ALTERNATIVE PRESS #168

"Whad'ya call this kind of music" writeup "What other bands are going to be in this story" asks a somewhat concerned Derek Fudesco, founder of Pretty Girls Make Graves. "I'm curious. ALl of us are making a conscious effort not to fall into that emo-hardcore thing." Put on PGMG's Lookout! debut, Good Health, and keep your knee-jerk reactions in check. Driving rhythms, charging guitars, tasteful electronics and samples coalesce while lead singer Andrea Zollo sings and yells her points across. Imagine Boss Hog singer Cristina Martinez and Burning Airlines guitarist J. Robbins grabbing each oother by the throat and tumbling down a flight of stairs. Or just call the quintet a punk band. "I associate the term with old music, bands like Black Flag and the Circle Jerks." Fudesco says about the punk tag. "But I have no problems with being called that. All of us come from different backgrounds, and we all struggle to get our ideas in. (The music) is just one big dogpile." Fudesco was a founding member of the highly touted Murder City Devils, the post-hardcore unit who did much to expand the genre's musical vocabulary. Zollo fronted the wonderfully named Death Wish Kids, and joined Fudesco in Area 51. Guitarist Jason Clarke is also a member of Kill Sadie, and drummer Nick DeWitt and guitarist Nathan Thelen played together in the Bee Hive Vaults. Clearly, PGMG aren't the standard pop-punk fare upon which Lookout! built its name, and that suits Fudesco just fine, thanks. "There is a tendency for people to buy a label's output, more than just a specific band," he says. "I don't really dig that. I wouldn't want to sign to a label just because kids buy all their stuff. I think it makes our reputation more real, that people had to discover us."