Tacocat Makes The Most of the Worst Year Ever

“Tacocat, my band, has been with me longer than any pet, partner, job, or hair color,” writes Emily Nokes in a recent essay for The Stranger. “This was the year we were able to do it bigger and better than before.” Nokes then takes readers along with the band as she recounts the ups-and-downs of their 2016 tours, pausing to share highlights – like interviewing Kathleen Hanna, playing for Bernie Sanders, and discovering Topo Chico – as well as bummer moments like getting bumped off the main stage at Sasquatch! and being degraded by stage techs. There’s even a brief cameo from Peter Richards of AmApAc-associated band Dude York, who stepped in as a substitute guitarist for Tacocat on their last tour of the year.

Nokes’ essay is an essential read, not only for Tacocat fans but for anyone interested in learning more about the lives of touring musicians and also about the “real, live progressive communities everywhere, all in different stages of figuring it out” that the band encountered on their journeys. All in all, Nokes writes that she “can’t deny the weird irony that our band had ‘a pretty good year’ during a year that will most certainly go down in history as The Actual Worst… It might be absurd to say that the act of singing songs while being a woman and touring in a band (cringey cringe cringe) feels important during times like these. But in a small way, it kind of does.” Read the full thing here.