Portland Press Herald Maine Today Magazine Cover Feature
June 24th, 2021
Kick 2020 Out the Door With This Punk Spin on ‘Dayenu’
The women of Bait Bag have turned the classic Passover song on its head in their new single "Safe Word." Remember how 2020 started with record-breaking wildfires and the threat of nuclear war? You probably don’t, because then a global pandemic claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, changing the way we live forever. Three hurricanes formed at the same time, racism reared its ugly head, it was an election year… oh, and there were murder hornets. It all started to feel like overkill — like the writers of 2020 didn’t know when to say when.
TRACK OF THE DAY: BAIT BAG – ‘SAFE WORD’
A riotous drop-kick to one of the worst years in global history, US riot grrrls Bait Bag have shared their latest single ‘Safe Word’. Full of sardonic lyrics and punk-infused riffs, the track is a vigorous farewell to 2020 and more specifically, to the last four years of tyrannous American politics.
Formed in the summer of 2018 by North Haven Island-based pals Fiona Robins, Claire Donnelly, and Courtney Naliboff, Bait Bag are inspired by the sounds of Sleater-Kinney, Blondie, and Le Tigre. They’ve channeled their collective energies into the new single ‘Safe Word’, a track that encourages listeners to dance and swirl around in the ashes of this “dumpster fire” of a year.
Face the Music: Bait Bag creates video in isolation with clips from friends and family
The North Haven trio creates a sense of community with its new 'Rotten Eggs' video.
North Haven punk band Bait Bag is used to the isolated life. After all, its members live on an island that requires an hour-plus ferry ride to get to the mainland. But it has never stopped them from being lightning bolts of creative productivity, and their new video is the latest example.
The trio of bassist/singer Courtney Naliboff, guitarist/singer Fiona Robins and drummer/singer Claire Donnelly released their latest EP “Consider This A Warning” on March 6. The track with the video is the whip-smart, punch-packing tune “Rotten Eggs” that spits out the fuzzy guitar refrain “What am I doing with my life?”.
In their newest single and accompanying music video Rotten Eggs, feminist rockers Bait Bag speak their truth on another uniquely feminine set of challenges. For most women born in the 80s and early 90s, raised by or around the influence of second-wave feminists, we were taught as little girls that by working hard enough and playing our cards right, we could “have it all.” This was a phrase used time and time again in media mainly centered on career women to denote managing life with a career and family – a heteronormative, cisnormative ideal unrealistic for many based on that alone.
Forest City Magazine Photo Feature.
With an aesthetic ripped straight from classic MTV and a warm rock and roll sound, Bait Bag, holds our hand through a subject rarely addressed in popular music in their ‘Tear Me In Two’ music video. The setting of an overgrown abandoned building — a favorite of rock groups everywhere — serves as a symbol of the fact that within the pre-existing structure of music and of society as a whole there is little space carved out to process the impact of pregnancy & childbirth. On a very visceral and honest level frontwoman Courtney Naliboff expresses the discomfort and sacrifice of bodily autonomy in the first person — a rarity even amongst songs that deal with the subject at all — contrasted by a chorus expressing the deep love and understanding between a mother and her unborn child. So often in the discourse surrounding pregnancy, the pregnant person is treated as a passive party who simply pushes the kid out and goes back to normal, completely erasing the immensity of the experience.
MAINE TODAY MUSIC BLOG:
Face the Music by Aimsel Ponti
Have you ever had a band or a song come into your life just at the exact right moment? That’s the magic of music, sometimes it finds its way into your life, and it’s like meeting someone new at a party and instantly becoming best friends. Discovering new music that truly resonates with you is like taking a gigantic breath of fresh air, especially when the list of things in the world to be upset and angry about continues to grow.
With that in mind, say hello to the North Haven band Bait Bag, the trio of singer/bassist Courtney Naliboff, 37, guitarist/backing vocalist Fiona Robins, 25, and drummer Claire Donnelly, 33. Bait Bag formed in the spring of 2018 because the three women needed catharsis “after being weighed down by constant bad news.” They decided to join forces and make loud music together, and a huge source of their inspiration is the “riot grrrl” feminist punk movement that began in the early ’90s. Bait Bag lists some of their influences as the bands Sleater Kinney, Le Tigre and Blondie, as well as “anything loud, fun and inclusive.” They say that their songs are intended to empower and excite, or at least give other frustrated people something to flail around to.