On September 2, the complete works of P.S. Eliot—an early band from Katie and Allison Crutchfield, best known for Waxahatchee and Swearin’ respectively—will be released as an anthology via Don Giovanni. In addition to featuring both P.S. Eliot albums (2009’s Introverted Romance in Our Troubled Minds and 2011’s Sadie), their 2010 Living in Squalor EP, and various demos, this retrospective includes an extensive oral history of the band, in the form of a zine penned by Liz Pelly (who has contributed to Pitchfork, among others). What follows is an excerpt from this zine, chronicling P.S. Eliot’s earliest days, as well as a song from the anthology.
Within the creaks of scrappy, homemade punk songs, we hear so much. Process, mistakes, learning. Signs that life is actually happening. This is what I hear in the songs of P.S. Eliot, the feminist pop punk band formed in 2008 by Katie and Allison Crutchfield as teenagers in Birmingham, Alabama. Across their discography of sweetly angsty, off-balance guitar pop—a demo CD-R, one 7-inch, and two full-length records—is a palpable sense of a group of musicians becoming themselves. It is timelessly energizing.
Grown from the roots of their high school band, guitar-and-keys power-pop quartet the Ackleys, P.S. Eliot was an act of autonomy and opposition. “We don’t grow/when/we huddle into groups and we cry all the time,” goes the chorus on “Like How You Are,” one of the first songs they penned. And indeed, with this band, its members were learning to grow, having formed with the intention to travel as much as possible, with a pure DIY heart. A version of “Like How You Are” appears on the band’s first release, The Bike Wreck demo, a tinny 5-song CD-R recorded one afternoon in the Crutchfields’ parents’ garage. It perfectly sounds like shit, but the lyrics are tricky and literate, and the hooks are extraordinarily catchy. It perfectly sounds like a singer finding her voice in a stifling suburb, like feeling aimlessly alive, like trying to figure out where to put all of her feelings, like being young. “I don’t really care about the future I care about/what keeps you away,” she goes on to sing.
As much as we can learn from the sound of these records, there is even more to glean from the story of P.S. Eliot. Their story is one of Southern teen feminist outsiders coming into their own personal politics, learning to speak out, leaving their hometown, and finding their community. It is a story of how all-ages community art spaces can open doors for young people. How male-dominated hardcore scenes can be truly oppressive, but finding it within yourself to push back can be life-changing. How failed first tours can be platforms for self-education. It is the story of overnight drives from Birmingham to New Brunswick, NJ, fueled by a contagious, tour-obsessed lifestyle. It is the story of a specific moment in the history of feminist punk, in the mid-to-late ’00s, where non-dudes making melodic, expressive music could “find their people” through Myspace “top eights” and shared MediaFire links.
In 2011, before P.S. Eliot disbanded, Katie Crutchfield contributed a personal essay to the zine International Girl Gang Underground, co-edited by Kate Wadkins, who also made album artwork for Sadie. The essay is titled “Cold Bright and Clear,” and details Katie’s first experience watching an all-female punk band play at Cave 9, coming to the realization that her experience in punk had been marked explicitly by sexist, homophobic, “gym-shorts-wearing straight-up jock hardcore.” “The punk community is made up of all kinds of blanketed bigots and lazy, indifferent beardos and Pabst-guzzling empty talkers,” Katie writes. “Luckily it is also full of some pretty unyielding crusaders. The reality of it is disappointing but it’s an incentive to make it better. It’s an invitation to stand up for something and feel proud later on.” And P.S. Eliot would go on to spread an empowering attitude in basements and makeshift spaces around the country, as unyielding crusaders themselves.
There are reasons we need bands like P.S. Eliot when we are young, because there is transformative power in girly punk songs, in queer punk songs. These are also the reasons why P.S. Eliot are a life-affirming band to return to time and again over the years. Because it is rejuvenating to hear the sounds of potential being realized, of agency being actualized. Because their eternal spirit is something we can carry with us.
Beginnings
Katie Crutchfield: It took me a long time to learn guitar. I started playing guitar when I was 13. But I didn’t have any sort of example. Everything having to do with playing guitar—tuning, changing strings, playing power chords—all of these little things were huge hurdles for me. It took me a whole year before I could really do it. But once I could, I really stuck with it. I started writing really simple songs and would record them to tape.
In high school, Allison and I didn’t share interests with a lot of our peers. We didn’t have a ton of friends, so we just put everything into making music. Starting freshman year, every day after school, we would come home, have a snack, and go downstairs and play music. When it got too late to make noise, we would make stencils and work on recordings.
Our first band, the Ackleys, played our first proper show at this silly school event. We played with Carter’s band, who eventually became the Ackleys drummer. Before, it was mostly just Allison and I playing alone, though we sometimes played with our friend Carly. My mom recently remembered me coming home from school in ninth grade and saying, “I think I have to kick Carly out of the band, she just cares too much about school.”
