Rock and the Single Girl

Get Excited, 2012: Get (Re)-Motivated

2012-01-27T14:16:00.004-05:00

I guess it's never easy
We all are underpaid
Oh but we love it anyway
I'm looking forward to it, yeah I'm looking forward to it
-- Witches, "Big Rivers"

This year I had a surprisingly great New Year's Eve; I managed to actually relax and have fun, and so I woke up feeling PUMPED on New Year's Day, even though I spent it by myself, because I was excited to not be overwhelmed by anxiety. The next day, I woke up feeling even MORE PUMPED because I had plans to go hang with a friend and work on plans for a zine we're writing together.

And then the day after that I woke up feeling sick. My allergies flared and my sinuses promptly developed an infection. I was in bed for a week and a half, and it really tested my ability to 'keep it posi in the new year' or whatever. Ten days of not being able to really do anything but watch dvds gave me a lot of time to think on what I really want to be doing. After a few days, I wondered if I really have the energy and the will to maintain this blog.

[Image: a young fair-skinned woman curls up on her couch.] I spent pretty much the entire time that I was sick doing exactly this, and watching all of My So-Called Life. Yikes.

Documenting local and underground communities of musicians and artists is important to me, and it needs to be done. The unfortunate reality is that this endeavor, especially when done through blogging, is endless and mostly (though not entirely) thankless work. It's deceptively time-consuming, and it's typically unpaid. It's kind of undervalued, considering how much skill, discipline, and self-motivation it requires.

It's not about the money though. It's just that it takes so much energy and time that after a certain point, you're tired, your focus feels fuzzy because you're distracted by real life shit like grief and illness and mental health issues or whatever, and it feels like you're spending more time writing about 'the scene', and worrying about your writing, than actually participating in it or enjoying it. And at that point, you ask yourself, "Why? Really, why am I doing this?"

If you get to the point where you're actually asking that question though, the universe is bound to give you an answer, some weird deus ex machina-style sign from 'above'. Unlikely though it sounds, I got mine in New Jersey.

On Saturday the 14th I braved the low temperatures, my own post-illness low energy, and my anxiety about walking alone after nightfall in an unfamiliar town and took two trains to New Brunswick. I went to The Alamo to see Lost Weekend and Curmudgeon, two bands that have really helped me to maintain my interest in local diy punk. My gut instinct said that it would be worth it and I listened.

[Image: Flyer for the Lost Weekend/Curmudgeon show, featuring a bleeding and bandaged head flanked by two human bones.]

I'm glad that I did. Getting the hell out of New York and out of my comfort zone was good for me. Going to a diy basement venue, meeting new people, and seeing new bands was really exciting. Söft Döv, Lost Weekend, and Curmudgeon all played fantastic sets. I was having a really great time until Draize's set began and the moshing -- and by moshing, I mean dudes two and three times my size grabbing each other by the back of the neck and literally throwing each other across a very small, low-ceilinged (…it was a basement, after all) room, with zero regard for any of the other people in attendance -- got out of hand.

When some dude threw me into the wall I moved to the back of the room. When I got an elbow in the chest even while hiding out there, I left. I went upstairs feeling shaky. A weird little funnel cloud of resentment and unreasonable embarrassment started to swirl around the spot where that random elbow had connected with my sternum. I almost walked right out and headed to the train station.

But first I ran into Lost Weekend's bass player and lead vocalist, Jess, in the house's living room. When she asked me how I was doing, I blurted out that I'd been having a great time until I was nearly moshed to death. Much to my relief, Jess responded with a sympathetic eye roll. "That shit is so boring," she sighed. I sat down next to her on the couch, and a long conversation about the need for safe(r) spaces at shows, inclusivity, and activism ensued.

[Image: a young woman singing and playing bass as other young people look on.] Jess of Lost Weekend, as captured by photographer Rachel Atcheson.

Being able to talk about the total bro-tastrophe in the basement, and how it made me feel completely unsafe and utterly alone in that feeling, made me feel significantly better. Talking after that about local bands, future projects, feminist organizing, and strategies for combatting show violence helped assuage how powerless and panicked I'd felt.

It was a relatively casual conversation, but it was more than just a couple of girls chatting. Jess validated and defused my negative feelings, carework that I appreciate whether it was intentional or not, and after that we were able to move our discussion away from the dudebros who constantly dominate any and all conversations going on in 'punk' and talk about what we want to work on, that change that we would like to see and help make happen in our communities.

Which, of course, is more or less the point of this blog. At home and recovering the following day, it occurred to me that this is more or less what I do in this space: I try to say something honest and productive about negative or harmful things that are happening in my community, and draw attention to bands and organizations that are trying to do something about these damaging practices.

I was really lucky that there was someone at that show who I could talk to. Not everyone who feels unsafe and literally marginalized at a show has someone they can express those feelings to. Not everyone feels comfortable speaking up in a situation like that, especially if they feel like they don't have any allies.

I can try to be that ally in this space. I can't go to every show that happens and coach every nervous or lonely-seeming individual I come across, but I can try to do something similar-ish through this blog. I can try to talk about these issues and how to confront them, and create a space where conversations the one I had with Jess can start to happen. It's not an easy job and it never has been, but for the first time in what feels like ages, I'm excited to do it, and I'm even kind of looking forward to it.

End of a Year: Smell Ya Later, 2011.

2011-12-30T15:01:00.002-05:00

I've never been a big fan of the whole New Year's Eve thing. The partying, the booze, the arbitrary marking of time and reification of that limiting and often demoralizing human construct -- being an introvert, it doesn't really work for me.

[Image: a parody of a flyer for a stereotypical New Year's Eve Party with two full champagne flutes. Text: TOTALLY OVERHYPED NEW YEAR'S EVE PARTY -- GET IN A FIGHT WITH YOUR DATE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE at SUPER-DOUCHY DANCE CLUB FULL OF POSEURS AND JERSEY SHORE REJECTS -- DJ D-BAG SPINS NONSTOP DUBSTEP AND TAKES NO REQUESTS! TICKETS: SIX MONTHS' RENT AND YOUR DIGNITY -- COME GET DRUNKA ND CRY WHILE YOUR DATE VOMITS IN THE BATHROOM

I tend to refrain from celebrating or making any acknowledgement the 'new year'. (In the off-chance that anyone ever wondered, that's one of the reasons that I don't post end-of-year 'best of' lists on this blog, that and the fact that it seems like lazy journalism/information better kept to one's livejournal or whatever.) I might make resolutions, but I try to avoid the sort of empty reflection and premature nostalgia that the holiday calls for. Call me weird, but if I can be aware of both myself and the things happening around me, if I can be smart about my behavior, its consequences, and how to modify it for better future results, I'd like to be that way all year, rather than for one night or one week.

But the end of 2011 is shaping up to be the exception. It's been a weird year, people. It's been a long year. It's had its moments, but it was frequently unpleasant, and often lonely. It looks like it's going to have a relatively happy ending, but only after an inauspicious beginning and really difficult middle. So much has happened that it's hard to not look back on it. There's been a lot of change, and I feel like I've learned a lot, so for the past couple weeks I've been trying to process it and figure out how to make use of it all.

In terms of this blog, it's been a quiet year; I only managed to post a few times. I'd like to tell you all more specifics about everything that went down -- you know, a sort of explanation-slash-sharing of what might be helpful information for others who have dealt with traumas.

But like so many people, I'm kinda still tired from Christmas, so, I made a mix instead. There's a song for each month of 2011, to mark both how I remember feeling that month, and what I was listening to at that time. It feels like a bit of a copout, sure -- but to blog more in 2012 is one of my resolutions. So enjoy, and see you all then.

January: Mortals -- "Hellmouth"
February: Bikini Kill -- "Blood One"
March: Seven Year Bitch -- "Give It to Me"
April: Black Flag -- "Can't Decide"
May: Versaemerge -- "Figure It Out"
June: White Lung -- "Shoot"
July: Babes in Toyland -- "Ripe"
August: Sleater-Kinney -- "The Fox"
September: Warpaint -- "Bees"
October: Drive Like Jehu -- "Good Luck in Jail"
November: Refused -- "Tannhäuser/Derivè"
December: Sonic Youth -- "Genetic"

Do you remember when we couldn't put it away?

2011-12-10T14:15:00.003-05:00

I would have posted this yesterday, but I spent most of the day preparing for and then partying down at the (almost) last P.S. Eliot show, WHOOPS!

Back in October I headed over to Brooklyn Fireproof to support my friends and fellow volunteers in Aye Nako. Perhaps out of what could be described as professional habit, I got there early to check out the other bands. (Short report: Mitten dropped off last minute; Troubled Sleep and Once A Pawn? Both worth googling. I'm just saying.) But I really wasn't there in any kind of professional capacity. I was there for friendhangs, not for blog fodder.

[Image: A brown, wide-eyed stuffed monkey sits on a table.]Flier for Brooklyn Fireproof show. And again, those bands are worth looking up!

So naturally, something reminded me of this internet space that I've been neglecting lately. I was at the merch table to say my good nights to the band when drummer Angie asked me, "So what did you think?"

When a person asks for your opinion like that -- or I guess when I ask someone for their thoughts on something I've done -- it's a request for some kind of reassurance, for support. It translates to, "I'm not feeling great about this, remind why I do this?" The idea of Angie, as in, "Angie Boylan (ex-Cheeky, ex-Very Okay, ex-Little Lungs, Each Others Mothers)", asking me for reassurance seemed bizarre. Trying to recover from my shock, I asked, "What did I think? Uh…why?"

"Well, I care about your opinion," she shrugged. Cue more shock. "You're probably the only one," I said, trying to play it cool. "I doubt that that's true," she smiled skeptically.

Standing at the merch table I considered those words. "Your opinion". There was no explicit mention of this blog, or of my pseudo-career as a music journalist, but those words made me think, Oh, right -- you used to have opinions on everything you listened to, you used to share them via this blog, and at one point it seemed like people actually wanted to know what you thought about stuff.

That time feels like a different life. Back then, I had the time and energy to go to multiple shows every week, to acquire and listen to countless demos and new releases every month, to record my reactions, and to update this blog every single week, sometimes three times in a five day span! I remember being able to do all of that, but only just barely. I certainly can't imagine being able to do that ever again.

But I do remember that I loved doing it. And after what has been a long and strange year, I'm finally starting to genuinely want to contribute to and participate in my community again. I'm slowly starting to remember what and how much all of this meant to me.

So I've quietly begun writing again, for other publications; writing your own blog is a pretty solitary pursuit and what I've needed lately is to work with other people. I wrote a piece for the recent issue of Hoax Zine. I've contributed two reviews to Tom Tom Magazine. Last month I read at Meet Me at the Race Riot: People of Color in Zines from 1990 to Today, and later wrote an as-yet unpublished account of my experience at the event for co-organizer and moderator Daniela Capistrano.

To be blunt about it: I've been really lucky. I'm fortunate enough to be able to do all of this, and to know cool people who are doing cool things, and who are willing to print my work. I'm lucky that after a year of being unable to write, I've started to recover my abilities, and that at least some friends are still interested in reading and hearing what I have to say.

But for as grateful as I am for all of the aforementioned opportunities, and as much as I love writing, I think what I've really wanted and what I've really struggled with is needing a very specific kind of validation from my friends. What I've really wanted is for someone to say to me, "You're going to be okay." I wanted someone to insist that regardless of what I do, whether I blog or not, whether I write I or not, that I'm going to figure things out and that everything will be fine, or some version of it.

No one has told me anything like this. I haven't really asked, because even though I think it's important to ask for what you need, especially emotionally, sometimes it feels weird to request that sort of validation.

What I have been told, more than once, is that I "shouldn't" need that sort of validation, that I "shouldn't depend on people" for it, and that I should be more self-sufficient. And yes, self-confidence and self-reliance are both really important But what I've learned in the last year is that support, especially when you live and operate alone, is pretty fucking important too. If you are fortunate enough to have family, friends, roommates, and co-workers that you see daily, if you haven't had the experience of really being on your own, you wouldn't know this. But I have been on my own, so I do know it.

But what I also know, passive aggressive-soap box-venting aside, is that you can get so wrapped up in what you need that you don't see what you have. I still want someone to tell me that I'm going to eventually be fine, and I consider that to be perfectly reasonable. But that doesn't negate the less direct support and validation I've received.

Friend, co-organizer, and community pillar Kate Wadkins asked me to read at Meet Me at the Race Riot, with the likes of Osa Atoe and Mimi Thi Nguyen, Kate believed that I belonged at that reading, even if I don't really. Friends in other bands have asked about my work, and about writing about their bands, surely out of need for publicity, but also because they must like something about what I do. My bff Cary bugs me about writing in particular on the regular. (Direct quote: "Update your blog, you daft wanker!")

I could write all of this off as empty talk. But, at this point, I choose not to. I choose, instead, to (at least attempt to) be gracious about it, and accept it as a compliment. It only took Angie Boylan randomly asking me for my opinion to get me to realize it.

To answer her question, Aye Nako's set that night was tight, if casual. The band seems to be writing new songs at the moment, and is gradually debuting new material at their local shows. There's a plenty that I could and would really like to say about what I've heard so far, but I think that that's a different post for a different day.

The vicious cycle and the single girl.

2011-10-18T14:42:00.003-04:00

Last week I spent days -- yes, days -- writing a new post for this blog. It was a post about a discussion that happened in class at rock camp in August, and I completely threw myself into it.

And then…I decided to not post it. I read it back, and decided that even after days of writing it, I just didn't like how it had turned out.

I wish that I could say that this was an isolated incident, or even a routine occurrence of the "they can't call be winners" phenomenon that every artist is (or should be) familiar with. But it's bigger than that. Things have quiet around here for over a month because lately, I don't like anything that I write. Lately, everything I write seems stale and boring, and I can't bring myself to think that anyone might want to read it. And I get that even at what I consider my best, readers, perhaps even most people, will still find my work uninteresting. But at least I used to like what I was writing.

It's not just the finished product, either. Lately, I've found it difficult to enjoy the writing process. I used to feel that I had gotten the hang or, and was maybe even getting pretty good at blogging. I was comfortable with each step of the process, the scribbling down of a few ideas for a post, the shaping of those ideas into an outline, the filling out of the outline, and then the editing and publishing. I used to be able to do it in a few hours spread out over two or three days. But right now I can't even think about that process without feeling overwhelmed, and can't imagine how I used to do it regularly.

So, here is where I find myself: I feel like I can't write a decent blog post about something pertinent to this blog. So I don't. And then not writing reinforces my feelings of anxiety and inadequacy. Which leads to leads to more not writing (or doing anything else productive, for that matter). Which leads to more bad feelings, and so on, and so on, and so on….

Credit: Laura Siragher. Orginally found at her tumblr

As illustrated by this handy diagram, this is a cycle. It has no beginning and it has no end, so how do you stop it? How do you interrupt the cycle of unhappiness and unhappily doing nothing about it?

Trying to answer this question has unexpectedly brought me back to one of the central concerns of this blog: access. This blog has always looked at the way gender affects a person's participation in music, and I've tried to consider how gender intersects with gender presentation, sexuality, nationality, race, and class. Now, I find myself wondering how access and one's ability to participate is affected by one's emotional health or well-being.

I know from experience that emotional difficulties can be a real problem, but a lot of people don't seem to take 'emotions' or emotional health very seriously. Every time that I've tried to talk about how I feel and why I haven't been able to do meaningful work, almost every time that I've tried to talk about feeling anxious, or scared, or alone, or just plain unhappy, I've been told to simply not

To be told to simply not have a certain feeling is pretty much the least helpful advice you'll ever receive. But people still do this, I think because we as a society don't take emotions or emotional health seriously, and we don't know how to deal with it when we have these problems ourselves, and we definitely don't know how to handle it when someone right in front of us is struggling. We don't know how to respond when our friends tell us that they are in pain. So we say stupid, unhelpful things. Or, we try to crack clever cultural references, or we steal them from movies like Reality Bites. "Man," we say to each other, "you are like in the bell jar." Because we don't know what else to do or say.

Girl, you don't even know. Image: a light-skinned, dark-haired woman in a yellow paisley shirt accurately summarizes an unseen character's emotional condition.

I wonder on a regular basis how much of an impact this social resistance to dealing with emotions has on girls and young women (and also, young men). It's easier for me to think structurally, and to worry about other would-be female artists of all types and their inability to get work done, than it is for me to think about my own problems. It's easier to ask myself, "What advice would I give to a friend, or to a student, who's struggling?" than it is to ask myself what I should do.

How do you break a cycle? Whether you're talking about the cycle of anxiousness and low productivity, or the larger cycle of ignoring feelings and not knowing how to deal with them? I don't have a real, solid answer for this question. But if a friend or a student or a camper asked me, I would tell her that I believe that this, as in this sort of post, is the start of an answer. Maybe, rather than jumping back into your work, and expecting yourself to ignore your negative feelings, you need to acknowledge and openly discuss those feelings. Even when it feels like no one else wants to hear (or read) about your feelings, and especially when you feel like you can't talk to anyone about them.

I would write this blog as I normally do if I could. I miss being able to focus on shows and bands and the people I know who are making music, zines, and other DIY media. But I think that first I have to learn to write about how it feels to not be able to write about the things that matter to me. You can't circumvent your own feelings, and there's no getting 'over' them, either. The only way out, it seems, is through.

Get in shape, GRRRL: or, Rock Camp, Session II

2011-09-07T16:52:00.002-04:00

When I last posted, I was dealing with an unfortunate combination of what one might call post-(camp) partum depression and very real, very serious distress over unrelated, un-processed emotional traumas. So I'm happy to report that, while I currently have a bit of post second-session-of-camp partum depression (which is really 'ugh, summer is over?!' bummedness), I've spent the time between sessions thinking a lot and working hard, and I feel much better than I did then. Camp was much less draining this time around, and I was able to enjoy it a lot more than I did in July.

A fellow volunteer celebrates a victory. Credit: Kate Milford.

I'm sure that the intervening weeks of reflection on my feelings had a lot to do with this, but I can't take all of the credit. Camp was a bit easier for practical reasons: I taught the advanced guitar section, which meant a smaller class, older campers, and some repeat students from previous summers. We also had the indispensable enthusiasm and assistance of our intern, Sophie, to whom I feel indebted.

Less classroom-related anxiety made it easier for me to socialize, as did the return of favorite volunteers from previous summers. Band coach and camp devotee Sarah made hours of kitchen drudgery go by quickly, while many hilarious counselors, both new and old, kept downtime in the volunteer lounge entertaining.

One day while I was in the lounge checking my e-mail, I overheard volunteers Vaughn and Jayne indulging in some bicker-y bantering (you know, the type that only seems to happen between bandmates). "You need to get in shape, girl!" Jayne snapped. Vaughn responded by singing the same thing back, "Get in shape, GIRL…" So of course, I had to butt in, and ask what they were talking about. "Youtube it," Jayne instructed. "Trust me, it's worth it."

I was expecting the line to be a reference to some really inappropriate SNL digital skit or something. Instead, it turned out to be from this:

In true rock camp fashion, Vaughn and Jayne discovered this kind of ridiculous, kind of really offensive, unbearably '80s attempt to capitalize on the health of young girls and set about reclaiming it, and I was there to support them. "It's like saying 'Get it together!'" Jayne explained, a kind of funny, colloquial way to express both concern and support, with both caring and a smidge of irony. We agreed that it's the sort of thing that clearly needs to be said "like, 20,000 times a day", and we got close. By the end of the week, the versatile and humorous Get in Shape! had become camp's new unofficial mantra, and sort of my own personal affirmation, as well.

Good times, for sure, but camp certainly wasn't without its difficulties. It was, as always, exhausting. There were the usual creative differences within the campers' bands, which mediating can be trying for volunteers and staff. And we had a few natural disasters, as well: first there was the earthquake, and then there was the threat of Hurricane Irene, and the transit system shutdown planned for the day of the showcase.

These alerts were all over the electronic highway signs that day. via

August 26, 2011, the Friday of camp week, dawned with the usual combination of excitement, tired, and premature nostalgia, as well as a hint of worry about the predicted widespread flooding of all of New York City. I was on site and multitasking by 8:15, somehow helping to set up breakfast, eat something myself, and help with reception all at once. I remember that day being humid and dreary, and I also remember that I was worrying about what to do about the showcase: I wanted to go, but knew that between the weather and lack of public transport, I probably shouldn't risk going into Brooklyn for it if I didn't have to be there.

Fortunately, I was spared this gutwrenching decision; in a typically bold move, the camp staff decided to hold the showcase not on that Saturday, but to instead have it that Friday, at 5pm, at camp. E-mails were sent to parents and caretakers, and the announcement was officially made at lunchtime, around 1pm.

I doubt I'm doing a good job of conveying it here, but, it was kind of nuts, to show up at camp expecting a normal Friday, and then end up staying for a two hour show, not to mention the volunteer after party. It was a long-ass day; many snacks and great amounts of coffee were consumed. But somehow we all soldiered through it.

We rallied, we had the showcase, and then we partied like the next day a hurricane might wipe us all out. I was a bit disappointed that the campers didn't get to have their day at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, where the showcase is usually held, but I'm also grateful that the campers had their showcase at all, and that I got to be there. One of the staff drew a comparison between our camp cafeteria showcase and a massive house show, which is sort of how it felt, and that's definitely not a bad thing.

I think that there was a general and shared sense of disbelief at the after party. A little disbelief that we'd decided to do things differently, that we'd actually made it work, and that we were all somehow still standing. There was also the usual sense of camaraderie that comes with a week of talking, laughing, and working closely with a small group of people, no doubt intensified by a literally incredible day and the expectation of real catastrophe that same weekend.

I eventually got over the shock though, and at that point, it was hard to be anything but inspired. Camp usually manages to expand your notion of what's possible, of the potential of both individuals and collectives, of how much we can both give and accept in return, of how different the world could look and be (far-flung as that may sound). This time around, camp helped me realize that, within the realm of possibility is my own survival, and maybe even my ability to 'get in shape', so to speak.

Everything needs to be illuminated.

2011-07-20T16:05:00.002-04:00

I was paging through tumblr a couple weeks ago when I came across this:

I'm not a fan of Bukowski (never did get into his work), but it's hard to not like this quote, or at least feel the truth in it. What isn't addressed in this excerpt though is that there are times when bringing one's own light to a dark situation can be really challenging. Tragedy and trauma can make it feel almost impossible to stay positive and approach things with energy and sensitivity.

I very recently learned this the hard way at rock camp. Last week I had the privilege of teaching guitar and helping out in the kitchen at Willie Mae Rock Camp during their first girls' session of the season. But with everything else that I've been dealing with in my personal life for the past few months, it didn't really feel like a privilege.

A screencap of the Willie Mae Rock Camp website

It initially felt more like an expenditure of energy that I really couldn't afford, and I momentarily considered bailing at the very last minute. But both the guitar classes and kitchen were severely understaffed, and my desire to help trumped my panic. Rather than running, I chose to train my laser-like focus on making the best of the situation, and on being the most helpful guitar teacher I could possibly be.

