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UPDATE: On her blog, Jemina Pearl has told the story of the Detroit fight, generally confirming all reports that she whupped the heckler on Wednesday night: "the show was fun, and yes, i did beat up a dude. he was being a dick and heckling us the whole time. it was pissing off john [Eatherly, guitarist] and max [Peebles, bassist] especially. i poured a bottle of water on him, but he wouldn't quit. i told all the boys to just ignore him, and we were having a lot of fun on stage. unfortunately, dude fucked up during the last song by flicking lit cigarettes at me. not cool. i kicked his ass, there was blood, and everyone at the show cheered because he sucked. even his roommate was putting him down after the show. dude was asking for it the whole show, and he seemed pretty pleased when it was over. i guess he got what he wanted?"

At a Be Your Own Pet show a couple years back, I watched lead badass Jemina Pearl slap the shit out of some big guy who got a little too close to her. And even though she's gone solo, she's still not to be fucked with. Just ask the dude who thought it would be funny to heckle the singer at a show at Detroit's Majestic Cafe on Wednesday.

According to an eye-witness, the guy was yelling something about Pearl's...

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Former Be Your Own Pet singer Jemina Pearl plays a put-upon waitress at an unruly dinner in the video for her debut solo single, "I Hate People". Iggy Pop sings back up on the song and shows up in the video by way of paper cutouts. Thurston Moore does not guest on the song but does appear in the video as Pearl's hopelessly square manager.

Will the singer escape her loathsome existence with the help of a leather-clad rebel? You'll have to watch the clip over at Stereogum to find out, I suppose.

"I Hate People" is on Pearl's debut solo album Break It Up, out now on Universal/Ecstatic Peace.

Photo by Aliya Naumoff
For a few years now, Islands have been working on perfecting a skewed, fascinating take on pop music. But this fall, the band will have its work cut out for it, holding down the opening slot for two of the defining straight-up pop bands of the last three decades. Between them, craggy-voiced London new wavers the Psychedelic Furs and Madchester survivors in the Happy Mondays have at least one box set's worth of great songs. Opening for these two bands, as Islands will be doing, has to be both an honor and a challenge.
Over the next few months, Islands have a pretty extensive North American tour lined up. They'll play some shows opening for the Furs and the Mondays, and they'll headline plenty more, many of them with former Be Your Own Pet frontwoman Jemina Pearl. All those dates are below.
Islands:

09-22 Asbury Park, NJ - Asbury Lanes09-23 Richmond, VA - Plaza Bowl09-24 Chapel Hill, NC - Local 50609-25 Athens, GA - Caledonia09-26 Tallahassee, FL - Club Downunder09-27 Jacksonville, FL - Jack Rabbits09-28 Tampa, FL - Ritz Ybor ^09-29 Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Revolution ^09-30 Orlando, FL - House of Blues ^10-02 Atlanta, GA - Masquerade ^10-03 Charlotte, NC - Amos' Southend ^10-04 Norfolk, VA - The Norva ^10-06 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club ^10-07 Philadelphia, PA - Trocadero ^10-09 New York, NY - Roseland Ballroom ^10-10 Cambridge, MA - House of Blues ^10-12 Columbus, OH - Newport Music Hall ^10-13 Pontiac,...

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In a Pitchfork interview from earlier this year, shit-kicking former Be Your Own Pet singer Jemina Pearl told us she was the last to find out about her band's 2008 split. "I'll probably talk about [the breakup] eventually, but right now it's too fresh," she said.

With her debut solo album ready for release October 6 on Universal/Ecstatic Peace, it seems like she's ready to talk. The LP is called Break It Up and it has 13 tracks including first single "I Hate People", which is a dream duet with Pearl's punk grandpa, Iggy Pop. That guy sure knows how to pick his take-no-prisoners female singing partners. You can hear "I Hate People" after the jump.

Break It Up was produced by John Agnello (The Hold Steady, Sonic Youth) and features fellow ex-BYOP-er John Eatherly. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and TV on the Radio's David Sitek also guest on the album.

This fall, Pearl hits the road with Islands.

