CURMUDGEON [Boston]
MEMBERS | Krystina Krysiak [vocals], Ryan Stanis [guitar], drummer Ryan Berry [drums]
LAST SPOTTED BY THEPHOENIX | Playing an Allston basement show with Book Slave and Bubonic Bear.
DOWNLOAD | Eight-song, eight-minute Human Ouroboros tape, released April 2011, free at curmudgeon.bandcamp.com
PHOTOS: "Curmudgeon + Get Laid + Honeysuck + The Inhalers" by Ali Donohue
Krystina Krysiak moved from New Haven to Boston two years ago, where she runs distributor We Rise Tapes, works at a dog treat factory, and provides alternately sludgy and piercing shouts in hardcore powerviolence trio Curmudgeon. The band first played noisy one-minute-or-shorter songs in 2010 after Berry and Krysiak's New Haven band Unperson disbanded.
In Curmudgeon, Krysiak's abrasive vocals teeter between slow/heavy and quick/spikey. She started singing in punk bands at 17. Lately Krysiak notices that her gender is being mentioned less often in the press or in publicity. "When I was playing in bands five years ago, it was a total novelty. 'Female-fronted!' was always on the flyer. It's cool when women are in bands, but I want it to get to a point where it doesn't have to be a spectacle."
Krysiak wants bookers to make a concerted effort to include bands with women. "I get sick of going to shows and it being all white dudes all the time, every time . . . everywhere in my life, every day. I can only take so much." Her lyrics express these frustrations — among other political and social topics. "I write a lot about women's issues as I see them . . . just because I can't really help it."
