For the past six or seven years there has been wave after wave of bands labelled "dance punk" by reviewers or publicists, but for the vast majority of those groups the title was inappropriate. Bands like The Rapture, !!!, Q And Not U, and Bloc Party play music you could dance to, usually with live drums and guitar, but none play punk rock or anything approaching it. Virtually none of the "dance-punk" bands do or have, until the appearance of LA's Mika Miko.
I could waste a lot of space quibbling about what defines a band as punk rock, but it's hard to argue that certain elements (both sonic and behavioural) remain hallmarks of the genre. Mika Miko covers them all-- soundwise, they play spastic, energetic rock and roll drawing strongly from the glorious late-70s LA punk sound (capably carrying the mantle of such giants as The Germs, early Black Flag, The Urinals, Red Cross, and the Middle Class), with enough of the influence of danceable European postpunkers the Slits and Liliput that their record sounds like an instant punker dance party. Yet even their nods to disco-inflected No Wave are a little off-- Mika Miko owes more to the good-time punk-funk of the Big Boys than the forced cool of James Chance and Liquid Liquid. Either of the two sets of dorky shouted vocals could be paying tribute to the late Randy "Biscuit" Turner, but whether they are or not makes no difference: there's nearly as much "Fun Fun Fun" on this record as in the Big Boys catalogue. The result is thrilling-- this record surges forward with the unironic vigour of old hardcore while swinging enough to put a shake to even the tightest ass.
What really makes Mika Miko a punk band, however, is that they believe in doing it themselves, volunteering at LA's DIY art-and-music venue The Smell and championing small community venues and house-shows when they're on tour. And they're young, which is maybe what's been lacking from the various troupes of bored-eyed art-school haircut bands heretofore called "dance-punk." It's unfair, but young people tend to do punk rock better if only because they're often a lot less worried about how silly they'll look if they reveal that they care enthusiastically about anything, be it for political causes or just having fun. The five women in Mika Miko are barely out of high school and, according to their website, mostly still live with their parents.
Whatever drives the band drives them hard. Their sound is bracing and and vivacious, rollicking between out-and-out hardcore and dancy rock numbers that sound like they could inspire the kind of party at which people try to hang from the ceiling and fail, leaving in their swath wrecked halls and property damage. Alright!
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