By Christopher David<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a song about being sexually harassed by a fish,\u201d Speedy Ortiz singer\/guitarist Sadie Dupuis noted while introducing new tune \u201cVillain.\u201d In a scant sixty-minute set at Subterranean on Saturday in support of new album Twerp Verse<\/em>, Dupuis and her band mates led the capacity audience through all manner of exploratory personal narrative, dealing with such societal pains as relationships, dealing with sexual harassment, the American political landscape, and myriad other causes, including a local charity aimed at helping incarcerated mothers meet their basic needs while in prison.<\/p>\n The challenge with all of that social activism at play in music is that the message can sometimes be too much. But the thing that sets Dupuis and Ortiz apart is that they don\u2019t wear it – in fact, they don\u2019t need to. Dupuis\u2019s history as a writer has handily equipped her to take the mantle worn throughout the \u201890s alternative rock heyday as a master wordsmith and play it to her advantage no matter the subject matter; her lyrics are peppered with wordplay and wry wit. \u201cI make a frown, but I always wear it upside down,\u201d she sings on Twerp<\/em> single \u201cLucky 88,\u201d and while the electronic elements in that song and others from Twerp<\/em> were downplayed a little to fit the guitar\/bass\/drums structure of the lineup, the melodies and songcraft called to mind Crooked Rain<\/em>-era Pavement if Guyville-era<\/em> Liz Phair had been in charge.<\/p>\n Launching the set with the first three tracks from Twerp Verse<\/em>, then bouncing back to 2015\u2019s Foil Deer<\/em> for a pair of singles (\u201cRaising the Skate\u201d and \u201cThe Graduates\u201d) before digging into the catalog for \u201cPlough\u201d (from 2013\u2019s Major Arcana<\/em>), Ortiz surprised with a few deep cuts by Twitter request (Dupuis is a known quantity on Twitter as @sad13) and spent the hour bouncing about the stage as if they didn\u2019t have a care in the world – a clever trick for a band who is so positively connected to social change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Christopher David \u201cThis is a song about being sexually harassed by a fish,\u201d Speedy Ortiz singer\/guitarist Sadie Dupuis noted while introducing new tune \u201cVillain.\u201d In a scant sixty-minute set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-news","category-features","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}