News

Heather and the Jerk will release "Scroll If You Love Devil" on vinyl with 4 new songs not on the previous tape release. Look for it via Mpls Ltd on August 27th. You can watch the Horriblparty animated video for new song "Write A Letter" now.

For Wisconsin songwriter Heather Sawyer, DIY music has always been a way of life. From co-founding the explosive, globetrotting garage duo The Hussy, the multi-singer pop rock supergroup Proud Parents, and the new hazy Boo/Hiss, among many others, to holding down powerhouse drumming tenures in countless punk and rock groups, to call her output prolific would be merely scratching the surface.

Over the course of almost twenty years Sawyer has honed her craft, uniquely melding the warmth and familiarity of old-time rock n roll, saccharine doo-wop and 60’s soulful garage rock with new shades of punk, fuzz laden lo-fi and classic indie rock. Led by one of the purest and most authentic voices in underground music, she encapsulates all of this perfectly under the solo moniker Heather The Jerk, and her new album Scroll If You Love Devil reaches incredible new heights.

Recorded with Josh Biehler to tape on a Tascam 238, SIYLD kicks off with ‘Get Off My Lawn’ as Sawyer barrels through rattling off what she doesn’t like against a heavy rolling beat, like Bonham backing Thee Headcoatees, and the energy never wanes. She jumps back and forth between hyped up, catchy fuzz pop numbers like ‘My Dumb Brain’ and ‘Way It Goes,’ and raucous punk rippers like ‘Nothing Changes’ and ‘Bahboozay (Ode To A Cat),’ before ending with the intimate ‘I Miss You’ that rings out like a long lost Beat Happening track. While revered for her strength and style behind the kit, Sawyer also plays all the guitar across the album, save for a couple choice solos from guest collaborator Doug Busson of Minneapolis’s Yuasa-Exide. Mixing humorous observations and vulnerable admissions, spliced with non-sequiturs and inside jokes, SIYLD stands as Sawyer’s strongest and hardest hitting release to date, and asserts her prowess as a songwriter, a musician, and the Midwest’s greatest harbinger of hooks, melody and joyous rock n roll. The only jerk thing Sawyer could do at this point would be to stop making music.