The Go For Broke Tour: NOBRO, Bad Waitress, and Gen and the Degenerates
Schedule
Sun, 08 Jun, 2025 at 07:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
First Avenue & 7th St Entry | Minneapolis, MN
The Go For Broke Tour: NOBRO, Bad Waitress, and Gen and the Degenerateswith Big Salt
7th St Entry
June 8, 2025
18+ show
On sale now → https://firstavenue.me/3PXVTnv
7:00 PM Doors
8:00 PM Showtime
NOBRO:
Due out October 27 on Dine Alone Records, Montreal new-age punk outfit NOBRO’s debut full-length record Set Your Pussy Free is a caustic, celebratory, glorious party-punk firework show. It’s a record about the ecstatic pursuit of personal escape and liberation even as the walls are closing in, a 21st century power-punk analog of Born To Run that rages against modern life’s restrictive pressures and dares them to a game of chicken. If a hurricane is bearing downon NOBRO, they’re spitting into it, arm-in-arm, with middle fingers raised.
“As a musician or artist or even a woman, you have to throw off the weight of societal pressures and expectations, especially as you get older,” says vocalist and bassist McCaughey. “You have to take risks and chances.”
NOBRO is the space where the four members—McCaughey, Karolane Carbonneau (guitars), Lisandre Bourdage (keys/percussion), and Sarah Dion (drums)—get to take those risks and chances. It’s a place for cultivating power and happiness in a hard, mean world. That means the stakes are high. “Music is where we lift each other up,” says McCaughey. “I wish it was more like a fairy tale. We just want this fucking thing to work. But we’re all gonna succeed together, or we’re all gonna fail together.”
Produced by Dave Schiffman, Set Your Pussy Free is the culmination of years of work, hundreds of shows, and thousands of miles since the band’s creation in 2014. McCaughey, Carbonneau, Bourdage, and Dion have been building NOBRO into one of the most fierce and exciting bands in Canada. The new record rides the momentum from a string of blazing singles and EPs, capped with 2020’s Sick Hustle and 2022’s Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar.
Listeners big and small have been taking note: Iggy Pop played their track “Bye Bye Baby” on his BBC Radio 6 show, and a fictional band in the Netflix series The Imperfects covered their songs. Aside from taking their raucous live shows to every dive bar across Montreal, the band has also toured across North America and Europe with PUP, Alexisonfire, Billy Talent, Fidlar, and The OBGMs. In May 2023, they opened for Blink-182 at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. And they’re just getting started.
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Bad Waitress:
Bad Waitress’ antsy art punk revels in fits of fury and ego. It spits in your face and winks, ferocious and playful. The Toronto-based four-piece play like they’re conspiring or casting a spell, each member wielding a different power, howls and erratic drum fills and fiery riffs fueling one another.
That improvisation spirit doesn’t stop at their music. Katelyn Molgard, Nicole Cain, Kali-Ann Butala, and Moon finish each other’s sentences. Their conversations flow like free jazz. When asked to describe Bad Waitress’ sound, they agree on one word: conviction. “We play with conviction. There's nothing apologetic about it,” Kateyln says. “Even with our bizarre song structures, we don't hide anything in our music. It's just very...I don't like the word raw, it’s overused, but...raw.” The band fidget between genres, instead honing a distinct energy. “It's energetic. It's electric,” Moon adds. “It's whatever word that we can think of later that's better than raw.” Nicole suggests, “Honest?” Katelyn jumps in, “Rawnest.”
The path that led them together follows a similar rhythm. Kali (Vocals & Guitar) and Moon (Drums) started jamming as The Nude Dogs back in 2014. Katelyn (Vocals & Guitar) joined two years later, and by 2018, the trio would release their Party Bangers EP under the name Bad Waitress. “It started off small,” Moon reflects. “The main premise of the band was that we just wanted to get together and play music with people who weren't old men.” When Nicole (Bass) joined in late 2018, things really clicked into place. “We didn't realize what was missing until it happened. Then it was like, this is like what our fucking band was missing this whole time, this extra little piece that made it all make sense.”
Bad Waitress’ debut full-length album, No Taste, finds strength in mood swings, from upbeat “groovin down the street” songs like “Strawberry Milkshake” to “I'm gonna fucking punch everyone” songs like “Lacerate,” as Nicole puts it. “It’s good to listen to when you're walking alone at night. I get really anxious, but I feel powerful when I listen to this album, like I’m fucking untouchable. It’s basically a self-defense album.”
“There’s always a ‘fuck you’ to the man,” Kali says. “The album is a rollercoaster. Every song takes you somewhere different.”
“We definitely don't run the risk of being pigeonholed with this album,” Katelyn adds. “It really does showcase all of our talents individually and how they come together.”
“I slipped away into a distant void,” the opening track begins. “Rabbit Hole” throws you into a thunderous spiral, riffs ablaze, before “Yeah Yeah Yeah” pummels you down further with its driving guitars, crashing drums, and echoing shouts. By track five, Bad Waitress take on a slightly softer tone. Or maybe they’re just tired: “There’s cynicism, battling with vices,” Katelyn explains. “We’re using past trauma to generate a scathing, badass sound. We’re embracing our demons.”
Traces of Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and The Stooges can be heard throughout No Taste. The band also cite jazz as an inspiration. Moon’s background playing improv jazz, blues and swing makes it an essential force, at the core of Bad Waitress’ music and collaborative process. “Moon usually has a weird drumbeat that they’ll play spontaneously, then Nicole will jump in with her wack ass music sensibility on bass, and then Kali will play something that’s super wrong in a good way,” Katelyn says. “And then I’ll make sense of it and find where the chords are. It’s bizarre.”
“Our process is a little bit of everything,” Kali concurs. “I write the lyrics and usually a standard rhythm for the songs and we go from there, sometimes it comes from a jam.”
The closing track on No Taste, “Restless Body,” started with a beer bottle sound experiment. “One night, we were jamming at the label and Kali started fucking around with a beer bottle on the neck of her guitar, making all these weird sounds,” Nicole laughs. “I was adding Sonic Youth-y bass. Moon came in and it turned from an empty beer bottle into a whole epic. A lot of the collaborative songs come from us dicking around in between practice. We all egg each other on, and a lot of good things come out of that.” You can get an idea of the bottle’s tinny resonance on the final product, a guitar solo swirling and crying into the outro, “Restless body, take me home.”
Gen and the Degernerates:
Known for their mischievous spirit, unique sound, and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, Gen and The Degenerates are breathing fresh life into the indie music sphere. Led by charismatic force of nature Genevieve Glynn, their unique blend of punk attitude and anthemic songwriting has proven capable of simultaneously charming the oldest of hats, and igniting a new generation of music fans.
