Beloved indie rockers Speedy Ortiz just released their third album, Twerp Verse, a few months ago, which the band’s Sadie Dupuis said had to be re-written following the 2016 presidential election. Dupuis has also been doing plenty of writing outside of music, and now she’s getting ready to share the fruit of those labors: Her first book, a poetry collection called Mouthguard, will be published by Gramma Press and released on November 1.
Dupius started writing this set of poems in 2011 and wrote the last of them three years later, and in a statement about the book, she says that it feels like they were written by somebody else:
“Mouthguard’s poems are magical escapism. They’re my devotional affirmations of manic love, or they’re incantations about illness and loss and the strangeness of bodies. Sometimes they’re creepy, sometimes droll, very often woe-is-me narcissistic. I feel like I’m blurbing someone else’s book, writing all that. But I started writing these poems in 2011, the same autumn I tossed a few home-recorded solo demos onto Bandcamp and called them ‘Speedy Ortiz.’ I wrote the last poems three years later from a tour van in Europe. Both the start and the finish feel like a past life, and so in a way, I AM blurbing someone else’s book.
Mouthguard is a little time capsule, thematically companionate to the first few Speedy releases. Since then, my writing across both mediums has become less overtly witchy and way more politically motivated. But I’m still a sucker for sad girl art, and in revising this manuscript with my editors at Gramma, I mostly couldn’t believe these sad girl poems came out of me. I’m proud that they did, and glad I can finally share them.”
Speedy Ortiz also begins a tour in support of Liz Phair tomorrow, and to celebrate that, the band released a cover of Phair’s “Blood Keeper.” Dupius says of the cover, “‘Blood Keeper’ is one of my favorites of hers, made all the more tantalizing because 1. it was never officially released 2. there’s, like, NO information available about it online 3. other than that it was apparently submitted for the Scream 2 soundtrack??? We tried our best to do homage to this gorgeous mystery rock song.”
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Listen to Speedy Ortiz’s cover of “Blood Keeper” above, and check out the band’s upcoming tour dates below. Also revisit our interview with Dupuis here.
9/6 — Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse *
9/7 — Birmingham, AL @ Saturn *
9/8 — Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Festival *
9/10 — Louisville, KY @ Headliner’s Music Hall *
9/11 — Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom *
9/13 — Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre *
9/14-15 — Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest *
9/15 — Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue *
9/18 — Seattle, WA @ The Showbox *
9/19 — Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom *
9/20 — San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore *
9/21 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Theatre at Ace Hotel *
9/23 — Anaheim, CA @ Chain Reaction %
9/24 — San Diego, CA @ Bellly Up Tavern *
9/25 — Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom *
9/27 — Austin, TX @ The Mohawk *
9/28 — Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater *
10/1 — Nashville, TN @ Exit/In *
10/2 — Cincinnati, OH @ 20th Century Theater *
10/3 — Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club *
10/5 — Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer *
10/6 — New York, NY @ Brooklyn Steel *
10/8 — Boston, MA @ Royale *
10/9 — Montreal, QC @ Corona Theatre *
10/10 — Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre *
10/12 — Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall *
10/17 — London, UK @ The Garage ^
10/18 — Nottingham, UK @ Rough Trade Nottingham ^
10/19 — Leeds, UK @ Belgrave Music Hall ^
10/20 — Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds ^
10/22 — Glasgow, UK @ Stereo ^
10/23 — Manchester, UK @ Now Wave Venue ^
10/24 — Brighton, UK @ Patterns ^
10/25 — Bristol, UK @ The Louisiana ^
* with Liz Phair
^ with Doe
% with Potty Mouth and Gypsum
