Words and Photos by Kaley Klapisch
On Saturday, December 6, at Market Hotel in Bushwick, Brooklyn, through the haze— over shoulders of bundled crowds (no coat check here)—one could find an angular girl dressed in black and white, shrouded by choppily cut platinum-blonde locks, splay-kneed on the ground with an electric guitar. Behind her, the J train rumbles underfoot, rushing past a bay window. As she frenetically fiddles with the knobs of a pedalboard, the final chords of her last song sonically regurgitate through reverb and distortion until they are reduced to unintelligible dissonance. These last, dying notes are accompanied by an aching, guttural wail.
This is the Veronica Everheart experience.
Everheart, 23 and a Scottsdale, Arizona native, made her foray into the New York alternative scene this fall, opening for The Hellp at Webster Hall in September before joining them in Chicago and Los Angeles on their U.S. tour.
Though her discography is still growing— she currently has one EP to her name, Lighter in the Morning (2024)— a Veronica Everheart performance is not one to miss. She has the rare ability to make a show feel like more than a latest-and-greatest playthrough you could’ve streamed at home; instead, it is roiling, expressive and volatile. No emotion conveyed through her recorded work compares to witnessing the sheer intensity of Veronica live. It feels like watching a breakdown in real time— insides churning outward, then decomposing on the pedalboard.
Everheart’s background as a DJ bleeds into her music, often featuring electronic sampling and live-looping by Keanu Klepfer alongside her confessional, cathartic lyrics— sometimes spoken, sometimes a barely-there sob. Saturday’s mostly acoustic performance, thus, felt like a refreshing anomaly, bringing her clear, silvery vocals to the forefront in songs like “Let Me Go, For It Is Daybreak,” and “Simulacrum.”
Drummer Sam Martinez was a showstopper all his own, longtime creative partner Juni added to the sonic texture on the keys, and new addition guitarist Eoin O’Mara more than earned his spurs.
Before moving to New York, Everheart cited Patti Smith and Kim Gordon in an interview with Phoenix New Times as both inspirations and aspirations— “cool girls that live in … dirty, gross cities and do whatever they want.” On Saturday night, in the sweat and grime (and on the floor) of Market Hotel, Everheart established herself as exactly that: a downtown fixture of a new musical era, genre-bending and unflinching, commanding attention without expecting to be understood.
“The sun spoke to me, she said / ‘It’s lighter in the morning / And love will still remain’” —Veronica Everheart, “Microcosm,” Lighter In the Morning (2024)
Loudspeaker Collective 