Maggot - Dazey and the Scouts
April 13th marks the 4 year anniversary of the streaming release of Maggot, the sole album from Dazey and the Scouts. This once unremarkable Boston band has had a resurgence online with a fresh batch of teens TikToking to two of their tracks, “Wet”' and "Nice Nice". The new fan base for the disbanded group is fitting; it hasn’t been too long since the bubbly underbellies of Alt and Indie Tik Tok waged war against musical male manipulators and The Scout’s campy punk sound perfectly captures the rage directed at shitty indie men. The album has also helped a group of young queer and trans people in their cult following come to terms with their identity in between killer hooks. Dazey and the Scouts’ magnum opus is a boisterous and seamless feminist work that straddles the line between early femme punk and a more confessional modern emo sound. Today’s hyper-specific landmark is arbitrary since it's just an excuse to sing the project’s praises; Maggot is a memorial to indie obscurity and a mastery of its influences.
It’s always obvious when an independent artist is trying to break through to the mainstream; the raw emotionality of the music gives way for gimmicks, what was real is softened for broad appeal. Dazey and the Scouts had no intention of breaking out of the scene, so Maggot is charmingly carefree. It’s the sound of three friends joking and jamming through their frustrations and traumas in a dreamy punk microcosm. Clocking in at just under 25 minutes the album is brief but dense with 7 mystifying songs that are all mandatory replays.
Lead singer Lea Jaffe is a vocal chameleon with a shocking range, able to contort her lungs from track to track to craft a mood. On the opener “Groan” she pleads for a release she probably shouldn’t, cooing darkly in her sultry lower register. The surfy rhythm simmers with sex addled confusion as Jaffe fills each transition with growls and cackles. By the final chorus, she’s gone fully operatic, blasting above the rest of the mix before flipping down into a rougher punky shout. On “James Deen You Let Us Down” she’s sappy, her tears over the disgraced porn star running like molasses. While Jaffe’s a powerhouse in her own right, her vocals are stronger when backed by guitarist Brennan Wedl. Wedl’s verse is coarser as she pushes the song from mourning the career of their adult film “feminist” hero to punishing Deen for his betrayal and rampant assault of his co-stars. Singing together with added harmonies from bassist Otto Klammer, their blend is caramel and sea salt, a sugary force of revenge.
At times Dazey and the Scouts don’t seem inspired by the riot grrrl icons of the ’90s as much as they feel ripped off the pages of an early fanzine. Their snarky humor matches the sneering attitude of Bratmobile and moments on the LP play out like Bikini Kill tracks; the fuck mary kill shenanigans on “Nice Nice” are reminiscent of “Demirep”, while their disappointed rage towards DIY “Sad Boys” is straight out of “In Accordance to Natural Law”. Album highlight “Wet” in its distorted doo-wop glory could score a student film on third-wave feminism and not a note would feel out of place. Just like their revolutionary predecessors, Dazey and The Scouts were outward with their pro-girl, pro-queer beliefs without ever betraying their lighthearted energy. Along with a violent rejection of abusers, in their few live videos from opening in Boston basements, each set starts with a call-response pledge mashing the Girl scout code with all-inclusive declarations: “I promise to stand by creatures of every race, gender, and background and to stand resolute in the face of prejudice”.
When they stop slamming power chords, The Scouts nestle comfortably in a weepy DIY sound evocative of the emo revival. Much like the 60’s rock renaissance, modern emo is deeply collaborative due to the spiderwebs of associated bands and fan bases inspiring one another. It’s one of the fastest evolving sub-genres today. In 2017 the band was keeping up with the scene as it transitioned from the riff-heavy hardcore “Twinkledaddy” sound to smoother, poppier “Sparklepunk”. “Sad boys” is a punchy rebuke of Scott Pilgrim sympathizers, the guitars ripping wavy slides and hammer-on pull-offs cherished by beanie-clad basement goers. The riffs here aren’t the same ones played by Mom Jeans. or Hot Mulligan- they sound like daggers scraping a honing rod, ready to be chucked at manipulative gig-crowding dude-bros. Title track “Maggot” is gut-wrenching; written by Jaffe from a hospital bed, the song navigates mental illness and toxic relationships through warped turns of phrase. After spending 20 minutes in control of her vocal madness, she actually sounds meek before belting at her breaking point. Trying to cut through the darkness, Jaffe makes passing attempts at humor (she feels “like Kurt Cobain” after taking lithium, she claims not to need medical attention since she’s supported by her “underwire bra”) and they land like a young girl’s giggle at a funeral. Purists might reject The Scouts from the emo canon citing a lack of “mathy” chords or tapped arpeggios, but this brutal vulnerability doesn’t exist in any other genre. Even at their conceptual heaviest, their bright blended sound keeps the record moving- as one Bandcamp listener describes, “You could fuck or cry to this shit and it would be equally effective”.
If you’re choked up at this point, the penultimate “Sweet Cis Teen” will ruin you. Otto Klammer sings about their trans identity and, while their voice is the least fine-tuned of the group, each small break adds to the sensitivity of the track. Elevated by producer Sasha Stroud the song has a sadness crafted to show trans kids they aren’t alone by washing them in twinkly chords. The tone shifts to suppressed anger as the song slows to half tempo and Klammer calls out the politicization of their identity (“If my gender had a pair of arms / It'd point out all the rallies I didn't get the invitation for”). The speed and intensity slowly build until the band explodes in a rage bomb targeted at T.E.R.F. feminists and the song swallows itself in noise. Standing among the rubble are the Scouts, united against prejudice.
Even though Dazey and the Scouts are no more, the members are still musically active. Jaffee is a part of the blackgaze metal group non- while Wedl is concentrating on her folkier solo career. She just released her third EP Sleeping with Jeans On with support from Klammer who’s working in audio engineering. On Valentine's day, The Scouts pressed Maggot on vinyl for the first time and the limited edition pink variant sold out in just six minutes. For a group this tiny, having records set to ship internationally this month is monumental. They’re a modern indie success story, the representative for every obscure college band that put out music just because they loved doing it.
The album’s final track is the best the band has to offer. “Nice Nice” is sloppy, sardonic, and pure fun, a speed punk bash with vocalists trading on and off to impersonate Boston fuckboys. It’s legitimately hilarious and a hell of a headbang. When their shiny rampage comes to a halt you can feel your body jonesing for another skull-splitting jam. Go on, press play again, and know that the Scouts would love to kill the next half hour with you.