The members of Black Rainbow have been bringing DIY punk to basements, clubs, and even city streets across the USA for two decades in bands like Chickenhead, Los Canadians, The Dark Rides, Shotwell, Sharp Knife, Onion Flavored Rings, and many more. Black Rainbow was formed in 2007 when longtime singer and guitar duo (and lifelong partners in crime), Ivy Jeanne and Erick Lyle, persuaded Tulsa's guitarist, songwriter, and frontman, Morgan Stickrod, to take up the drums for a new band. Readers of Lyle's long-running magazine, SCAM, will be familiar with the exploits of Ivy and Erick's previous bands, MIAMI, a band formed with the late Matty Luv and Aesop of Hickey to play only illegal generator shows in the streets of San Francisco, and ALLERGIC TO BULLSHIT, a band known for, among other things, playing live on a flatbed truck in an anti-war parade and for handing out free stolen cans of spray paint to audiences. Picking up where these collaborations left off, BLACK RAINBOW quickly recorded a handful of (7")'s and toured the country several times. The band took a break from touring in 2010, while Ivy and Morgan went to school and Erick pursued work in freelance journalism and art curating. The band never quit working on new songs, though. With the addition of new bassist, Jacqui Cornetta, formerly of Nate Powell's Bloomington supergroup, UNIVERSE, Black Rainbow is now back with their first full length LP and their first nationwide tour in five years.Recorded in Portland, OR at Buzz or Howl Studios with Stan Wright (Arctic Flowers, Broken Water), the new record continues the band's longstanding efforts to bring together influences as diverse as Irma Thomas and Black Flag in the same songs. Ivy Jeanne's lyrics blend the personal, political, and poetic, drawing on inspiration from her involvement in Bay Area art and activism. On this record, Ivy pays tribute to various literary influences, with lyrics inspired by the works of radical feminist, Shulamith Firestone, queer Utopian thinker, Jose Esteban Munoz, and transgender writer and activist, Samantha Dorsett. On other songs, she directly incorporates the writings of novelists, Kathy Acker and Clarice Lispector into the songs, in the process weaving together a complex reflection on years of underground life as well as a path toward hard-won healing, hope, and continued resistance.