I could write in this forum that things were great as soon as I made that choice, but I'd be lying. Anyone who's ever dealt with grief and/or depression knows that getting through it takes a lot more than an attitude adjustment. I chose to put my energy and time into rock camp, and found that I had to keep making that choice, over and over again, in a lot of little energy-conscious ways.

In other words: all week, I had to be especially disciplined in the art of self-care, so that I wouldn't totally fall apart at camp. I had to discipline myself to go to bed at a decent hour and get as much sleep as possible, so that I wouldn't be a total crank in guitar class. I had to force myself to get up way earlier than I have in ages so I could drive to camp with minimal traffic and parking-related stress. And then when I got to camp, I would make myself eat a good breakfast and enjoy some iced coffee. Snacking throughout the day to keep up my energy was probably the easiest of these habits to maintain. (Rock camp provides WELL for its volunteers, my friends -- big ups to Marcia and Alison for feeding us!)

Friday morning surprise waffles for the volunteers, yay!
Photo jacked from the illustrious and talented Mal Blum.

Other stuff I did: I got in the habit of taking journal breaks once a day, where I would find an empty stairwell and take a few minutes to scribble down how I was feeling. I also tried to socialize and talk to the other volunteers as much as possible. My co-teacher and I kept up a constant dialogue about how class was going, and we were able to bring whatever issues that came up to the other guitar teachers and in one case, the camp staff. I also tried to talk as much as possible with the other kitchen volunteers while we were working there, and I did try, with varying success, to make some new friends.

Written out that way, all that self-care work might sound exhausting, and like, well, work. Yes, it was a lot of work, especially when one considers that most of it should just be a normal part of daily life -- you know, eat, sleep, hang out, duh -- but it was more than worth it. It took a lot of effort, but in the end, I felt better than I expected to about it.

What's kind of funny is that, for all of that work, the actual volunteer work wasn't that hard. Every morning I would sort of brace myself for guitar class -- I would take some deep breaths and try to let go of any negative feelings I had, and more or less pray that I wouldn't snap at an undeserving camper -- but it was never necessary. As soon as the girls came into the room and starting plugging in their guitars and fiddling with their amplifiers I would relax, and I would suddenly know what to do.

Because the reality, in my experience anyway, is that being supportive isn't really that hard, and being supportive is really what rock camp is about. Teaching is never easy, but listening to someone, simply being present, and then saying "that sounded great -- good job!" to a camper doesn't actually take tons of energy. Simply being present, and offering a snack or some leftover lunch to a volunteer who is hungry, doesn't take tons of energy either.

What required a lot of energy was taking care of myself. To bring it back to Bukowski (and from what I know of him, he would agree with this), sometimes we ourselves are that darkness, and we need to rely on other people's assistance. I think that I was able to get through this week, especially guitar class, because I had the energy of the campers and other volunteers to help me. There are times when we have to let others bring their light to us (frightening though that vulnerability may be); good thing we generally have a surplus of the stuff at camp.

Out come the wolves.

2011-06-23T19:05:00.003-04:00

A few days ago I was dutifully skimming through my Facebook feed when I came across what might be the most important thing I've ever seen on the site. It was a post from the much beloved Slingshot Dakota, which is easily one of my favorite bands of all time, and whose LP I listen to regularly.

Slingshot Dakota at a recent show. Sweet photo jacked from Lauren Matulis

Slingshot Dakota's music is beautifully written, and they and their work are, in my humble estimation, radically positive. That's probably why their post shocked and even momentarily confused me: it was about a guy who's been accused of attacking women at shows on multiple occasions.

Source

I couldn't believe what I was looking at when I first saw it. I had to read the post several times before it sank in -- that this guy has hurt people, that he might be a danger, and that this band is doing their part to warn people about him -- and even then, I didn't believe it. For a second, I wondered if it might be some sort of prank, but I'm pretty sure that the members of Slingshot Dakota wouldn't joke about something like this. They've talked about sexual assault and supporting survivors before; I've even written about it.

And yet, I still found myself kind of questioning the post, if not the band. I found myself having all sorts of messed up, Stockholm Syndrome, rape culture reactions. I thought how scary and dangerous it seems to call a guy out like that, especially in such a public forum. I thought how even if Slingshot Dakota meant well, maybe the original poster was misinformed, or lying, and that maybe I shouldn't judge this guy because I don't really know him myself, or anything like that. Unbelievably enough, I found myself worrying about his privacy.

Since I sort of started to go there myself, despite being a sex positive and radical postcolonial queer feminist, I'm sure that some people would see this as 'unfairly targeting' a guy. But if you think about it, you know what seems way more unfair? When rape survivors are called sluts, whores, liars and much worse after they come forward, and then have to put up with people questioning and judging their sexual histories, wardrobes, drinking habits, and other personal choices.

Because they were brave enough to make that post, Slingshot Dakota really got me thinking about assault, rape culture, and how it affects us all, and I feel like I owe them for it. It got me to thinking that I trust them, and that it's actually kind of really important to make sure you know something about a band's politics if you're going to support their work. I can say unequivocally that I trust them, and take their effort to warn their community about a potential danger seriously.

I've trusted them and taken them seriously since that first time I saw them, that first time that I heard drummer Tom Patterson speak at length about the impact that sexual assault has on both individuals and communities. I don't think I'll ever forget hearing him say, "…there are a lot of wolves in sheep's clothing" in our local scene, because when he said it I knew that he was right.

A video of the song SD usually introduces by talking about assault, from the very show where Tom used the expression "wolves in sheeps' clothing"!!! No introduction on this video, but I still can't believe I found this! Huzzah!

When he talked about how there are tons of punk guys parroting progressive beliefs and using them to find and close in on victims (I'm paraphrasing here), it validated a lot of unarticulated and sometimes subconscious fears and discomforts that I've felt at shows. Tom Patterson validated a lot of 'bad vibes' I've gotten from various guys over the years, and made me feel like maybe I wasn't just being a judgmental jerk. So I owe Tom for that too, then.

Slingshot Dakota's post reminded me that I was totally entitled to all those bad vibes I got, both the ones that I forced myself forget about, and also the ones that I've written about on this blog. We are all entitled, if not obligated, to recognize potential or actual wolves in sheep's clothing. We have the power to call them out -- and to protect each other and demand accountability, safety, and better treatment for everyone in our scenes.

Exile in Lon Guyland.

2011-06-10T15:08:00.002-04:00

When I wrote this blog regularly, my posts typically focused on events and musicians based in Brooklyn, and I do sort of still end up there a lot. But as part of my 'quest to heal' or whatever and figure out what to do with my life, I've been visiting my friend Cary a lot out in Long Island.

Cary and I while away the hours watching Daria, talking about sports and philosophy, going through his record collection, and taking the occasional derive. Most of the time, his housemates are there, so I end up getting to hang out with them as well.

A couple weeks ago we were in Cary's living room when he started telling me about the recent RVIVR/Iron Chic show out there. Apparently the crowd got very unruly and violent during Iron Chic's set and the band was unable to calm things down, which bummed Cary out. But RVIVR's Matt Cannino wasn't having it: during their set, it seems that he chastised the crowd, and also called out the Long Island scene's culture of sexist exclusion. He referenced the song "Killing Me Softly", and asked everyone in the crowd to consider the song's themes of appropriation, and he referred explicitly to this coming weekend's Long Island Fest, and the lack of female musicians on the bill.

A great live video of RVIVR, in case you've never had the pleasure.

According to one of Cary's housemates, who was in one of the other bands on the bill that night, Cannino's comments drew the ire of the organizers of Long Island Fest. If I understand correctly, there was a heated confrontation after the show between Cannino and one of the offended parties.

While this whole story kind of sucks, I feel like it's pretty awesome that Cary and his housemates -- both male and female -- and also Matt Cannino were unafraid to critique something that they thought needed calling out. I listened in Cary's living room as he and his housemates expressed their appreciation of Matt's onstage and off-stage comments, and further criticisms of the scene, Long Island Fest, and male defensiveness. It made me feel lucky to know them.

I felt even more lucky later that week when I went to a show in Hempstead, and Cary and his friend Dave joined me in discussing the matter with a Defensive Male. Well, actually -- it's more like Dave tried to have the conversation with this guy, and Cary and I joined him. The first thing I heard was this Long Islander saying "I don't understand why you're making it about there not being girls in the bands. Isn't that putting that before the music? Isn't it supposed to be about the music?"

Dave and Cary were gracious enough to let me respond, even though this guy wasn't really talking to me. I told him that it's not just about Long Island Fest, but that it's about the larger, structural issues that prevent girls from participating fully in their local arts communities. Bro said "Okay, fine, I understand that," and I said "I don't really think that you do," and he said, "Okay, fine." I told him that bands and artists have a responsibility to their audience and community, and he said "Okay, fine," to that, too. He was civil, but just barely, and though I don't even know this person, it felt to me like he was pointedly refusing to listen to me or consider anything that any of us said.

I feel grateful that Cary and Dave let me speak, and that they supported me. I feel grateful that they made their own arguments, and that they challenged him. They didn't try to shut me up, and they didn't try to shield me, either. They held to their critiques, and they didn't back off when this guy said he felt they were 'ganging up' on him.

I might have been most grateful for Dave's final comment though. He said something to the effect of, "Three days and not a SINGLE girl in the lineup? What kind of message does that send?" This question cuts straight to what I believe is the crux of the matter. Both Cary and Dave asked why there aren't any bands with female musicians playing Long Island Fest when the island definitely has its share of talented female performers. Defensive Male claimed that it just happened that way, that it's just a coincidence, that it's not his fault that none of these bands have girls in them -- but we know that that isn't entirely true.

Three days of bands comprised entirely of dudes is absolutely NOT an accurate representation of Long Island's scene. Worse, that complete lack of representation of female musicians actively discourages would-be and aspiring Long Island girl musicians from getting involved, whether or not Defensive Male gets that. (I'm still pretty sure that he doesn't.)

Remember those larger, structural issues I mentioned earlier? Well, this is one of them: the disproportionately low numbers of girls involved in music aren't given the credit they deserve, they aren't represented, and it keeps other girls from trying to participate. If you're already disadvantaged, if you lack support, and then you don't see other girls managing to get onstage and makes themselves heard, why would you think it's possible? Why would you keep trying?

It's because of this myth that punk and hardcore is only for straight white male middle class audiences, and the continuing limited visibility for female artists in the genre, that I really want to continue writing here despite how absurdly complicated my life is right now. I'm certainly not the only person talking about these issues, but there is strength in numbers, and I want to contribute my voice.

But in case I can't: I want to use this space to encourage any one who might be reading who feels like they are being marginalized in their scene to say something about it. Because trust me, you are not alone. If you see something that makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable or disempowered, say something about it, somehow. Because that's how you'll find other people who feel the same way and who will support you. My experience is that that's how you stop being and/or feeling like an exile, wherever you are.

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK…because I'm not sure if I can come back at this point.

2011-06-06T00:27:00.002-04:00

So, I decided that I needed to take a break from blogging back in November. I really didn't expect for that 'break' to last seven months though.

Initially I stopped blogging because I wasn't able to enjoy it anymore. My posts felt forced, and reading them back was painful and slightly embarrassing. But after a certain point I wasn't able to write anymore. It started early last winter, I think in December. I wasn't able to concentrate enough to write or read, especially the dense, theoretical literature that I was supposed to be reading for school. I would look at a blank page, put a pen to it, and then no thoughts or words would come to mind. Or I would look at a printed page, and the letters would run together and swim in front of my eyes. It was terrifying.

My powers of concentration were destroyed by an emotional trauma that I am still dealing with right now, and that I will be dealing with for a really long time. It's been difficult for me to accept this: both to deal with the loss, and to attempt to move on and be and feel 'normal' again. For a very long time, I couldn't really think about anything else, even organizing and publishing new content here.

After a few weeks of being 'on leave' I read a blog post that Jessica Valenti wrote about the traumatic and nearly fatal birth of her first child, Layla. In it Jessica mostly describes the birth and how she and her family have been affected, but she does briefly mention her experiences in relation to her occupation as a writer: "It feels strange not to write something so life changing. Because truly, I am not the same person that I was before Layla was born…I think there's something about trauma that just shifts your consciousness."

After reading this piece I realized that I do want to write about what I've been through. Even if it doesn't have anything to do with punk and gender. Even if it's really personal and it's scary to even think about sharing it with other people. Even if it seems like a dangerous blurring of the private/professional line.

But it's a lot harder than I thought it would be. I just haven't been able to find the words to describe how I've felt for the past six months, and I get frustrated every time I try. So I've kind of been putting it off. The frustration makes me nervous; It makes me worry that even if I want to, maybe I shouldn't be writing here, or anywhere. Maybe I don't have anything to contribute anymore, or at this point.

But the problem certainly is not a lack of material. A lot of stuff is happening, both in my local community, and on a national, if not international level. In the past six months there has been a proliferation of punk feminist activity on the internet, on the printed page, and in 'real life': the release of the International Girl Gang Underground zine and launch of the accompanying website, the ongoing I Live Sweat blog series, the emergence of Permanent Wave, Girl Gang Gig Volume, and yet another Anti-Valentine's Day Riot Grrrl Cover Band Show are just some of the ones that I've been following or involved with. I know that there's a lot more out there; that doesn't even begin to cover actual bands or releases.

This is important, not only for its own sake, but also because it helps me to relax a little bit about all of this. There are other girls and young women paying attention to issues of female participation in punk and arts communities, and they continue to do something about it and also to invent new ways of facing these issues. There are other people documenting these phenomena, and the dialogues that I was interesting in opening up are happening in various places. As I sit here, struggling against a blank page and a cluttered brain, the scene thrives, and will continue to do so. Whether I come back or not.

Hump Day Treat, Twenty days late edition

2010-10-20T20:00:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I read over at the For the Birds blog that October is Domestic Abuse Awareness Month. In the post, author Jessy writes that the month is "a time to honor survivors of domestic violence and intimate partner violence, to raise our voices against abuse and to think about working towards prevention." She also asks us to think critically about what we think domestic violence is, and what our attitudes are towards it. As she writes, one month doesn't really seem like enough time for such a heavy topic, but it could be a good time to start.

"Domestic violence" and "intimate partner violence" make me think about a lot of things. I have a lot of opinions about these issues that have been formed mostly by personal experience, as well as by readings in feminist and postcolonial theory that I've had to do for school.

But long before I began college, I listened to the song "Icy Blue" by Seven Year Bitch. I was maybe 13 when I first heard it, and I remember listening to the words and slowly comprehending what it was about. Somehow, 15 years later, the song is still powerful and timely. Listen and learn on this hump day.

Hump Day Treat, Overshadowed Record Release Edition

2010-10-13T13:26:00.001-04:00

Corin Tucker isn't the only Kill Rock Stars artist who debuted an album last Tuesday. On the very same day, New York City's own Marnie Stern released her third and self-titled album. You can get it via Kill Rock Stars on CD, as a digital download, or as an instant download with an LP order.

I myself do not yet have the album. But I have listened to the two free mp3s offered by KRS (...and perhaps a few more tracks at a certain streaming video wesbite....), and it seems like on this record Marnie continues to expand her songwriting and singing, while attempting to further develop the guitar skills that made her name. Stern has since shied away from her signature virtuosic fingertapping style, as if she is no longer willing to hide her voice and thematic content behind it.

But don't take my word for it. Listen to not one but BOTH free mp3s, and judge for yourself on this slow-going hump day.

Feminist Media Literacy 101: The Sexist Media Stunt and the Case for Feminist Media Literacy

2010-10-12T14:22:00.001-04:00

Anyone searching for proof that feminist analysis of pop culture is a thriving, necessary, and useful occupation need look no further than Bitch Magazine -- especially its Target Women: The Rise of the Sexist Media Stunt piece from earlier this year. In the piece author Jessica Wakeman looks at a very specific and deliberate type of mass media misogyny and gives it a name: she calls out articles that invent negative, anti-woman, anti-feminist trends as Sexist Media Stunts (SMS).

The SMS comes in many varieties, as Wakeman demonstrates; in addition to discussing the original "Is Feminism Dead?" SMS, she cites articles that question women's leadership capabilities and attack their sexuality, and pretend to be cutting edge in their un-p.c.-ness. The articles come from all kinds of mainstream publications, from women's magazines to national newsmagazines that allegedly have some sort of journalistic credibility.

They're not the only ones, though. Publications and websites on popular music are no strangers to the SMS, as anyone who has ever read Rolling Stone's annual women in rock issue knows. Music magazine SMSs are typically subtle -- rather than outright questioning women's place in the industry, they treat female artists and fans as The Other, continually emphasizing gender over artistic output and consumption. Sometimes they Otherize by being hostile towards female artists, and sometimes they Otherize by being apathetic or negligent towards female artists and fans. Sometimes they Otherize by appearing to embrace female artists, as with the Women in Rock issue, while refusing to acknowledge women as artists regardless of their sex or gender.

Aptly described by Carrie Brownstein as 'a ghetto'.

The most dangerous aspect of these stunts is how subtle and pervasive they are. If you're exposed to nothing but articles that normalize such disrespectful treatment of women musicians, why would you ever treat female artists -- or females in general (ZING!) with any kind of respect?

But then, that's the apparent purpose of all Sexist Media Stunts: to create a climate of hostility, meant to keep women 'in line', and to scare female and female-identified individuals away from speaking up, either in public or in their own lives. It's not 'just a magazine article', or 'just a headline', or 'just a bad review' -- it's a weapon of the patriarchy, and we have to learn to recognize it if we want to find a way to break it or use it against them.

Hump Day Treat, Return of the Queen edition

2010-10-06T16:31:00.000-04:00

Corin Tucker is officially back -- the much anticipated 1,000 Years was released on Kill Rock Stars just yesterday.

Never having been presumptuous or diva enough to work alone, Corin's new release is technically by The Corin Tucker Band. She's backed here, and on her upcoming tour, by collaborators and friends Sara Lund and Seth Lorinczi.

My fellow fans of Tucker's work with Heavens to Betsy and Sleater-Kinney may find 1,000 Years a bit quiet, but devotees of Corin's distinct songwriting style, of her talent for succinct, emphatic storytelling through sensuously embodied images, will not be disappointed. Oh, and yes, her voice is as thrillingly powerful as ever, even though she seems to be working hard at singing a bit differently this time around, just as she seems to have modified her vocal style with each new project she undertakes.

Corin has talked in interviews about this record's content. She's charmingly and self-deprecatingly referred to 1,000 Years as a 'middle aged-mom record', calling it "not something a young person would write". The lyrics do feature mature themes, like marriage woes and the strain of providing for a family in the current economic climate. But Corin also sings about the excitement and the uncertainty of personal transformation, and in a way that feels quite relatable, and surprisingly comforting.

The album is available on CD, for digital download, and as an LP with download. From what I understand, if you order it directly from KRS, you can get the download instantly, right after you make your payment.

But the album isn't the only thing that made it's debut yesterday -- the music video from the record's first single is out now too! So enjoy some brand new Corin on this pleasantly sunny, autumn hump day.

On 733 days of making my own media.

2010-10-01T14:50:00.001-04:00

That's right, as of this past Tuesday, Rock and the Single Girl is officially two years old! I can't believe it either. Actually, I guess what I really can't believe is how much this blog has changed in a year, and how much I've changed as a writer, critic, sometimes-musician, and cultural agent.

About a year ago I posted about Kate Wadkins' Girl Germs Scene Report, and it very unexpectedly had a major impact on my life. Posting about the Brooklyn 'scene', and the International Girl Gang Underground wound up drawing me into that very network. And having that network, that community, has changed how I understand both myself and my work. I am eternally grateful.

Since getting involved with the feminist musicians, artists, and activists working in my own city, this forum has become very community-oriented. Having a specific place, and a group of acquaintances/friends/colleagues to write about, has given me the opportunity to write about the issues that us girl, queer, non-anglo, differently-abled, differently-incomed, geographically dispersed DIY activists face on a regular basis. And I think, or hope, that this has enabled me to write in a way that is more constructive, and that helps readers to figure out strategies for dealing with discrimination in their own lives.

Writing for a year about community and space has also meant writing about the media produced by these artists. It's meant looking at that media -- records, zines, videos, websites -- as well as more mainstream media in a new way. And as a result, I've learned some things:

1. The mainstream media has more power than any of us realize, and they're not using it for good. When I posted about what l learned during my first year of blogging, I wrote that there were more female and feminist artists and musicians out there than I realized, but that there weren't enough sympathetic journalists to cover all of us. But I think that I was wrong about that. From what I've seen, read, and heard in the past year, it seems to me like the mainstream media works actively to diminish and discredit punk feminist activism, and it certainly, without doubt, works to devalue and marginalize feminist activism in general.

2. Which means that we need to start paying more attention. No one wants to read and feel marginalized, and as a result, most of my friends and I ignore mainstream media. But because of that, sometimes even the most aware and dedicated diy activists aren't entirely aware of just how powerful the media is, and how connected it is to other powerful groups in society. This troubles me; rather than ignoring the mainstream media, I think we need to work on our mainstream media literacy skills. We need to learn to read the subtle and underhanded messages that are being disseminated all around us.

3. But what we really have to do is keep making our own media. The mainstream media doesn't want us to know it, but there are tons of girls blogging, joining bands, and venturing forth into hostile territory and reporting back to us about it through zines, blogs, songs, videos, and more. These artifacts, albums, zines, etc., are more than just cultural byproducts; they are our culture. They are important in and of themselves, not just as materializations of our feelings and ideas and experiences. They are our feelings, ideas, and experiences, and they also convey information about how and why we've chosen to document certain parts of our lives. They also serve the paramount function of connecting us to each other and helping to create community.

I have to admit that I've had a good time learning all of this -- I've learned it through going to shows, hanging out with like-minded people, reading about music and listening to an untold amount of cds, tapes, 7-inches, and the occasional 12-inch. In general, despite some hardship and tragedy, I have had a good year writing this blog and dialoguing with all of you dear readers.

So, thank you. Thank you for a good year, and thank you in advance for this coming year. I hope that you'll make it a good one with me, and that you'll all be inspired to make some of your own.

Hump Day Treat, "Haaave you met my friend Amy?" edition

2010-09-29T11:37:00.001-04:00

So I was trying to think really seriously about this blog reaching its two year mark, where this blog is at, and what I've learned here in the past 365 days. But then my friend and fellow rock camp volunteer Amy, who plays in Titus Andronicus posted a kick ass and unfortunately short video of her band doing an awesome cover:

Titus Andronicus -- "Rebel Girl" (Bikini Kill) from mehan jayasuriya on Vimeo.

via Amy's fantastic blog

Readers might remember Titus Andronicus from my post on Red Hook High's Men Can Stop Rape benefit concert.. For anyone who hasn't had a chance to listen, here's a music video featuring the lovely Amy. Don't be fooled by the beards and touches of plaid or the 'critical' acclaim from places like Pitchfork on this sunny hump day. Just enjoy the great songwriting, wonderful energy, and a band that knows how to use their love of the E Street Band for good, and not evil.

