On November 14, Toronto’s Queen West neighborhood was blessed with some incredible rock ‘n’ roll talent. Taking place at the legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Austin’s own Die Spitz and Boone-born Babe Haven joins the likes of bands such as The Curse, L7, Hinds, The Slits, NOBRO, and The Beaches as all-female powerhouses that have been able to bring their ass kicking music to such a storied venue – something that’s probably much needed to be the newest reminder that not only draft beer-loving old heads can thrive inside the Tavern’s divey atmosphere.
9 pm hits and Babe Haven storms the stage with a flavour of catchy noise rock that’s full of anger and fight. It’s the type of music you’d expect to listen to when you want to cause a ruckus. Identifying as a high energy queer punk band playing “early 00s nu-metal rebellion meets riot grrrl sass”, it’s hard to describe the North Carolina natives better than that. All in all, the band understands themselves and the music they pump out better than anyone else and that means knowing how to hit their mark both instrumentally and in their messaging as well. This was clear when they kicked the door in with their opener Nuisance that scratches that nu metal itch like a weed whacker designed by System of a Down and Limp Bizkit with lyrics around fighting back and standing up for yourself. This track also being the titular song of their latest album from 2024, it was the perfect starter with many selections of the set coming from this 10-tracker that further builds upon the ethos of the band. Their follow-up Final Girl hits like a freight train really embodying the reason why that trope exists and how aggression and empowerment can fuel each other and work hand-in-hand. With the “dancier” hooks of songs like If I Were You and the wild progression of the anti cat-calling PSA Can’t Call This Cat that closed out the set, Babe Haven also highlight the difference that their songwriting brings to the space they are taking up in the genre, whether you like it or not. Fueled by the duo of Naomi “Omi” Poesel and Lillie Della Penna, the future of this band looks bright and loud. And honestly, why need to book a rage room when you can just let loose at a Babe Haven set?
Then as bassist Kate Halter literally frolicks onto the stage, Justin Bieber’s One Time blasts through the venue speakers to welcome Die Spitz and giving homage to the young Canadian legend as they buckled down into the menacing riff of their 2024 banger I hate when GIRLS die ripping from the guitar of Ellie Livingston. As she growls through the intro, it feels like witnessing the second coming of early Celtic Frost reincarnated into the Austin foursome. The track must’ve hit too hard too with Kate’s vintage Roca Wear jeans that started to undress itself mid-song! Thankfully there was backline crew quickly there to help with the wardrobe malfunction before vocalist/guitarist Ava Schrobilgen’s intro and rasp got the band and the crowd jumping up and down (as they should) going straight into Monkey Song. And keeping the momentum going for a “night of dancing” and “getting anger out respectfully”, the band went into another Ava-led track American Porn – the only “explicit” track on their debut album Something To Consume released back in mid-September through Jack White’s Third Man Records. An impressive feat not only for a band that’s only going into their 5th year, but any band at all. Toronto was not only lucky to get a glimpse of Kate’s toy xylophone skills here, but to get a personalized “Canadian” Porn version of the killer track.
The growls continue as Ava passes the baton back to Ellie for Down On It, a song she explained that she wrote when she was “feeling like sh*t about herself” and the things going on in the world. It’s great how music can be an outlet but also a platform to fuel discussion and voice important opinions that need to be heard like making sure to be politically aware and involved. Just like any local band, you can tell that Die Spitz are a grounded bunch even with their following. Keeping on with a track like 2024’s My Hot Piss and then Voir Dire and Punishers from their debut, it not only shows their grungy and shoegazey side but their versatility as a band. They double down on this with their drummer Chloe de St. Aubin on vocals and guitar switching places with Ava. The softness in her voice really compliments this facet of Die Spitz and is a great contrast to the heavier vocal territory that Ellie and Ava tend to occupy in a lot of their tracks.
