The great Portland indie rock drummer Janet Weiss is best-known for her time in Sleater-Kinney, but Weiss has also played in about a million other bands. Yesterday, we learned that Weiss is part of Jon Spencer’s new band the HITmakers. That band will release a new album this spring. When they go out on tour, Weiss will play with the HITmakers, and she’ll also play in the opening act — Quasi, her long-running duo with ex-husband Sam Coomes. You’d think that Weiss was busy enough, but no. Another one of her bands also has an album coming out this spring.
Janet Weiss is also one fourth of a sort of Portland indie rock supergroup called Slang. That band also features Modern Kin leader Drew Grow, former Thermals member Katy Foster, and Viva Voce’s Anita Lee Elliot. Slang started sometime in the last decade, and they released a single called “Warm Enough” in 2018, but they’ve never come out with a full-length. That’s about to change.
As Brooklyn Vegan reports, Slang’s debut Cockroach In A Small Town is coming out this spring. It’ll feature contributions from Weiss’ Quasi partner Sam Coomes, as well as two other former Weiss bandmates, Stephen Malkmus and Mary Timony. (Weiss was in the Jicks with Malkmus and Wild Flag with Timony.) Slang have just shared the fuzzy, yarly new single “Wilder,” which definitely sounds like it comes from an older era of Pacific Northwest music. Check out director Steve Dore’s animated video below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Wilder”
02 “King Gunn”
03 “Hit The City”
04 “In Hot Water”
05 “Time Bomb”
06 “Wrong Wrong Wrong”
07 “Chipped Tooth”
08 “Cockroach In A Ghost Town”
09 “My #1”
Cockroach In A Small Town is out 5/27 on Kill Rock Stars.
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