Ok Cowgirl: 2024

This  FUV Live session is also available as a podcast, "FUV Live Sessions." We're elevating WFUV's long history of live sessions and interviews via a podcast that you can find on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

Local music fans have long been hip to Brooklyn’s Ok Cowgirl, who have been hitting NYC stages for half a decade now, serving up feelings-forward indie-rock that has inspired audiences across the city to dance and cry — sometimes simultaneously.

Helmed by songwriter and frontwoman Leah Lavigne, Ok Cowgirl was initially conceived as a solo project in 2018 and expanded as the artist recruited musicians from the NYC band and bar community to form a truly collaborative five-piece comprised of Matt Birkenholz on drums, John Miller on synth and guitar, Ryan Work on bass and the perpetually barefoot Jake Sabinsky on lead guitar.

The cleverly named Not My First Rodeo (2021) was, in fact, the band’s first EP, and following a string of singles and videos, the band will drop their debut LP Couldn’t Save Us From My Gut — a 10-track album exploring themes of truth, freedom and self-empowerment, recorded and produced by Alex Farrar (MJ Lenderman, Indigo De Souza, Wednesday) — on August 16.

An early "NY Slice" discovery, FUV invited Ok Cowgirl to open for Hurray for the Riff Raff at Racket for a Marquee Member concert in March.  Most recently, FUV has been playing “Little Splinters," and in July I was stoked to host when they swung by Studio A for a performance and interview.

With musical relationships between some of the band members spanning nearly a decade, Ok Cowgirl’s creative chemistry is clear. Beyond that, the artists’ true love for each other is evident. Ok Cowgirl is, first and foremost, a group of good friends, bonded not only by time and art, but by cheap beer, dirty jokes, and Larry David (whom they’ve even named a song after).

During this FUV Live session, the band performed three songs from their new album (“Little Splinters," "On My Mind." and "Mars Cheese Castle") and talked band bonds, bald caps, the making of the new record, and much, much more.

[Recorded: 7/15/24; Engineered by Jim O'Hara and Erin Merriman; Produced by Meghan Offtermatt; Videographers: Alena Godas, Louisa Schramm, Bella Lipayon, and Olivia Iannaccone]