Massachusetts-based group Cheap City, whose latest album ‘Ten Years s Without Rami Holding’ sounds like a cross between Zappa and Fugazi. The album was released via Dollhouse Lightning.

‘“Cheap City is from “Cheap City”/ Western Massachusetts (More on the Cheap City bit later…).. We like to say that we sound like what would happen if Zappa and Fugazi were, for some reason, collaborating on a disco record. All of our songs are about Cheap City – ‘We were tasked by the city government to document life in our town.’

Our new album is called ‘Ten Years Without Rami Holding’ and is about a photographer who comes back to Cheap City after being gone for ten years. It’s about confronting gentrification and what feels like seeing everything in America turn into an endless strip mall. It’s about being a working artist for ten years and suddenly realizing that you don’t fully relate to your non-artist peers any longer. I came out as a transwoman while we were recording and some questions of identity, both artistic and personal, are confronted throughout the album as well.” -Clover Nahabedian

Cheap City’s lineup includes Clover Nahabedian (keyboard, guitar, vocals, synthesizer, drum machine), Brendan Blendell (bass, banjo, mandolin, vocals), Cody Gagen (drums, vocals), Paul Schmelz (guitar, vocals). The album was released on the 13th of this month with Dollhouse Lightning and was engineered and mixed by Paul Schmelz, and mastered by Jack Shirley at Atomic Garden.

This dance-punk narrative of an album starts off with ‘Marked for Error’ a catchy accordion-laden jam with lots of overdrive. ‘Marked for Error’ is a theatrical rock instrumental full of contrasting sections, and sets us up for the next tune ‘Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night’.

“Between six people, they share three rooms
And kept the windows closed because of toxic fumes”

From the tense CESH lines, to the way the timbres of guitar and dark chimes intertwine, this composition is ripe with fresh ideas. ‘Tribal Rights…’ gives us punky industrial-revolution-vibes, speaking of endless work weeks and hazardous environments. But when it comes to Saturday night? Everybody looks so luscious. It’s time to get sensual, dance around and actually enjoy life.

Next up is title track ‘Ten Years Without Rami Holding’

“Now I’m lost along the alleys I used to know
I don’t recognize the places I used to”

What do you do when you’ve worked so hard to try and exist in a city and it just lets you down? As the bricks of old memories crumble, so does your familiarity. I love the way that the piano follows the vocal lines in this one; and how the uneasy back-and-forth theme from the intro comes around once more to sonically haunt us. ‘Ten Years Without Rami Holding’ takes the punk trope of “hating this town” and turns it into something truly new.

Next, ‘Drag Race’ treats us to a noir surf-rock type beat, before we land on ‘F Stop,’ a driving force of a song.

“This is my national anthem that I’m singing to myself as I walk to the crosstown bus”

We are really starting to feel the pain of the artist in their burnout, as they distract themselves by reading oversized books and wander aimlessly through the city. The town begins to feel more and more like hell as we transition into ‘I Love Trouble’.

‘I Love Trouble’ is RHCP-level-funky…but with a wonky twist. We follow the artist as they “Chew the fat, sip the drink” going through the motions, and eventually, becoming entirely disconnected from the world. This dissociation further devolves into a disarray of musical thought. At this point, it’s clear that Cheap City is becoming unrecognizable to the artist.

‘Ivy Cochran,’ however, lightens up the next chapter with bright snares, and feelings of contrasting emotions. Cheap City has just sonically captured hopeful-surrender in a bottle. “Ivy Cochran” is melancholy yet dance-worthy, with poker-hot musical chemistry.

“Just leave me by the roadside, send me out to the riptide”

Cheap City is a band of musical poets. The way they introduce themes (both lyrical and musical) and circle back to them is purely literary. The groups’ album is full of stunning guitar countermelodies – a sonic pastry with layers and layers to take in. It reminds me of Emerson, Lake & Palmers ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ with a post-hardcore/disco flair.

One of my personal favorites on Cheap City was ‘Hogstown Tub’ a folky oom-pah track with quirky stride piano, and guitar lines that imitate various wind instruments. The tune has a simple ‘Oh Well!’ feeling to it with its back and forth between major and minor, with lots of stepwise motion – Perhaps I should call it a giggle-worthy earworm!

There is so much I could say about the album, from the way the organ and guitar tone clusters interact in ‘Never Once Was’ to the obscure charm of ‘The 36th Annual Meeting Of The Cheap Gravedigger’s Choral Union’. Cheap City is a full-flavored album for the artistic-minded-listener, with easter eggs of photography references – A collective of compositions interwoven with math rock interludes; a musical novel which tells the winding tale of an artist who’s lost their way.

Your album art has a sort of vintage feeling vibe to it. What inspired the photo, and how did Jason Unterreiner take it?