The same night as that first Ackleys show, we met this guy Derek, who was the same age as us at the time, 15. He knew about Cave 9 and said he’d set up a show for us there. And then he did book it, but he didn’t tell us. A couple of days before, someone was like, “Oh I saw your band name on the Cave 9 website.” And we were like, “What? Oh my god, we’re playing this show!” I couldn’t even drive yet.
In the early ’00s, the scene in Birmingham was really small, so Cave 9 would have these shows with all different local bands—a hardcore band, a metal band, a pop punk band—all on the same bill, and everyone would support each other. This was one of those shows. We were super intimidated by Cave 9 and thought of it as this larger-than-life place where cool music people played, but once we went there for the first time, we started hanging out there a lot.
This was all around when we first started getting into punk, and forming our own musical tastes and interests. It was at a time when you could download any kind of music that you wanted, at any time, for free. Allison and I became both obsessed with riot-grrrl, but also a lot of other music.
And we made friends with a lot of cool, older people who were setting up shows in Birmingham and making music. I would help them mark hands, and take money, and do whatever I could to help out. That’s how I learned about the whole process of DIY shows, and discovered how this larger community operates.
Cave 9
Cave 9 was a volunteer-run, non-profit, all-ages venue that existed in Birmingham from 2003 until 2009. In the All-Ages Movement Project’s 2010 book, In Every Town: An All-Ages Music Manuelfesto, an entire chapter is dedicated to the space, describing it as a bare-bones, 300 capacity youth-oriented community center where shows would start around 7 p.m. and usually end before 11 p.m. “Nestled on the street corner at the edge of a residential neighborhood, Cave 9 is surrounded by several other warehouse and industrial spaces,” Katy Otto writes. “You have to walk up close to the venue to see the sign with its name, and the posters and flyers announcing upcoming shows in the windows.” In a mini-doc about the space, titled “We’ve Got Too Much Heart,” that can be foundon YouTube, the Ackleys can be spotted playing, hanging out, and working at the venue.
Will Granger (guitar in P.S. Eliot): Cave 9 was a cool community. If you went to the shows, you’d get to know everyone there. We were all regulars.
Katie: Cave 9 was a collectively run space, but over the years it became clear that Cave 9 was what it was because of Aaron Hamilton. I really feel Aaron taught me how to be in a DIY band. Cave 9 was where we met a lot of touring bands. Through them, when I booked my first few tours, those were my contacts, people who we met through playing shows at Cave 9. It was a super organic DIY process, and Aaron sort of angled me towards all of that. It made such a huge impression on my entire life.
Aaron Hamilton (of Cave 9): Cave 9 was an all-ages music venue. We opened in 2003, and we were a non-profit, and had shows and classes. We were trying to make it a safe place, and inclusive for everybody. We wanted to be inclusive for younger people in the DIY punk rock scene.
It was important for Cave 9 to exist because everyone needs a place to go and be creative. A place to go and see art or music where everyone is welcome no matter what part of town they came from. Parents and peers are an important part of growing up but sometimes you need a place to go out of the shadow of your high school to figure yourself out. It was important for Birmingham to have it because every city should have some form of place like that. It was especially important to me for Birmingham to have it because I love this city. It's flawed and has a terrible past. But the people in it are diverse and beautiful. I wanted bands that toured through to see that. And I wanted the people that grew up here to know that the people that toured through Cave 9 were just like them. Whether they were from Gainesville, San Francisco, Okinawa, Paris, or Atlanta. If you were in a Birmingham band and wanted to tour, you have as much of a chance as anyone.
We had a lot of hardcore shows. One of the guys who would come a lot was named Derek. He hit me up one day and said he knew some kids in a band who wanted to play. I think this was going to be their second show. So he set it up, we had them play, the band was called the Ackleys. They were very new and young, but you could tell they really had it together. And they had a lot of potential. As soon as they finished playing, I spoke to Katie and said if they wanted to play again, to just be in touch. And then it kind of started with the Ackleys just being regulars and playing a lot at Cave 9. They were a kind of straight-up indie rock band, but they had a lot of punk and hardcore influences, and they were friends with all of those people. So they were at shows a lot, and they were around. Once they could drive, they started coming up a lot more. I think they were 15 when they played their first show there.
There was a lot of good music in town. But having all of the experiences I had, meeting the number of people I’d met, booking shows and having touring bands come through, going to other cities and meeting people... You hear so much great music, but there’s a point where, you hear things and think, “I’ve got something better than this, and everybody needs to hear it.” When musicians are as talented as they are, they deserve to actually progress, to get out in the world, to be heard by everybody. You kind of want to keep it to yourself, because that’s your band that you discovered, but you have to realize that they are going to get stifled and they just need to be out there. I felt like when I heard them, every time they wrote a new song it was better and better and better. It never got stagnant. They just needed to be out in the world. The Crutchfield sisters were destined for bigger things. They had to get out and be heard by other people. And anything I could do to help that, I wanted to do.