With another song from their 2023 release like Grip though, Ellie still gets a piece of that dreamy shoegaze vocal action too on top of getting the crowd to open up the pit for the mayhem a minute into the song. “Y’all are a crazy bunch, I f*ck with that” she says after the chaos, but to Toronto’s dismay, “not as crazy as Texas though, sorry!”. Totally understandable – you can’t be mad at people showing home state love. And in the late part of their set, Ava keeps their vibe going with her vocals for Pop Punk Anthem (Sorry For The Delay) – softer in the verses then heavier in the choruses and in all the right spots. Especially with the music video for the song that came out in August, the band just continues to flex their ability to shine on both sides of the same coin. And though these songs in the later half of the set can sound to be more on the somber side, Die Spitz kept it light the whole time always interacting with the crowd, receiving plushies and other fan trinkets in between tracks to add to their collection, and even some fake beef between Kate and Chloe that included some cymbal-banging with a bass guitar.
The duality continues in the final stretch of the main set with Go Get Dressed, a deeper cut in Something To Consume where Ava uses a similar vocal formula as Pop Punk but also where Ellie can show off some slide guitar skills which really added to the character of the track – another element in the clashing of soft and rough. And then to wrap things up in a bow, the band busts out the oldest track in the set called Evangeline from 2022’s The Revenge of Evangeline that really shows the early flashes of that signature Die Spitz grit and punk sound that fans love them for to this day. The cherry on top was the reemergence of Kate’s toy xylophone and Ellie diving into the crowd to surf the Torontonian wave that brought her inches away from touching the Tavern’s cobwebbed ceiling. With one last wail, a “we’re Die Spitz”, and a promise of a “couple” more songs as long as the cheers are loud, the Austin quartet left the stage to an audience ready to blow up.
Shortly after the end of the main set, Tour Manager Kyra Ganson takes the stage with a message amidst the rowdy shoulder-to-shoulder crowd of Canadians: the difficulty with crossing the border and to have the entire first row of the pit to be girls and for everyone behind them to protect them. The former was perhaps due to her LA Dodgers hat as a person in the crowd guessed due to recent major league baseball rivalry but the latter is of course, is because at a lot of these GA only shows, it’s more often than not that women will be passive about making sure they get a good view of the show and let’s just say at this one, any dude that disagreed with that got eaten alive.
As cheers filled the Tavern walls for an encore once again, the band jumped back on stage with new gusto as Kate rocked some rad sunglasses and Ellie says “Hi Girls!”, dedicating the next two tracks to the front row. For one last song, Ava was back on drums with Chloe on vocals and guitar to lead the way on Groping Dogs Gushing Blood where it was her turn to flex how gritty and raw her voice can be – an absolute headbanger to start the encore. RIDING WITH MY GIRLS took over like a national anthem from there kicking off some crowd surfing and getting Ellie to climb up on the venue monitors finally getting to feel what the ceiling’s surface is like. With the music video released on the same day as the debut album, it might be how a lot of new fans learned about this Texas four-piece. Then with a couple more songs left and after some Freddie Mercury-style back-and-forth woofing, patient fans were rewarded with Hair of Dog, a perfectly named rough and rowdy shredder that could either cause a hangover or treat it somehow. Sitting at over 2 million streams on Spotify, it’s a song you can’t miss. And finally, in recent Die Spitz tradition, eager fans were knighted “c*ntiest of them all” with a medieval sword before capping off a night full of rockin’ with their new smash hit Throw Yourself to the Sword – a satisfying trad metal tune with riffs and sludgy energy (with incredible bass tone from Kate as well!) that takes the band’s badass-ness to new heights. It’s one of those tracks that pushes a lot of the right buttons for metalheads and can give hope to purists that the genre is alive and well but more importantly, evolving in the right direction.
To the average person’s eyes and ears, Die Spitz is an all-girl punk band – a label Ellie has voiced doesn’t make sense considering the range of their catalogue. And she’s right to feel that way with all sorts of shoegaze, grunge, and metal influence scattered across their work. But if you listen closely and look at how they perform and who does what for each song, Die Spitz writes songs not to fit into a specific category or range of genres. At the end of the day, they just write songs that they want to write and will enjoy performing, full-stop. This has to be the true recipe as to why this entire project (that started off as a joke) comes off so unique and immediately endearing. And so, to put it simply: if songwriting was a war, being true to yourself and what you want to make is the only weapon you need bring into battle. A huge sword probably wouldn’t hurt either.
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