"I Hate People" stream/download, Break It Up tracklist, and tour dates below:

MP3:> Jemina Pearl [ft. Iggy Pop]: "I Hate People"

Break It Up:

01 Heartbeats
02 After Hours
03 Ecstatic Appeal
04 Band on the Run
05 I Hate People [ft. Iggy Pop]
06 Looking For Trouble
07 Retrograde
08 Nashville Shores
09 No Good
10 D Is for Danger
11 Selfish Heart
12...

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For the last few summers, JellyNYC's Pool Parties have been holding it down as arguably New York's funnest free show series (a surprisingly competitive title). Held at Greenpoint's gigantic McCarren Park Pool in the past, the Pool Parties were nearly as notable for their hot-weather activities (dodgeball, a huge slip 'n slide) as for the bands they hosted.

McCarren Park Pool is about to reopen as an actual swimming pool, so this summer, the JellyNYC people have a new location: East River State Park on the Williamsburg Waterfront. They're still calling these shows Pool Parties, though, and the dodgeball and slip 'n slide will make their triumphant returns. UPDATE: the slip 'n slide has been replaced with kiddie pools!

More importantly, the JellyNYC folks have just announced their schedule for this summer, and this thing is a monster. Mission of Burma and Fucked Up and Ponytail and Jemina Pearl from Be Your Own Pet on the same day? The epic Deerhunter/No Age/Dan Deacon round robin tour? Grizzly Bear and Beach House? Dirty Projectors and Magnolia Electric Co.? Girl Talk and Max Tundra and frickin Wiz Khalifa?! All the broke, unemployed people in New York will now have something to do with their Sundays.

Schedule below.

July 12: 
Mission of Burma, 
Fucked Up, 
Ponytail
, Jemina Pearl

July 19: 
Dirty Projectors
, Magnolia Electric Co., White Denim

July 26: ...And You Will...

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"The people we worked with were great, but I think there's a lot of outdated morons at major labels spending too much money on young bands. And we were fortunate enough to be one of them."

-- Former Be Your Own Pet and current Turbo Fruits guitarist Jonas Stein, reportedly still living off his advance money four years after signing to Universal. (via the Nashville Scene, via the Daily Swarm)

The official live return of former Be Your Own Pet singer Jemina Pearl wasn't a big deal by design. On Saturday night at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, she was just the opening act for reunited hard rockers the Fluid, after all. And her new band, featuring BYOP drummer John Eatherly on guitar, sometime Turbo Fruit Max Peebles on bass, and the Tall Firs' Ryan Sawyer on drums, didn't sound all that different from her old one on this initial run through. Though there were no food fights this time around.

"It feels weird to be back on stage," said Pearl, and you could see her try to break through her old BYOP identity while maintaining the same hand-on-hip antics that made her BYOP identity so fun to watch. (Hence the Transformer button?) She mostly kept mum on her old band, only admitting the breakup was "a bummer." But even playing a bunch of never-heard-before songs to an audience that was more curious than excited, Pearl fell on the floor, made freaky faces, and let plenty of spit hang from her lip. What felt weird for her felt right for almost everyone else.

If you missed it, check out our recent interview with Pearl, where she talks about her old band, her new band, and seeing The House Bunny with Thurston Moore.

Here's video of a new song called "So Sick", via Stereogum.

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Photo by Andy Parker

If you're still crying about Be Your Own Pet's sudden end last August, you are a wuss and you don't deserve to be a true BYOP fan. Seriously, that shit was five months ago. Get over it.

Just look at former lead Pet Jemina Pearl-- it's not like she's sitting around watching "Gossip Girl" while eating a pint of mint chocolate chip. She's soundtracking "Gossip Girl" with the help of Thurston Moore. Plus, she's getting a new band together, writing and recording songs, and playing her first solo show. That show happens this Saturday, January 17, at Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg opening for recently reunited punks the Fluid. What have you done in the last five months?

Pearl's new band may look a little familiar. It includes ex-BYOP drummer John Eatherly along with Turbo Fruits bassist Turbo Max and Ryan Sawyer, drummer for Brooklyn country-folkers Tall Firs. Will the new group rip your head off and hurl it in a gutter a la BYOP or is this Pearl's "quiet" moment when she sits on a stool and hums "Big Yellow Taxi" to herself?

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