Annie Nardolilli and Louisa Hall met at an Adams Morgan variety showcase in 2015. The musicians quickly found out they had strikingly similar songwriting sensibilities. Hall performed a song titled “Barista Boyfriend,” and Nardolilli performed her song “Hot Park Ranger.” “We both were like, we like hot people with jobs. That is very awesome,” Nardolilli says on a Zoom call for which she and Hall showed up armed with many jokes and sparkly, matching rainbow-colored shirts.
It took four years of running into each other before they formed Griefcat in 2019 — a musical partnership born out of a love for making good music that featured good laughs, too. Griefcat’s 2020 self-titled debut includes songs like “Loving You Is Like Eating Chipotle,” about a fruitless relationship. “Loving you is like going to the mall but everything is a size too small,” they sing with a squeaky guitar. The song is a list of sad, funny similes about loving someone who doesn’t deserve it. Then there’s “Uhh … Where’s My Car?,” in which Hall and Nardolilli harmonize about not being able to find a parking spot and how scary it is to be a woman at night wandering around looking for her car — before the last line of the song: “Oh, wait, I, uh, I took the subway.”
“The music got significantly funnier once we got together. Before, we were just creeping in. But then being a duo, we’ve been able to become just much bolder as we support each other,” Hall says. Going bigger and bolder together has worked out well for Griefcat. Their music has found an audience in the Washington area (a group of fans recently told them they would be getting Griefcat tattoos), and their hilarious songs have had a couple of viral moments. Hall and Nardolilli believe in their music enough to not have been too shocked. “Comedy music can seem a bit niche,” Nardolilli says. “We want, just like any other musician, to connect with as many people as possible.”
Their upcoming album, “Late Stage Capitalism,” is out April 19. In 2023, they released a single, “Benevolent Billionaire,” that also features stirring vocals by fellow DMV-based singer Jarreau Williams. “I know you want to say that their wealth is okay, but you know it’s not fair,” they sing about people with more money than probably any of their listeners can imagine having.
“We poke fun at a lot of the things that cause people a lot of stress and anxiety, like the economy as it is today, capitalism in general,” Hall says. “People tend to find it really refreshing.”
April 21 at 7 p.m. at Jammin Java, 227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna, jamminjava.com, $15-$25; April 27 at 3 p.m. at Petworth Porchfest, 821 Upshur St. NW, petworthporchfest.org, free.
