Trans Punk Duo Um, Jennifer? Wants You to Meet the “Fishiest Girl in New York City”
The best-named band in the tri-state area explains their surreal new music video.
Um, Jennifer?, a duo that describes themselves as "trans slut rock nyc," makes scuzzy-sweet songs about transness, queer love, and simply trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. (Like, in life.) The band has been releasing music for just over a year, but in their hometown of New York City, they’ve already drawn a devoted fan community that brings cardboard signs to their shows to declare their fealty. Um, Jennifer?’s debut single, “Girl Class,” explores the multitudes of transfemininity through the simple conceit of a phone call; when I saw them play over the summer, guitarist and vocalist Fig Regan hilariously play-acted her part by taking a call from a child’s princess phone. Live, they were thrilling: funny but also low-key deep, instrumentally loose but also high-key deliberate as they cranked through tracks like “Cut Me Open,” “Sweet Until I’m Not,” and “Went on T.”
The band’s purposefully shambolic delivery onstage is shot through with their charismatic presence—Regan striking an acerbic, cosmopolitan wit in between-song banter, guitarist/vocalist Elijah Scarpati grinning enthusiastically while shredding solos and generally coming off like the nicest riffer in leather pants you’ve ever met. In their shows as on their recorded material, the band often uses wry humor and coded duality to express truths about their existences as trans people in the ungodly year 2024. (If you’re wondering, in their mythology, “Jennifer” is a “vengeful god” who hates all their music.)
Their latest single, “Fishy,” released on Final Girl Records, is delivered with characteristic wit. “Couldn’t get a date to the high-school formal/Is it ’cause they thought I wasn’t pretttyyyyy,” Regan talk-sings, before coming in for the punch—“Which is weird because I’m the hottest fuckin’ bitch in New York City!” Regan tells me the song is “a declaration of self and a method of survival. There’s power in identifying with all the best and worst parts of oneself.”
Which brings us to the brand new video for “Fishy,” in which Regan plays Fish Girl and Scarpati plays Fish Boy. And yes, they both wear charmingly cheap-looking fish masks. Regan explains the concept thusly: “It’s a documentary about the life and times of the fishiest girl in New York City. This girl loves to party, she loves to flirt, and boy, does she reek of the sea!”
The clip opens at the Pacific Aquarium & Plant, the legendary aquatic pet store on Delancey Street, with Fish Girl communing with her ancestors. After such a profound experience, why wouldn’t she then make her way to the stalwart lesbian dive bar Cubbyhole, do a couple shots with the bartender (aka Fish Boy), hit the bathroom for a little sex (two ways), then run around the city smoking ciggies and generally causing a ruckus? “I was imagining Charli XCX’s ‘Von Dutch’ video in my head,” says Scarpati, “because she just knows how to walk like nobody else in the world.”
Regan, who directed the video, shared her notes for mapping out the bathroom scene, and they are amazing: “Fishy Girl pulls Fishy Boy into the bathroom where Fishy Boy lifts Fishy Girl onto the sink and RAVISHES her. They are pushing and rubbing their masks together. They’re splashing water from the sink onto each other. It’s partly hot and mostly stupid. Fishy Boy goes under Fishy Girls dress. Freaking whatever ur comfy with bro.” (Informed consent!)
The band promises that this is not the last we’ve seen of Fish Boy and and Fish Girl. “This isn’t so much a creative choice as it is simply the reality of our lives,” says Scarpati. “Believe me—if I could shake Fish Boy I absolutely would. That guy is kind of a jerk. But for better or worse, he is part of the Um, Jenniverse.” As I wait to see what’s next for the pair, I’ll be rinsing this track when I need something to scream along to: HOTTEST FUCKIN’ BITCH IN NEW YORK CITY!
