March 24, 2004

Lil Pocket Kife "Pants Control"

“I’m the princess of this party, I command you to dance! No lazy motherfuckers will stand a chance!”

So begins one of my favorite singles of the year, “Disco Dancer”, and Pants Control, the 5-song debut EP from female electroclash rapper, Lil Pocket Knife.

Oh, did you groan when I said “electroclash rapper”? No, it’s really not at all as bad as that sounds, even if the trendiness of the “electroclash” label shoots your indie snob-o-meter into the red.

Anyway, Lil Pocket Knife is basically a geekier version of Peaches. Backed with drums, keytar and Atari-style blips and beeps, she raps about making people dance, Dungeons and Dragons, booty, and “pimping bros” so she can stay at home and play Atari.

“Disco Dancer” is by far the best track of the five. A perfect high-energy shout-along track in which Lil Pocket Knife raps alternately about getting people to dance and how she likes “D & D”. The most priceless part is where she says she’s “representing motherfucking halfling race”. You never thought you’d want to shout along to someone yelling, “You’ve got your four-sided die, you’ve got your six-sided die, you’ve got your eight-sided die, you’ve got your twelve-sided die, you’ve got your twenty-sided die, and you like to throw them down!”, but that’s just how much “Disco Dancer” will psych you up.

The EP just doesn’t quite regain the same energy and momentum later on, however. That isn’t to say that the rest of the tracks are a waste of time. They’re actually very good in their own right. “East Coast/West Coast” has the great “I got the bros on the corner making money for me, so I can stay at home and play my Atari” line. “Red Hott” is very catchy and upbeat exhortation to dance, but it’s just not as rousing as “Disco Dancer”. “5’2”” is a boasting number that has a vocoder voice saying things like “Yeah, Lil Pocket Knife singing the song, rocking your motherfucking ass”, which is quite amusing, but I think it’s my least favorite track on the EP. However, it ends on a good note with “A.D.D.”, the EP’s second geekiest track. It’s the slowest track, but it’s quite catchy and has some nice shout-along refrains, like “Eat sugar, eat sugar, stay up all night! Start this revolution, fight fight fight!”

Still, I find myself skipping back to “Disco Dancer” most often when I listen to Pants Control. It’s just an amazing single, and I’d even venture to say that it alone is worth the price of the EP.

And no, I don’t know if Lil Pocket Knife is actually geeky at all and if she’s ever played an RPG. Whether or not she has real geek cred is sort of beside the point and doesn’t really affect my enjoyment of her music, but I just wonder about that. All I can tell is that Lil Pocket Knife is not making a parody out of the geek lifestyle. I just wonder if there really are any RPG geeks who would go out and rap and dance onstage.

Whatever...just check this out for a fun, geeky time.

-Eric Wolf

Label website: http://www.narnackrecords.com

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