Hump Day Treat, Last week's show this evening edition

2010-09-22T20:15:00.001-04:00

Though I admittedly did a lot of crying last week on my birthday, I ended up having a really good time at a fantastic show that night. Completely by coincidence friend and fellow volunteer Angie was playing that night with one of her bands, Little Lungs, and so I ended up seeing and hanging out with a lot of other volunteers, friends, and hometown diy heroines. Still feeling grateful for the entire experience on this damp hump day.

Never say never, "Everyone listen to my mixtape!" edition.

2010-09-21T15:04:00.002-04:00

Here's a fun fact about me: in the past few years, I've gotten in the habit of making a birthday mixtape for myself. They're the only mixes I ever make, mostly because making a mixtape (or mix cd, or ipod playlist for the youngins) is an art, and one that I'm not very good at. Taking other peoples' songs from their original context and using them to tell a different story has always made me feel sort of weird, and also, it's hard. Creating a narrative, with songs from all different places and genres, is really challenging.

It's especially challenging when you're crying too hard to see your computer screen. Last Friday, instead of feeling excited that it was my birthday, I was stuck to my couch and feeling overwhelmed by grief. I wanted to be in a good, festive mood, but I couldn't. I was just too sad.

I did stop crying, eventually. Not because I felt better, not because I'd solved any of my problems, not because I'd figured out how to bring any loved ones back from the dead, but because, well, I had to stop at some point. And when I did, I was somehow able to make The Perfect Mix. It's just the right length, tells the story of my tragic summer without being morbid, and somehow represents my taste, from the obnoxiously obscure to the just plain obnoxious, in a mere 13 tracks. I'm so proud of it that I'm sharing it with all of you, which I never thought I would do on this blog. So, enjoy!

Track list:

1. Little Lungs -- "Dreary"

2. Taking Back Sunday -- "Bonus Mosh Pt. II"

3. Say Anything -- "This is Fucking Ecstasy"

4. The Shondes -- "Let's Go"

5. The Gossip --"Confess"

6. Sleater-Kinney -- "My Stuff"

7. Paramore -- "Feeling Sorry"

8. Margaret Thrasher -- "The Next Best Thing"

9. Refused -- "Refused Party Program"

10. Hideaways -- "Armageddon in Retrospect"

11. Cheeky -- "Get Outta Here"

12. Passive Aggressor" -- Ouroboros"

13. Scantron -- "tappy"

Hump Day Treat, Yesterday's Theme This Evening Edition

2010-09-15T21:01:00.001-04:00

Thinking and writing about the importance of communication has made me really think about how difficult communication, of any nature, can be. Saying how you feel in a public, hostile space like a show can be scary. But sometimes trying to have a meaningful dialogue with a person you know is even scarier and more difficult than talking to a stranger who's twice your size and drunk.

Sometimes the words 'dialogue' and 'communication' are used interchangeably, but they aren't the same. Dialogue is a type of communication, but communication isn't necessarily dialogue, because dialogue implies a certain reciprocal respect, a certain bilateralism.

To put it another way: a screaming fight with someone isn't dialogue, though it might enable both participants to communicate how they feel. Dialogue, or at least amongst the womens' studies set, is about talking with someone and having both speakers get something out of it. It's supposed to be productive.

Today's video of part of a recent live set by Trophy wife opens with a song about this very topic. Enjoy, and maybe reflect on your communication skills, on this hump...night. I know that's what I'll be doing.

You wanna take it, but you can't have it, revisited: DIY Shows and Safety

2010-09-14T15:57:00.002-04:00

I spent this entire weekend thinking about the question I posed to you all last Friday. That is, how do we make ourselves feel safe enough within our communities to speak honestly about show violence? So I tried to figure out what makes me feel safe at a show. I've already written here about the first time I really felt okay at a local show; it's something I'll never forget, and so I went back to that memory.

I felt safe there because there were girls on stage, playing hard, fast, loud hardcore punk songs about being tired of feeling powerless and oppressed as women. I felt safe because I knew one of the vocalists from rock camp, and I knew that she was a cool kid and a dedicated feminist activist. I felt safe because there were lots of other volunteers in the other bands that played that night, and in the audience as well.

I didn't really think that anything dramatic would happen to me at the show, but I did feel like even if something unfortunate did happen, it would not go unnoticed. I trusted that those girls I'd volunteered with were not the types who would look the other way while anyone was getting hurt.

Those girls. Those girls who were already speaking up and demanding to be heard. Who were getting up on stage or dancing and pogoing in the crowd no matter how vulnerable it made them. Who were volunteering at rock camp and other places and encouraging other girls to do the same.

Those girls, and their bravery -- their willingness to speak up, to support those bands, hell, to just be feminist punks in a world that hates both -- was what made me feel safe. It was their willingness to act, to resist, to exist, and to do so vocally.

To say, "How we can make spaces feel safe enough so we can say when we don't feel safe?" doesn't make any sense, I get that now, after intense consideration of the issue. I get that it doesn't work that way. I get that you can't sit around waiting to feel safe, because that will never happen, or sit around trying to come up with what will make you feel that way, being silent until you figure it out. Because your silence won't protect you.

"Your silence will not protect you" is one of my favorite quotes from feminist literature of all time, and one that I say to myself frequently. I've been thinking about it a lot lately because Trophy wife sings those very words in their song "Sister Outsider", which I've been listening to on repeat for the past few weeks. Over the weekend, I managed to find the source of that quote, Audre Lorde's "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", which is from her collection of essays called Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. I read it, and I found an even better, though less pithy quote:

"We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us."

If we want to feel safer, and if we want our friends, male and female, to feel safer at shows, and within the community at large, this is the work that we need to do. We need to learn to speak not when we are unafraid, but when we are afraid. We need to learn to speak in spite of fear, instead of waiting until whatever threat we perceive has passed.

And to whom should we speak, in spite of this fear? Most of the time, this blog is about asking questions that don't have any clear answers. But I try to provide solutions when I can, so here are some suggestions:

1. Tell all your friends. Talk to the people who care about you if you don't feel good at a show, or after a show, or about shows in general. If you have friends you hang out with at shows, tell them how you feel, and ask them if they ever feel that way. It might make you less alone, and you might come up with some strategies for dealing with show violence.

2. Get confrontational. If you're at a show and someone is doing something that bothers or scares you, just say so. If someone is blocking your view, bumping into you, or doing something else that gets in your personal space, say "Excuse me". If they start doing something that puts you and the other people in the crowd at risk -- moshing violently, crowd surfing, etc -- try to tell that person that's just not cool or right to risk injuring other people. This can be really scary, trust me, I know it is. But it's necessary.

Now when THAT fails: take some suggestions inspired by the Beastie Boys (the good stuff is at 1:20) :

via

3. Figure out who's running the show, literally... and talk to them about it. DIY spaces might be DIY, but they're still set up and run by someone, and that someone should be concerned with safety (if for no other reason than their own personal liability). If you don't feel safe at a show, ask the people who run the space to do something about it. If those people seem unmoved or unconcerned, don't go back to that space, and tell the people you know to avoid going to or booking shows in those spaces.

4. Reach out to the bands. I will admit that I regret not confronting the band that was onstage when my arm got bashed into last Thursday night. I saw them, talking and laughing it up together after their set, while those two redheaded girls who also got hurt sat outside, both shaking slightly. I wish I'd said, "Hey dudes, thanks for saying something when those kids started to get violent. Oh wait -- you didn't say anything. Nevermind."

...okay, so you don't have to be snarky or anything, but asking bands to speak on their audience's behalf is a good way to remind them that they do have the power and opportunity to talk about violence while onstage. Some bands will really think about it; I imagine others will dismiss your concerns or shirk their responsibility. If that happens, again, tell your friends and withdraw your support.

None of this is necessarily easy. I don't think it's easy for anyone, and I also know that some of us are introverts, and that a lot of us don't like or feel good at confrontation and public-type speaking. But this isn't about personality traits: this is about all of us learning to verbalize our needs and protect ourselves, regardless of our preferences. It's something we all need to work on, both for ourselves and our own safety, and for that of our communities.

You wanna take it, but you can't have it: or, some loser fucked up my arm at a show last night.

2010-09-10T13:24:00.001-04:00

I was at a show last night in Brooklyn when three guys in the audience started to mosh violently, shoving each other and falling into other people in the crowd. Everyone in the room, male and female, edged back and away from the instigators.

The more space we gave them, the more space they took. Even with half the room to themselves, they managed to bang into other people. One of the moshers collided violently with a pair of red-headed girls who had been watching the band with interest, and who then left the room. Shortly after that one of them bashed into my arm, andhard, and then he fell over. When he stood back up, he stayed near me. He started to drunkenly lean on me, and in an incidence of unmitigated show rage, I shoved his body away with all the strength I could muster. I wanted to say something to him, but I admit that I was afraid of how he would react, so I didn't.

It's not like this is the first time this has ever happened to me. Recently, at a show in a different area of Brooklyn, I was tolerating a set of lackluster pop punk by some generic dude band when the guys in the audience got predictable. They started hoisting each other up and launching each other onto the audience, in an attempt to crowd surf. I watched as the girls at the show, some of whom had been singing along and clearly enjoying the band's performance, retreated from the area, moving to the back to avoid being kicked in the face. Unwilling to put up with any more douchebaggery or bad music, I walked out.

I decided to go downstairs to hang out in front of the building, and in the stairwell I ran into a music blogger acquaintance. She asked me what was going on with the show, and when I told her about the ill-advised crowd surfing, she cut me off, and said "Oh, and you started to feel uncomfortable?"

I don't remember how I responded to her, because all I remember from that moment is being nearly blind with rage.

In case you don't understand why I was enraged, allow me to interpret the subtext of her statement. Her statement, said in a flat, condescending monotone, makes me the subject through her use of "you", and if focuses on my feelings rather than the actions of the people in the room. Her use of the word 'feel' implies that my reaction was emotional, and therefore not rational, and therefore not legitimate. The word 'uncomfortable' trivializes my feelings, it reduces genuine fear for my safety to minor 'discomfort', which she apparently thought I should have just put up with.

In short, "oh, and you started to feel uncomfortable?" translates to, "Oh, you were a stupid little girl who went to a show when you couldn't handle it, and it got you upset." The comment implies that my negative experience at the show was my fault, and it implies that I'm the one who's wrong here for expecting to not have to be afraid at a show, when the jerks who made it unsafe are the ones who are really responsible.

What I should have said to this person is, "No, it didn't make me uncomfortable, it made me angry." Yes, it makes me angry that I'm scared at shows. It makes me angry that I have to watch other girls leave, or move away from the front of the room, because they seem like they're scared, too.

It makes me angry that when guys act that way, I want to ask them to stop, and to be considerate, but that I don't because I'm scared of them hurting me, and I'm scared of all the other people at the show ganging up on me, and I worry that I'll ruin the show for everyone. It makes me angry because I don't want to be that girl who worries about ruining a show when she's knows rationally that none of this is her fault.

It makes me angry that at both of these shows, the bands didn't say anything to try and calm the crowd down. They didn't ask the audience to be considerate. They just let it happen.

It makes me angry that these guys feel entitled to take up all the space at a show; that I've been socialized, as a girl, to constantly think of everyone else's comfort and safety, and that I would thusly never dream of diving into an unsuspecting crowd of singing kids because I wouldn't want to hurt them, while these guys couldn't give less of a fuck.

And it makes me angry that sexists like this blogger don't want to do anything about violence at shows, that they think it's how shows are supposed to be. It makes me angry that that blogger basically said to me, "yes, they are entitled to that dangerous behavior, and you just have to put up with it or stop going to shows."

"Oh, and you got started to feel uncomfortable?" implies that the show, and what happened there, was normal, but I was not. It implies that men's violent behavior is 'natural' -- really, she might as well have shrugged and said "Boys will be boys" -- and that I shouldn't have expected anything different. To act as if such behavior is normal and acceptable is to buy into oppressive gender stereotypes, and perpetuate the sexism that tries to keep girls out of scenes and away from shows.

Violent moshing, crowd surfing and other poor behavior is not normal, 'natural', or acceptable; it's the result of a society telling its men that they are expected to do stupid, dangerous things and let other people worry about the consequences. And if it's not natural, that means that we can change it. We can have safer shows, we can hold people accountable, and we can have a space where we aren't scared. But if we want it, we have to demand it. We have to speak up, myself included -- but in order for that to happen, we have to feel safe enough to speak honestly about these issues.

How do we make that happen? No really, I'm asking all of you.

Hump Day Treat, Pop Confessional Edition

2010-09-08T12:42:00.001-04:00

It's going to decimate whatever 'indie cred' I might have, but today I present a song that I've listening to on the regular this summer as I struggle with grief, guilt, depression, and the inevitable avalanche of paperwork that accompanies death.

"Fixed at Zero" is the first single and title track off of Versaemerge's first full-length album. It was released in June by the dreaded Fueled by Ramen, a record label that I detest for various personal and professional reasons. The bandmembers themselves, while not untalented, seem completely socially and politically unaware, a trait that I usually can't put up with in artists of any genre. But I can't help it, I love this song, and often find myself singing it when I'm by myself (which is a lot lately). So enjoy some "pop-posthardcore" and my embarrassment on this hump day.

p.s. My favorite version of this song is from an impromptu, outdoor performance in Georgia that you can watch here. There's also an official video that uses the studio version of the song, in which both audio and visual are hideously over-produced and kind of ridiculous, in my humble, professional opinion.

Salvador Calling!

2010-09-07T12:57:00.001-04:00

After a summer that seemed like nothing but bad news, fall finally brings tidings of activist feminist, postcolonial joy from Brazil! Salvador's own feminist punk collective and distro, Na Lâmina da Faca, wants YOU to help them plan their upcoming feminist women's festival! Here, look at the flier they e-mailed me:

My Portuguese is limited, but from what I can tell the flier says, "You girls who: play in bands (or are learning to play an instrument), and who are zinestresses, performers, DJs, urban artists, video makers, and workshop facilitators.... Get in touch and plan an independent, counter-cultural festival for women with us!"

"Convocatória abierta de 20/08 à 20/10/2010" means "Open call from August 20 to October 20, 2010". Which means that the collective is accepting submissions right now! So diy and independent feminist artists, send your music, art work, zines, writing, links, and also your festival ideas to nalaminadafaca@gmail.com.

No art or links to send? No worries, just send your love and support! Do your part to support your sisters in Na Lâmina da Faca by reposting the flier, reading and recommending their blog, and listening to and supporting the Brazilian punk bands they write about and the Brazilian zines they distribute. Help spread the love, and help put the international in International Girl Gang Underground!

Hump Day Treat, In Keeping with Yesterday's Theme Edition

2010-09-01T13:25:00.002-04:00

As it happens, two of the members of the panel I wrote about yesterday play in a band called Titfit, which I've been lucky enough to see live a couple times during this long, busy summer. Unsurprisingly, sexual health community activists Lee (vocals and guitar) and Kat (bass and vocals) preach what they practice in their band's songs, like in this particular song about an inconsiderate and dishonest partner.

The song might not sound positive, but as I see it, there can never be enough queer punk break up anthems. And this one is especially good because it encourages us to demand more from our relationships and from ourselves. As Lee sings, we owe it to each other to take care of one another. So feel the righteous rage and sex positivity on this miserably humid hump day!

Community and Communication: Reflections on the Consent and Interpersonal Communication panel at The Big She Bang V.

2010-08-31T15:09:00.002-04:00

I'm just going to say it: I've had a hard time writing lately, and for a while, I was wondering what to do with this blog. For a while, sitting down at my computer and working on posts as if nothing had happened felt wrong to me. My life doesn't exactly feel real lately, and I've had trouble focusing on any one thing for too long since the funeral.

So I've been trying to keep busy in other ways. I've been trying to go out a lot, and I've been doing things that force me to be around people, like going to shows and volunteering. I've been spending time with my family and visiting old friends. I've put a lot of effort into distracting myself.

On Saturday, August 14 I gleefully distracted myself by attending The Big She Bang, where I got to spend time with many fellow rock camp volunteers, talk with some of the organizers of the event, and see some great bands and performers. I also spent a big chunk of that afternoon outside the church where the She Bang was happening, because New York City had some gorgeous weather that day.

But I wasn't outside acting like a high schooler cutting class to go smoke and talk under the bleachers the whole time. I did attend the panel on Consent and Interpersonal Communication, which featured representatives of Support New York and Fuckin' (A).

Having attended one too many sex positive workshops that didn't even start to talk about reproductive and sexual justice or rights in college, I went in to the panel a bit skeptical. But Support New York and Fuckin' (A) presented a truly positive, informative, thought-provoking, and dare I say it mature panel on physically and emotionally safer sex. Panel members shared personal stories, statistical data, and various strategies for engaging with and promoting safer sex, good health, and negotiation of responsibility with sexual partners. In the process, the panel touched on issues like normalizing consent and communication in a decidedly non-consensual and capitalist culture, and reframing personal sexual choices as political choices.

One panelist told a story that I'll never forget, because it made me think about my post-funeral behavior, thought it wasn't a story about grief. A Bay Area native, the panelist told us about his mentor, who was a young queer activist in San Francisco in the '80s. The panelist told us that one day, he asked his mentor what it was like to be be a gay health activist in that time and place. The panelist said that his mentor sighed, "Your community was literally dying around you."

The comment required no explanation; it's a reference to the AIDS crisis that shook the world in the '80s, and had a particular and devastating impact on gay communities in the US. But the panelist told us that after hearing that story, he started to think of his personal choices and his insistence on safer sex and effective communication with his partners as a matter of responsibility to his community.

The story made me think. What about effective communication regarding other issues, issues besides sexual health? What about mental health? If a failure to communicate, and a lack of critical information regarding disease can lead to massive casualties within a community, what would be the result of a failure to communicate feelings, and a lack of information about how to support people and deal with their emotional traumas?

Because of that panelist's story, I faced what I'd been doing all summer: I'd been hanging out with people and going to different stuff, but I hadn't been communicating, at all. I haven't been telling people, people who are friends, about what's been going on with me. I've been hiding, and I've been using going out to keep from having to really deal with my grief. I've been going out and pretending that everything is normal when it isn't.

I've been avoiding my feelings and keeping secrets from the people in my life. I've been self-absorbed, thinking more about my comfort level than anything else. At the same time, I've been needlessly self-sacrificing, justifying not talking about painful things by telling myself "I don't want to bum anyone else out with this, I don't want to be a downer." I've totally neglected my emotional needs, and the impact that my repressed grief could have on the other people in my community. This strikes me as the complete opposite of radical and positive, which is what I'd ideally like both myself and my community to be.

To be clear, I don't think of myself as some sort of scene fixture who has all this influence on everything around her. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'm away at school most of the year, and I don't get to spend a lot of time in the actual vicinity of my community. But it doesn't matter how popular or active you are in your neighborhood and at your local events, because every single one of us has an effect on the world around us. Every single one of us is connected to everyone and everything, and we affect each other even when we don't mean to. For that reason we have to communicate with each other. Community requires communication. This might seem obvious, but I need to say it here, if only to be sure that it has been said somewhere.

Since the She Bang, I've gone out of my way to be more open about what I'm going through. I've made a point of telling people that someone I cared about deeply died last month, rather than hoping that they've read about here. I've started asking for help, both in my personal life and with work, including this blog. I am eternally grateful for the personal and professional support I've received.

Because the communication that communities require isn't just the interpersonal sort; mass communication via journalism, music, and other art forms is required as well. Blogs in particular play a specific and important role in the realm of young feminist and queer activism, and especially in the emerging international girl gang underground. As a writer and musician, I have a professional responsibility to my community, in addition to my personal responsibility to my friends and acquaintances, which I take seriously.

So, in other words: the single girl is back in the proverbial office. No more hiding, no more secrets, no more avoidance. From now on, just communication.

Hump Day Treat, post-Big She Bang Edition PART TWO!

2010-08-25T11:00:00.002-04:00

Today's video is of another band that performed at The Big She Bang, the newly local Aye Nako. What does 'newly local' mean? Well, from what I understand, two thirds of the band recently relocated to Brooklyn from the Bay area, where they went by the name Fleabag. This video is so old that it likely dates back from that era.

Age is nothing but a number though, and this wonderfully-shot video captures the band's joyfully up-tempo sound and blunt delivery. It also shows how endearing and genuine guitarist/vocalist Marilyn and bass player Joe -- whom I am volunteering with at this very moment at rock camp!!! -- both happen to be, onstage and off. So enjoy their sunny, distorted, brazen rock stylings on this hazy, dreary, unseasonably chilly hump day.

Hump Day Treat, post-Big She Bang Edition

2010-08-18T16:26:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday night at The Big She Bang I fell slightly in love with Des Ark. I couldn't have possibly been the only one; vocalist and guitarist Aimee Argote played her solo acoustic set with an expected mix of warmth, aggression, and candor. The performance was disarmingly informal, and Aimee's easy interaction with her audience was truly a thing of beauty.

You can't see it in this particular video, but Aimee is a talented solo performer whose banter is witty, vulgar, and also gracious. She's so funny and so endearing that she more than gets away with habitually stopping a few bars (or even a few choruses) into her songs in order to tell her stories. Oh, and her songs are kind of miserably beautiful. So fall in love with her for yourself here, on this hump day, and also while Des Ark is on tour in the U.S. and Europe this autumn!

Hump Day Treat, Leos Love Gossip edition

2010-08-11T14:43:00.001-04:00

As it happens, I have not one, but two close friends celebrating birthdays today. And in further coincidence, both of these friends are fans of The Gossip. Isn't that totally crazy?! Okay, it isn't really. But still: happy hump-day birthday to my favorite fire signed ladies, Stephanie and Jen!

Events Calendar: The Big She-Bang V!

2010-08-09T13:52:00.002-04:00

This coming Saturday, Rock and the Single Girl will be at The Big She-Bang V in a completely unofficial capacity. An annual event organized by NYC's For the Birds collective, The Big She-Bang is a day of discussions, art, music, and groups by and for diy feminists. Check out the flier:

I know, I know: it seems too good to be true. So if you're in the NYC/tri-state area, come check it out! Need more info? Try the For the Birds website, facebook, and/or myspace.

Bereavement and the Single Girl.

2010-08-06T13:15:00.000-04:00

I owe my readers an apology, assuming I have any left. While I don't believe that my month-long absence from the blogosphere broke any hearts or destroyed any lives, I still take this forum, and the dialogues begun with other bloggers and readers seriously, and thusly do not feel it was okay to just cut out like that with no explanation.

But there is an explanation, and a good one. Last month, I had a death in my family. I've been plodding along slowly through the grieving process ever since. First, there was the runaround of the planning and carrying out of the wake and the burial. After that, I was occupied with spending time with my other family members. And then when all the ceremony was over, I found that for the first time since I started blogging, I really just didn't feel like it. For one long week, I didn't feel like doing much of anything but sitting on my couch and feeling sorry for myself.

