Staff Picks: Joanna Gruesome alums and the special that led Cole Escola to Broadway

For this holiday week's Staff Picks, Staff Writer Matt Schimkowitz surveys Gob Nation and News Editor Drew Gillis journeys back to the COVID lockdown era.

The Tubs

Hailing from “Gob Nation,” south London, The Tubs stumbled out of the breakup of Joanna Gruesome with a hangover. Following that 2017 split, Gruesome singer-guitarist Owen Williams and guitarist George Nicholls formed the Tubs, a new take on British folk and pub rock that poured a necessary shot of grime down the gullet of the austere post-punk scene. On 2023’s Dead Meat, Williams, with a bellow reminiscent of a young Richard Thompson, trades the troubadour’s barstool storytelling for simple diary entries free of metaphor, carrying his bluntness with an unlikely croon that burrows in the skin like a staph infection. 

“Gob Nation” is the title given to the galaxy of ex-Gruesome bands like Ex-Vöid and Sniffany & The Nits. Writing records in abandoned retirement homes, recording them in disused police stations, and subsisting off benefits fraud, “Gob Nation” is anywhere its members can find space, trudging through life’s indignities by focusing on their universe of independent art, sharing members to produce albums, direct music videos, and publish books. Their collectivism fits the lifestyle depicted on Dead Meat, which wallows in the DIY lifestyle above all else. 

Williams' voice is the first thing everyone notices on Dead Meat. His velvety tones soar over the band’s driving punk progressions and angular detours. His cords are a rarity for the genre, where scrappiness is currency and an amateur’s confidence is more important than well-honed talent. Ten years after Royal Headache’s last album, Williams and The Tubs assume the mantle of a punk band with an unexpectedly soulful and overqualified singer. But simply having a good singer isn’t enough—there must be an edge.  

With their jangly inspirations, The Tubs harness The Smiths’ sensitivity and replace Morrisey’s wit with Williams’ self-deprecation. His lyrics wallow in the muck, with songs about groin rash and being a writhing, sniveling worm. Williams’ trembling melodies bring the shambolic life of south London squats to the fore. It’s best articulated on the title track: “You wake up and your back, in our repulsive life in our repulsive flat. The rash has spread, and you’re out of cream. A disgusting life, a disgusting dream.” His lyrics sound entirely modern, connecting to a generation of self-effacing punks who find their pathetic sense of humor endearing and honest.  In the video to their ode to manic episodes, “Round The Bend,” energy vampire Mark Proksch plays a hapless Lyft driver, carting people around Los Angeles, finding brief moments of serenity in music. “Alone, alone, and a lot to ask,” Williams describes himself. Who better to deliver that message than Colin Robinson?

The Tubs' next LP, Cotton Crown, comes out next year, and the band is already showing a more confident and refined version of itself. The video for “Freak Mode” shows them trotting around tour stops, making the most of what they find and turning boredom into infectious pop. Like the best of them, The Tubs make it look easy.  [Matt Schimkowitz]

Help! I’m Stuck!! With Cole Escola

If you can’t get to New York, or if you’re there and don’t have Broadway ticket money to drop, you can get a different taste of Cole Escola at their crude, kitschy best via Help, I’m Stuck!, their one-hour sketch special recorded at home and uploaded on YouTube during the 2020 COVID lockdowns. Fear not; Help! I’m Stuck! is free of any ripped-from-the-headlines commentary on that situation. The surreal series of sketches is more interested with aging cabaret stars, Ryan Murphy’s admiration for gay porn, and poop, produced with what appear to be the resources of a mid-sized public high school staging The Music Man. I’ve watched it probably eight times since it was uploaded. 

Help! I’m Stuck opens on Escola mid-breakdown, not about (gestures at the world) The Situation, but at the fact that it’s humiliating to put on costumes and perform and seek approval from an audience. From there, it’s hard to go into too much detail here without spoiling much; nearly every sketch takes a sharp left turn pretty quickly, blowing up anything that might seem like a predictable premise. With that in mind, Escola’s take on the true crime genre is pitch-perfect, homing in on the clueless bystanders who miss the incredibly obvious signs and even admissions of guilt. (“And there was just somethin’ about the way he said that, that made me realize, Okay, this guy knows something,” is a common refrain of the ditzy blonde bystander.) Performance is a through line of the sketches, whether it's a character debasing themself for the opportunity to be on camera, or a regular-degular person who finds themself on a set, unsure of how to act. 

Despite being filmed within the confines of Escola’s apartment, the sketch special is a survey of 20th-century pop culture kitsch: the Pioneer era via 1970s pop culture like Little House On The Prairie, 2000s trash TV, 1940s noir. Within these constraints Escola, and what appears to be an entire closet dedicated to wigs, can really indulge their creativity and wildest impulses, no matter how niche or esoteric those may be. A recurring bit throughout the special is a “Queers In History” segment which shows the purported inventors of raisins and coffee lids. The title cards being very obviously hand-written on lined notebook paper is part of the charm. In fact, it helps ground the sketch a bit, making it more obvious that it is one person’s own demented vision. 

In the years since 2020, Escola has earned the opportunity to stage their visions on a grander scale. Of course there’s Oh, Mary!, which moved to Broadway this year with detailed sets and costumes. There’s also last year’s Our Home Out West, a short, sweet film about a madame taking care of a little boy, which featured hand-painted sets and a large supporting cast. As a fan, it’s incredibly rewarding to see these successes play out on this scale. But those successes are the result of raw talent, which Help! I’m Stuck! embodies. Though the special doesn’t address COVID head-on, the lockdown puts obvious restrictions on the sketches' scale. Even as a (mostly) one-person, one-location production, Escola’s talent and skill shine. Four years ago, if you had told me they’d be headlining one of the season's most successful, brilliant shows on Broadway, the part that would be hard to believe is that enough people caught up to Escola’s humor to make that happen. Thank god they did. [Drew Gillis]