Remember high school? Remember your or your friend’s high school band? Hopes were high, and the world was yours…until it wasn’t. Talent/lack of, life, and everything else caught up, and what was once a fantasy remained a fantasy.
Don’t tell that to Birthday Girl DC.
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The Washington D.C.-based teenage trio have amassed a rabid local following in just a year. Mabel Canty (singer-songwriter) and Tess Kontarinis (drums) have known each other since elementary school. But if you want to go back even further, Mabel’s father and bassist Isabella MacKaye’s uncle were two of the four members of D.C. hardcore band Fugazi (and MacKaye’s father was in the D.C. band the Faith.)
“We grew up going to all of the same family stuff,” Mabel says on a day off from school.
They consider each other cousins, and earlier in high school Canty and MacKaye started hanging out. In 2023, Mabel, who started writing songs at 12, brought what she had to Isabella and asked her if she wanted to play bass. When they found out Tess played drums, they decided to form a band.
Birthday Girl DC’s eight-song, self-titled album was released in July 2023. It was produced and recorded by Canty’s father, Brendan, in their basement. The sound recalls the best elements of moody, classic ‘90s alternative, and they say they’re inspired by British rockers the Sundays. Which not many people say.
Just as momentum was building last summer, they had to return to their studies—Canty and MacKaye back to high school and Tess to California for college at CalArts.
But instead of cooling off, Birthday Girl DC became one of the most talked-about bands in the area. Offers to perform rolled in, and they landed choice opening slots for rising alt-rockers Snail Mail and Timony… during the school year, no less.
“Our parents are so chill,” Mabel says about being allowed to skip school. “It’s all thanks to them—if we didn’t have their go-ahead, we wouldn’t have done it.”
The trio’s new EP, Dirtier, also recorded with Brendan Canty in the family basement, is out now.
So what are they most excited about ahead of their string of shows? “We’re excited to not be in school anymore!”
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
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