Ears Wide Open: Young Winona

Kevin Bronson on January 28th, 2021

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“L.A. is swimming in waste and pity,” Cassie Gaffaney wails at the end of “LA Waste,” the new single from alt-rock trio Young Winona.

Well, that’s one way to look at it. There are some other observations in the calamitous rocker, too — all from the perspective of New Zealand transplants who moved to Southern California six years ago and until 2018 made music under the name Santa Barbara. The trio — Cassie and her husband Nick Gaffaney, along with Geoff Maddock — released two singles in 2019. “LA Waste” is their first release since signing to Poor Man Records, whose roster includes Human Barbie and Broken Baby, among others.

The tune, the first of several singles the band plans to release this year, places Young Winona among the L.A. bands embracing grunge-styled music (Ramonda Hammer comes to mind), as well as the many artists who write about this city’s dichotomies. “On one hand you have ultra-wealth,” Cassie Gaffaney says of the new single. “And just mere footsteps away you have extreme poverty, hunger and homelessness.”

Nevertheless, she sings in “LA Waste,” “This is as good a place as any to live until you die.”

||| Stream: “LA Waste”