I know that I've carped on quite a bit in this blog about 'the importance of community'. I feel even more strongly about this issue now because my local community of diy spaces, diy bands, cultural, social and feminist activists, and generally cool and aware folks was what got me off the couch and back to living and doing stuff that matters to me. In the month since the funeral, I've gone to several great shows, volunteered at Willie Mae Rock Camp For Girls, and somehow survived a real rager of a 26th birthday party in Brooklyn.

In the last month, I've seen Death First, P.S. Eliot with Big Eyes and football etc., Mortals, Each Others Mothers, The Shondes, and I caught Titfit twice. Going out as if nothing had happened felt strange at first, but I eventually realized and accepted that not going out and living your life doesn't bring your dead loved one back, and that there's no point in punishing yourself. You might as well go out, see your friends, hear some music, and enjoy the healthy distraction from your grief.

From July 11th - 17th, I threw myself into my beloved rock camp. As usual I volunteered to teach guitar and help out in the kitchen, and I forced myself to step outside my comfort zone by teaching the beginner guitar class. I also accepted a request from one of the other guitar teachers to act as a sort of guitar instructor 'point person', because I happened to be the only returning instructor. I don't know that I did a great job with that, but I'm still proud of myself for taking on the responsibility, and even more proud of how well all our campers did, and how successful our end-of-camp showcase was. Being around other like-minded feminist musicians was comforting to me, and knowing that I could control my grief well enough to do something like camp, and focus on something larger than myself for a whole week, made me feel like I would get through this.

A week after camp, a fair number of volunteers got back together again at a crazy birthday party for a friend and musician whose bands I've written about at length. I have to admit that I probably wasn't ready to deal with the unadulterated revelry and enthusiastic debauchery of that evening. There was a lot of dancing going on at this party, but the sadness and disorientation I thought I'd been handling so well turned into even more of a wallflower than usual. Everyone else seemed to be having so much fun, and I stood there watching them and wondering if I would ever possibly feel that good again. I know that I will, at some point, but when I left the party at 3 in the morning I wasn't so sure. Sometimes I'm still not sure.

But I'm still glad that I went, to all of these events. Sometimes it was hard, but I still usually managed to have some fun at them. I got to see people who I enjoy and respect, and it felt good to feel something like normal even if it was only for a little while. It was helpful to see that life does really go on, that there are still shows and parties and other positive things being planned.

Going out and being around people doesn't bring your lost loved one back, but it does remind you and force you to accept that you are still here, and that that's okay. Getting out and going to shows, and teaching young women how to play music, and watching people drink and dance and sing assured me that there are still good times to be had, and that there are still shows to be attended, reviews and articles to be written, bands and activists who deserve to be publicized, and good things to be documented. This community and its righteous activities will still be there, whenever I'm ready to fully get back into them. And it's really helpful to know that, at a time like this.

A funny thing happened on the way to The Acheron: Passive Aggressor and White Lung, Friday June 18, Part 2

2010-06-25T16:48:00.001-04:00

The Acheron opened recently in the middle of nowhere. How is it that any locale can be in any part of New York City, and still be in the middle of nowhere? By being in the same neighborhood as nothing but factories, warehouses, bus yards, and storage units that have no visible names or signs. In the evenings, after these buildings close, the area feels and looks all but deserted.

Luckily for us intrepid New York show go-ers, some savvy and kindly folks have recently opened up a tiny eatery right next door to The Acheron, a warm and friendly little place called Yummus Hummus. It specializes, as you might have guessed, in a variety of hummuses (hummï?), breads, veggies, and related Mediterranean light appetizers and heavy snacks.

I wound up at Yummus Hummus that night because I got to the show really early. In a weird panic over some vegan brownies that had taken longer to bake than expected, I ran out of the house without eating dinner, only to find that the show had been delayed, seemingly by that night's Subway Series. (If you don't know what a Subway Series is, consider yourself lucky.) With nowhere else to go, I stood in front of Yummus Hummus for a few minutes before a guy sitting at one of its tables waved me over.

I didn't know him, but I went to his table and spoke to him. He asked if I was there for the show, and I said I was. He introduced himself as J___, and said that he was there to see White Lung, and he invited me to sit with him. And so I did.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I am really not in the habit of hanging out with dudes I don't know, even guys who frequent the same diy spaces and shows I go to. Anyone who knows me knows that I am intensely wary of all men, to a nearly pathological extent. But I was getting absolutely no sleaze-reading from this guy, which is rare for me. So I sat down and got some red-pepper hummus and carrot salad.

J___ was a nice guy. While I ate, we talked about White Lung, Passive Aggressor, other local bands and shows we've been to, my blog, and the other related scene and show media we enjoy. He'd seen White Lung a week earlier, and he was a big fan; he claimed that their recordings were good stuff and that their live set was even better.

But what struck me about this young man is how much he wasn't a typical punk fan guy. There was nothing threatening about him, and there was nothing possessive, exclusive, or alienating about his fanhood. He was unlike most of the guys I've met at these types of events.

Which is not to say that I never meet nice guys when I go to shows; it does happen. But despite punk's insistence on resisting the system and being different, guys at shows aren't usually that different from guys in general. Guys at shows have been socialized, just like guys who don't go to diy shows, to feel a certain sense of entitlement, to not be so aware of boundaries, and to feel comfortable with being aggressive about their interests. Frequently, even totally nice guys at shows are kind of jerky in these ways without even realizing it.

Not so with J___. He came across as nothing but secure, and seemed to have no need to dominate our conversation, impose his views, or otherwise control our interactions. He came across as sincere, smiled often and openly, and giggled at my rambling freely. We were outside the venue, talking about Passive Aggressor's performance still when White Lung started, and when we heard the beginning of their first song, he and I ran back inside like a couple of hysterical '60s London teenagers running after The Beatles, no shame in our game. It was kind of fantastic.

White Lung more than lived up to the hype. After their set, J___ and I headed over to the merch table, and I bought one of their 7". And then we both departed, heading in opposite directions to our cars.

As you can likely tell, I'm still not completely over how cool J___ turned out to be. I probably sound a bit overexcited, but, consider the context: I've already posted about sexism, violence, and general verbal misogynist negativity at shows. I've posted about other ladies' experiences with male aggression both online and 'in real life', on message boards and websites and at shows. I haven't even gotten to how things are at music stores, and we haven't even begun to discuss security and safety issues at large festivals or on the road and on tour. One nice guy doesn't change all that, but one nice guy, one single person who doesn't make the people around him feel unsafe, is all it takes to inspire some positivity and some change.

The End is the Beginning: Passive Aggressor and White Lung, Friday June 18, 2010, Part I

2010-06-24T17:56:00.003-04:00

Before you do anything else, QUICK: download Passive Aggressor's demos here and here.

Last Friday night I saw Brooklyn's own Passive Aggressor. It was to be vocalist Meredith's final performance with them, and I needed to be there for it.

I first heard Passive Aggressor at Death by Audio last January, at Little Lungs' tour kick off show. I was standing in the venue's backroom feeling my usual slight awkwardness when PA started. The growling, stomping, distorted, post-swamp rock sound of their song "Moonbeast" drew me into the main room, and I was transfixed for the rest of their performance.

The music itself was hypnotizing in the best possible way, and Meredith was the kind of frontperson whose charisma is impossible to ignore. Tall, lycan, aggressive, and with a long main of messy hair that doesn't so much feminize her as it makes her seem even more animal-like, Meredith and her throaty, punchy howl reminded me of two of my favorite singers, Selene Vigil and Cristina Martinez.

So I was admittedly kind of bummed when I read on PA's facebook page that Meredith was moving on and that the band is replacing her. I also couldn't imagine them without her. Who could possibly take her place? I wondered idly to myself while waiting for their set to start. And then I wondered, will they get a dude? Or will they get another female musician? Maybe more importantly, does it matter?

Regardless of gender, replacing a band member is a difficult business. A band's interpersonal dynamics is delicate, and personality is a factor. It can't just be about finding the best musician for the job; you also need to find the right person for the band. Finding a new singer is particularly complicated because audiences tend to relate to band's vocalists differently and more intensely than to the other musicians in a band.

But that different relationship between an audience and a band's frontperson hinges on a lot more than that frontperson's gender or sex. Marketing executives and record label people tend to focus exclusively on their musicians' gender, sexuality, and level of appeal, I suppose because it's the easiest thing for them to try and sell. But I know from personal experience that one's devotion to any musician is frequently much more complicated than that.

We notice a musician's sex and gender because we're socialized to immediately categorize everyone we see as male or female, and as 'masculine' or 'feminine'. But we also notice body type, skin color, and personal style. If we read or listen to interviews with a musician, we learn about her views, her background, and other information that may or may not like or care about. If we do care, we latch onto various aspects of that musician's personality and way of thinking.

And it gets even more complicated than that, because it goes far beyond the individual musicians in any given band; our interest is also dependent on the members of the band and how they relate to each other, musically, and sometimes personally. It can be hard to separate all of that from your love of a band's music, but if you're buying that music, and going to see that music live, it's a pretty good bet that it is, ultimately, about the music, rather than the musicians.

Despite such complications, a good band that makes good music is, by nature, more than the 'sum of its parts'. Passive Aggressor is more than its musicians, and certainly more than Meredith's stage presence. It occurred to me during their set last Friday that even without her, I really want to hear what they're going to do next. It occurred to me that I was drawn to their instrumental sound before I heard or saw their vocalist. It occurred to me that Van Halen has had three different singers, and that they always still pretty much sound the same...and that they always kind of blow. So I expect that Passive Aggressor will sound brilliant no matter what vocalist is fortunate enough to join them.

Hump Day Treat, Happy Accident Edition

2010-06-23T12:41:00.002-04:00

Today's video features White Lung, who I sort of saw by accident last Friday at The Acheron (which is literally a story for a different post). Right now they're on a pretty respectable-length west coast tour, so go see them if you can, you won't be disappointed! And even if you can't go see White Lung, enjoy their dark, thrashy, rhythmic take on the punk tradition on this hump day.

Pride and the Single Girl.

2010-06-18T12:39:00.001-04:00

I recently had to go up to school to return some library books during what happened to be the nearest city's annual gay pride weekend. Various pro-love, pro-sex, pro-LGBTQ events were scheduled, including a Friday night lesbian dance party at a popular bar. I went, mostly because I sort of knew the dj, and some of my friends were going.

I enjoyed it as much as I usually enjoy events organized around female queerness, which is to say that I didn't enjoy it at all for the whopping five minutes I was there. Despite a superb, friendly (and frankly rather attractive) dj, I just couldn't get into it. I've never liked clubs, because they're too loud and crowded for me, and the music is never good enough to get me to dance.

Whenever I go to something like this, I spend the entire time thinking that I'd rather be at a show, seeing someone like my beloved Zombie Dogs or Death First, and preferably at a DIY space like someone's basement or loft. The people I know at those shows are artists, activists, and feminists, and I feel way more connected to them than I do to strangers at a club who happen to share my sexual orientation. Lesbian events never feel socially active or feminist enough for me, and it just bums me out.

After my failed attempt at specifically lesbian partying, I had a bit of a Carrie Bradshaw moment. Still longing for a good feminist punk show, I couldn't help but wonder: what is punk and hardcore's relationship to the gay community? Is there a disconnect there, or is it just me?

It could very well just be me, considering that there's an entire genre of gay punk, known as Queercore. Queercore developed somewhat in tandem with Riot Grrrl, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States in the early 1990s, where bands of both genres often performed and worked together, putting on shows where show-goers of the female and gay persuasion could feel safe and forge some sense of community.

And even before the the rise of queercore, gender play and homosexuality have been present in rock and its subgenres. People like David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and even Mick Jagger, and bands like The New York Dolls and X-Ray Spex (among others) brought gender-consciousness and some pretty courageously gender-transgressive fashions into their scenes back in the 1970s.

But rather than proving some kind of diversity, I'd argue that much like Riot Grrrl, a movement like Queercore evidences rock and punk's exclusivity. It's not as if Queercore and Riot Grrrl coalesced because punk in the late '80s was just so damned progressive, open, and accepting. Feminist punk girls and gays formed and joined those movements in order to make space for themselves within the historically hostile and straightwhitemale-dominated punk tradition.

The legacy of those brave spacemakers lives on, at least where I come from. I feel incredibly lucky to be involved with a scene where female punks, regardless of their sex lives, are valued as full participants as artists, musicians, and organizers. Every day of my life I feel incredibly lucky that these women, like me, fell in love with bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Team Dresch, and Excuse 17 as teenagers, and that they're committed to continuing those bands' work.

It seems like my town is the exception, though, rather than the rule. Lately, it seems like I have read and heard about so much unmitigated sexism outside of Brooklyn; the B9 Affair and Total Trash's commentary on rape apologism in punk are the first that come to mind. That sort of disrespect for women and assault survivors, not to mention the shameless promotion of patriarchy it indicates, is linked directly to disrespect for other folks who don't fit the straightwhitemale norm and/or people who aren't willing to kneel before the hierarchy. There is visible, open, unabashed hate in our punk communities, and violence, too. It's not just me.

It's been demoralizing for me to face the bigotry that exists within punk. But here's the thing to remember: prejudice isn't insurmountable. We can overcome our differences, we can combat hate and violence, we can change punk, and that's not 'just me' either. Queercore and Riot Grrrl may have revealed punk's biases, but they and the people they've inspired also prove that it's possible to challenge hateful ideas, and to work through punk's issues. We just have to be willing to confront them.

Hump Day Treat, global punk feminist fight songs edition

2010-06-16T12:18:00.001-04:00

When I'm feeling discouraged or overwhelmed by school stuff (which I have to admit is frequently, lately), The Two Funerals seem to be my go-to, non-chemical uppers. They recently posted this video of them playing an old favorite, "Hit the Ground" and then their contemporary classic, "Western Apathy" at their blog. Watch, be inspired, and then go out and do something awesome; I know that's what happens whenever I listen to TTF.

Hump Day Treat, Missed Show Remorse Edition

2010-06-09T14:31:00.001-04:00

I'm still bummed that I had to miss Witches when they came through New York during the last week of April, a.k.a. 'too close to finals for going to shows'. And I'm also bummed over other things, which you might have guessed from yesterday's downer of a post.

So today we have a 2008 three-fer video that somehow has the power to put me in a good mood now matter how overwhelmed or sad I'm feeling. It's a bit long, but stick with it, because each song is better than the last, including the surprisingly good Nirvana cover. (Here's a hint: it was inspired as much by my own family vs career issues as Cherie Currie's, but then that's what usually happens when you're any kind of writer.)

Hear and see more at Witches' new-ish blog, and check out some recently posted summer tour dates. Go see them so I can live vicariously through all of you!

'Cause a girl can't be tied down: Family Guilt in The Runaways

2010-06-08T18:01:00.000-04:00

[WARNING: Major spoilers. Don't read if you haven't yet seen The Runaways and don't want to know what happens.]

Anyone remember that movie about The Runaways? Yeah, it got fairly awful reviews, but I will admit that I went to see it twice, and that I paid both times. Yes, for real. (This is a story for a different post.)

I concede that the poor reviews are not entirely undeserved. The acting is pretty good, and the subjects are so fascinating, but The Runaways has a lot of technical problems, the worst being that the script doesn't quite tell a coherent story. Sure, you see a band getting together, rehearsing, getting on the road, getting signed, getting fucked up and having a lot of sex with various partners, and then breaking up -- but nothing in the movie is really explained. Not even what motivated the band to get together, or what the band accomplished as the first all-girl rock band. It's like there's tons of story there, but director Floria Sigismondi can't be bothered to actually tell it, because she's too busy with her needlessly weird and typically unsubstantive imagery.

The story that does inadvertently get told is a provocative one that is relevant to any girl, woman, or ladyman who has any serious career ambitions (musical or otherwise). Based on a memoir written by original vocalist Cherie Currie, The Runaways ends up being about her struggle to survive tour while wrestling with guilt about leaving her troubled family.

The cover of Neon Angel, Cherie Currie's memoir

In her first scenes in the movie, Cherie seems like a typical California teenager who likes to do atypical things. She quietly defies her classmates and family by cutting her hair into a ragged Ziggy Stardust-type coif, wearing Ziggy-style makeup all over her face, and eventually flipping off her classmates while performing a David Bowie song during her school talent show. What we don't know is that the real Cherie Currie did these things in part because she was struggling to recover from the trauma of being raped by her sister's boyfriend. (According to Currie, this wasn't in the movie because the filmmakers wanted her to 'lose her innocence' later in the movie. Hmmm.)

The first scenes of the movie focus on other things that made Cherie's home life less than satisfying. We see Cherie's neglectful mother, who takes off for Indonesia with her new husband just after Cherie joins The Runaways. We see Cherie's twin sister, who is less than sensitive to Cherie's insecurity about feeling like the 'lesser' twin. We see Cherie's caring, kindly father who is also an alcoholic who is in poor health.

This effectively conveys Cherie's unhappy, stressful existence, but it also singles her out as the 'one with the family issues'. We don't learn anything about the other band member's families, we don't meet any of their mothers or fathers or grandparents or siblings. Drinking and talking by the Hollywood sign, Cherie asks Joan Jett and drummer Sandy West about their parents, and they both kind of shrug. Their parents aren't really present, they don't have curfews, it's not a big thing for them. That's the only mention of the other girls' families.

Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie. She all up in the club in this still.

The screentime given to Cherie's home life comes off as almost intrusive. For example: in a particularly crushing scene, the rest of the band comes to pick Cherie up to go on their first tour just as the family discovers that Mr. Currie is passed out in his car, which is parked in the driveway. The girls gawk and Cherie reluctantly leaves as her sister and grandmother help her father drag his ailing body, which has already sort of fallen out of the car, through the front yard and into the house. Cherie is visibly embarrassed in front of her band, but no one offers any words of support or sympathy.

On tour, Cherie is the one who gets homesick. She's the one who worries about her family, she's the one who calls home and asks how things are there. No one else is shown engaging in any of these perfectly reasonable behaviors. Cherie is also the one who develops the serious drug problem.

The movie suggests, in other little ways, that Cherie is the weak link in The Runaways -- emphasis on 'weak'. On top of being the one with the family and substance abuse issues, Cherie's taste in music gets criticized as too 'middle of the road', and which is another way of saying 'weak'. Cherie is attacked for doing a solo photo spread that verges on pornographic, and is accused of needing attention; in other words, she's too weak to resist the camera. Cherie is the one who can't handle manager Kim Fowley's abusive behavior, the other girls are strong enough to soldier on despite his constant barrage of insults.

When Cherie finally leaves the band, she uses her family, and her father's illness, as her reason for doing so. She tells Joan, "I need to be with my family," which is strange to me because Cherie has so many good reasons to leave the band that have nothing to do with her sick dad. Why doesn't Cherie just say that she's unhappy, or that her body can't handle the constant touring/drugging/drinking/etc anymore? Using her family as an excuse conflates Cherie's problems and 'weakness' with her attachment to her family.

The real Cherie Currie carrying Dakota Fanning! Guess she's stronger than the movie made her out to be.

I don't mind the movie showing Cherie's descent into addiction or inability to deal with the pressure of being on the road or Kim Fowley's traumatizing and exploitative manipulations. Dakota Fanning's poker-faced portrayal comes off as a believable response to her frightening reality, and it makes sense that with little support or adult supervision, Cherie would turn to drugs and sex to deal with her problems. If that's Currie's story, and it seems it is, that's fine.

What irks me is this implication that Cherie's family, and her wanting to be with them, is the cause of her problems. The movie perpetuates the idea that women who focus too much on their families are weak and bound for professional failure, without doing a very good job of explaining all the other factors that impacted Cherie and the rest of the band.

This idea is already pervasive in Western society, especially in the United States, where things like maternity leave and access to childcare are generally seen as crazy feminist demands that male-oriented workplaces shouldn't have to accommodate (forget paternity leave and elder care). Also dominant in our culture is the message that anyone with female parts absolutely must put her family before herself and whatever professional goals or dreams she might have. The contradiction makes it incredibly difficult to juggle your responsibilities, and leaves women in general vulnerable to lots of undeserved criticism from all sectors of society, no matter what type of work you're in.

I like that The Runaways actually shows this struggle, and the way that it comes between women who work together. I guess I just wish that the movie had a happier ending, or at least one in which it doesn't feel like Cherie 'broken home' Currie is supposed to be some sort of cautionary tale, meant to contrast the family-less Joan 'I'm so tough' Jett and her colossal post-Runaways, post-Cherie success.

The real Cherie Currie and Joan Jett, looking more complicated than 'weak' versus 'strong'

Because cautionary tales and depressing stories about girls who were too 'weak' to hack it aren't what we need. Every single girl I know, myself included, is struggling against inescapable social dictums that we don't deserve to be anything but servile to our families, often while also struggling against this irrational guilt we have for wanting more for ourselves. We already know how hard it is, we don't need to be reminded by standard rock bio-pics. What we need, as we finally find our like-minded artist and musician partners, is to see and know that things aren't as simple as Cherie or Joan, and that happier endings are possible for us, if not for Cherie.

Hump Day Treat, Yes Homo edition

2010-06-02T11:34:00.001-04:00

So I'm finally easing back into the blogging game after a much longer than expected hiatus. Today's video is courtesy of Little Victory, a NY quartet that I got to see live for the first time this past Saturday. I fell in love with them, and hope that you will too! Listen and help me celebrate the end of the semester, my first show of the season, the start of Gay Pride Month, and the return of Rock and the Single Girl all at once on this hump day!

AND THEN: be sure to check out Little Victory's facebook page for more songs, videos, photos, and information on their pioneering t-shirt slogans, as well as updates on the band's Pride Weekend activities!

Punk Feminist Reader, Finals Madness Edition

2010-05-14T13:25:00.004-04:00

So even though I've been preoccupied with school-related matters, I have managed to keep up with my reading. Since it's Friday, and who actually does work on a Friday afternoon, I thought I'd share some links so you can dig what I've been thinking about/planning on possibly writing about. A lot of it is kind of old news, but still, enjoy, my punk feminist Friday slackers!

First: I rarely get to write about it here, but as the proud descendant of Puerto Rican migrants, I try to keep up with the island's news. Unfortunately, lately the news seems all bad: it's all about the aftermath of the hatecrime murder of Jorge Steven López Mercado, and the resurrection of the dastardly Proyecto 2499.

In better, gayer news, my personal heroine Trish Bendix has been bringing the gay music news over at AfterEllen (along with our morning brew). This week, she reports on how Lady Sovereign is FINALLY out, and last week Trish got us the news on Melissa York's latest projects. (Which includes Team Dresch reunion shows this summer, OMGYAY!)

