Three weeks after the Seattle band Who Is She? played during intermission of a Seattle Kraken game at Climate Pledge Arena — and was asked not to play again — the band has released a noteworthy song they played that night.
Who Is She? released “My My Orca Card” (above) this week on KEXP and talked to the Seattle radio station about the song, a Seattle-centric take on the the 1999 Le Tigre song “My My Metrocard.”
An ode to transit payment methods is hardly what drew attention at Climate Pledge, as GeekWire first reported on Jan. 27. The Who Is She? song took a (slap) shot at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos when the band played it during the Kraken’s game against the Vancouver Canucks on Jan. 25.
The lyrics in the new 2-minute song subbed out former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the villain of choice. The band skipped the profanity at Climate Pledge, but not in the recording above.
Oh no, Jeffrey Bezos.
He’s such, a total jerk.
Shut down, all the bookstores.
Billionaires do not work.
“We weren’t trying to be heroic,” the band told KEXP this week. “We were like, ‘who’s our local villain? … oh, yeah, Bezos obviously.'”
Bezos and Amazon have close ties to the arena where Who Is She? was playing that night as the “house band.” The company’s CEO, Andy Jassy, is part of the Kraken ownership group, and Amazon secured the rights to name the arena after its environmental initiative.
Who Is She? is a Seattle supergroup comprised of Robin Edwards, Bree Mckenna, and Julia Shapiro, members of the bands Chastity Belt, Tacocat, and Lisa Prank. They were supposed to play two more nights at Climate Pledge, but were asked not to come back.
The Kraken said the Bezos song was not the reason and blamed professionalism, among other things. The band’s tweet of the song has been viewed 250,000 times and the story was picked up by music outlets across the country.
In their interview with KEXP this week, the bandmates laughed about the entire ordeal and their place in Seattle music — and hockey — history. Here are some highlights from their conversation with DJ Dusty Henry. (The phone interview did not identify which particular band member was speaking.)
- “We thought it would be a funny place to sing that line because of him naming the stadium.”
- “It’s like the tamest line we could have said.”
- “We were just being ourselves. That was us trying to be professional. In our minds we were, like, selling out, playing hockey games. And then this happened.”
- “It’s a feel-good story. … I think Bezos will be fine. He’ll get over it eventually.”
- “I guess we learned that we’re not a good fit for hockey. Maybe we’re a better fit for curling.”
“My My Orca Card” is the first single from a new Who Is She? album that KEXP says will be out later this year.
GeekWire reached out to Amazon, the Kraken and a rep for Bezos for comment and we’ll update if we hear back.
