the show the newsletter
by Laura and Yumna

Hi hi!

Typing to you as my roommates play a video game post-party……my birthday party, that is! Evan and I are talking about new releases and I’m sleepy from all the hype.The party was a talent show/show-and-tell and we had great fun. Ruby and I baked a cake with the secret maternal-family fudge icing and ermine frosting and everyone liked it. Feels good to start the year with success!

Everyone is telling me that 24 is a good year to be. It’s transitional but steady, & a number with a lot of factors. It’s also Rosh Hashanah this weekend, which is making me feel the transitional nature of my age and my move. It’s a great holiday to have a birthday on. Newness! Reflection! Joy!


Laura

BIG NEWS!!

We have been busy beez in the trap… we ponied up and got ourselves a big girl url!! attack of the glow worms dot com is open for business :D This is a small but mighty move in the war against/allied with* the glow worms. We also added a guestbook if you ever wanna share ur thoughts on a blog post or the site in general or just wanna say hi :p


EVEN Bigger News: the first edition of our print zine will be released on the autumn equinox (sept 21!) It’s got awesome goodies such as interviews with Katy Davidson (Dear Nora), Little Chair, and Sacred Heart Academy, as well as some writing about Madonna and Michael Clark. Ooh la la! Laura is gonna be peddling them on Sleep Tight Tiger’s midwest mini tour with Time Thief, and then just around Chicago. If you don’t live in any of those cities and still want a copy, just shoot us an email! We can snail mail it to ya… holding off on making a bandcamp for now since this nascent project doesn’t need yet another username and password until we’ve found more solid ground.

This has been an awesome experience and we really hope you enjoy what you read. We’ve already learned so much to do for edition two, so stay hungry, dear readers…

*we haven’t quite figured out which side we are on… open to suggestions

New releases

As much for our own musical hygiene as to keep you in the loop, we’re gonna try our best to give some short n’ sweet on the latest and greatest(?) of music!

Guiding Light – Fear on My Own Time

Technically this came out in the time frame that would have been covered in the last newsletter, but there was much to discuss last time. And this is not a record to be cast to the side.

Post-punk that floods your ears with jangly guitar and super bouncy bass lines. This is for the ones of us who love to dance. It’s quite frankly addictive!

I just gotta say I love stuff like this that makes me feel urgent and unpredictable and I want to find a trampoline or learn how to do donuts in my honda cr-v when I listen!

Fav track: Egoismus


Alley Girl - Kerosene Gambler

Some precocious pop from Los Angeles, CA. I was in a bit of a fuzzy, cassette-inflected pop kick this summer from the likes of Megamoog and co. – and feel like Alley Girl teeters that line quite well. Lots of good stuff for tapping into your sensitive side, batting your lashes, etc.

This album makes me want to wear red lipstick, too big heels, and a fabulous hat with a feather or two in it.

Fav track: To Be a Kid Again, You Don’t See Me When I Cry

Fav track: Knees

Maxwell Blast - Dream Tigers

Nice fuzzy, mellow music from just a couple blocks away from where I type.

Listening is like sitting across from someone you knew as a kid but not anymore, sitting on the floor and holding each other's hands but not saying anything.
I do really like the scene that’s built in the four tracks on the tape; they are so seamless yet distinct that I picture them together to be like a musical diorama. A worn carpet here, melted candles there, scattered paper everywhere, dust-filtered light coming in the corner.

Fave track: Sing For Your Night, Death Has No Mercy

ADÉLA - Prima

If you get me and Laura to talk long enough we will most certainly get to the topic of Katseye, the global HYBE x Geffen girl group formed through the Netflix series, Dream Academy, as we mime their exaggerated dance moves and say “Gnarly” like two bitches saying exactlyyyyyyyy.

And what of the Dream Academy alum who didn’t quite make the cut? Adela, first out on the show has had quite the rise with her excellent EP, The Provocateur — industrial, heavy, and inventive, it solidified her chops – Adela was one to watch out for.

