A Bomb Falls In The Sea - Anna Zinova of Pinkeye

Years ago, before the grind of shows had worn us down to an isolated question mark, Interrobang was invited to play one of the legendary Speakeasy Studio parties thrown by Lee Williams. During these events, Lee, the one time drummer of Burning of Rome, would invite half the musicians in San Diego to his rehearsal space; a repurposed mechanics shop and warehouse off the I-5. We would party amid walls covered in band posters, art, and cheap soundproofing while Lee would lecture from behind his bar about the dystopia America was becoming. The nights would continue until the circling cops, driven by the scent of young people having fun, would force an ending to the festivities with their sirens and casual authoritarianism.

Interrobang was billed with a band that, even locally, most of us had never heard of: Taken By Canadians. And so it was, that in the summer of 2012, amid the smoky haze that surrounded Lee's life, we first encountered Anna Zinova on the violin. Within the music community, small encounters can have a trajectory that lasts for years. A lasting impression was made that night, despite the fact that the only commentary after the performance was in relation to how Interrobang's guitar player looked suspiciously like the Taken By Canadians' bass player. We live in a town where you can throw a penny into a brewery and hit a handful of bearded Caucasian men with glasses and hats; but still, the mirroring was impressive.

At the point of this show, Anna was returning from a year long stint in Phoenix, Arizona, where her ex-boyfriend, a novelist 20 years her senior, was committed to a writing career of literary obscurity and emotionally abusive behavior. It was in this conservative wasteland that she wrote “Sun and Soil”, a moving auditory mantra. On a personal level, it functioned as a meditation in breathing. “Sun and Soil” began in one of Anna's dreams and after spending one of those rare days that musicians crave; a full day of manifesting the ethereal into reality, it became something tangible: a song. It is a truly beautiful piece of music, with haunting violins, the dark sounds of chains, and a melody that swallows you whole. On a social level, many years later, “Sun and Soil” would grow into a catalyst for the meeting of recording engineer James Page and dozens of musicians in the projects I was engaged in

Anna grew up in Oceanside, the daughter of an entrepreneurial Russian electrician. On her own, she began playing piano as a child. She was eventually solicited as a student by a Scientologist piano tuner who was, or at least claimed to be, impressed with Anna's innate autodidacticism. Anna began learning violin as a ten year old in the public school system - hiding inauspiciously in the depths of the second violins - and joined her first band at the age of 14. Busking on the Southern California streets with her friends, the life of a musician came easily to her. As a teenager she wrote and sang: “If I was sorry/ I'd say it loud and clear/ I'm so tired of fighting for everyone/ When no one has fought to keep me here.”

“Marines liked me,” Anna says. “I realize now that they thought a song I wrote about being ignored by my mom and dad was about Iraq. But it was about being ignored.”

At the age of 17, Anna spent two years watching her father die. Each of us is born with a death sentence, but pancreatic cancer is a drawn out ordeal, peppered with an innate anxiety of imminent demise. And each of us approaches our own apocalypse and that of those close to us in our own unique ways; but as creatives, there can be a tendency to treat our own existences with a vampiric quality - attempting to suck the essence out of our own despair and spin it into products that can be shared. There is a sense of nothing being too sacred to serve as fodder for our own creation; to express the inexpressible. However, this experience, though having marked her in numerous ways, has remained too sacred for Anna to mainline into her music.

Unapologetic is not the right word to describe Pinkeye, but unapologetic could exist in the same room as the right word. Brutal self honesty comes closer. As Anna shouts “I fucked a married man!' over and over again, I feel myself going from amused, to offended, to impressed, to feeling like a bit of a coward. It arrives as a litany against the sanctity of institution, on the track “I Only Kiss My Wife” off her album Pinkeye. I am struck by her ability to sacrifice some part of her social self, to speak the truth about a social taboo, and to immortalize it in a recording.

Pinkeye is punk in spirit, and by the time I'm done with the track “Trailer Valley”, a masterwork in glam pop, I am struck. The clashing ironies of the shiny, expensive tones directly juxtapose the chorus “I don't want to be in a trailer/ in the valley/ when the valley floods.” This song in particular helps foster a realization that not only is there a deep intelligence at work within the context of deceptively simple songs, there is also an acceptance of the world as it is. Pinkeye explores territory that is not only aware of genre, but playfully works for and against it's inherent connotation at will.

The music is harmonically simple, yes; but simplicity is not simple mindedness, just as complexity is not intelligence. There is an aesthetic at play here that becomes most obvious as I follow her voice through the recordings. On some tracks it's a voice that is folk, on others, a voice that is gritty and punk, dripping with smoke and whiskey. On others, there is an almost operatic quality to the amount of thought that has been injected into each vowel.

In the first track, “Ipecac Suite,” the music is organized a series of short and rapid crescendos that climax in increasingly sustained high points. In “I Hope You're Happy,” there's a similar quality of crescendo to nothing that is used once again to great effect. It's an interesting compositional tool; Crescendo, but don't go there. Crescendo again, and don't go there. Finally, arrive. But then, crescendo again, and arrive, and stay there for a prolonged amount of time. The voice goes from soft spoken to one full of grit, and that primary dichotomy also plays out throughout the album.