In feminist blogger gal pal news: the lovely Maggie of Rocker Repro recently asked why Taylor Momsen is so into old school dude rockers. Another heroine, Alyx Vesey, has been killing it over at Bitch, and I especially loved her response to the new M.I.A. video. And then ANOTHER friend, RMJ, who has also been blogging over at Bitch (dang, I have some good feminist blogger taste!), recently posted at her blog Deeply Problematic about why Kristen Stewart doesn't have to smile for us. In other Bitch news, Jessica Yee asks us to consider when an issue becomes a feminist issue.

Meanwhile, my faves The Two Funerals and their tourmates/bffs in P.S. Eliot have been fighting and calling out scene sexism and misogyny in the trenches and on the intarwebs. Read all about what incited their righteous rage for yourself, read TTF's response, read Katie of PSE's response, and then get active and do something good for your own scene.

And if you still haven't got anything to do after that, go read some Tiger Beatdown, and maybe listen to some good, old fashioned, feminist straight edge vegetarian grindcore.

Promise to come back with a real post soon, my dear readers. Hasta luego!

Hump Day Treat, just another manic Wednesday edition

2010-05-12T17:16:00.001-04:00

Things have been quiet here for a bit because it's finals season here at my university. It's going to be slow here for a little while, as I'm caught in an end-of-term whirlwind of papers, books, and meetings, so tide yourselves over with this ridiculously appropriate Bangles hit on this hump day.

p.s. Fun fact: I remember getting this album on Christmas morning in 1986, even though I only was three years old. And I remember my mom showing me how to use my Big Bird record player with it. That's right, my mama didn't raise no fool.

p.p.s. It's weird (though not entirely unsurprising) that Prince (yes, the Prince) wrote this song, with its subtly sexist lyrics about not knowing what to wear and not being able to get it together in the morning. But in typical Prince fashion, it's still catchy as hell.

Red Hook High's Men Can Stop Rape Benefit Concert shows that one great rock show can change the world.

2010-04-30T14:40:00.002-04:00

A lot of this month's posts have been downers, I know. Talking about rape culture and the prevalence of sexual assault is never easy. But pain and difficulty aren't the whole story, as I learned on a Sunday afternoon in Dutchess County. This happened a few weeks ago, but, I wanted to save this for the final post of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention month.

On April 11, I drove down to Red Hook because my friend and fellow volunteer Amy was playing a show there. Smack in the middle of a several month tour, Amy was on the road with a band she'd joined late last year, and I wanted to go and support her, especially because I wasn't able to make the tour kick off show.

I didn't know any of the bands on the bill, not even Amy's, and I'd never been to Red Hook High or Red Hook. All I knew was that the show was supposed to be a benefit for Men Can Stop Rape, and I'd never even heard of the organization. I had no idea what to expect from this show, but decided that that day was as good as any to explore the unknown.

And I will forever be grateful that I did. I was rewarded with several fantastic bands, a cafeteria full of dancing, smiling kids, homemade baked treats, and what I can easily say was was one of the best shows I've ever been seen.

I arrived at Red Hook High a bit late, so I unfortunately missed event openers Red Shift. When I got there, Battle Ave Tea Club had just launched into a set of forceful, distorted finely wrought mid-tempo songs that reminded me of early Rainer Maria and The Breeders. Kingston's own Nightmares for a Week followed with their blues-tinged, '90s alt radio-friendly power pop anthems. In between songs bass player Sean Paul announced that the band would be donating a portion of their merch sales to Men Can Stop Rape, to a round of cheers and applause.

Before the headliners went on I decided to treat myself to an eagle bar from the snack table, which was run entirely by students. The door was managed by students as well. There weren't many 'grown ups' at the show at all, and I appreciated that there weren't any parents or faculty ordering the bands or audience around. There was no negative, repressive Principle Skinner-type energy, and it was really fantastic to see kids being responsible and working together on this benefit, without seeing a bunch of adults tell them what to do.

At 4:15, my friend Amy finally went onstage with final act Titus Andronicus. I'd never heard of them before Amy started playing with them, but it turns out, they're a kind of a big deal. They've been hyped by a lot of publications I do my best to avoid, like Brooklyn Vegan, Pitchfork, and Paste. But a tight set and roomful of happily frenzied, singing, dancing teenagers proved to me that the hype is well-deserved.

You can hear the beach-y, sunny sounds of early Rilo Kiley, the jammy feel of late Anniversary, and just a touch of Polyphonic Spree-like euphoria in TA's E Street Band-sized shanties and hymns. The mix might sound unlikely, but spending the bulk of the set sandwiched between a handful of students who alternated between dancing wildly and sending text messages (I'd like to think they were maybe tweeting about the show) and Battle Ave Tea Club's drummer -- all of whom seemed to know every word to each of TA's songs -- made a believer out of me. From where I stood, I could see both the band and most of the audience, and I don't think anyone in that cafeteria was able to keep still while TA was onstage.

I'll admit that I was skeptical of an anti-rape organization that focuses on men, and that I was doubtful of a bill without a single female-fronted band. But after hearing remarks from organizer Rob Rubsam and the event's intent was clear to me: Men Can Stop Rape isn't about excluding women, but about focusing on holding men responsible for their actions and bringing them into the fight against gender-based violence. During the show Rob made a brief speech about how men can be part of the solution, and how they can change and challenge ideas about masculinity.

Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus also spoke at length during the band's set about the show's meaning and the importance of its cause (and sort of won my heart in the process). He talked a bit about Take Back the Night, and how he'd attended in college for a friend who'd been assaulted, and he encouraged the audience to be inspired by the event to hold benefits of their own for the causes that matter to them. Most movingly, he told the young men in the audience: "Everyone's been telling me I'm a man...which is just a Y chromosome and a penis, but the rest of it is made up. Don't let anyone tell you what it means to be a respectable person."

In the context of a high school cafeteria, the revolutionary value of such ideas becomes apparent. In a world where vapid hipster bands compare bad traffic to rape (it's gonna be awhile before I get over that, deal with it) and college students publish articles about how date rape is an 'incoherent concept', the very idea that even a small group of high school kids could participate in an anti-rape benefit and hear about alternatives to hegemonic, aggressive masculinity made my heart feel really full.

Major kudos are in order for intrepid organizer Rob, who was cool enough to answer some of my questions about how he put this event together. A graduating senior and musician, Rob wanted to organize an event that would be for the students, by the students, and located within their shared, on-campus space. He also wanted the event to be for a good cause.

It started with an e-mail to Titus Andronicus: "I was figuring that I would probably get turned down," Rob writes, "but I figured that there was no harm in trying." (Words to live by, kids and future artists and activists!!) TA's enthusiasm and willingness to re-route their tour for the benefit sparked Rob to make the show happen, despite some local opposition -- the organizers of a different end-of-year student concert attempted to block the benefit to keep it from taking attention away from their show, it seems.

But with the help of his friends and fellow students, Rob convinced the school to allow the show. Says Rob: "...my friends, and most of the members of the Amnesty International and Interact clubs were very supportive all along, as they recognized the inherent worth of not compromising or conceding on this." It's brilliant that they held fast to their convictions, and that they were able to put on a show that turned out to be such a success. Rob says that he's proud of the event, and that he feels he did what he set out to do. In his own words:

I do believe that it led to an increased awareness of the issue of rape, and our role as a community as a part of it. And, at the very least, it probably got people thinking, both about who they were, and where their money was going. Also, it certainly has led to more Titus Andronicus fans in my school. As well, it has acted as kind of an ideological booster for me, reminding me that, indeed, people can live by their ethics, and stick to their beliefs, as I fully intend to do.

A lot of the time, it feels like there will always be men who feel entitled to women's bodies, and like there will always be people who cover up for those men. It feels like there will always be violence, victimization, and fear. But that afternoon, it hit me that there will also always be organizers like Rob, musicians like Patrick Stickles, and bands like Red Shift, Battle Ave Tea Club, Nightmares for a Week, and Titus Andronicus. There will always be activists and artists who are willing to put their time, resources, energy, and selves into making our frequently brutal world feel safer, one show at a time.

Hump Day Treat: Reader Suggestion Edition

2010-04-28T10:42:00.001-04:00

It's the last week of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, and I'm surprisingly bummed! Just as with Women's History Month, I've appreciated the opportunity to keep this particular issue at the forefront of my thoughts, mostly because there are just so many issues to tackle. Sometimes, it's comforting to focus on one.

But anyways, today's video was inspired by fellow music journalist and Bad Idea Potluck hostess Bev!

Yesterday Bev asked, "I'd like to know your thoughts on The Raveonettes 'Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed)' from their most recent album In and Out of Control. I reviewed the album and wasn't sure what to make of it. [Read Bev's review HERE!!!] It seems straightforwardly anti-rape and yet the tone is so strange that I'm very uncomfortable with it."

Intrigued, and also unfamiliar with the song, I decided to go to the video:

Trigger warning: The lyrics, which are literally spelled out in the video, might be too graphic for some viewers. Please watch with caution.

Even though Bev explicitly mentioned the song's 'strange' tone, I wasn't quite prepared for this. The song is spacey, mellow, and it's written in a major key. It doesn't quite match the thematic content of the song, and I agree that it does cause a certain amount of discomfort.

But that might be the intent. It's possible that The Raveonettes purposely wrote poppy, girl-group sounding music for their apparently anti-rape anthem to bring attention to the way rape is white-washed and ignored. Rape is reduced to a minor crime that doesn't really matter or affect that many people (...kind of the way that girly popular music of various genres is often trivialized and made to seem like it wasn't very influential, huh, funny that), and to sing about rape so airily and peppily mimics that trivialization.

I read the song this way because I think that might sort of be the point of The Raveonettes as an artistic project. When I first heard the band several years ago, I didn't really like them. I understood their use of 'Americana' as a silly gimmick at best, and perhaps cultural appropriation at worst. (This raises the question of whether or not one can 'appropriate' the dominant culture, but I think that's an issue for another blog.)

Now I'm older, wiser, and possess a much better understanding of what it is that artists do. Now, I'm very reluctant to presume that Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner 'don't really get' U.S. '50s and '60s pop culture. Instead, I gather from their work that they're fully aware of what that time period and culture mean, and that they're layering modern, current, lyrics over old school rock and roll and even Motown-y sounds with the goal of problematizing that culture, and the way it's packaged in the present age.

The Raveonettes seem to want to us to ask difficult questions about the rosy Happy Days-type nostalgia that's so big here in the states. So listen, watch, and oblige them on this hump day!

Three Examples of What NOT To Do When Writing About Sexual Assault and Rape Culture (and Two Examples of Songs That Get It Right)

2010-04-26T10:52:00.000-04:00

Because of the whole Bad Traffic is like Rape Debacle, and then the heinous Susannah Breslin Affair (see below), I've been thinking a lot about how to write about sexual assault in a way that's truthful, but still somehow productive, and maybe even somewhat uplifting. I've been thinking about this as a blogger and zinestress, and also as a songwriter.

While I'm not into making rules for artists, I have come up with some pitfalls to avoid and some issues to consider. The following guidelines are meant to assist anyone who wants to express opinions and ideas about sexual assault while still being respectful.

1. Don't make fun of survivors and/or use the survivor community to 'prove' any kind of point.

I hate to give her any more attention, but sometimes people need to be called out. Last week I read over at Shakesville about how Susannah Breslinposted to her blog about not knowing what a trigger warning is. Breslin writes that she googled the term, and now that she knows what it is, she thinks it's a) counter-effective and b) proof that the feminist movement is no more than a motley collection of 'ugly', man-hating, 'nit'-picking, Enid Wexler types who do nothing more than blog about being "victims of a patriarchy that no longer exists." Right.

I agree with Vanessa over at feministing that Breslin was being disingenuous. She knew what a trigger warning is. She pretended to not know just so she could write something provocative in a negative, fire-in-a-crowded-theater type way.

Breslin's treatment of assault survivors and the activists who support them is despicable, and it's also poor journalism. The purpose of journalism is to communicate news and ideas to people; it's not meant to be used as a tool to ridicule people, or as in this case, to diminish peoples' traumatic experiences. (This applies to any and all forms of communication or art, so don't misuse zinewriting, songwriting, or any other medium that way, mmkay?)

I'll show you an emphasis on the history of combat!

2. Think long and hard before writing from a survivor's perspective if you aren't a survivor yourself.

The aforementioned affair got me thinking of the three-episode arc on Degrassi: The Next Generation where Paige is date raped, and is thus very upset when her bandmate Ashley unknowingly writes a song about being raped called "Poor Thing". (For those not familiar: here's a video of the band rehearsing the song).

Ashley had not been sexually assaulted, but still wanted to write a song about it, probably to raise awareness. This is admirable, but Ashley doesn't realize that she's still using her non-survivor privilege in order to write and perform this song, and doesn't seem to realize that her song might trigger a trauma survivor. It takes Paige storming out of rehearsal, and tearfully talking about her experience for the first time, to make Ashley understand that her song is a bit problematic.

So Paige confides in her bandmate, decides to work on the song, contributes to it, and performing "Poor Thing" ends up being empowering for her. Ashley ends up helping her bandmate to face the trauma she's experienced, and to start her recovery from it. But in order for all of that to take place, Ashley had to listen to Paige's story. This is key: it's awesome to want to bring attention to issues around sexual violence, but you can't do it effectively without connecting with, or at least actively listening to survivors and contemplating their words and feelings.

Stand by your band: Ashley and Paige (2nd and 3rd from left) with bandmates Hazel (right) and new member Ellie (right)

3. Don't write about clubbing and then say you're actually making a profound commentary on date rape.

Earlier this month feminist writers and bloggers over at feministing, Bitch, RH Reality Check, and elsewhere spent days dissecting Kiely Williams' "Spectacular". In the song, the narrator brags about how she got SO wasted the night before, after letting some guy buy her lots of drinks and dance with her, but how she can't even remember his name, but somehow, she does remember that she went home with him, slept with him, and that the sex was 'spectacular'.

Some feminist writers argue that because of the lyrics about inebriation (and thus, compromised ability to legitimately give consent), the song is essentially a tale of date rape. These authors have criticized Williams for glamorizing date rape through the video, which is a pretty literal representation of the song: Kiely goes to a club, Kiely gets down, Kiely really gets down, Kiely wakes up at the guy's place and then does the 'walk of shame' home. Here, watch it for yourself:

Though critical, feminist writers have also pointed out that it's inappropriate to criticize women's expressions of their sexuality. If Kiely, or any woman, wants to get falling-down drunk and go home with a person she doesn't know, well, that's fine, if she really thinks that the whole experience is 'spectacular'. And frankly, that's the impression I get from the video and the song: it has no cognizance of date rape or consent issues; it's a song about partying.

But Williams has not defended her song as a club hit or party jam. She hasn't defended her right to casual sexual encounters. Instead, she's responded to feminist criticisms by claiming that the song isn't intended to glamorize such behavior, but to expose the truth of date rape and the horrors of hook-up culture.

The thing is, based on the video and the tone of the song, I don't buy it. As I understand it, Williams is appropriating feminist ideas to justify the song and video's objectionable content. She's using the discourse on date rape to try and pass off her work as social commentary, and I find it incredibly offensive. So, final tip: don't write about sex, and then say you're writing about rape because you're not willing to defend your sexuality and sexual experiences. It's an insult to those of us who do own our sexuality, and those of us who are survivors.

There are definitely songwriters who have gotten it right though. All we can do about rape culture is resist it, from whatever place we happen to be coming from, and by being conscientious of other people and their feelings. I'm ending this post with two examples of exactly that.

Trigger warning: Amos' song isn't that graphic, but it is harrowing and intense. Please watch with caution.

This song is intense in a different way, it's pretty intensely enraged, and rightfully so. Props to the men of Fugazi for writing a song about rape culture, and how pervasive it is, from the perspective of men.

Hump day Treat, Sexual Assault Awareness Edition

2010-04-21T13:29:00.003-04:00

Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month continues here in the U.S., and here at Rock and Single Girl, despite unpleasant distractions from beverage companies. Let's turn our attention back to the issue of rape and rape culture with a song that seems to be criminally underknown: "Johnny Hit and Run Pauline", by X.

One of the band's classics, the song details a day in the life of a rapist who might also be a sex and drug addict. It compares the act of non-consensual sex to the unequivocally criminal act of mowing a person down with a car (kudos to the songwriters there!). But according to a documentary I saw ages ago, the band stopped playing the song at shows, because they didn't think their audiences understood that they were singing against rape, not in support of it.

But we understand the song, so we can listen and raise our fists in resistance on this hump day.

The Choice of a New Generation. (Of punks feminist artists and activists.)

2010-04-20T15:38:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned in my last past, my beloved Willie Mae Rock Camp has applied for a $50,000 grant from from Pepsi, the soft drink behemoth. The corporation has recently launched its Pepsi Refresh Project, and WMRC has chosen to particpate.

Really? I'll believe it when I see it.

When I first started getting e-mails and notifications from camp and my fellow volunteers, I was skeptical -- this is an occupational hazard of being a feminist punk. I'm wary of all and any corporations, particularly when they start handing out money. I'm not really feeling how the project is more or less a competition, which pits causes against each other.

Something about a corporate conglomerate inviting and encouraging people to do charitable work feels a little "Won't Get Fooled Again" to me -- as in, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." I can't help but be suspicious that a company that produces a drink that is so bad for human health and so bad for the environment is encouraging people to do volunteer and non-profit work for public health and the environment. What does Pepsi have to gain from financing such projects? Or projects in their arts and culture, food and shelter, neighborhoods, and education categories?

Luckily, I'm not alone in my skepticism. Fellow volunteer and fellow artist and musician Maggie was brave enough to send an e-mail over WMRC's volunteer listserve asking if anyone else is feeling ambivalent about this.

Selling out? Ch'yeah, right -- and monkeys might fly out my butt!

The response's to Maggie's e-mail that I've seen have made me feel a little better about the idea of WMRC getting money from Pepsi -- but only a little. I think the main thing, as another volunteer pointed out, is that this money is a donation, not some sort of sponsorship deal. So Rock Camp would get this money free and clear. The donation would not enable Pepsi to direct or alter the way camp runs, or even dictate how the money would be spent. Accepting the grant would not require Camp to further support Pepsi, purchase more Pepsi products, or anything like that.

So this brings us back to the question of what the corporation would get out of this. Well, first, as Maggie pointed out, Pepsi is getting access to some personal information, including e-mails, which they can sell for a great deal of money at a later date. They also get a tax write-off for their donations, though as another fellow volunteer pointed out, so would any organization or individual who makes any sort of donation.

But what hasn't come up in these conversations is that Pepsi has a chance to get something more important and way more priceless than a tax break or some e-mail lists. Pepsi has a chance to get a good reputation, which bothers me more than anything else.

With this campaign, Pepsi has an opportunity to make itself seem like a responsible corporation. But let's be clear: there's absolutely nothing responsible about pushing liquid sugar in a can or plastic bottle on people.

There's also nothing responsible about the amount of water used to make soda. Water rights issues aren't huge in the U.S., and I only know about this because my dear friend Jackie has done research on Coca Cola and water, and my classmate Michelle has done (award-winning!) research on water rights and Bolivian indigenous communities. So I'm not sure that all my fellow volunteers are aware that it takes something like 4 liters of water to make a single liter of soda, and that soda companies get that water by taking it away from impoverished and desperate people in the 'Third' world.

Will not taking money from Pepsi change this? No, it won't. But my point is that I don't want people forgetting any of this. I don't want any of us to be fooled, or to think for even a second, "Well, I guess Pepsi isn't so bad. Because corporations -- it's definitely not just Pepsi -- usually are that bad. For them to create whatever useless product they create, something else has to get destroyed.

All of that said, it might sound contradictory, or even hypocritical of me to continue to support this campaign by voting daily for WMRC. Willie Mae's executive board, a group of fierce, talented, responsible women, is okay with this campaign, and I have to trust them. Those women shoulder the responsibility of running and financing camp, and so I support what they decide will make their job easier and what will make camp even better.

What really enables me to vote every morning is knowing myself, and knowing my position on all of this. Pepsi might get my e-mail address and access to my facebook page -- but they will never get my respect, my trust, or even my three bucks for a bottle of soda. And I know that my fellow volunteers will be able to dig that, or at least one of them will. Very special thanks to Maggie for e-mailing with me about this and inspiring this post!

The reality is that we all live and work in a world controlled by corporations and media. And at some point, every single one of us punk, feminist, pro-diy, anti-mainstream, pro-culture, anti-consumerist activists, artists, and resisters is going to face an issue like this. All of us are going to have our principles tested, our beliefs challenged, our buttons pushed for whatever cause it is that we support. And all of us, as individuals are going to have to sort out our feelings and decide how to respond. So these are my feelings, and this is how I respond:

Bite me, corporate 'charity'!

p.s. special thanks to photobucket user Starriedreamer for unknowingly 'donating' screen caps.

If it doesn't conflict with your politics...

2010-04-15T15:31:00.005-04:00

I'm guessing that most of my (wonderful!) readers are pretty used to how I often shamelessly promote Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. But this time, it's a little different.

Rock Camp is hooked up with a certain corporate beverage giant's new campaign to "refresh everything". And while most of my fellow volunteers have been rocking the vote, and posting everywhere, some of us are a bit unnerved at the prospect of accepting money from this particular corporation, myself included.

Despite my reservations, I choose to support Rock Camp, and its decision to participate in this whole thing. I unfortunately don't have time to write out my feelings about this right now, so for now I'll just post the widget. If you all are comfortable with it, please vote for Willie Mae! Corporations suck but 50K to help get our year-round, after-school band mentoring program off the ground most certainly does not suck!

p.s. Look for a more in-depth post on this issue sometime next week. (I know, you're all just dying to read it, right?)

Hump Day Treat, Spring-y Weather Finally! Edition

2010-04-14T18:02:00.003-04:00

So, uh, this hump day treat is super-late because, well, it's really, really nice out. And that's not entirely usual for this town, being sandwiched between a mountain range and a massive lake and all. So, I've been out.

This spring-y, warm, sunny weather reminds of summer in my hometown, and summer in my hometown inevitably makes me wanna listen to my faves, Brooklyn's own Zombie Dogs. I'm excited to report that I came inside a little while ago, turned on the computer, and found this great video of them at the Girl Cave. I don't know what this Girl Cave is, but it sounds awesome. (Despite also sounding like a creepy double entendre.) So enjoy some ZD classics, like "Psycho Gyno", "Flip the Bird", and "Not Your Babe" on this temperate hump day!

Also: Zombie Dogs on Myspace Not gonna lie, I check this for updates like every other nanosecond.

Apparently it's Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

2010-04-13T12:48:00.002-04:00

It took me a week to decide if I should publish this blog. Now that I've decided to do so, I can only hope that it will have a positive impact.

Recently I logged in at the forlorn networking site known popularly as myspace so I could answer a message from my homegirl Alma. We were trying to make plans to hang out while I was home for Easter.

As anyone who's still on myspace knows, the website now features a facebook-like 'newsfeed' type thing, where your friends statuses (statii?) are listed. It's right in front of you when your login goes through, so it's hard to miss.