PRIMA is a C+ follow-up. It is clear that Adela is a student of pop; I hear Doja, Miley, Tate McRae, but the grit and grandeur of The Provacateur is a wash. Le sigh…

Fave track: Nicole Kidman

Album of the Now

Album of the week/day/month does not adequately summarize the ways a specific album can fit into our lives and shake it up, so we’re calling this “Album of the Now”. We’ll switch off on writing a little review/deep dive/analysis of one special album each newsletter!

Dear Nora, “Mountain Rock” by Yumna

A little sneak peak to Attack of the Glow Worms #1, but relistening to this album really makes you say wow, this group is so very special, and a deep well of inspiration for both me and Laura like. I always return to Mountain Rock when the leaves turn beautiful colors and I need some good old fashioned wist – angst but for melancholy!

Dear Nora, across their whole catalog is so good at carrying and juxtaposing extremes: plain spoken and direct lyrics over noisy, chirping guitars, but in Mountain Rock I feel that even more so – Katy Davidson’s delivery is so minimal, but cavernous and consuming. At times, Mountain Rock devastates me, and others lulls me to sleep like a baby! Sometimes, all in one song, see: Caribou, Timberwolf. It takes great talent to do it so effectively, and deep, artful economy.

Favorite track: Loose

Mixtape

Not as much of a congruent playlist as it is a freeform collection, which is similar to how we do/did our radio shows. We’ve put the playlist on apple music + spotify, but if you guys have better suggestions for sharing these we are totally open to it!!

My birthday makes me happy and want to dance. Here are songs that make me very happy/excited/want to dance.

Recommendations

Things that are weighing heavy on our hearts and minds, or making them feel lighter!

Yumna:

A Truly Lifechanging Haircut

Truth be told, I have been feeling so entirely mopish about my hair this entire year. I haven’t had the nerve to cut it because I am growing it out for the life changing haircut. But it gets to a point!

It’s too overgrown! Too tangled! Too damaged from my weekly pool swim routine, to which I kept forgetting to buy a swim cap. Alas. The life-changing haircut is nigh, and I am ready for my life to be changed. I am well equipped with reference photos and the appointment is ready and booked.

It really all comes down to this. I am always toying with impulsive changes to my appearance but am an admitted wuss (belly button piercing? tattoo? dye job?!) so this feels like the breadcrumbing, safe version of that.

Pen15

Pen15 has been having a bit of a renaissance lately, hasn’t it? I was an early adopter (lol) and watched it as it came out in 2019, during my senior year of high school – so in a way, I hadn’t been very far removed from Maya and Anna and their adolescent misadventures…lol lol

Rewatching this show with adult eyes has been illuminating. Maybe because I feel like I am in the midst of an adult puberty and everything sucks a little bit and I keep saying and doing the wrong things. Maybe once I get a haircut I can stop feeling like a UGIS (ugliest girl in (grad) school). Only time will tell.

Laura:

Palmisano Park

If you live in Chicago, especially more southerly, you should visit this park. It’s an old quarry that also had a dump next to it, and it got transformed into a beautiful prairie hill and pond for fishing. I’ve been using it as a reward in the middle of exercise walks. When you are at the park it feels like a whole different world until you reach the top of the former dump and you can see the skyline. Pretty amazing! Perfect park for kites or yoga or lounging. It’s very close to an awesome sweet shop called the sugar shack which will probably be a rec for another newsletter once I try more of their offerings.

The B52’s performance of “Give Me Back My Man” on TopPop in 1980

This video is everything to me. I’ve had this band on the mind in a serious way recently… all will soon be revealed… but generally this performance is consistently playing at my house and in my head.

I find Cindy’s gaze in this performance so striking and something that I want to emulate in my own performances. The dancing is immaculate and so free and with the outfits everyone is wearing I like to imagine that this man-stealer did their dirty work at a prom and Cindy stole the band’s mic to make her plea. She was my age when in this video… sigh… Cindy u rock my world…

Yumna and I once made a wild and womanly dance to this song, and I hope one day we can record it on a fog-filled stage. Also Cindy looks like my good pal Bella (hi!) in this which makes me happy.

Yumna note: One upping this recommendation. Important video if you need to understand me and my context.

Thank you for reading our newsletter! Please send us what's on your mind, or suggestions for what should be on ours, or even submissions for the zine at attackoftheglowworms@gmail.com. Look out for the next edition on August 17th! Yay!


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