Song of the Day: Veruca Salt - Laughing In The Sugar Bowl

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole, is “Laughing In The Sugar Bowl” by Veruca Salt from the 2015 album Ghost Notes on El Camino.

Veruca Salt - Laughing in the Sugar Bowl (MP3)

Led by one of the decades' most charismatic pairs in Louise Post and Nina Gordon, Veruca Salt emerged in the post-Nirvana era with an equally hard-edged and sugar-sweet take on rock that made them one of the era's most prominent female-fronted bands. Post and Gordon, the band's leaders and principle songwriters, met in Chicago through a mutual friend, eventually moving from folk circles to recruiting drummer Jim Shapiro and bassist Steve Lack in order to form a fully-fledged rock band. After picking up steam in Chicago, they released their debut album American Thighs in 1994 while on tour with Hole, beginning a four-year build of success and attention that continued with 1997's Eight Arms To Hold You. However, Gordon abruptly quit in 1998, beginning a Post-led era of the group (that Post now dismisses as "Veruca Starship") that would feature Post and a rotating lineup of bandmates up until 2007, when the group went inactive altogether. In 2013, the band's history took another unexpected turn when Post and Gordon buried the hatchet and reformed the original lineup for a tour, and the following year, a reunion album, this year's Ghost Notes. "Laughing In The Sugar Bowl" is the shortest song on Ghost Notes, but it's probably also the best encapsulation of the rediscovered zeal that Post and Gordon rode during their best moments in the '90s. Moving 100 miles a minute, Post and Gordon bounce off each other with unbridled energy running through a ricochet chorus and a sticky chorus that wouldn't have. Just like the rest of the supurb reunion album, "Laughing in the Sugar Bowl" is loud, fast, and, most of all, a hell of a lot of fun.

Veruca Salt just finished up a leg of touring behind Ghost Notes, but if they head back out on the road, that news will be announced on their website and Facebook. For now, watch the video for "Laughing In The Sugar Bowl" below.