Pinkeye involves many moments of different vocal characters introducing themselves momentarily when it serves the lyrical quality of a given moment. A fine example of this is in the ranchera ballad Unkind in which an introspective argument Anna has with herself explores how much she hates a woman who wins an unrequited love coupled with the cheeky violence she would like to unleash. What connects every voice is an underlying honesty. A sensibility of lyrical mantras pervades the recording. Important lines are repeated with a spell like quality.

Anna is a fan of Bukowski, the intellectual champion of poetic drunks. She is a fan of the emotion-as-religion voice wavering sincerity of Conor Oberst. When I ask her to list her influences, she goes from Amanda Palmer to Adventure Time. From Andrew Jackson Jihad to Wes Anderson. And from Danny Elfman to Prometheus Rising. After a couple decades of dealing with creatives, I recognize that there are those who aspire to make what the icons in their creative landscapes have made, and there are those who aspire to live in the same creative landscape as their icons. Pinkeye is certainly the latter.

At the age of 16, Anna started working as a receptionist for her dad's company in Oceanside before working as a Subway sandwich artist. She then moved to Virginia where she worked at Hardy's, and a call center before moving back to Oceanside. She was a receptionist at another company, worked at another Subway, worked as a babysitter, then as a door to door meat saleswoman, as a graveyard shift Denny's waitress, at a Macy's, and then moved to Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, she worked as a caterer, did a hard week at an IHOP, worked the night shift at a gas station, did time in a health food store, waited tables at a casino, and then moved to Arizona.

In Arizona, she experienced her first firing from an expensive restaurant across the street from John McCain's campaign office. “I felt out of place,” says Anna in reference to that job, “So I went to another Denny's.” After Arizona, she moved back to Oceanside, where she worked as a sign spinner for an urgent care. “They didn't tell me to dance, but they didn't tell me not to,” she says, laughing. Back in Southern California, she proceeded to work as a substitute preschool teacher, while running an infant center at another preschool, and worked as a bartender, a Lyft driver, a private violin instructor, and a delivery driver. Now, on top of working, she volunteers at a migrant shelter.

As Anna tells me about her life, I remember when one of my bands played a show with Pinkeye down in San Diego's shadow self, Tijuana. Our bands are walking down some dark side street off of Avenida Revolucion. The smells of urine and dog shit and tequila politely coexist in the air, and it occurs to me, that here are a group of individuals that are at home in the world. And I know the growing mass of people who aren't here are hiding in their living rooms - their faces lit up by the artificial glows of other people's pretend lives. We play a side room of Moustache Bar on a slow night. On the main stage outside, a thin and bearded cross dressing performance artist does bad karaoke in a black dress while fifteen or so people cheer him on. Pinkeye does a set that's entirely too good for the situation. After the last note is played, we leave, hauling hundreds of pounds of equipment. I exit with the usual question in my head: “What exactly was achieved?”

I'm as bad as the rest of the liars in this town, telling musicians I'll go to their shows, and opting out at the last moments to play video games, or watch some movie. I try to commit to doing what I say I'll do, but the reality is, I've told practically every musician I know that I'd go to one of their shows and flaked. Sometimes I feel guilty, and go to the shows to give the band five bucks, and immediately leave. I know most of us are getting paid and booked based on draw, and I know that my actions demonstrate I talk a better game than I execute. Night after night, there I am, on a couch, drinking beers and re-watching over produced shows on Netflix, supporting the mechanisms of the already successful. Every local musician is competing with the modern lifestyle of comfort and the danger of fatiguing their audience of friends.

I surprise myself by making it out to Kanai Williams' venue, The Salty Frog, to see Pinkeye play. Years ago, he generously allowed Latifahtron to have a residency while we played progressive funk to confused Marines. This past year, he's changed the insides of the venue to both reflect and help the expansion of Imperial Beach into an ingrained part of the San Diego music community, with an upgraded stage and lighting set up. He's one of the better bookers in town, and it's always nice when the situations of good people improve as a result of their good work.

I want to write, “As usual, Pinkeye gave another emotionally intense performance.” And that's the truth; but the reality is that for someone to give that kind of performance, every time, in a town like this, requires a marathon runner's stamina, and a bit of an evangelist's delusion. As my girlfriend Anastasya photographs the sweaty musicians on stage, she stops to tell me, “I'm jealous of what a strong performer she is. She's completely unapologetic. She sounds like the girl next door who knows what she's doing.”

Later, I run into Ryan Schilawski, Pinkeye's former drummer, and after his typical greeting of homoerotic banter, he asks me what I'm doing there. I tell him about the Bottom Feeders project, spew forth some of my delusions of grandeur, and he says, “That's great, I'd love to read about Anna, she's such a great person. And it sounds like a cool project.”

It's good to see The Salty Frog packed with musicians and fans and drunks to support the spirits putting themselves out there.

In a world where presentation has pervaded music, the ability to speak the truth is a rare quality, and perhaps the most important role a creative can play. Using a rare self honesty and the intelligence with which to process it, Anna Zinova manages to speak her truth in performances and recordings while simultaneously having a damn good time.

Thanks for reading,

Mat Rakers