Get Down With Sharkmuffin's Minimal Punk Anthem, 'Tampons Are For Sluts'

Badass New York punks Sharkmuffin know how to throw a karaoke party, as evidenced in this new video for their thrashing new single, “Tampons Are For Sluts,” airing for the first time here at Jezebel. Shot by Caroline Yoder, it’s got all the attributes of a must-attend slumber party—costumes, balloons, bubbles, microphones, a Rihanna poster—and gets real when the two boys in half-assed drag are discovered and removed from the premises.

Sharkmuffin’s normally a trio—Tarra Thiessen, Natalie Kirch, and Sharif Mekawy—but this jam’s got Patty Schemel filling on drums, whose rapidfire style you may recognize from her time in Hole. That invocation is appropriate: this track has that fatigued, fussy quality that some of the best ‘90s feminist punk tracks possessed, the sound of feeling hemmed in by any number of things (society; the scene; your bra) and itching to get out. The title alone, “Tampons Are For Sluts,” evokes a sort of funny nostalgia, as the kind of thing unschooled 11-year-olds might say at camp in a Judy Blume book. This song makes me wish I had a driver’s license.

If you want to re-enact this video, you can do it at 32 Karaoke in K-Town, New York City. Thiessen and Kirch came up with the concept, so maybe you’ll see them there if you do. Sharkmuffin’s debut album, Chartreuse (my favorite color!), is out today.