#SQUADGOALS (13)
By:
March 29, 2017
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by HILOBROW friends and regulars during 2017, on the subject of our favorite squads.
For disaffected twelve-year-olds Klara and Bobo, it starts with a clerical error. They’re hanging at the community center, and an all-male teen metal band called Iron Fist is ruining their lives from the practice room next door — until Klara figures out that they failed to sign up for the time slot. She and Bobo quickly pencil in their names and claim the space for themselves. It’s Sweden, so rules are rules and fair’s fair: Iron Fist are ushered out. It’s Sweden, so you can launch your new punk life by politely signing up on a clipboard. Egalitarianism + bureaucracy: maybe it’s the only way a crew of shrimpy girls can crash the macho infrastructure.
Klara and Bobo step up onto the stage with an awed uncertainty that swiftly gives way to glee. They have no idea what they’re doing, but they do it anyway.
I love a young girl band in any form, but unlike the Fabulous Stains, who looked more fabulous than stained, or the Runaways with their effortless shredded jeans and eyeliner, We Are The Best — Coco Moodysson’s 2008 graphic novel, and Lukas Moodysson’s 2013 film adaptation — gives us punk idols who weren’t born cool. Feisty Klara’s obviously got it in her, but then there’s baby-butch Bobo in her wire-rimmed specs and oversized sweaters, and their Christianity-tainted recruit Hedvig with her eyes-down shyness and serious classical guitar chops.
I love them because they’re cool without being cool. I love them because they never try to look hot, just different from their pragmatically feminine classmates. I love them because their only song, the atonally hollered “Hatar Sport,” is about hating sports. If I’d had the gall and luck to start a band in middle school, it would have looked like this, and I’d have dreamed of writing a song that bared my hatred of the school’s most sacred endeavor with such succinct fury.
Their band doesn’t even get or need a name. At first this jarred me: don’t they deserve that much, especially when so many of us merrily name bands well before (or instead of) starting them? But to name them would be to brand them, and that would be to limit them. You don’t need a label when your squad is, straight up, The Best.
#SQUADGOALS: Annie Nocenti on THE WILD BUNCH | Alice Boone on PRETTY LITTLE LIARS | Gordon Dahlquist on BOWIE’S BAND | Rob Wringham on THE HOME GUARD | Jennifer Krasinski on WATERSHIP DOWN RABBITS | Annalee Newitz on ROBIN HOOD’S MERRY PALS | Adrienne Crew on THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP | Mark Kingwell on THE HONG KONG CAVALIERS | Adam McGovern on KAMANDI’S FAMILY | John Overholt on THE CLUB | Greg Rowland on THE VULTURE SQUADRON | Sara Ryan on BETSY, TACY & TIB | Chelsey Johnson on VI ÄR BÄST! | Brian Berger on THE JOHN FORD STOCK COMPANY | Sherri Wasserman on THE WARRIORS | Jessamyn West on FAREYNIKTE PARTIZANER ORGANIZATSYE | Josh Glenn on DADA | Matthew De Abaitua on THE TIME | Mandy Keifetz on THE FOUNDING FATHERS | William Nericcio on ZOOT SUIT PACHUCOS | Deb Chachra on FIREFLY CREW | Matthew Battles on THE ANIMAL FAMILY | Ingrid Schorr on THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS | Joe Alterio on THE USUAL GANG OF IDIOTS | Dan Reines on THE BREAKFAST CLUB | Rob Walker on LES TROIS INSÉPARABLES | Devin McKinney on 1975 RED SOX | Steph Burt on DAMAGE CONTROL | Elina Shatkin on THE HOLOGRAMS | Chris Spurgeon on THE ALKALI METALS | Carl Wilson on NEW YORK SCHOOL POETS | Barbara Bogaev on THE MOD SQUAD | Franklin Bruno on THE AACM | Judith Zissman on THE FUTURIANS | Mimi Zeiger on ARCHIGRAM | Jacob Mikanowski on THE RATBASTARDS | Lynn Peril on THE DALY SISTERS | Anindita Basu Sempere on MEG MURRY’S FAMILY | Libi Rose on THE ENIAC TEAM | Gary Panter on THE TRIBE OF HIPPIES | Peter Doyle on CORNEL WILDE BOYS | Ken Layne on THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG | Molly Wright Steenson on BAUHAUS | Katie Hennessey on BEAT POETS | Mimi Lipson on THE RUNAWAYS | Jordan Ellenberg on BOURBAKI | Michael Campochiaro on THE SUICIDE SQUAD | Deborah Wassertzug on THE BLOODHOUND GANG | Colin Dickey on ACÉPHALE | Douglas Wolk on SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY | David Smay on THE MYSTIC KNIGHTS OF THE OINGO BOINGO | Karinne Keithley Syers on BLACKLIPS PERFORMANCE CULT.
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