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

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.

"It's going to take a lot of things", or: A response to some random naysayery

I'm lucky enough to have a few really cool friends who read and support my blog. A few weeks ago my dear friend Jackie went so far as to post a link to my post on Rock Camp songs on her facebook wall. I was so grateful and flattered, but the warm fuzzies I was feeling were tarnished by the following comment from one of her facebook friends:

"I think this is great, but we're not going to dismantle this dumb system with rock songs. We will by forming DIY community banks."

It was the classic 'progressive guy' condescension. Just in case you don't speak Sexism, I'll translate for you: First, you have the pat on the head ('I think this is great...'). Then you have the brush off ('we're not going to dismantle this dumb system with rock songs'). Finally, you get the solution ('DIY community banks'?) In other words, this is cute and all sweetie, but music and art don't really 'count' -- only male-identified arenas like socioeconomic and political institutions count.

I was upset by this comment, at first because of its sexist undertone, and then later because I was forced to consider what it said. What if that guy is right? I've spent the last few weeds wondering, what if rock songs won't dismantle the system? What if what I'm talking about is totally stupid, and totally irrelevant, and he's right to be condescending?

Here's the thing though: this guy is NOT right. To start with, he's wrong to argue that rock songs won't bring down The System because I never said they would. I'm idealistic about music and art, but I'm not delusional. I know that songs don't have the power to stop armies in their tracks, or pass legislation, or regulate financial institutions.

But music is a powerful and unique means of uniting people. Music is a unique medium for the transmission of new ideas to a large audience. And a good, pithy pop song breaks those ideas down into manageable, memorable pieces, using straightforward and familiar language that sticks in your mind, and that becomes part of your consciousness.


I listened to the Beatles a lot as a kid, I like to think that their pro-peace, pro-love ideas became a part of my consciousness early on.

When music opens up your mind like that, and gets you thinking about bigger ideas, and maybe even gets you talking with your friends about these ideas and how they make you feel -- that's when music has the power to change things. Music does have the ability to stimulate critical thought, and critical thought can lead to resistance.


This is one of my new favorites -- Swedish punk upstarts Refused knew how to bring the classic punk resistance to shitty/mindless popular music!

(If you don't believe me, just ask all the Latin American dictators of the '70s who banned pop music, assassinated outspoken musicians, and sent their military police to rock concerts with tear gas and grenades. They seemed pretty worried that music about human rights would get the young people to resist the military government.)


This guy, Victor Jara, was tortured, beaten, and killed by the Chilean military because he sang about political activism and human rights.

More to the point of this blog, popular music has become bigger than just songs and albums. Song itself can transmit positive ideas, and it can also transmit negative ideas. And since music is not just the music itself, but also the performers, their politics, their style of dress, and the way they present themselves, popular music also transmits ideas about men, women, sex and gender -- whether it means to or not. I've seen this for myself. I've experienced it for myself, I've seen it with my friends, I've seen it with the campers at Rock Camp.


An all time favorite: my beloved Sleater-Kinney singing in feminist protest of the corporate war machine

I've always assumed that most of us are sort of familiar with this phenomenon, and that most of us can appreciate what a positive influence music can have on your day-to-day life. (Don't a lot of us go through a phase during our teenage years where we just want to shut ourselves up in our rooms with our favorite records, and where we only want to talk to friends who are doing the same thing? Or maybe that was just me....)

I guess maybe my critic didn't go through this phase, and if that's the case, I probably can't say anything that will convince him of the power of music. All I can say to a person like him is, man, you must be listening to the wrong stuff.

This post is dedicated to Jackie, for her support, and to all of my friends who keep encouraging me to write, and to keep speaking up.