Katie the Pest climbs the wall

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA

Katie the Pest is like That Dog and Wipers, I have been explaining—guitar that keeps its own beat and what Greg Sage called “rad hypnotic” drums (succinct Sage tells it like it is) and reverb like pointing a mirror into a mirror. Katie has guitar and vocal in infinite reflection and reds the mix for the rest—slide a palm up the mixer ‘til you hit the lights—and singer/guitarist/songwriter Talia Rose calls it “safe vicious” and laughs. Modest in all things except for guitar and voice—the first she rows and the last she floats, one of those sweet and smart and sad voices that came first from the 45s in jukeboxes and truck stops and radio stations, Mary Wells and Kitty Wells and you could decide how in between you wanted to be. Hope Sandoval did this well—and was also from LA—but Talia is much fiercer for reverb and a little sharper in her songs: “Handsome, I can hear you cheating,” she sings. “You broke her, and now she fits you like a glove.”

Her dad was a classically-trained guitar player, and he taught her the blues (“Delta blues, Chicago blues, Butterfield Blues Band . . . ,” she lists, smiling), but she didn’t quite bite (no discipline for lessons, she says), and he accepted that she was going to write her own songs. She met Mary Suzuki, the girl who would be in almost every band Talia was, in high school in 1993; they would walk home together—both shy, both disposed to sort of “dissect the world in a way,” she says, “to understand what a made a person to a certain point.” Katie then was between where she needed to be: just a little late to be contemporary with Jesus and Mary Chain or Medicine or the Primitives, whose Tracy Tracy twins Talia at her softest; and just a little early for this millennial echoplex revival. Times were thin, and though Katie was lean—just two girls, drums and guitar, Mary and Talia and homemade cookies in the back each show—cheaper bands got big. After Mary left on good terms—six years in service, something Talia talks about as “relationship” as much as “band”—Katie lapsed and almost collapsed.

Then a false re-start but false finish, too, because I think Talia is one of the few who are really born for it. “I just cannot be idle,” said Mary Wells once. “It makes me feel like I want to climb the fucking wall!” So she was helpless to tape new songs and admitted she wanted a band again. Now she has new real Katie songs―the first since 2004’s This Giant Will Kill You, recorded in the high-school band room in King City, CA, the Central Valley town where Mr. Graham lets alums like new drummer Michael Park (spotted off MySpace; the “funniest person” she knows) import Talia (now from Downey) and new bassist Jeff Lewis for 17 hours of recording and the rest of the weekend for tea, visiting with cats, light reading, and (finally) sleep. “If you knew what you lost,” sings Talia, “you wouldn’t be shutting it out.” Something about this band, even after so long and so much. Once I saw Talia ahead of me on the street, and I knew right away who it was; same way with her songs—which is why I like them.

KATIE THE PEST WITH GUESTS TBA QUE SERA | 1923 E SEVENTH ST | LONG BEACH 90813 | 562.599.6170 | SUN 9PM | $5 | ALL AGES | MYSPACE/SUCKASUCKASUCKAFREE