Aye Nako

Although Aye Nako took official shape in Brooklyn, New York during 2010, the group’s origins actually reach back to Oakland, California, where Mars Ganito on vocals and guitar teamed with bassist Joe McCann as two-thirds of Fleabag, a band that had briefly and confusingly operated under the Aye Nako name. Relocating to Brooklyn ultimately created the greatest opportunities for Ganito and McCann, who added guitarist Jade Payne and drummer Angie Boylan to round out the quartet and share stages with outfits including P.S. Eliot and the Thermals. Their pop-punk material, refracted through the sonic approach of Brooklyn’s D.I.Y. community, drew comparisons to Superchunk and Sleater-Kinney, while the band earned notice for its LGBTQ-friendly stance and even adopted the tags “homo-pop” and “queercore.” Ahead of the long-awaited arrival of their self-released debut album Unleash Yourself during summer 2013, Ganito remarked, "One of the reasons I play music is to play the songs I wanted to hear as a queer teenager." The group joined Don Giovanni in 2015 to issue the Blackest Eye EP. Returning to the studio the following year, they tracked their second full-length, Silver Haze, which Don Giovanni released in early 2017.