That particular day, at the very top of my page, was a status update from a pretty-well respected, but not that well-known West Coast band that I had friended only because my favorite guitarist had joined them after his band broke up. The first line of the status was: "NYC traffic is raping my soul."

The words made my blood burn. Do I have to explain why it made me so angry? Okay, fine, I will: I am sick to fucking DEATH of living in a culture where it's perfectly fine to joke about rape, where rape is a casual metaphor, where people throw around the word rape like it's not a serious crime and a major social problem, not to mention a weapon used to destroy individuals and communities. I am sick of watching as rape victims' credibility is questioned, sick of watching as survivors who come forward are attacked because they don't want to be silenced anymore. I am sick of living in a world that is so goddamn full of rape that I can never get away from it.

So sick of it -- and so infuriated that an allegedly progressive, forward thinking, hip punk artist would say something so gross -- that I decided to say something. Without thinking about it too much, I typed: "rape jokes = not funny, ever" and clicked 'comment'.

If only that were the end of it. The band responded by saying "good thing that wasn't a rape joke." And then some jerk commented "hahahah amazing". At this point I was livid, so I responded that sure, maybe it wasn't exactly a joke, but that like a joke, it made light of rape, which is completely unacceptable. I told the band to check their privilege and recognize how inappropriate their language was.

I'm going to take a moment to explain again, because no matter what these dudes might think, this is important: it is not ever appropriate to to compare something as petty as traffic to being sexually assaulted -- even New York City traffic, which I have a lot of experience with, in case you were wondering. It is not ever okay to make rape seem trivial or insignificant; sexual assault is the ultimate breach and disrespect of a person's boundaries, and it leaves a person's borders open and vulnerable, and that person's sense of self and security all confused and leaked out. Rape destroys.

I'm sure that some people would think that I'm overreacting here. I'm not going to argue with this, or waste my time trying to 'prove' the fact that language is a means of domination and a critical means of cultural shaping and production. If you don't believe me, go read some Bourdieu.

Some people might also think that my response is invalid because it's just an expression, everyone says things like that, blah blah blah. Uh, no. Not everyone says things like that. I do not use the word rape that way. My friends do not use the word rape that way. My classmates and colleagues do not use the word rape that way. My girl gang underground lady punk heroines do not use the word rape that way. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other extended family do not use the word rape that way. The only people who people who talk about sexual assault that way are people who are privileged enough to have never been assaulted.

I'm going to take a second here to make a snarky sidenote, which I feel I can do because a) I haven't named the band and b) I rarely get snarky in this blog. The band in question? Is not really progressive or hip or even artistic. They're just another example of this bullshit Vice-style hipster poseur thing that's been going on for awhile. They pretend to have something to say but they really just spend a lot of time on their hair. They are, as Max Bemis has so perfectly put it, little more than vacuous soldiers of the thrift store Gestapo.

And these jerks have effectively reminded me, through this stupid and sordid little internet-based ordeal, that rape and sexual assault are a problem in our local art and music communities. I'm lucky to say that I've never felt anything but perfectly safe at shows in my hometown, and I've never met anyone who made me feel uncomfortable. But that doesn't mean that assault doesn't happen. We can't afford to pretend that it doesn't happen in our communities, we have to be vocal about this problem and we have to face it, head-on.

But I guess that's the other thing that this band and their unseemly comment reminded me of -- that we can and must speak up about this issue. What I did wasn't that big a deal, it was just a comment on some website...but at the same time, it was still me, saying what I felt, and refusing to be silent. If you feel unsafe or insecure, if you're at a show or in a community space of any kind and someone says or does something that upsets you, you can say something. Even something as simple as, "Hey, that's not cool." It's not about starting fights or creating a negative situation; it's about pointing out when people say or do something that they might not realize is harmful.

It sucks to think that we have to go around policing people's behavior, and it sucks to think that we have to go around telling people that they shouldn't joke about rape (or other types of violence and oppression). People should already know that, right? But not everyone does, so it's our responsibility to say it. It's our responsibility to break the tradition of silence if we want to build communities that are truly safe.

Hump Day Treat, Well Done, Sister Suffragette! Edition

2010-03-31T14:12:00.002-04:00

It's the final day of this year's Women's History Month, and I'm a little bit bummed about it. I write about women's history in various forms all year round, yes. But I feel like I've learned a lot about how and why we should document the history and also the present of what girls and women are doing in the past 30 days, and I don't want that to end.

In the past month, this blog has talked about mostly about how important it is to document what we and our activist friends are doing, but we've also touched upon issues of access, and how intersections with race, class, nationality, ethnicity, and other forms of so-called 'Otherness' impede access for some of our sisters (and brothers) in the struggle. The conclusion I've come to after a month of thinking about these issues is that feminist punks really need to look at media, especially mainstream media, and we need to look at how media manages to divide us. Yes, media can connect us, and it's important -- but it can also have a more nefarious role in the production and control of culture.

This is a different discussion for a different day though. Rock and the Single Girl will be back next week to open up that dialogue, but in the meantime, enjoy some punk feminism, courtesy of The Distillers, on this hump day. (p.s.: How much do you love that there is a serious punk song about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony? Big ups to Brody Dalle for even knowing who they are!)

(The audio is not great on this video, so if you would like to hear the studio version, click here)

BONUS JONAS: For anyone else who gets the reference in the title, and who watched Mary Poppins just to sing this song, enjoy a subtitled, sing-along version of "Sister Suffragette"!

Doing Women's History with Reclaimed Punk Feminist Figures*

2010-03-30T00:44:00.006-04:00

Of the seemingly endless list of things in this world that offend me, nothing upsets me in the way that sketchy and rude treatment of Yoko Ono does. I've heard my own BFFs accuse women linked to their favorite male artists of being "Yokos", and even when my friends do it, it makes me really angry.

I.
For those of you who might not know, Yoko Ono is an artist, musician, writer, and activist. Her late husband, John Lennon, was a musician and artist in his own right. (HA, SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) Yoko met John in 1966 at an exhibition of her 'conceptual' art work. According to rock/romance legend, at this time Yoko didn't even know who John was. She allegedly didn't recognize him either when he walked into the gallery space where her work was being shown, or when he inquired further about her work.

Yoko and John were a married couple. They were partners, artistic collaborators, and parents together. But both pop music history and pop culture alike have reduced Yoko Ono to a little more than a band-destroying, genius-distracting, performance -ruining' harpy. She is portrayed as the woman who swept into John Lennon's life, alienated his friends and bandmates from him, and thusly robbed the world of the Beatles' collective brilliance.

The piece that ensnared John Lennon's heart. Read more about it here, here, and here.

II.
There are a few issues with this narrative. Yeah, it's blatantly sexist, in the way that it puts the responsibility for the actions of four grown men on one woman. It's also wrong, and completely ridiculous in the way it ignores the reality of what it means to play in a band with people! The hard truth is that the Beatles broke up because of the Beatles. Ten plus years of being so isolated and so famous is enough to wear down anyone, and enough to make anyone sick of the few people who were there. And from what I understand, John Lennon and Paul McCartney went into this whole thing not really like each other all that much.

Being in a band is kind of like being married, in that it involves a serious commitment, constant proximity for all parties involved, and making a lot of major joint decisions. Like marriage, being in a band is a complex bond that is affected by many factors. Like all aspects of marriage, and bandhood, divorce and band break ups are almost always too complex to blame on a single person or event.

Yoko and John, making a statement. I kind of love this picture.

We need to face this reality about the Beatles and about bands in general not only for the sake of Yoko Ono, but also for activists and artists. We need to face the reality that collaboration is difficult, and that isn't anyone's fault. Working with other people, talking stuff out, hammering out compromises, and learning to respect people's different ideas and put up with their flaws is really hard. Scapegoating a convenient bystander is the easy way out, and doing so obscures the reality of being a musician as well as Yoko Ono's individual accomplishments.

This does double duty for the capitalist rock machine: it effectively marginalizes a powerful and creative woman, and it also feeds the myth of the Rock Star, aka: a skinny white dude who simultaneously sings and fucks his way across the world and then tells us all about it. The Rock Star and his decadent lifestyle help to sell rock music, so the music industry can't have anyone interfering with this illusion. They don't want the truth of being a working artist (and trust me, it is damned hard work if you're doing it right) getting in the way of the stories they spin to keep the masses entertained and buying cds, concert tickets, and merch.

If us punk feminists really want to challenge this exploitative system, we need to recognize these and other industry methods of exploiting and silencing vocal dissenters and people who don't fit the myth. We need to recognize that all forms of rock are inherently capitalist and patriarchal, being the products of a patriarchal, capitalist system -- and that it's a challenge to this system at the same time (or, it's supposed to be). What makes rock a unique musical tradition is that it's both the system and the fuck you to the system. We have to reclaim that paradox, and make it our own if we're going to make space in music for our voices.

III.
Now that we're on the issue of space, let's bring this back to Yoko, as she is the point of this post.

Back when I was in high school I somehow got to talking about Yoko with my music teacher, Mr. Mora (I've mentioned him before). Himself a fan of the Beatles, Mr. Mora, despite being really smart, had apparently bought into the Yoko myth. He spoke at length about Yoko's notorious performance with John, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell on The Rolling Stones Rock'n'Roll Circus.

"She started screaming," Mr. Mora explained, "and you could see the look of disappointment on Eric Clapton's face!" Mr. Mora then proceeded to reenact Eric Clapton's pained expression. (Which, in itself, was priceless, and I wish I had a photo of that to share, but alas, I do not.)

What I do have is a video of this performance. Skip to the end to see Yoko's part and The Face.

Um, WTF is Eric Clapton wearing here? He looks like Ugly Betty...

What's happening in this video? Watch, and try to not see four of the most famous men in rock history. It's a band of four British brahs playing a song about how one of these wealthy, British, rock star, brahs is just so depressed and wants to die. It's four white guys continuing the tradition of Anglo co-optation of rhythm and blues. (In John Lennon's defense, he allegedly admitted to being self-conscious about this.)

Yoko gets on stage and she starts making weird sounds. Why? To disrupt this sausage and wank fest. To make her voice heard. To make herself, a feminist, peace activist, immigrant woman visible against a background of upperclasswhitedudeness. Yoko is doing more than making strange, uncomfortable noises with her voice. She's using the sound of her voice to queer the entire situation.

I wish Mr. Mora were here so I could tell him all of this, and suggest to him that maybe Yoko's awful voice is the butt of a lot of jokes because deep down, people realize that Yoko's disruption was a significant challenge to the pop-rock, cock-rock oriented music industry. Who knows -- maybe John Lennon got that, about both that moment and Yoko herself, and maybe after years of churning out hit after hit and hook after hook and ear-pleasing melody after melody, even he wanted to express something different, and maybe he thought Yoko was the creative partner who could help him do that.

I would like to think that Mr. Mora would respond to these suggestions by saying "Why, I never thought of it that way!" (No one accepted differing opinions as graciously as Mr. Mora.) I would like to think that Mr. Mora would get that Yoko Ono was not some crazy, screaming, scheming, using harbinger of band doom, but an artist, activist, woman, mother and survivor who married into the rock and roll boys club and then made herself heard -- just as any true feminist punk heroine would.

*The ideas in this post are largely influenced by the work of rock sociologist Simon Frith, pioneer of the rock as paradox theory, and rock and gender media analyst Marion Leonard. Check them out, their stuff is tight.

Punk Feminist Cults of Personality, Part 2: Knocking them down

2010-03-29T03:15:00.005-04:00

So last week I wrote about how we need to be careful with our feminist punk heroines. I wrote about how we we have to listen to each other, be respectful, and be constructive about keeping our egos and our heroine-worship in check. This week, it's time to turn the knife counterclockwise, and talk about heroine bashing -- or, if you want a not that clever play on words, heroine abuse.

If there's any single person in the punk feminist universe whose persona has grown to mythic proportions, it's Kathleen Hanna. She clearly isn't comfortable with being singled out or treated as Riot Grrrl's sole originator, ideologue, and/or spokesperson, but it doesn't change the fact that Bikini Kill and Le Tigre have been influential, and it doesn't change the fact that Kathleen is a public figure, and that love her or hate her, people tend to pay attention when she speaks.

Kathleen Hanna, back in her Bikini Kill days

I'm going to admit that I fall on the 'love her' side of the debate. And I didn't even know that there was a strong and seemingly pretty righteous 'hate her' faction, within the queer activist community, until I read a particularly nasty comment war attached to an article about Kathleen donating her papers to NYU. The central issue of debate in the comments? Kathleen's credibility as a feminist in the wake of her support of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.

For those who don't know: the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MWMF) is just what it sounds like: an outdoor concert festival for womyn, no boys allowed. The concert organizers adhere to a strict and unfortunately named 'womyn-born-womyn' policy, meaning that transsexual and transgender individuals are prohibited from attending. The idea behind the festival is to create a safe space for the womyn in attendance, and the claim is that biologically male bodies might negate the 'safety' of the setting.

The more I think about this policy, the more I dislike it. I think it reflects a complete misunderstanding of trans issues and quite possibly of gender in general. I think it makes the organizers and the MWMF seem horribly transphobic, and I agree with those who have protested and boycotted this. But I just can't get on board with this idea that Kathleen Hanna is a transphobe, too, because she performed at this event.

I'm more than willing to admit that I'm biased here, and that part of my struggle with this has to do with the fact that I've been listening to this woman since I was 17. Her work has been a huge part of my adolescence, and I've never done anything but look up to her.

MWMF poster. I'll keep my snarky comments about it to myself.

But there's more to it than that. As an adult, feminist, and student, I'm not convinced that Kathleen Hanna is a transphobe because I simply haven't seen the evidence. Every time I read about what a transphobe she is, the only example of her apparent transphobia is her involvement with the MWMF. There are no quotes about gender or about trans-issues from Kathleen, no excerpts from personal essays or her zines or anything like that. I'm guessing that these quotes exist, but I have yet to see them. And I refuse to tar and feather a person based on a guess that something exists.

I also refuse to label any individual a transphobe for performing at the MWMF if I don't know the entire story of that person's involvement with the event. The organization itself seems questionable, if not utterly bigoted. But I don't know Kathleen's thoughts on the policy or the festival. I don't know why she and Le Tigre chose to perform, and I'm guessing that most of the people judging Kathleen for this don't know the whole story either. Again, I feel as though there must be information out there, that I haven't been able to find, about Kathleen's position on the festival and its trans-excluding policy. Again, I find it impossible to make a decision based on information I haven't looked at myself.

Whether Kathleen is a transphobe or not, I find the treatment of her alleged reputation really disturbing. I find it appalling and frankly offensive as a writer that people are parroting the same story about the MWMF, seemingly without too many facts, and passing it off as either journalism or good blogging. (Here's a hint: it's neither.)

Even worse, it's another example of media tearing down another female public figure. This is an example of institutionalized sexism, a woman-hating bias so deeply ingrained that even female and feminist writers buy into it. (I'm no exception, as anyone who's ever heard me rant about Patti Smith or Chrissie Hynde knows.) Kathleen is unfairly targeted because of her sex as well as her involvement with feminism. You don't see this happening to people like Ian MacKaye or Eddie Vedder. You never would have seen it happen with anyone like Kurt Cobain, or Joe Strummer, or Joey Ramone.

Tearing women down like this feeds into this myth that such public figures, especially feminist leaders, are supposed to be perfect. Guess what -- they aren't. Is transphobia acceptable? No, of course it isn't. But the fact of the matter is that even the most evolved of us feminists have issues and prejudices. Every single one of us is the product of a kyriarchal system. Most of us have some sort of privilege or another, and all of us have some kind of power, that we may or may not exercise effectively.

And no matter how smart or aware or sensitive we are, we're all eventually going to say something stupid. All of your feminist leaders, your punk rock heroines, your favorite radically fierce female artists, are going to fuck up at some point. So prepare yourself.

But not for disappointment. Yes, someday, somewhere, someone you admire might say something that offends you and it might be disappointing or even hurtful -- but that's not what you need to be prepared for. What we, as feminist artists and leaders in our own lives and circles need to prepare for, is how to deal with and learn from these situations.

I think, before we can do anything else, we need to know ourselves, and we need to know what we can tolerate. A voice of reason emerged in that comment war I mentioned earlier, and it said that we have to decide, as individuals, what flaws we can stand in our heroines. Would it bother me if Kathleen Hanna were a transphobe? Yes, it would. But it wouldn't keep me from listening to Bikini Kill, and it wouldn't invalidate her feminist ideas or the impact they've had on me.

But it's not going to be that way for everyone, and we need to learn to live with that. Once we know our own perspective, we have to learn how to be respectful of others'. Does it bum me out that some people detest Kathleen Hanna for her involvement with a single festival? Yeah, it really does. But it's also completely legitimate, and I have to accept that some people don't consider her a model feminist leader.

Ultimately, what we need to learn is that we're all human. The leaders we look up to, the friends and fellow activists we admire, the coming generations for whom we hope to pave the way: we're all human, and we're all imperfect. For that reason, we all deserve both respect and a little slack. Because if we can't treat our leaders that way, well, no one else will, either. And it's time for that to stop.

p.s. For more on MWMF, try Crabigail Adams (a former zinester whose zine I totally used to read, how weird is that?) and/or Pam's House Blend, a generally awesome site.

Hump Day Treat, Power of Facebook Edition

2010-03-24T14:54:00.000-04:00

For all my bitching about the social networking phenomenon, now and then Facebook gifts you with something worth writing home, or a blog, about. Par example: last night I was paging through my 'news feed', and saw that my friend Bri had posted a video by a band called Kitten Forever. She affectionately called them 'bratty grrrl punk', so of course I had to watch:

And then of course, I had to I had to youtube them, and was hence rewarded with a fantastic live video. And of course, I then decided to post it here, for all of you to enjoy. Bratty grrrl punks riding in cars and being awesome on this hump day, and EVERY day!

Punk Feminist Cults of Personality, Part 1: Putting them on the pedestal

2010-03-22T14:51:00.001-04:00

I know I already said this, BUT: I had a really great time at the Sarah Lawrence Conference. My presentation went much better than I thought it would, and just as I was starting to fret that it hadn't provoked any thought, I got a bunch of questions.

For me the defining moment of the panel was the last question I received. Beth, who I don't actually know, but have seen at Brooklyn shows, asked me why I choose to do a study of a single person, when it sort of feeds into the 'cult of personality' that the record labels are always trying to push on us? (Also, for the record: I swear that Beth's actual phrasing of her question was much more eloquent than I just made it sound, but unfortunately, this was the best my spotty memory could do.)

Beth's question has stayed with me for the reason why criticisms usually stick with us: because we fear that they might be accurate. Since my proposal's acceptance, I had been joking about how it was just hero worship disguised as scholarship. I even mentioned this during my presentation, while trying to explain how it had developed into something else while I was working on it.

While worship isn't a productive method of doing research, I do believe that there are at least two good reasons for doing studies of individual punk feminist artists. After my presentation I was talking with a student who's writing her master's thesis on an African American activist whose name I unfortunately can't remember, and we got to talking about how people connect with individuals, and that they need hero(in)es. We discussed that all things, all art, all dissent, all organizing start with an individual, and grow to include more people if you're lucky and work really hard. I think studying the people with whom things start is necessary.

Which brings me to my second reason. Current scholarship on Riot Grrrl is rather general, and it tends to see it as a social movement -- not as an important genre within the rock tradition. Riot Grrrl needs to be understood and respected as a musical form, and it won't be unless we start studying the individual bands and musicians who were involved. And we won't understand the real value of Riot Grrrl on the whole unless we study both its ideology and its art.

That said, I do think that Beth's question is valid. I stand by my belief that we need our heroines, but I also believe that we need to understand them realistically, and as human beings. I think we benefit more from them when we see them, and the context in which they live and work, clearly.

Beth's question also hinted at the way in which the record industry constructs nebulizing, half-myth personas around its stars. This is the capitalist system at its insidious work of turning people into brands and artistic output into yet another commodity. The impact that this has on artistic output is something that does need to be addressed, both in general, and with any study of popular music.

Beth's question is particularly important because the only way to keep my research from devolving into hero worship is by keeping the issues Beth has brought up on my mind -- all. the. time. And that's how it is for all of us: as feminist activists, researchers, and artists, it is our responsibility to keep ourselves in check and think critically at all times. Critical thinking isn't something you tack on at the end; it doesn't work if it's an afterthought. Critical thinking to the point where you break everything down until nothing is whole anymore has to become part of our constant consciousness. Halfway or only part-time simply won't do. Going all the way with taking everything apart is the only way you can put it all back together.

But it's also our responsibility to constantly be conscious of the way we talk to each other. Maybe the real value in the dialogue between Beth and I is that it gave us both some practice in discussing these issues. That's right: questions like Beth's are not only important because they improve research and are essential to the production of worthwhile knowledge, but they're important for the simple fact that they are a form of communication.

You'd think that 'dialogue' is easy; it's just talking, right? Not exactly. Productive dialogue is often draining, because it requires those involved to think deeply about ideas and beliefs they take for granted, and have probably taken for granted for some time. It requires us to be sensitive to how difficult the process can be. It requires us to check our egos and our privilege, and it might expose us to painful exchanges, even in the best of circumstances. And because of that, it also requires us to trust each other. I can say that as hard as it is, it can and does form bonds between activists.

And that's the deal with feminist research, activism, and dialogue: taking everything apart to reassemble it in a way that benefits the greater good -- whether via music, other art forms, political organizing, or a conference paper -- by necessity requires us to also take apart ourselves. It requires us to take apart ourselves and each other, often in front of people, and sometimes after presenting a powerpoint and pretending for twenty minutes straight to not seem jittery or nervous about it. Yes, it's scary. But based on this one experience, and how much I've gotten out of it, I would say that it's worth it.

Hump Day Treat, "Morning" After Edition

2010-03-17T15:55:00.002-04:00

Last night in Greenpoint, I had the opportunity to see some excellent bands who are on a short tour at the moment: The Two Funerals of Richmond, VA and Birmingham, AL's P.S. Eliot. Here are some old live videos of both, so you can try and imagine how intensely awesome it was on this sunny hump day.

A scorching, strategic case of cooties, OR: Doing Women's History (and present) with Cover Shows

2010-03-15T13:45:00.003-04:00

Hey kids, remember when I got sick a few weeks ago, and I had to put off writing a 'big deal' post? Well, live in suspense no longer! Here it is, finally.

I.

It all started on the Valentine's Day before the last. February 14, 2009.

When I heard that someone was doing an Anti-Valentine's Day Riot Grrrl Cover Band Show, I couldn't quite believe it. It was such a good idea that I couldn't believe someone was actually doing it. I went partly because I knew I wouldn't believe it unless I saw it for myself.

But I also went because the show's organizers were releasing a cd that night called Gimme Cooties, a compilation of live recordings by local girl bands that I absolutely had to hear. That morning, my platonic date for the show almost canceled on me, I didn't feel like getting dressed, and I worried that it would be weird or awkward if I showed up at this event where I wouldn't really know anyone. I ultimately decided that I didn't care, because I needed that cd.

