Give It Out, Do It Better

As many listeners know, there are artists whose music has influenced generations of future artists. One such band is the Sex Pistols. One concert of theirs in Manchester influenced the creation of the following bands: The Fall, The Smiths, Magazine, Buzzcocks, Simply Red, and Joy Division. Each one of those bands went on to influence punk rock, new wave, post-punk, and/or new wave in massive ways. That discussion is for another day and another dispatch. I bring up the Sex Pistols because when they were touring, they found themselves in Zurich, and this is where our story begins.

In the audience of that show was Marlene Marder, a young woman who played saxophone and was really into what she saw—just like all of the people I mentioned above. Taking the inspiration, she joined a punk band with a bunch of guys. After a short period, she was thrown out because punk bands don’t have saxophones. While she was playing with the boys, two of her friends, Klaudia Schifferle and Lislot Hafner, had started a band with Regula Sing and a male guitarist. At one of their shows, the male guitarist, whose name does not matter in the slightest, refused to play an encore and quit the band. Marder, who knew the parts, stepped in and cemented herself as the guitarist.

It is at this point that the four ladies decided that they had something, and so they gave themselves a name: Kleenex. When you listen to their first EP from 1978, there is an immediate difference from the punk rock of the time. You hear it when you listen to songs like “Nice” from this EP:

The bassline is funky. The drums are crisp, and the guitar is brittle. Although Sing is not the most expressive singer, it does not get in the way of the fact that the band has a clear groove that is infectious and more fun than much of the punk rock that surrounded them. This sound got them a lot of attention. Initially released only in Switzerland, the EP found its way into the hands of tastemaker John Peel, a name that is familiar to all of those who have listened to music from the underground for any extended period of time.

Getting onto the radar in the UK got them opportunities to play in the region. The tour was a success, and they went out into the studio again to record a new single: “You/Ü”. “You” has this steady insistence that makes it work. It flirts with being slightly too stiff, but the overall energy with the call and response and the sturdy rhythm section keep it in lodged in your head. The true hero of this single is the B side, Ü. The song starts with Shifferle’s bass playing a few measures before Hafner joins in. Marder’s guitar line weaves in and out of the rhythm as Song chants lyrics like an incantation. It’s funky from start to finish. It forces you to move, whether you want to or not.

This single also did extremely well, and they went out on tour with bands like Swell Maps and The Raincoats (who I will discuss later in this dispatch). This tour was the last iteration of the original band as well as the original name.

At the end of the tour, Song left the band. She was replaced with Chrigle Freund, a high school dropout who was considerably younger than the rest of the band. They also added saxophonist Angie Barrack to their ranks, growing the quartet into a quintet. In addition to the addition of Freund and Barrack, the band underwent a different change. Due to legal pressure from Kimberly-Clark (owners of the Kleenex trademark), the band changed their name to LiLiPUT.

In this new configuration, they released a new single in 1980 with “Split” on the A side and “Die Matrosen” on the B side. The first thing that is evident is the more confident presence of Freund in the band. She has got extra emotion in her voice. Her dynamic range is greater than Song’s, and it brings a new dimension to the music. As well, the music is generally very fun. There are nonsense call-and-response lyrics. “Split” has multiple whistling interludes, and the saxophone absolutely works in the songs, which is not always a given.

After this single, Hafner and Barrack left the band. Freund would leave soon after, leaving Marder and Schifferle to carry on the name. They recruited two men, Beat Schlatter and Christoph Herzog, to play drums and saxaphone, respectively, as well as Astrid Spirit to sing. After a German tour, Schlatter and Herzog left the band. Although Schlatter would play drums in the studio, LiLiPUT was a trio when they released their first LP, LiLiPUT in 1982. Although a departure from the more punk-informed early singles, this album is phenomenal.

The songs on LiLiPUT recall the work of krautrock bands like Can and Harmonia as well as the influence of artists from the Downtown New York scene such as Patti Smith, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, James Chance and the Contortions, and Bush Tetras. Spirit’s vocals float more than either Freund’s or Song’s. Her vocal range and choices are greater than those made by either of the two previous singers. In addition, her lyrics are free associative, reminding me of the vibe-based lyrics perfected by Damo Suzuki during his time with Can. Marder’s guitar work is more precise and emotive than the work on the earlier singles, and Schifferle’s bass lines take on the funkier, harder tone that was prevalent in the work of the Contortions and Bush Tetras. While the overall listening experience is less direct than the punkier singles, repeat listens show that this is an engaging, dynamic listen.