Reena (second bassist):Cave 9 was home for a lot of us. I spent more time there than anywhere else from ages 16 to 21... For me, it was really important. I was always bullied in high school. People were mean to me. I never really fit in anywhere. I was sad and lonely and pissed off, and I had a lot of loss early in life in my family. Punk was a good outlet. When I was around 15, I discovered DIY punk shows because I started hanging out at the mall. This was way back in the day before the internet, when people still flyered for shows at the mall. At Cave 9 it was just like, “Oh okay, here’s somewhere I don’t feel awful being all the time.” It was such a tight knit community. Being 16, it was so different to finally not feel completely left out of something. Aaron is like the entire city’s big brother.
Cave 9 is also how me, Katie, and Allison met and became friends in high school. I met them going to Ackleys shows. I remember the first time I saw them playing, thinking, “They are so cool, I would love to be their friend.” When they asked me to be in P.S. Eliot, I was 21 and they were around 19. I didn’t even play any instruments but I had been involved with the DIY punk scene in Birmingham. My involvement was always more supporting the scene, going to shows, putting bands up when they needed somewhere to sleep. Supporting all of my friends who were in bands. There weren’t really any all-female bands in Birmingham at the time. It was a very hardcore scene, very masculine, very gym shorts and tank tops and mosh pits. I started learning how to play bass for P.S. Eliot.
It was just cool to get to be a part of something where you always just expected to be a spectator. There were all of the typical social pressures and drama, but what I really liked about P.S. Eliot, since it was all ladies, it eradicated all of that. It was just us. There’s this whole intimidation factor I would have felt if I ever tried to do a project like that with guys. It was nice to do something that would support us, without being for the male gaze. That was always a big thing with P.S. Eliot. It wasn’t for anyone else. It was for us.
‘Sadie’ release show at Brooklyn's Cedar Mansion; photo by Kate Wadkins
Us Against the World
Before Katie and Allison Crutchfield started P.S. Eliot together, the twin sisters played together in the Ackleys. And after P.S. Eliot disbanded, they continued to work creatively and collaboratively together as Bad Banana. Katie, who would go on to start Waxahatchee, also contributed songwriting to some of the earliest songs by Swearin’, Allison’s band after P.S. Eliot, and Allison would go on to play as a member of Waxahatchee’s live band. Their synchronicity as artists and collaborators is a testament to the unique energy that can result from twin experiences, pushing and pulling each other along the way.
Allison Crutchfield: We learned so much about punk and punk politics in Cave 9, because of Aaron. But punk is so vast, and means so many things for so many different people. Inevitably there’s going to be a lot of headbutting and a lot of people with a lot to say. It probably would have happened in any small town. Maybe because it was in the South, it was a little more intense.
Katie: Around when we started P.S. Eliot, in Birmingham, a lot of the kids our age were into moshy-hardcore stuff. We didn’t identify with it and it didn’t inspire us. There were so many kids in our school who were into punk, but it was a lot of boys. We were the only girls who played music. The absence of a conversation about it would eventually leave us feeling alienated. At first, though, we were really young and blissfully unaware about that lack of diversity.
The Ackleys played locally so much, made a record, toured together. But our bass player and our drummer were flawless musicians. It was so polished. Allison and I started wanting to be in a band that sounded more raw. We were just excited to do another band but politically and musically start over. We just wanted to get a fresh start. That’s kind of why we started P.S. Eliot.
Allison: When we started the Ackleys, we didn’t really have any friends. Nobody thought we were cool, so we were really obsessive about making this band. People started paying attention to it when we started playing shows, so then it became this thing where it felt like a form of acceptance. We were in this band that people liked. And then I think with P.S. Eliot, it was just like, ok, we don’t really give a fuck about being accepted, so much as we care about our own convictions and how we feel and being true to ourselves.
When Katie and I feel really inspired by something, we can build each other up in this way where we have complete courage in ourselves and complete confidence in ourselves, in a way that is really powerful. P.S. Eliot was a moment where we really realized that. This was a way for us to be like, “We’re going to do everything ourselves, fuck everybody else.” It’s a really powerful feeling. You almost feel high off this level of agreement or support.
It’s happened a few times in our lives, like when we first started the Ackleys. And we didn’t have any friends and we were like, “Fuck everybody we’re going to do this band and that’s all that matters. We don’t need any friends, we don’t need anything.” And then P.S. Eliot was really the second real time when we were like, “Fuck all these people, this is an unsafe place, we’re trying to carve out a place for women to feel safe in this community.” But also we were like 18, and we didn’t know how to do that, and we were probably being fucked up, too. We were just learning about this stuff.
Reena: I always love when Katie and Allison play music together. There’s something about the connection between the two of them. It’s like they just look at each other and they know exactly what’s going on. It’s that weird twin thing they do.