an epic natural disaster” news, the timing felt right. A lot of Seattle’s best buildings and neat businesses have been leveled for condos that look like Office Max designed a juvenile detention center sponsored by an ultra lounge, but our music/art scenes are still worth fighting for, even if the whack adults tell you “this kind of change just happens and you might as well be yelling at the tide for coming in.” Pshh, at least the tide isn’t a clueless bigot painting everything beige. Anyway, there is still a lot to love about Seattle. When the world ends, we’re climbing to the top of the Space Needle <3

I Hate The Weekend

We wanted to make an upbeat pop song about working in the service industry and encountering the aforementioned condo dwellers - tech folk, clueless bros, etc. - who moved into the queer/art neighborhoods by accident and have a complete lack of etiquette towards the folks they smashed in on. There’s this whole “I work hard all week and the weekend is MY CHANCE TO CUT LOOSE!!! [cue harassing women, cue leaving a horrible tip, cue screaming in the street with your pack of dudes/ladies, cue homophobic slur at 4am, cue puking in the sink at a bar]” mentality that suuuuucks for the folks working their asses off at bar jobs to afford their rising rent in the few buildings left.

You Can't Fire Me, I Quit

This one is super fun to belt out. It’s about one of those relationships where you’re just trying so hard, trying everything you can think of, being the total caretaker/enourager/bend-over-backwards-er to someone who can’t snap out of their damage and won’t really extend the same energy towards you… and then THEY break up with YOU. Like, excuse me? You can’t fire me! This job sucks! In fact, I QUIT.

The Internet

The internet has always allowed this crude, rotten, anonymous area for trolls to spew their awfulness, especially towards women - to attack, objectify, and otherwise harass from the safety of their own dark dwellings. Don’t read the comments. Or do, and know that they are human mosquitos. Annoying, useless, bloodsucking. What place do you have? What face do you have?

Plan A, Plan B

Oh, you know. Have you ever taken Plan B? (Thank you Planned Parenthood! Thank you reproductive rights!) We’ve always been amused by what the Plan A was. No one ever plans out a date or an encounter with some hottie like, “The guy I’m flirting with at work wants to go out and sing karaoke! Even though I’m on the fence about his conversation skills, I bet he’ll be smarter than I assumed or at least really funny and we’ll end up going home together and then the condom will break and then… Shit, Plan B!” I think you usually stop your Plan A at the first sentence up there. This music in this song reminds me a little bit of Wire. Definitely nodding to Huggy Bear and early Riot Grrl, sex-positive bands here.

Talk

I love technology but still cringe when I realize I’m on my phone and so is everyone else I’m “hanging out” with. Together alone. Being of the generation that grew up a touch before smart-phone culture, there’s something really satisfying about just chopping it up with friends until 5am and then moving the furniture so you can dance. Talking and dancing and talking and dancing. Hi! I like you irl! Lelah’s drums are really something on this.

Men Explain Things To Me

This is a book by Rebecca Solnit (highly recommended) but also an aggravating experience I’d say most women have dealt with. Not only is it about men telling you things you already fucking know, talking down to you, or simply assuming that as a female, you automatically don’t possess the expertise equal (tell me more about how to hold a microphone, please), but also about being muzzled (“calm down!”) and about feeling like men take up much more space (literally; figuratively) than necessary. As I type this, there is a man sitting behind me at a coffee shop bloviating about why David Bowie is important. The woman he’s with hasn’t said anything besides “uh-huh.”

Horse Grrls

Bree (bass) is from L.A. but in her heart, she’s a total horse girl - the kind of girl who had pony books and worked at a stable in exchange for free pony rides. I’m from Montana and very familiar with the horse girls who lived and breathed equestrian culture, but also like, HAD actual horses. Horses weren’t really my thing, but I was impressed.

Night Swimming

This one is also for Bree, our resident matriarch of night swimming. Seattle goes nuts for swimming in the summer because we only have this small window of sun the whole year. The beaches get kinda crowded and gross, but if you wait until the sun goes down you can get the beach to yourself. Or fuck it, break into a pool. All kinds of night swimming! Except the bummer REM song…

Leisure Bees

Eric (guitar) inspired the subject of this song in our conversations about the art/music trajectory our lives have taken; the philosophy means a lot to us as a band. The gist is worker bees live pretty intense/bleak lives and leisure bees just want to follow their hearts. That’s us! Bees who want free time, even if they’re broke! If you want it, do it. I love that the song/album ends with the sound of the tape reel stopping because the drums were recorded to tape. The backup vocals sound like glittering lights. Erik Blood (recording/producing) is a beautiful wizard genius. What won’t be on your tombstone?

Lost Time is released via Hardly Art on 1 April.

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