BE YOUR OWN PET

(AU magazine April 2008)

LIVE: Spring and Airbrake, Belfast

A couple of years ago, Be Your Own Pet played Tennants Vital in Belfast. They stormed onstage with attitude to spare, and after thrashing through a handful of tracks off their eponymous 2006 debut, singer Jemina Pearl Abegg swore and spat insults at the crowd and left mid-set. In rock’n’roll, this was naturally the Holy Grail – a quartet of Nashville teens who didn’t give a fuck.
Loping onstage at the Spring and Airbrake, bleached blond Jemina posed candidly at the microphone and, not to disappoint, spat forth an explosion of rock. With army-style flashes of red paint across her high cheekbones, the Blondie-meets-Ian Curtis singer was ready for battle, and thrashed her way through each song like a demented doll, taking a leaf out of Karen O’s book for eerie dancing.
The punk ethos of the debut is amplified on newly-released follow-up Get Awkward, and for every crazed thrash through a new track came an old favourite. High points were We Will Vacation, You Will Be My Parasol and Bicycle Bicycle You Are My Bicycle, although the immovability of the crowd did cause the Tennessee firecrackers some consternation.
From every track on show, there was a melody and attitude, and more than a little maturity despite having an average age of just 20.
Sadly, there came no temper tantrum, but the last raw crash through Bunk Trunk Skunk left ears ringing, and Jemina and her band once again emerged victorious in the eyes of rock’n’roll.