Flyer for the first anti-V Day show

Fortunately things worked out. My friend Alma came with me, and yes, we were both a little awkward. We spent time between sets at the Dominican bodega across the street. During the sets we were stuck sort of in the back of the room, and we couldn't see what was going on, but we still managed to push up front for Bikini Kill's set. Afterwards I went to the For the Birds table, which was stacked high with zines, albums, and vegan cupcakes and got some cooties of my own. And then we went home.

It was nearly 2 am when I got in, and the first thing I did was look at the album's liner notes. A small collage of simple drawings and typed text on graph paper, the liner notes bare incredible resemblance to a zine.

The text is a message from Kathi Ko (Each Other's Mothers, Zombie Dogs), who put the cd together. "This is GIMME COOTIES," she says, "a comp featuring live tracks of all girl/girl fronted bands in Brooklyn and the surrounding east coast area." The notes explain that purpose of the album is to "document a new wave of badass girls playing music."

The text after this sent little waves of excitement/nausea running through my hands and up and down my spine:

GIMME COOTIES is a declaration of grrrlspace. It's proof of something that's happening right now...total scheming challenging creating gettingshitdone supportive cootie-swapping grrrl love. I want to see truckloads of girl hands storm in and reinvent boring boy scenes in ways we've been dreaming of. seeing and hearing other girl bands...I swear, it's a catalyst to start yr own. don't get yr cootie shots. listen to this comp. now go start a band with yr girlfriends. xo, kathi

Gimme Cooties cd

I couldn't sleep that night. I was lying awake in bed, thinking about the liner notes, not just what they said, but how they said it...I recognized the style of writing, I recognized the layout: it was the rhetoric of the original '90s Riot Grrrl movement. I had this funny feeling that I couldn't entirely articulate, and I kept thinking to myself, "Something that's happening right now..."

I spent the next month listening to nothing but Gimme Cooties. I wanted to blog about it, and I even contacted For the Birds, and then Kathi about reprinting the liner notes. But I just couldn't seem to get a post written on it, I didn't know why. I couldn't capture how the liner notes or the show made me feel.

II.

When I heard that there was going to be another Anti-Valentine's Day Riot Grrrl Cover Band Show this year, I still couldn't believe it. It was like looking out your window and seeing not one, but two unicorns, idly chewing on sidewalk grass.

Of course, I went. This time I went for the sheer spectacle, and because I wanted to hear songs by The Breeders, Stevie Nicks, Sleater-Kinney, and Bikini Kill live. But here's the thing: as soon as 'Bikini Kill' started, it became clear that they were doing more than playing Bikini Kill songs.

The long slate of 'opening' bands that night was comprised of many recognizable young women who play with a number of local New York bands. They were one night only combos of some of my favorite hometown punk feminist heroes (a.k.a. some of my favorite girls in the world.) They were all playing someone else's songs -- but these girls were all still themselves, playing someone else's songs.

Flyer for the 2010 Riot Grrrl and Women-fronted Band Cover Show

'Bikini Kill,' on the other hand, was clearly impersonating Bikini Kill. Before they began, 'Kathleen' had a volunteer from the audience help her write 'SLUT' on her stomach in lipstick. She mimicked Kathleen Hanna's voice perfectly, and began their set by announcing "We're Bikini Kill..." When the entire audience answered, "...and we want revolution, grrrl style now!" it almost knocked the wind out of me. Yes, last year's 'Bikini Kill' started their set the same way. But the feeling that you're not alone, that you're not the only one who still sings these songs never gets old.

III.

In the days after the show, I tried to figure out what 'Bikini Kill' was doing. I had this feeling that they'd done something very specific and deliberate, but was having trouble describing it. I kept thinking that it felt more like a Civil War battle reenactment than a show, but I couldn't explain it any better than that.

A few days later, Tobi Vail helped me put it all together. A quote from her review of Marisa Meltzer's new book helped it to make sense. Vail writes, "The book made me think a lot about documenting history from a strategic perspective. How could this story be told to incite participation in girls?"

Why do people do Civil War reenactments, why do places like Colonial Williamsburg exist? They're strategic uses of history, meant to entertain, to educate, to commemorate events that are supposed to be significant to U.S. national history. Battle reenactments are rituals that enshrine the act of war, the spilling of blood, as a process central to the making of the United States as a nation.

I don't know about you, readers, but the act of war and the spilling of blood could not be less enshrined for me. However: Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Excuse 17, The Gossip, and Riot Grrrl and its descendants in general, are a different story.

These Anti-Valentine's Day shows, and Gimme Cooties, are rescuing the history of Riot Grrrl and bringing it to the center. Organizer Kathi Ko, with support from For the Birds (a feminist collective and distro), and help from surely many others, is taking this history, and everything it stands for, and making it apart of a current narrative. But this is about more than 'enshrining' or 'commemorating' a romanticized view of Riot Grrrl. This is about using history strategically, with the intention of opening up and continuing this history. This is about using shows, comp cds, and music from current bands to incite participation.

And the organizers of the show are doing so in a way that is fantastically subversive. These shows masquerade as just shows, as events with live music and liquor and general merriment. Both years, I went expecting nothing but music and general merriment, and I left feeling completely changed. I left those shows feeling inspired, feeling like I belonged to something, feeling like Riot Grrrl/punk/feminism, despite a lot of recent naysayery, are not dead, and neither am I. In other other words, I came out of that show with a scorching case of cooties. And I couldn't be happier about it.

Get your own case of cooties! Order a copy of Gimme Cooties from For the Birds!

Doing Women's History (and futures) with zines!

2010-03-12T14:08:00.004-05:00

Readers, I'm pleased to help spread the word about these two upcoming projects: not one, but TWO zines pertaining to the Riot Grrrl legacy are being planned as we speak!

Fellow zinestress and blogger Amber is working on a perzine on the all important and all but ignored issue of jealousy, awkwardness, and self-consciousness amongst scene girls, and how girls can deal with it. The zine will include "reading recommendations, distro listings, perzine-y stuff and a brief outline of riot grrrl (and why I think that riot grrrl ideas are still relevant today)". Amber is interested in people's opinions, so go check out her blog post to find out more (and to also check out a sweet picture of a rad RG tattoo)!

Sisters in the struggle Stacy Konkiel of Soul Ponies and Kate Wadkins have just put out a call for submissions for their International Girl Gang Underground Zine. Check out the sweet flyer:

I want to point out that both of these zines are open to a wide range of opinions on Riot Grrrl as a sociopolitical movement. As Amber says, her zine "won't necessarily be all "rah rah rah! riot grrrl rules!" If you're against the revival, feel free to share that opinion." In a special statement, Stacy and Kate disavow that "Riot grrrl, while being a vital movement within punk rock for many people, has a reputation for exclusion."

Amber, Stacy, and Kate aren't on some sort of nostalgia trip. They're committed to addressing the movement's failures and problems, and to adapting and creating a more inclusive punk feminist art culture. "I'm of the belief that we can talk about these things and try to improve upon them," writes Amber. Stacy and Kate are upfront about encouraging POC, trans/queer/genderqueer/ally folks, "including transguys and cisguys," to send in submissions.

In other words: these zines are the perfect place to start asking questions around big issues, and problems like the ones I was just blogging about earlier this week! If you have concerns about punk politics and activism, about building community across racial, class, sex, gender, and other social lines, about how to have productive discussions about these and other difficult topics, this is where you should start! So get out your Big Chief tablet, your Moleskine, your marble notebook, your word processor of choice and your favorite pen and get writing already. The movement needs your voice!

Hump Day Treat, Ambivalent '90s Heroine Edition

2010-03-10T12:23:00.002-05:00

So today, we're jumping into the ol' flying delorean and punching 1993 into the keypad on the dash. That's right, we're going back Liz Phair's celebrated debut release, Exile in Guyville.

A recent photo of LP, and one of her many very attractive guitars, in concert.

Ever since I saw a paper on Liz Phair listed on the Sarah Lawrence Women's History Conference, I've been on a bit of an old school LP kick. The paper was called "'If Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville Made You a Feminist, What Kind of Feminist Are You?': Heterosexuality, Race, and Class in the Third Wave", and author Elizabeth K. Keenan does a fine job of praising Phair's accomplishments, while still critiquing the way Phair has let the music industry and media meddle with her image. The paper hasn't been published yet, but I look forward to geeking out over it when it does. In the meantime, enjoy a very '90s looking Liz Phair video on this sunny hump day.

Doing Women's History at the Sarah Lawrence Women's History Conference

2010-03-09T14:07:00.003-05:00

So, I wrote last week about how Women's History Month is useful because it provides with an opportunity to talk about women's history, and it gives us a time frame that we can organize around. Women's History Month gives us a chance to put together events to heighten our own, and others' awareness of women's history and how it's constructed.

This past Saturday, I attended a good example of this: The Sarah Lawrence Women's History Conference.

The theme of this year's conference happened to be sex, gender, and feminism within music (I'm still a bit shocked at just how perfect it was for me, personally). Not only did I get to attend, but I had also had the honor and privilege of presenting; I was a member of the Riot Grrrl History panel (Check out the full schedule). I spoke for twenty minutes about bodily images and experience in Corin Tucker's songwriting, and I was really thrilled at the questions I received afterward from the participants. Our entire panel was really interesting, and went very well, and I think everyone enjoyed it; or, I know that I certainly did.

But I don't want to talk so much about my panel and the knowledge that I am relatively comfortable with. No, today I want to focus on the questions that were on my mind after the conference. Because that's the point of this sort of event: yes, you share what you've learned and what you've worked on, and you chat with other people who are doing similar projects, and you nibble on delicious finger foods, and you feel all fancy for a single day out of your grubby grad school existence. But I think you're supposed to leave with more questions than answers.

After participating in my panel and attending the fantastic Womyn Song panel, and after spending a day in the company of feminist musicians and serious critical thinkers, I found myself thinking a lot about issues within Riot Grrrl and other '90s music made by women. I found myself thinking about issues I've already considered, but that I think I might have forgotten about in my excitement over the recent revival of feminist punk and art going on in my hometown. Here are a few of them.

1. Riot Grrrl and inclusivity. One of the greatest things about this conference was how inclusive it was. Theory and practice, history and present day issues, pop, folk, hip hop, Latin, and rock music, and especially issues of race and class in all these genres -- the conference covered all of this and more. But I, myself, picked a panel on Liz Phair, Lilith Fair, and the woman-born-woman policy at the Michigan Womyn's Festival. Both this panel, and the one I presented at, were attended largely by fair-skinned young women. This made me think about my attention to race within punk. I used to be much more concerned with the Latino presence in rock, and punk especially, but I haven't written about this in a long time. Lately, I've been focused on my own herstory with Riot Grrrl, but I haven't written about my experience as a fair-skinned Latina who listens to rock music and participates in other aspects of 'gringo' culture.

2. Rock and Imperialism. Listening to the delightful Julia Downes talk about her experience with Riot Grrrl in the UK reminded me that the movement did, in fact, cross many borders, and have an impact in many countries in Europe, and in several Latin American nations as well. I've done some reading on how Latin American governments felt the rock explosion of the 1960s was a colonialist threat to their cultures, and I'm working on a project about these issues as they pertain to Emo culture in Mexico City. So why haven't I questioned Riot Grrrl in this way? Why aren't we having conversations about punk, feminism, and the so-called 'Third World' -- both the 'Third World' outside of the US, and the 'Third World' that exists right here within our borders, within my city?

3. Only one way to deal with it. While hanging out by the For the Birds table later in the afternoon, I had a chat with tabler Jessy about some of these issues around Riot Grrrl and the difficulties it encountered in handling racism and classism. I think there's some opposition to the revival of Riot Grrrl on the grounds that it was a failure in this way, and we talked about bringing back this particular feminist punk movement as a way to question and maybe even solve these problems, rather than gloss over them. Writing a movement off because it wasn't perfect doesn't accomplish very much. But facing it head on, and finding other people who are willing to ask these questions and deal with these issues can be productive.

And after you find people to have these conversations with, you confront the futher difficulty of learning how to talk and express your opinions respectfully. You learn, or hopefully anyway, how to participate in meaningful dialogue that enriches everyone involved.

These are only some of the issues I hope to be more cognizant of in the coming weeks here at Rock and the Single Girl. I hope that I won't be alone in all of this, and I hope that readers out there will share your thoughts and concerns!

Hump Day Treat, La Mamma Morta Edition

2010-03-03T12:26:00.001-05:00

This song always reminds me of my mother. I'm thinking about her on this hump day, and every other day of my life.

March Radness: It's Women's History Month!

2010-03-02T18:40:00.001-05:00

You might be able to guess this just from reading this blog, but, as far as I'm concerned, every month is Women's History Month, especially here at Rock and the Single Girl. But I think that this institution exists precisely for the purpose of providing an opportunity to talk not only about women in history, but also to talk about what history, and its documentation, really mean for girls and women.

Musician and blogger Kate Wadkins and I have been talking about documentation, but this conversation is definitely bigger than just the two of us. Many of the so-called original Riot Grrrls, such as the members of Bratmobile, Emily's Sassy Lime, Heavens to Betsy, and Bikini Kill have participated in interviews for documentaries and museum exhibitions on Riot Grrrl. Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna recently admitted to currently being 'obsessed with archiving', having just donated her papers to NYU's Riot Grrrl collection, and former band mate Tobi Vail has been thinking about "documenting history from a strategic perspective." Bloggers like Kate, Stacy at Soul Ponies, and myself are interested in the same issues, and I think we're all interested in getting as many young women to join the discussion as possible.

But rather than merely 'discuss' documentation, the way to really understand why recording history is important is to actually do it yourself. As kids, we learn about History with a capital H, a grand and dominant narrative of conquest, war, plunder, and exploitative production. It's a narrative that has little to do with us, and which I imagine has little meaning for most kids.

What we don't learn is that history is happening constantly, that it's a process with no real end, and that it's built on the stories and lives of normal, everyday people. When we write our stories, our herstories, we write our own narratives, and this is an incredibly powerful activity.

When you take the time to write your story, you contribute your voice to History with a capital H. But I think it's more important to document your life for you! I think it feels really good to take time to focus on you, and the things you do on a daily basis that are important in your life. Even the most seemingly mundane details of your existence, like interactions with your family members and friends, the things that happen to you at school or work, the way you spend a weeknight where you choose to stay in, can be worth remembering. You are worth remembering, worth reading about, and your experience has the potential to illuminate future generations. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

So ladies, in honor of women's history month, and the women who've come before you: get out your diaries, journals and sketchbooks. Access your livejournals, blogs, and twitters. Break out your scrapbooks, cameras, and zining supplies, and get to the fun, frustrating, cathartic, liberating work of documenting your life. Get to the work of making a record of you.

Hump Day Treat, National Eating Disorder Awareness Week Edition

2010-02-24T11:03:00.001-05:00

Did you know that it's National Eating Disorder Awareness Week? Yeah, neither did I, until I read it on Feministing.

Is such a week necessary? I would say so, considering that I, myself, have not given much thought to eating disorders in some time. There's a lot going on in the world these days, and I bet I'm not the only person who's had her mind on other things. Also, I haven't heard anything about eating disorders in a long time; I haven't seen any magazine or newspaper reports about them, haven't heard about any actresses or athletes suffering from them, haven't so much as seen a Lifetime movie about a girl with an eating disorder.

So here's an important reminder, courtesy of Sonic Youth: eating disorders are deadly. Anorexia killed Karen Carpenter, one of the most famous women of her day. Sonic Youth's ode to Carpenter suggests that Carpenter's illness was related to her unhappiness with fame, and her feeling powerless as a mega-produced pop star.

If someone as successful, popular, and wealthy as Karen Carpenter could feel so miserably out of control, then who isn't at risk? Just something to think about on this snowy hump day.

Warning: this video is really sad...and really weird.

Jessica Valenti, Tobi Vail, and Kathleen Hanna talk about feminism and strategy.

2010-02-23T15:58:00.004-05:00

So I had a really major, massive blog post planned for today. I was really excited about it...and then I got sick. Sadly, the constant coughing, sneezing, and drowsiness effectively prevented me from getting my post written.

So instead, I am going to post some of the things I've read and watched over the past few days. I humbly offer a window into some of the literature that has been influencing my thinking recently, and some of the issues that have managed to stay on my mind despite my runny nose, foghorn cough, and laryngitis. Enjoy!

1.Breaking news from Jessica Valenti:
One of my heroes and favorite Feministing writers, Jessica Valenti has a killer column up on the Washington Post's website:For women in America, equality is still an illusion.

I'll admit that this article is kind of a downer, but at the same time, there is something oddly empowering about it. It's nice to have someone articulate, without self-pity or apology, just how difficult it is to be a woman in the United States, even as we become more empowered and figure out the best ways to win real equality for ourselves.

2. A provocative quote from Tobi Vail:
I read this fantastic quote over at Suck My Left One:

"The book made me think a lot about documenting history from a strategic perspective. How could this story be told to incite participation in girls?"

It's from Tobi Vail's review of Marisa Meltzer's new book, Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music. And it cuts straight to heart of why history, and why documentation, are so important. History is used strategically by those in power on a near-constant basis; that we don't tend to notice it kind of shows that it works. Can punk feminist musicians, writers, historians, artists, etc. use their history strategically, and directly incorporate it into their activism? I think some of us already are. Today's thwarted post will get finished, eventually, and get more into that.

3. Kathleen Hanna and her glasses do an interview.

There is so much good stuff in this interview that I can't even remember exactly what I wanted to put here. (I blame my medicine, it's making me spaceyyyy.) But I do remember that she talks about being obsessed with archiving, which hooks right into Tobi Vail's comments on using history strategically.

In general, I love how Kathleen talks about feminism in the present tense. I love how she addresses both personal and general problems within the movement, and seems to speak from the perspective of both a leader and a follower, if that makes sense.

But as she herself admits, Kathleen has made mistakes. Some of the things she's done have certainly been criticized by other feminists and activists. But again, that's something we'll have to get into later, when I finally recover my health.

Hump Day Treat, Anti-V-Day Edition

2010-02-17T12:44:00.001-05:00

I blogged yesterday about The Anti-Valentine's Day Riot Grrrl Cover Band Show. Because it's a night of one-off cover bands, part of the point is that you get to hear songs you know, by bands that matter to you. Both last year and this time around, I went because I wanted to hear live versions of songs by my dear Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill, both of whom are no longer together. (I believe that there's a deep significance to the performance of songs by these particular bands, especially Bikini Kill, and trust me, we're gonna talk about that later.) But one of my favorite moments during this past Sunday's grrrl-a-palooza happened during a song I'd never heard before.

I mentioned in my last post that "The Breeders" were on the bill. I am forced to admit that I'm a lazy Breeders fan, the kind who only has Last Splash. So I wasn't really surprised when I didn't recognize the last song of "The Breeders'" set. But I was very surprised when I noticed that absolutely everyone around me, both ladies and gents, were singing along to every word, swaying and bouncing, closing their eyes and clutching at their chests as they repeated the song's chorus over and over again with the band.

Naturally, I went home and googled what I could remember of the song's lyrics, and found that it was actually a Pixies song that The Breeders have been known to include in their live shows. (I don't really know the Pixies very well. Yeah, I know, how I can blog about modern rock and punk if I don't know the Pixies? I'm getting on it, okay, cut me a break!)

So enjoy this incredibly rare public admission of ignorance, and a really wonderful, apparently well-known Pixies song on this fine, bright hump day.

Technical Difficulties, Revisited

2010-02-16T13:56:00.003-05:00

Okay, so, I know that I said in my last post that we should all embrace the science and technology that enables the production and performance of popular music, that we should learn as much as we can about it. But just this past Sunday, I witnessed a different, but quite practical way to deal with technical difficulties in the live setting.

On Sunday night I was lucky enough to be at 1087's second (hopefully!?) annual Anti-Valentine's Day Riot Grrrl Cover Band Show. This is an event in which our favorite local hometown heroines from bands like Carnal Knowledge, Homewreckers, Each Other's Mothers, Death First, The Measure (SA) and more come together in various combinations to cover songs by grrrl bands like Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, The Gossip, and others. This year the show branched out to include non-riot lady punk and rock by The Muffs, The Breeders, and....Stevie Nicks?

The second performer of the evening, "Stevie" (who I believe is known to most as Saiya, bass player for Scantron?) took on both vocal and bass duties, and was backed by an older woman with an acoustic guitar and an accordion. Between the off-color between song banter, "Stevie's" tilted platinum blonde wig, and the unlikely arrangement, it was difficult to read the performance's tone. It had nowhere near the focus and serious of a 'real' set of original songs, but it wasn't entirely comical, either. As the performers went through the set, there were times when it was hard to tell if they were intentionally being funny.

The other thing about the set is that "Stevie" and the band couldn't seem to get through an entire song without some sort of equipment failure. Broken strings, dead microphones, falling microphones -- if it could go wrong, it did. Perhaps the one song that didn't face this fate was "Edge of Seventeen", which they didn't actually play; instead they performed a dramatic reading of the lyrics. (This, of course, was a moment of deliberate, pre-meditated humor.)

I'll admit to being a serious Fleetwood Mac fan, as well as a fan of Stevie Nicks' solo work. So when they started "The Chain", I was both excited and bummed. Excited to hear one of my favorite songs, but bummed because I didn't expect them to make it to the end of the song, which is of course the best part.

Before "The Chain", as the show's organizers and the band were struggling to make adjustments to the sound and the equipment to keep everything running, "Stevie" made a bold announcement: "Okay, everything is broken," she admitted, "so you have to help us by singing along! Come on!"

Believe it or not, it worked. The audience participated enthusiastically during the first half of "The Chain", myself most definitely included. When the wheels started to sort of come off during the last rousing round of "I would never break the chain!", I frowned, thinking of that great bassline, and how we were so close to it, but how "Stevie" wouldn't even get to it. The song screeched to an awkward halt, and the audience waited, unsure of how to react. It felt like an entire minute of silence elapsed, as the band tried to right itself.

And then, "Stevie's" bass boomed back to life, with that fantastic bass line that ends "The Chain", that bass line that I would argue is perhaps one of the most important in the history of rock music, one that I myself have played many times for my own personal amusement. (I know from experience: it's not the hardest line to play technically, but it is a challenge to play it with the right mix of resentment, aggression, and general dissatisfaction.)

Fleetwood Mac - The Chain (Live 1997)
by newcanadian

Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain", from their 1997 video The Dance, which I totally own and have watched many times. Skip to 3:35 for The Bass Line.

When "Stevie" came back with that solo, I let out the sort of cheer that deafens the people standing next to you, and when the entire band came back on, we all joined in for the final refrains of "The cha-ai-ain will keep us together!" It was something small, an entirely ephemeral moment which somehow seemed to capture the very meaning of the the evening, the show, the entire New York City grrrl underground. The band, with the help of the audience, channelled the spirit of doing it yourself, doing it together, and doing it whether or not you have the 'right' equipment, and whether or not you know exactly what you're doing.

