Secret History: Tsunami's Deep End

But despite a deep commitment to feminism and the presence of distinct feminist themes in Tsunami's music, the band never really thought the riot grrrl label fit. “I don’t in any way want to give the impression that we were above riot grrrl, or better than it, or ahead of it. But there were some age constraints, as well. The majority of folks who were actively engaged in riot grrrl were a little bit younger,” says Toomey. “Not because we weren’t absolutely supportive of it, but there were many factors that led us to be sisters to the riot grrrls as opposed to riot grrrls ourselves.” Says Thomson, "I don’t think we saw ourselves as a riot grrrl band. We kinda thought of ourselves as a band that had women in it - and men."

Riot grrrl or no, Deep End is Exhibit A as to why Tsunami were so great: 13 tracks of irresistibly catchy, winningly abrasive racket, all thorny guitars and spry, driving rhythms. Thomson recalls some of the acts that inspired Tsunami’s initial approach: “There was a lot of different music, but I seem to remember a lot of focus on the stuff that came out of D.C.... bands like Fugazi…. But then we stretched beyond that to things like Unrest, and certainly bands like Superchunk, who were also putting out really great records at the time. I definitely remember being on a Mission of Burma kick.” Additionally, says Thomson, “[Deep End] was recorded right after the first Lilys record, at the same studio, so we were kind of listening to that, too.” Other inspirations included two Ohio bands: Columbus’s Scrawl (“An enormous influence on what we did and how we did it,” says Toomey) and Cleveland’s My Dad Is Dead.

According to Thomson, Tsunami were drawn to the joy and excitement of indie pop, and hoped to generate the kind of energy some of their peers were cranking out. “I think it was the variety of influences, seeing how fun it was when Superchunk was playing their really well-orchestrated, well-organized, really catchy songs. And you could tell the crowds loved it. The same with Velocity Girl, or Unrest…. It was really compelling.”

Deep End's opening salvo "In A Name" bursts forward on over-caffeinated riffs and wailing vocals, the sound of clever kids highly stoked and easily distracted. When "Slugger" isn't pounding it's floating, buoyed by layered vocals and bouncy stringwork. The mid-tempo stalk of "Water's Edge" adds danger and darkness to the mix, menacing syncopation scrapping with snarling guitars as Toomey and Thomson wail, "She waits/ By the water's edge/ She searches/ For a sign of life," one of the album's spookiest tunes.

The anti-anthem of "Genius of Crack" - “One of my favorite Tsunami recordings,” says Thomson - plays like narcotized Pixies-sized surf rock, a tribute to and mockery of Gen X stereotypes. "We're so slack, we come off like geniuses on crack/ And I'm sad to give up on the one thing I never had." Album closer "Stupid Like a Fox" could be a mission statement, thrashing and gliding by turns, hemmed in by vexed vocals and rushing rhythms.

Lyrically, says Toomey, “[Deep End] is tremendously focused on being observed, on being judged, and on trying to turn tables…. There’s a lot of insecurity associated with the ages of 20 to 30, and that was the period of time that we did Tsunami.”

“When we set up at the Catbox studio [in Lancaster, Pennsylvania], it was barely a studio,” says Thomson of the Deep End recording session. “It was set up in [engineer Ken Heitmueller’s] parents’ basement, and it was also the laundry room. And so we spent the first day setting up drums and getting all the sounds and all the microphones set up and putting all the amps in the proper places so it sounded right. And then his mom came downstairs and moved the amps so she could get to the dryer.” Adds Toomey, “And we had taken hours fixing this dumb amp - you could pick it up with two fingers, it was so light and shitty - and it was very hard to mike it. And we finally mastered the mike-ing, and then we had to start from scratch the next day.”

Tsunami’s distinctive guitar sound - sharp clarion chords ringing through layers of nearly shoegaze distortion - derived from Toomey’s amp set up. “[Jenny] had two amps and a splitter cable,” says Thomson. “So she had this solid state, really cheap thing that made tons of noise, the sort of high noise you hear on the distortion tracks. And then she had some sort of tube amp.” When asked why she adopted this approach, Toomey replies, “I think that if we had been better musicians we would of done it a simpler way. The band wanted something that would be insanely distorted while at the same time you could hear clean melodies.”

Today, Tsunami remain largely unsung heroes of the District scene, often overlooked in remembrances of the time but nevertheless boasting a catalog that more than stands up to scrutiny. Looking back at Tsunami’s career, Toomey highlights the band’s modest ambitions and the changes that took place over time, saying, “We never thought we could be famous musicians. We never thought there would be a market for our music. There’s an absolute assumption of a certain kind of privacy when making this music, because who else is going to hear it, other than your buddies or a handful of superfans that are part of this crazy clique or coven of music freaks around the world?”

“And that changed dramatically over the course of the time that Tsunami was a band,” Toomey continues. “And there were positive benefits to that, in that some of our friends who are incredibly talented musicians now are making music that everyone in the world can hear. And there were some real liabilities, in that some of the really interesting externalities associated with being in a small, private, community-based [scene] went away.”