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.
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.
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!
Today Rock and the Single Girl is a year and two days old! *cheers, ticker tape, confetti etc* And I feel that one of the world's most famous renditions of "Happy Birthday" is in order:
...okay, not even Marilyn can turn that song into a party jam, so now let's have a real hump day treat. (Sidenote: I can't even believe that that video of MM is on youtube, I guess everything is now.) In accordance with my on-going '90s alternative nostalgia trip, I've been thinking lately about the criminally underrated That Dog.
When I was in middle school, I lived for weekends at my father's house not because I wanted to visit him and his side of the family, but because he had MTV. I had a television in my room (which doubled as my dad's gear room, amps and guitars everywhere, and I would stay up all night on those Saturdays watching Alternative Nation, hosted by Kennedy. On rare occasions, I would stay over on Sunday too, and I would get to see Matt Pinfield's show, 120 Minutes.
On one of those Saturdays, I saw this broadcast:
It's a little embarrassing to buy things after seeing them or hearing about them, but the next day I went out and bought Retreat from the Sun, which happens to be an excellent record, and which I highly recommend.
There was a time when you could hear really good popular music of all genres on regular old MTV. There was a time when really neat, really smart lady musicians like That Dog's Anna Waronker and Petra and Rachel Haden didn't seem like anomalies. There was a time when Kennedy had curly hair. But now, MTV is useless, lady artists feel less visible than ever, and Kennedy has straight hair (and is a registered Republican and libertarian with a radio show that's some how affiliated with Fox News, what!?!). All the more reason to let That's Dog's sweet mix of crunchy guitar, smooth synths, and soaring vocal choruses take you back to a simpler time on this dreary hump day.