For those twenty minutes, Stevie and her band took a lot of risks, put themselves out there, put up with lots of problems, and asked us to help them deal with it. And we did -- we didn't judge them, we didn't laugh at them, we didn't go out for a smoke or to get a drink at the Dominican convenience store across the street. Instead we laughed with them, cheered them on, and sang when it was appropriate. We even sang when it wasn't appropriate; the audience forced the band to make an unlikely segue from "Landslide" to "Go Your Own Way" when we started singing it before "Landslide" was quite over.

And I suppose that the moral of this story is that performances will always be rife with problems. Standing up there in front of an audience will always be a risk; there will always be a chance that your equipment might malfunction, or that you'll just forget what you're doing. But "Stevie Nicks" and co. demonstrated, much to my delight, that there's no technical difficulty that can't be overcome by a willing, persevering band, and an even-more willing, present, participating audience.

Blinding Us with Science.

2010-02-12T12:18:00.001-05:00

Recently I saw a commercial, and I actually paid attention to it -- mostly because it was so creepy. It was about how America "will dominate once again," and how the way to ensure America's return to the top of the world order is to focus on training America's youth in math, science, and technology.

Mildly panicked, I thought, "But wait, surely not at the expense of arts education!" I had a flashback to my middle and high school years. To my competing, but equally fervent interests in creative writing and forensic medicine. To being told by my incredibly ineffective, mean-spirited eighth grade science teacher that I wasn't really 'cut out for science', and how it kept me from going to a prestigious science high school even though I aced the qualifying examination. To how I joined orchestra in high school, and how it was the only thing I really liked about school. To how I had a brief affair with physics junior year, but didn't have the self-esteem to really work at it, or the confidence to even admit that I loved it.

In the United States, and maybe the whole Western world, we're given this dichotomy of art and humanities versus science and math. As if it's unnatural to be good at both, or even enjoy both. More troubling is the needlessly gendered view that girls are supposed to enjoy the humanities, and that boys are supposed to prefer science and math, and that girls and boys who deviate from this standard are somehow gender deviant.

Unbelievably, not long after I saw that commercial (gah, I wish I could find it, if anyone knows what the hell I'm talking about, please say something, I don't even remember what the commercial was for!), I got a call from my BFF, who was upset after a long day of 'technical difficulties' with her computer's recording software. She's an experienced musician, who's recorded a staggering number of her own songs, but she claims that she still feels frustrated and upset by her limited technical understanding of digital audio recording.

I wondered how many girls out there, like my BFF, are buying and using digital recording software and equipment, despite not completely 'understanding' it. As I was admiring these young women and their gumption, I thought: "Wow -- music, even a lo-fi genre of it like punk -- is seriously built on a lot of 'science and technology', huh?" On top of the biology of playing an instrument, and the neuroscience of how our brains process audio and visual signals, there's the more obvious science of amplification, recording, and acoustic design.

I want to highlight the science of music and music performance for a couple reasons. First, I want girls (well, and boys too) who play music to recognize that even if they don't completely 'understand' the technology and science of the music, they are actively engaged with both, and that as a result, they possess a unique intelligence that I think most of mainstream society can't appreciate.

Second, there's an entire side of the music business that's based on technology, one that women have been effectively been shut out of for a long time. While it seems it's slowly changing, the reality is that there aren't enough women in audio production, engineering, live sound, or the development of musical technologies. And I wonder if women don't go into the field in larger numbers because they, like my eighth grade self, were somehow discouraged from pursuing it, either by an unsupportive individual or society's broader messages.

The only way to fix this is to heighten our awareness of the technology that makes music possible, and also the technology that enables the documentation of music and performance. We feminist musicians need to reject this dichotomy that not only separates art from science, but also the assumption that science is somehow 'superior', as well as the instinct to flip that dichotomy and say that art is superior instead. Instead of resisting technology and the sexism that can sometimes come with it, we need to embrace it, learn to harness it, and use it to make ourselves better musicians. And then we need to learn to share that knowledge, and use it to educate and empower future generations of feminist musicians.

Hump Day Treat, To Spain with Love Edition

2010-02-10T12:15:00.006-05:00

Let me divulge one of my compulsions: whenever one of my friends posts lyrics on facebook, I absolutely have to answer with the following verse.

And this was how I got thinking about Rilo Kiley. One of my friends posted part of their first single from their last album, Under the Blacklight. I kind of lost track of the band after that record, because I wasn't entirely into the seedy '70s Los Angeles concept. I was pretty enamored of their first two records though, especially during my undergraduate days, and I saw them live at least four times during that period.

Rilo Kiley is not, and has never been what you'd describe as 'punk', and I don't really think that anyone would describe their band as feminist either. But I'll give them this -- they're fronted by Jenny Lewis. And she might not be punk or feminist either, but I admire and appreciate her songwriting. In her songs, Lewis refuses to represent herself or others as simple, one dimensional figures, and she fearlessly documents and tackles fear, anxiety, unhappiness, ambivalence, and lots of other messy, sometimes shameful emotions that most of us would probably rather not discuss, much less sing about. And so we invite you to enjoy Lewis's suffering on this snowy hump day.

Rilo Kiley: Live at the Ford Amphtheater from John Welch on Vimeo.

Port Au Prince Calling.

2010-02-05T15:16:00.003-05:00

Lately I've been talking a lot about 'community'. I've been talking about how important it is for us to take care of each other, and to make our scenes as positive, helpful, and aware as possible. These beliefs are the logical result of independent, anti-corporate punk ideas, as well as feminist theory.

I started listening to punk because it addressed social issues. The Sex Pistols whined about feeling cheated, The Clash more eloquently addressed the struggles of the British working class and militarism in the 'Third' World, Bikini Kill talked about institutionalized sexism, and epidemics of rape and domestic violence. I got involved with punk because I wanted to do something, to make a difference, to call attention to these issues and demand that people act. And I'm sure I'm not the only woman who started listening to and making this music because of this.

So why, then, do I feel so conflicted about helping Haiti?

Haiti's story -- hit by earthquake, major damage, needs help, let's go -- might seem straightforward. Let me tell you why it isn't. Unlike some assholes (David Brooks, Anne Applebaum, Paul Shirley), I know Haiti's history. And I know that long before this earthquake, Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, was in a desperate situation.

Haiti's poverty is the result of imperialism. People like Brooks, Applebaum and Shirley -- wealthy Anglo 'First'-world citizens -- want to blame Haiti's culture, for being 'progress-resistant'. Really? So the culture of the nation that gave us our first successful slave revolt, the nation that waged a revolution against Napoleon and won, the nation that rebuilt itself with no help from Western powers and almost succeeded, and has continued to survive despite crushing debt, US military intervention, and US-installed dictators is 'progress-resistant'? Really? That's Haiti's biggest problem?

What people don't understand is that Haiti was colony. And the colonial relationship is, in effect, the ultimate abusive relationship. Even after a victim of abuse escapes her abuser, that victim is left with serious trust and self-esteem issues that are painful to work through. The abuse victim is very vulnerable, and want to repeat patterns, and experience more abuse.

And as deeply as strongly as I feel about Haiti's current problems being rooted in previous broaches of their national sovereignty, my bitterness and cynicism made me want to refuse outright to help Haiti. As I see it, the United States, France, and the US-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund are responsible for Haiti's poverty, and that I don't really want to help them to "help" Haiti. (For the record: I wonder if there are other politically active punks who feel this way. Is anyone else out there looking at this situation from this perspective?)

Despite these feelings, I went to a Forum on Haiti sponsored by my university. I went mostly because some professors in my department were scheduled to speak; one colleague took down David Brook's aforementioned article point by point and placed it within an on-going racist and ethnocentric Western discourse on Haiti and its problems and another colleague spoke about the long history and contributions of Haitian Americans. Still other professors spoke about different, less-known charities and activist groups they've worked with in Haiti, since long before this January's earthquake.

It will sound cheesy, but I left that forum feeling truly inspired by professors and their friends who have been working to solve Haiti's long-term systemic problems. I left feeling really appreciative of my colleagues, and their expertise, and their strong convictions about the racist treatment Haiti has received since its independence in 1804. I left wanting to do more for Haiti than contribute to earthquake relief, and wanting to encourage others to do more, as well. Whether or not you have money or resources to donate, here are some supplementary activities you and your friends can do for yourselves:

1. Donate smart. There have already been reports of fake and phony organizations swindling generous people out of money; make sure that you're helping a reputable group. But just as importantly, try to give to groups that are interested in Haiti in a long term way. Haiti needs immediate help, yes -- but it also needs help with building a new and better government, new school systems, and a new health care system, and that's just to start. Consider getting involved in Haiti's rebuilding efforts as well as earthquake relief.

2. Learn about Haiti. Some of the bloggers and writers I mentioned in this article are treating Haiti like some lump of land populated by savage, stupid animals rather than human beings. Haiti's culture is under attack, so if you can, fight the power by reading about Haiti and its art, and its religion.

3. Learn about colonialism. If you do nothing else, or learn nothing else from what's happened to Haiti, please: donate your own intellectual energy and time to the important task of learning about the forces that made Haiti the way it is. You don't have to learn or read particularly about Haiti; you can just as easily read about Africa, South East Asia, or Latin America. You can read about Puerto Rico, which is a colony right now, as we speak and read. Learn about the way the so-called 'Third World' was made. It's the only way we can learn to resist, for ourselves and for others.

4. Fight the Shock Doctrine. The history of neo/colonialism in our world is intimately linked to right wing, US-dominated economic institutions. Do not, under any circumstances, support the policies of groups like The World Bank or The International Monetary Fund. They are attempting to use this natural disaster to force fatalistic austerity policies on an already over-burdened island. Go to No Shock Doctrine For Haiti to learn more.

***This post is dedicated to my friend Kitty, and her strength and courage. Thanks for being a great professor and friend to us all.***

Hump Day Treat, DO Ask, and DO Tell! Doubleheader

2010-02-03T12:54:00.002-05:00

Right now, US Americans are debating a big, gay issue (or at least, our government is): all day yesterday, the big news was about the Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) hearings. For those of you outside of the US, DADT is a policy that effectively excludes the homos from serving in our Armed Forces, the logic being that men in uniform will trust each other and work together better if, you know, the gay ones are forced to lie about their love lives.

Yeah -- it sounds absurd. But it's a lot more sobering when you consider that many highly qualified, compassionate men and women have been discharged from the army just for being gay. Par example: Lt. Daniel Choi, a West Point graduate who bravely came out on national television, and has since become an LGBTQ activist.

This is the sort of thing that reminds us punk, diy, somewhat cloistered queers that systemic homophobia is alive and well. Watching Rachel Maddow, and seeing clips of congressmen talk about the need to keep gay service people on the down low brought me right back to my junior year of high school. I felt like I was 16 and terrified of 'coming out' all over again.

And of course, this made me think of Team Dresch. Blatantly political, sickeningly talented, and all around dyketastic, this old school Portland queercore quartet and their Personal Best LP got me through high school. And so we salute them on this hump day.

Even punk girls get the blues.

2010-01-29T15:04:00.003-05:00

Last summer, the lovely and talented Hana Malia, with whom I am proud to have volunteered, turned me on to the idea of being prepared for emotional hardships and crises. She explained to me the simple and effective practice of having a box filled with phone numbers of loved ones, photos from happy times, mix cds of comforting music -- in short, a box full of things you know will elevate your mood.

A former Girl Scout to the core, this idea of being prepared for such a crises, just as you would prepare for for a natural disaster, makes total sense to me.

This makes less sense to me: last night, after a very trying week of school-related miseries, interpersonal breakdowns, bleak weather, and thinking about Haiti, Howard Zinn, and J.D. Salinger, I found myself huddled in a shaking mass on my bed. And I found out the hard way that the mix cds in my proverbial box o'coping methods are of angry, aggressive, politically-oriented music. When I am hurt or upset, my instinct is to listen to my favorite local bands and the ladies who inspire me the most -- bands like The Shondes, Cheeky, The Two Funerals, Scantron, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Zombie Dogs, Sleater-Kinney, among others.

It seems counterintuitive even to me to use rock and punk for such a purpose. Rock music has traditionally been made and performed with the intent of confronting, informing, and provoking, right? I know that my friends who listen to and play punk and hardcore do so because they want to challenge and be challenged.

I think partly because of my punk feminist beliefs, I tend to feel embarrassed when I'm upset by something. I know 'rationally' that feelings like sadness, loneliness, and despondence are perfectly normal, and that feelings aren't ever wrong, because they're subjective. But I can't get over this feeling that I'm being weak, and I wonder if my colleagues, and the girls in my circle of friends and acquaintances ever feel this type of shame.

I want to say this for both myself and for other girls who are struggling to balance being an emotional, functional human being with being a strong person: even the strongest, fiercest, most confident ladypunks get upset. The toughest, most anti-cheesy sentimentality, most hardcore diy of us female musicians, music writers, photographers, videographers, organizers, and promoters have days where we feel inadequate. We have days where we just feel bad, whether it's because of challenges at work, at home, with friends, or wherever. Even though the world is always demanding that all women, of all backgrounds, are required to constantly be perfectly happy and able to give of our time and energy.

And because we all have these negative and hard-to-manage feelings, I advocate a) having these feelings and learning to not feel bad about them and b) Hana's box. I have to admit that I haven't made an actual box, but I do have a sort of mental box, or mental list of things that I know will make me feel better. Here are some of the ones at the very top:

1. Will, Grace and Rachel Maddow. I know, I know: television doesn't seem like it has much to offer these days. But the fabulous genderqueerness and neurotically selfish antics on Will and Grace both make me laugh and remind me of home. On the other side of it, Rachel Maddow helps to keep me informed, and her reporting on big issues helps me to keep perspective. Also, how classy and clever is she? Watching her graceful takedowns of conservative pundits never fails to revive my faith in humanity.

2. The Girls Are and feministmusicgeek. Yes, I've already talked up feministmusicgeek, but I feel the need to do so again. Author Alyx Vesey never seems to have quite the same take on any given issue as I do, but she seems to care about a lot of the same issues around women and their access to music and performance as me. Her blog always makes me feel less alone. At the same time The Girls Are makes me feel less alone by supplying info and interviews with more and new underground girl and girl-oriented bands than I ever dreamed I could find all in one place. Their choices are impeccable, their writing is funny and sharp, and the blog is, in general, quite inspiring.

3. More Corin. My love of Corin Tucker is well documented in various places within this blog. The truth of it is that Corin is my most cherished feminist artist hero. So when I'm feeling sapped of my energy and drive, I read and watch interviews with her, and I remind myself of what I'm working for.

4. More talking. There's a lot to be said for being self-sufficient, and it's important to be able to take care of your emotions, yes. But that doesn't mean you always have to do everything alone -- a lesson my friends and I seem to keep learning, in new and different ways. I know that I personally find it hard to depend on others, but it's important to trust your friends and family to be supportive, and to tell them when something is bothering you. It's important to our individual well-being to be able to share our feelings, and it's important for our relationships.

And I'd even argue that it's important for our 'scenes': if you can't trust those closest to you, and build those relationships, how can you expect to trust your fellow musicians and colleagues, and to help build communities?

Hump Day Treat, New Semester Edition

2010-01-27T15:03:00.003-05:00

The end of January means returning yet again to books, papers, exams, teachers, and the stress that they bring. I myself never, ever look forward to the end of January.

But it seems that this year the end of January also brings us "Repulsion", the new single from Portland trio Quasi! Released just yesterday, and available for download FREE at Kill Rock Stars, the song will be first track on the band's upcoming album, American Gong, which comes out on February 23. In celebration, witness the trio's signature fuzzed out guitars, Beach Boys-esque chorusing vocals, and inimitably majestic Janet Weiss-provided percussion on this hump day.

BONUS JONAS: Kill Rock Stars has a sweet deal going, they'll be sending dvds of Quasi's New Years' Eve show out with all pre-orders of American Gong. The best part? The New Year's Eve show was ALL covers of The Who! (Janet playing Keith Moon? Yes please.) It has to be seen to be believed, so check it:

Blog for Choice 2010: Trust (Punk Feminist?) Women.

2010-01-22T19:16:00.003-05:00

For Today, January 22, 2010, Rock and the Single Girl is (sort of) taking a break from its regularly scheduled programming to participate in the fifth annual Blog for Choice! This year's theme is Trust Women. For more information, go here.

On the night of October 18, 2008, I was feeling anxious. I was at the Stolen Sleeves Collective, waiting to see Carnal Knowledge's final performance, and I was feeling awkward at this place that I'd never been to, in a room full of people I didn't know very well. It was a cozy, inviting loft space, but still, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the entire experience.

The crowd was pleasingly diverse, as was the line-up of opening bands. But for all the punk girl power associated with Carnal Knowledge and its peers, I was feeling intimidated by the major dude presence at the show. I figured that Carnal Knowledge's male fan and friend base would be respectful and conscientious of the women in the audience. But I was still nervous.

Because I, like many women, have learned to fear first and ask questions later. I've been taught that men cannot be held responsible for their bodies, for the space they occupy, and the boundaries they might breach. I've learned that as a woman, a non-man, I have to be doubly responsible, that I have to maintain constant vigilance of my surroundings.

As Carnal Knowledge was starting its first song of that evening, I was doing just that: I was standing somewhere in the middle of the audience, arms crossed over my chest like armor, struggling to watch and listen to everything going on while not touching anyone around me, especially the very tall young men flanking me on both sides.

The band roared to life, a cacophony of crushing distorted guitars, ballistic drumming and ferocious feminist voices screaming about exactly what I was worried about at that moment -- my right to comfort and space unfettered by male control of influence.

A lot of enthusiastic dancing was starting to happening around me, but it wasn't violent or intrusive. I no longer felt suspicious of anyone in the audience with me; something about the music had temporarily equalized all of us and suspended some of our differences. Captivated by Carnal Knowledge's performance, and also by the heartfelt enthusiasm of the crowd, I thought to myself: Nothing is going to happen to me. And if something does, it won't be ignored or tolerated. I'm safe here.

Much of the credit goes to the bands that performed that evening; most of the people at the show that night were there to support them, and to pay their final respects to Carnal Knowledge, a tough quintet of unabashed hardcore punk fan feminists. These girls are seriously some of the nicest kids I've ever met -- and they're also exactly who I'd want on my side if I were to ever get jumped. In other words, their strength, and their ability to project their fearlessness from onstage, is a large part of what made me feel safe.

That night, I looked around, at the very same people that I'd worried earlier about not really knowing, and thought that I trusted them. I especially trusted the young women there.

Trust women: I know that Dr. Tiller's button wasn't talking about mosh pits or diy shows in Brooklyn lofts...but it sort of could have been. That night, and at every show I've been to since, I have trusted the women around me, with my life. If I can trust them to take a communal, supportive type of responsibility for me and the other people around us, I most certainly trust them with their own lives. Without question, I trust them to make the reproductive choices that are right for themselves, whatever the choice might be. I trust women's choices.

I realize that the girls I'm talking about, the women at these shows, are not like all women. Not all women are feminist punk artists, whose ideas are so like my own. But if I could learn to trust a roomful of women -- and even men -- whom I barely knew, during a single punk show, trusting women in general doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.

Hump Day Treat, Reader Feedback Edition

2010-01-20T12:28:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago Maggie of Rocker Repro commented on a post here and mentioned The Third Sex. Anyone else have fond memories of them? I never owned any of their records, but their songs showed up repeatedly on the mixtapes I got from one of my friends from high school, and I meant to order their 7" with "Feed Me" on it, but I kind of just never got around to it. I'm going to try and make up for it by posting what might be the only video of them available on youtube.

Described by Kill Rock Stars as "3 radical new wave dykes from Portland, Oregon", The Third Sex wrote messy, crashy, quick songs about girls, or that's how all their songs that I ended up hearing sounded. From what I can gather they liked to wear odd costumes, hence their lead singer's dead football player costume in the video. It doesn't make sense, and there isn't much information available about the band to go on, so just watch the video and enjoy the mystery on this hump day.

Get Excited, 2010: Get Involved

2010-01-19T16:17:00.001-05:00

It seems like every time I open my browser, there are yet more girl-oriented and feminist bands, blogs, websites, events, and even archival donations (you go, K. Ha!) to examine and celebrate. I'm unashamed to proclaim that I am perpetually in the same state Tom Hanks is in right before the last game of the World Series in A League of Their Own. ("....we're gonna win...we're gonna WIN!")

Last week I wrote about my gut feeling that something is happening with girls and punk, and I'm grateful to have this feeling validated by the recently linked Soul Ponies blog. Soul Ponies says that people across the internets are feeling a 'Riot Grrrl revival', and blogger Stacy isn't afraid to tell us exactly what we need to do to revive it: we need to get proactive, get involved, and make it happen. Go read it for yourself if you haven't already. Stacy makes a number of valid points about Riot Grrrl and what it means, and lists a number of excellent ways to contribute to any scene or movement (in case Riot Grrrl isn't your thing).

Every 'how' needs a 'why'; allow me to provide it. Why find a way to get directly involved with music in 2010? Well, at the risk of sounding like a religious fundamentalist doomsday pundit, decent music doesn't have a chance of survival if we don't get active. Music has become something that most people passively consume. I think that a lot of us have forgotten that in effect, we control the industry, and that we choose what we hear.

Getting involved -- whether you start a band or set up shows, or simply adjust your record-shopping habits to benefit smaller companies -- reminds us that we have the power in this situation. And putting the energy into making, producing, distributing, or even just listening to local, independent music gives us a voice. It affords us a measure of representation in art itself.

With power comes responsibility. To be blunt, getting involved with local artists and music isn't something you do for the money. You do it because you have something to offer, and you want to help out. In my experience, you do get compensated by sort of non-tradiational means; local music is dependent on our goodwill, and our willingness to barter skills and resources creatively. Supporting local music can test the limits of our generosity. But that creative bartering is what transforms scenes into communities, and it provides us with the opportunity to model such good behavior for those around us. When we make our local scenes and communities, we have the chance to make the world the kind of place we want it to be.

And at the same time, there's the whole thing of how going to shows, making friends with bands, making your own music, and other related activities is fun. (Remember fun?) Music is a powerful means of communication, yes, but it's meant to be entertainment, too, and it's meant to make you feel good. So get out there, get involved, and spread the positivity and empowerment in 2010!

ps It's really better if you've seen the whole movie...

Hump Day Treat, First Hump Day of the New Year Edition

2010-01-13T14:22:00.000-05:00

Okay, so technically it's the second Wednesday of the new year. But as it's the first Wednesday post of the calendar year, it feels like a video to celebrate and ring in 2010 is in order.

I have high hopes for this year, and my unshakeable feeling of assurance that this will be a good year for girls in punk, hardcore, and other less accessible genres, and so the only youtube video of my go-to fierce, feminist fight song seems called for. So get your fist in the air, raise your voice, and enjoy Sleater-Kinney's criminally underknown "Male Model" on this hump day.