The Team Dresch encore we didn’t know we needed

Lead photo by Twylo Landey Team Dresch’s decision to write an album after 30 years erupted from spontaneous combustion. “Jody [Bleyle] had a freakout and didn’t want to play the old songs anymore,” drummer Melissa York tells me. This moment, captured by bandmate Kaia Wilson (guitar/vocals) in a winsome comic, began the band’s quest to return to their creative output of the 1990s. Furthermore relinquishes Team Dresch’s storied past in favour of creating the present. But first, some quick history: Queercore – the social movement-come-genre à la riot grrrl – sprouted in earnest from a series of chain reactions. Rooted in Toronto’s queer/punk/anarchist/art scene, the nominal “homocore” came from GB Jones and Bruce LaBruce’s zine JD’s. That then evolved into the titular Homocore, Tom Jennings’ gay/punk zine from San Francisco. When the zine morphed into a scene, the name took on the more inclusive “queercore” label, which is where we find Team Dresch. Of course, queercore existed in spirit before the name. Posterity loves its labels, but all that stuff is history, over and done, until you make something new, as Jody Bleyle (guitar/bass) tells me. “We started Team Dresch because we wante...