The photo was actually taken by Rami Holding in 2020. He was backstage at one of Cheap City’s numerous nightclubs and thought there was something sand, beautiful, and funny about these two women talking as if the mannequin (whose name is Fern) was being excluded from the conversation. Shortly thereafter Rami Holding gave up photography and donated his cameras and undeveloped film to various antique stores and thrift shops. Through a series of events that Cheap City forensic historians were able to piece together, one of those rolls of films ended up in a thrift shop in Portland, Maine, where Jason Unterreiner just happened to be. Jason (whose band Crunchoat should not be ignored) restored the photo and brought it straight to the Cheap City archives.

I heard a rumor that you can find the route to Cheap City if you just follow these specific instructions. How did you come up with this fictional city in the first place? I’m intrigued!

It’s not a fictional city! I don’t know why people keep saying that. Cheap City has very normal city stuff like gangs that exclusively rob candy stores and truckers that go to space. It’s a real place and our mission as a band is to increase tourism by distributing audio information about Cheap City. I do want to stress that the driving instructions have to be followed very carefully. Many travelers have thought they could improvise their way to the Cheap City City Limits and have since been lost…or worse.

Can you tell us what your experience of playing at RPM fest was like?

RPM Fest is among the best DIY festivals happening in the states. We were booked to play in 2020 and were honored to be asked back for the rescheduled edition in 2022. This year RPM set something of a mission of diversifying their genre offerings a little bit, and curated a stage around weirdo ska and punk bands. There were a lot of fantastic bands this year but the community that has built up around RPM is an inspiration and anyone interested in heavy music and who lives in the northeast should absolutely consider making it out to RPM 2023.

Your ‘Ten Years Without Rami Holding’ Vinyl is currently sold out on your website. How do you guys feel about having such early success on the album?

There actually hasn’t been an LP pressing of the record yet. We cut some live lathe cuts of individual songs which have been selling and we’re really grateful for. The album has been getting a great response so far and it’s extremely gratifying to have people finally hear songs that we wrote at the beginning of the pandemic. We have a few more small releases planned this year and the next LP is coming out in 2024 so we’re looking forward to not having as large of a lead time in between albums this time around.

I noticed you guys also sell cassettes – There’s not a lot of artists who do that anymore. What brought on the idea to release a 2023 album on cassette? I love it.

I’ve been buying cassettes from DIY bands for over ten years and most bands I know have done some kind of cassette release at some point. I believe that the preservation of music on physical media is extremely important. Vinyl production is expensive – I listen to a lot of CD’s but am very much in the minority at this point. Artists have rightly caught on to cassettes as a means of inexpensive documentation. That includes making mix tapes! Who wants to trade mix tapes? Send me an email.

All I could find when I searched “Rami Holding” was a construction company in Iraq by the same name. So, what’s the story?!

The Rami Holding from Cheap City is the subject of our new album. We’re not given liberty to choose the topics of our recordings – as they are handed down to us through a complex system of bureaucrats and marketing experts. We were asked to write an album about Rami Holding’s return to Cheap City after being away for ten years. Rami was a photographer who achieved some fame after the publication of his book, Cheap City In Photographs. My best guess is that a few copies found their way to Iraq and this construction company is an homage to Cheap City’s most famous photographer. I can’t imagine a different answer. There’s no way that this is a mere coincidence.

Clover – Do you believe music has helped you realize your gender identity?

Absolutely. Playing and listening to music is so incredibly addictive and fulfilling because it constantly reminds you that life is full of infinite possibilities. Art has the power to reveal to us that we have the freedom to build a life we find fulfilling, even if it deviates from societal norms. I came out as non-binary to myself in 2013 in the middle of a rehearsal. It just suddenly made sense to me. I came out as a trans woman last May while Cheap City was on tour in Ohio. When you start to see the way that music can shape your life, you start to question the other forces that dictate how you operate from day to day. I don’t know if I would have come to terms with my gender identity without music, but I know that I always would have felt that something was somehow off within me.

Is Cheap City a town that lives in the past, present, or future? How would you describe it?

All three. Cheap City has real rust belt kind of vibes. I think of a scrappier kind of Columbus, Ohio or a goofier version of Springfield, Massachusetts. Cheap City is a lot like many other cities that have a rich history of production and art making, but have had a rough economic go of things in post-Reagan America. In some senses Cheap City is rooted in the past: Rotary phones? You bet. Mom and pop stores? Absolutely. Dance halls open every night all night? 100%. But we look far into the future as well. Cheap City was the first entity to colonize Jupiter. We have a municipal department devoted to designing new dance crazes (like the Pitchfork or the Swamp Stomp). Cheap City’s a place for losers, dreamers, freaks, and knucklehead mcspazatrons. The best way to get a sense for what Cheap City is is to first buy a record, then come to a show, and THEN book your hotel and get driving. But like I said earlier, those driving directions have to be followed carefully. I’m serious!

Headline photo: Rami Holding

Cheap City Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
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