Excuse 17 sat in the dead center of the early-’90s Olympia, Washington The band formed by riot grrrl, queercore, Kill Rock Stars, and Evergreen State College. By the time Carrie Brownstein, Becca Albee, and CJ Phillips released the band’s self-titled debut album in 1994, via Chainsaw Records (a Portland queer zine turned label), riot grrrl’s first wave was already ebbing. Their second and final album, 1995’s Such Friends Are Dangerous, reinvigorated feminist punk with a sound simultaneously harder and more melodic than Bikini Kill and Bratmobile. In a setup similar to the one Sleater-Kinney would adopt, Brownstein and Albee both sang and played guitar, scattering hardcore howls amid catchy pop hooks.
Such Friends’ centerpiece song, “This Is Not Your Wedding Song,” is a bitter rejoinder to an ex who’s trying to hide her true self under a bridal gown. “I won’t cry at your wedding,” Brownstein screams in the chorus. But in between those electric jolts, crunching guitars lead her back to the deadpan deconstruction of a person she can see right through. Other songs brim with the biting sarcasm of smart women fed up with condescension. “I asked what time it was/Not how to make a watch,” Albee sneers at a proto-mansplainer on “Watchmaker.” Excuse 17 were more than just Carrie Brownstein juvenalia, but their music brims with all the elements that would come to define her career: intelligence, dark humor, and indelible riffs.
The Fat Angel Sings 