Local Band Boasts Two Smith Grads

(The Smith College Sophian: May 1, 1997: p.5

by Julie Minich)

With the end of another academic year looming ominously on the horizon, Smith Students from all classes are confronting that most disturbing of questions: What am I going to do when I graduate?

Alumni Aimee Swift '91 and Amy Greene '93J have an answer: Form your own rock band.

Swift and Greene make up two-thirds of Pirate Jenny, a Northampton-based group that also includes Jon Carisi (not a Smith alumna) on drums. Greene and Swift both sing, and both take turns playing bass or guitar.

They stayed in Northampton after graduating from Smith because "it's a good place to have a band," Swift explains. "It's a good regional area, because you have a whole bunch of cities in close proximity."

"And a relatively supportive community," adds Greene.

Ironically, despite local support, Pirate Jenny remains something of a secret on the Smith campus itself, although both Swift and Greene express a desire to see more Smith faces at their shows.

They are also interested in playing on the Smith campus. "That's what we really want to do," said Greene.

"We haven't been able to coordinate that (playing at Smith) yet," Swift says. "There's just no outlet at Smith for live music on a regular basis. All the other colleges have a place -- even Mount Holyoke -- they have music every Friday night in the student center."

Still, they haven't given up trying to get the Smith community more involved with the local music scene. "We know what it's like to go to Smith, and you're just so busy," says Swift. "And not only are you so busy, but you're living in your house and there are so many distractions right there. You don't have to go very far to find fun things to do, but we would love to try to merge, to get more Smith women involved in just seeing music, whether or not it's on campus, or if it's in town."

Through their record label, Red Hot Records, Swift and Greene hope to organize a series of female rock bands playing at Smith sometime next fall. Optimally, the series would include both local acts and nationally-known women' s bands like Team Dresch and Bikini Kill.

"I think a series on campus would be really good," says Greene. "Something that would happen maybe once a month."

The band has also played live on Smith College's own WOZQ and speaks fondly of their experience, despite WOZQ's lack of visibility on campus. "It's rudimentary, but you know what? It sounded a lot better than when we played Amherst," says Swift.

"Amherst College -- they have this huge sound booth, with this mixing board and everything, and it sounded horrible," Greene agrees.

Pirate Jenny's history follows a long, convoluted path, beginning when Swift was six years old: "We actually found out that Aimee and I lived right across the street from each other when we were really little," Carisi says. "It's bizarre -- in all of Manhattan, we were on this one street."

Although the two didn't meet until much later, "my mother remembers him," laughs Swift. "He and his brother ran around. And they were really bratty."

Greene and Swift, for their part, both started at Smith in 1987, but Greene drove the scenic road to graduation, taking a year and a half off after her first year. "I took Gen Lit my first year," she explains. "It was a disaster! I had my final paper, I was going to turn it in, and I just freaked out ... I left Smith because of Gen Lit!"

She eventually found her way back, however, and moved from an unfortunate house that shall remain nameless to the Tenney co-op. Swift, meanwhile, affirms, "I was a staunch Hopkins-B-all-four-years person!"

While Swift majored in art history, Greene was a music major concentrating in composition and electronic composition. She spent her spare time in the electronic music studio in the basement of Sage Hall, where she continues to work as an assistant.

As a result, the two didn't meet until after both had graduated, when Greene joined the band Flower-Thief, which Swift was managing. The two formed Pirate Jenny in the spring of 1994, after the demise of Flower-Thief, but the band didn't have a solid lineup until Carisi joined the following spring.

As far as the sound of the music, the band declines to describe themselves. "Don't ask us -- we have no objectivity," Greene said.

They are equally squeamish about citing influences. "One time, live on the radio, somebody asked us, 'Who do you want to be?'" Swift tells me reproachfully when I say the word influence, and I feel guilty for asking.

Greene elaborates: "We try not to be influenced. We want to create our own sound and our own style that will influence somebody else."

Fair enough. But where does that leave the struggling journalist who isn't quite sure how to describe the group either?

The group has a smattering of songs available in record stores locally -- a three-song cassette, a two-song seven-inch single, and one song on a Red Hot Records compilation that includes twelve local bands. There's a song about pretentious Gen-Xers and their boring conversations, a song about a family that lives "in a house in the woods / without electricity," and a song that might be about unrequited love (or it might be about something else entirely.) The lyrics are tangible enough to be interesting but ambiguous enough to be universal. The music is itself catchy and light, but not fluffy.

"We are certainly political beings, but I don't think our music is political," offers Green. "But I think that if you listened closely and really got under the skin of the songs, obviously there's going to be some sort of political slant to things. But it's not outright."

If Pirate Jenny won't talk about itself, it loves to discuss other bands, and we spend a good portion of our interview discussing the virtues of bands like Jawbox, Luscious Jackson, Liz Phair, the Raincoats, the Velvet Underground, and REM. They stress that these groups provide inspiration, if not musical influence. "It's not like we want to sound like REM," Swift explains. "But we look to them for how to be a band."

Another artist that Pirate Jenny discusses enthusiastically is Diana Davies, a local punk-folk singer-songwriter who has released a cassette on Red Hot Records. "She's got some really traditional folk-singer elements, like Dylan," says Swift. "But then she's got this total punk side. And she's very political." "We were really happy to document her music," Greene adds.

In fact, the band seems happy to discuss almost anything -- the local music scene, their favorite bands, and even Ricola cough drops. "Put in a plug for Ricola cough drops," Carisi orders me. "We are the band that runs on Ricola cough drops."

When the interview ends, this is the image that sticks: An unpretentious, fun rock band with an energetic sound that speaks for itself.

go back