The band would continue on to make one more album, 1983’s Some Songs, but I’m not going to really talk about it. It’s OK, but it was not up to the standard of the earlier work. When listening to it, it is clear by this point that the band was burned out and did not want to keep going forward. After this album, LiLiPUT broke up.

The Future of Liliput

If there is one thing that should be made clear about Kleenex/LiLiPUT, it is that they did it their way. They made music that thumped and buzzed with lyrics that possessed the most rudimentary grasp of English because that is what they wanted to do. In the extremely macho world of both punk and post-punk, this is an absolutely major thing. They didn’t play the fame game. They didn’t dress sexy or soften their sound to make it more accessible or appeal to men. If you got it, awesome. If you didn’t, that’s your problem. The result of this never-compromising approach is an archive of music that is radical for who is making it as well as its sound. I have been listening to LiLiPUT for decades at this point, and the music still sounds fresh and more radical than a lot of the new music that I listen to, even though it is from before my birth and I’m in my 40s.

This commitment to their principles has allowed them to have a long history and influence many artists. For example, Kirk Cobain openly spoke about his love for this band. In addition, along with The Slits and The Raincoats, LiLiPUT inspired generations of women to start playing rock and roll. One band influenced by LiLiPUT is Shonen Knife. On their 1983 album Burning Farm, you can hear the rough rhythms of LiLiPUT colliding with the simplistic style of The Ramones as well as other genres of music like reggae. They took their lyrics cues from LiLiPUT, however, as their songs, when not sung in Japanese, maintain the same joyfully tenuous grasp of English that LiLiPUT’s songs have.

Their stance as a group of women playing their music in their own way served as an inspiration to the Riot Grrrl scene that would arise in the early 1990s around bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Heavens to Betsy. While their politics were clear, LiLiPUT was not as strident as those bands. However, their music was just as decidedly anti-establishment as the music made by those all-women bands coming from the Pacific Northwest, Washington, D.C., and many points in between.

Where To Start

If you have read this and thought it cool, you might ask so where do I start with this band. The answer is extremely simple: Kleenex/LiLiPUT, the compilation of all of their singles, their two albums, and extra unreleased material. It’s 46 tracks and runs around two hours and 20 minutes. It will give you everything you need and more. It’s fantastic. It was out of print for almost a decade until Kill Rock Stars, home of many of the Riot Grrrl bands, realized it was their cultural duty to get this back in print, which they did in 2001.

When I started thinking about this dispatch, I was trying to think of some way to talk about this band because their songs have been stuck in my head since around November. My original idea was to do a mix of all-girl post-punk bands. As I started to do research, the list was extremely short, which made me sad. There are plenty of women involved in post-punk: Lydia Lunch, Siouxsie Sioux, Lora Logic, Poly Styrene, Su Tissue (of Suburban Lawns), and Debora Iyall (of Romeo Void), among others. The problem was that all of them play with men. Takes them out of contention for the playlist.

When I finished looking, I got the following projects: Sneaks, Patio, Au Pairs, The Slits, Kleenex/LiLiPUT, Girls At Our Best, Erase Errata, and The Organ. I was going to throw in the no-wave/disco artists ESG and Lizzy Mercier Descloux as well as weird punk act Nots. As you can see, this would be a repetitive, short playlist. (This is where the responsible music person in me must say that all of the acts mentioned for the playlist are absolutely awesome. Go listen to their albums.) So, this is why you have a history of Kleenex/LiLiPUT, and honestly, this is one of the lesser-known bands from this time, so it’s worthwhile to spend some time telling their story.

If this is all repetitive and not new information for you, good. Go listen to some LiLiPUT and enjoy your life. If you have just learned something new, awesome. Go listen to some LiLiPUT and enjoy your life. I’ll be back with archival Spins next week. We’ll see if 2014 me had decent taste or not. As always take care of yourselves and others. Don’t be a piece of shit. Don’t be the problem. And help your neighbors if they need it.

I’ll leave you with a video of LiLiPUT in action. Look at how cool they are. If I was a teen in the 1980s, I would have wanted to play punk after seeing them.