Cayetana – Nervous Like Me (2014) – LITTLE LOST CLASSICS

The Cayetana girls are my favorite band ever in the last week (laughs) and, funnily enough, I got to them through a guy I like but who played in a band I can’t stand: Kurt Ville and War on Drugs.

The meeting between them and me happened by chance in one of the many surveys carried out by the network, in this case about the independent scene in Philadelphia. I came across a song called “Black hills”, I went looking to find out whose song I fell in love with at first listen, and here we are.

I found out that the trio was formed by the young Kelly Olsen, Allegra Anka and Augusta Koch in 2012 and even though they didn’t know how to play shit, imbued with the ‘do it yourself’ spirit of punk, they decided to set up Cayetana and in that vein they recorded their first demo and started to play live, as it should be with any band with blood in their veins.

From there it was a leap to attract attention in the effervescent local scene (and beyond) and in 2014 Tiny Engines released the girls’ first official album, Nervous like me. And it is now playing on the PCP’s virtual record player so that you, dear reader, may also fall in love with them.

Before pressing play, I warn you that there is absolutely nothing new in the album’s 11 tracks and you can pick up countless references in the 30 minutes between “Serious things are stupid” and “South Philly”. It’s punk rock bublelegum, it’s riot grrrl, it’s 90’s female indie rock, it’s lo-fi as fuck and it exudes dedication, love and sincerity in every chord, in every sentence. I think it was precisely this simple and transparent mix that drove me on all fours for the album.

Three years later they would work again with Matt Schimelfenig (yes, the producer of War on Drugs mentioned at the beginning of the text) to release their second and last album, already less accelerated and playing better (laughs), until in 2019 they would put an end to the short life of Cayetana, my favorite band of life in the last week. But the talk about the also delicious New kind of normal, the final show of the girls and etc is for next time. For today I recommend turning up the volume and listening Nervous like me no talo ❤