If girls just wanna have fun, that still doesn’t mean all girls just wanna have fun the same way. Corin Tucker Band’s new video for “Neskowin,” from the former Sleater-Kinney belter-led outfit’s second album Kill My Blues (out today on Kill Rock Stars), has hit NPR, and it’s an alt-girl’s coming-of-age tale fit for an edgier John Hughes film. Directed by Alicia J. Rose, a fellow musician who also recently shot Bob Mould’s “The Descent” visuals, the clip shows Tucker as wise mother, as friendly hippie, and, brilliantly, as late X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene, whose passing punk-leaning listeners of all stripes mourned last year.
This spiky post-punk song’s powerfully delivered lyrics reportedly draw inspiration from a childhood trip to the town of Neskowin, Oregon, where Tucker went with her best friend at age 13. And that’s where the video begins: “Two teenage girls, headed for the world / Heads barely out of fairy tales / Bodies grown up, ready to go,” Tucker yowls with the force of a Beth Ditto machine. From there, the girls rock out, give each other makeovers, then hitchhike with the aforementioned hippies, though after their innocent flirtations at an arcade turn into a brawl, they wind up at a Tucker-fronted X-Ray Spex show. Which looks like a fun place to be, and more than enough to kill anyone’s blues.