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!
Have you ever lost something -- your keys, your phone, the remote, etc -- driven yourself crazy looking for it, and then found it as soon as you stopped looking? This apparently applies to blogs, too: awhile back I posted about the lack of feminist and lady music bloggers, and all but begged my comrades to come forth from the shadows. Sadly, few did so, and I felt resigned to my feeling of loneliness. And then shortly thereafter, I started to find exactly the sort of blogs I'd been hoping for -- how crazy is that!? Here are some of my favorites, so far:
Star Beat Music tracks, hypes and reviews quite possibly every single band that comes through New Jersey and New York City, and never ceases to amaze me with how quickly, accurately, and exhaustively it reports area music news. Run by Star, who is probably the hardest working blogger in showbusiness, I depend on this site for show info, and I maintain that every town and city should have a blog like this one.
Where Star Beat fulfills my news needs, Suck My Left One and Soul Ponies provide me with much needed regular doses of Riot Grrrl and queer history. At Suck My Left One you'll find videos, images, lyrics, songs, and links, all related to prominent Riot Grrrl bands, as well as other woman-powered rock of the period.
In contrast to these little daily relics from Riot Grrrl history, the nascent Soul Ponies has no fear of the long, reflective essay, and supplies smart, sassy commentary and context for every video and mp3 it posts. The blog also features book and show reviews, relevant tour and music news, and a much needed critical and aggressive approach to the documentation and sharing of our ladypunk history.
Etta Strange, though technically on hiatus during the construction of a new website, has a long and rich archive for new readers to dig into for now. I've been coming to this site to read about music, genres, websites, and record labels I've never even heard of. Self-described as having 'eclectic' tastes, the author/self-professed obsessive audiophile posts songs, videos, photos, playlists, and concise, smart observations and opinions about everyone from Charlotte Gainsbourg, to Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam, to Uganda's Death Row Choir.
Finally, Feminist Music Geek is probably dearest of all these to my heart (much as I hate to pick a single favorite). The name "Feminist Music Geek" alone accurately describes what I am, as well as author Alyx Vesey. Vesey turns her laser sharp gaze on everything from album covers to movie posters, and writes fearlessly about women and gender in all musical aspects of pop culture. Her work uses theory but remains accessible, gets critical without getting nasty, and always manages to both validate my feelings about an issue and make me think about things differently. Vesey's take on Patti Smith is a good example.
I am in love with how these blogs inform me, entertain me, and introduce me to new ideas and artists. I'm heartened to see these bloggers documenting their changing tastes and thoughts on music and popular culture, all while they collect and preserve information and make it accessible to other readers and bloggers. Whether they know it or not, these bloggers carve out an important space within which dialogues can happen, and within which we can all actively consider and engage with music, media, and culture. These blogs allow us to become part of the cultural process, and that's more than just exciting. It's downright inspiring.
Not so long ago, I blogged about how I worry sometimes that there isn't enough documentation of some of the amazing girl and punk bands I've been following. Leave it to one Kate Wadkins to allay my fears.
The new Maximumrockandroll features a two page scene report written by Wadkins herself, where she mentions Rock and the Single Girl favorites Each Other's Mothers, Cheeky, Taigaa, and a wealth of other bands I enjoy and just haven't had a chance to write about yet here. Wadkins is a musician who has played in a number of local bands and who is well-acquainted with what she calls the DIY punk scene. And I have to say, it's kind of amazing to see an insider's account of this community that's producing so much art and music that means so much to me both personally and professionally.
But don't take my word for it -- read for yourself! Kate has posted the article and some scans at her blog, ch-ch-ch-check it out!
It's going to take more than one person, and more than one scene report to capture and contextualize the art being produced by these women at this time, but I feel like this is a good start. To paraphrase Kate: this is the new international girl gang underground and it's not going anywhere.
***Special thanks to Anna, for posting about this and bringing it to my attention!
Tonight one of my friends called me, and she was telling me about a band named Grizzly Bear. "I wasn't even gonna buy their album, because there was, you know, so much hype," she told me, and she said 'hype' with a lot of contempt. "Because, you know," she explained, "whenever EVERYONE says that an album is great, and I get excited about it, I buy it and listen to it and I end up hating it. Like, I'm just not impressed."
"Well, it's hard," I said. "You've got so many self-appointed tastemakers, or whatever, like, people who have blogs, and they're all telling you what you should be listening to, and it's hard to sort through everything and figure out who's a real, legitimate music critic, and who isn't." I said this with zero irony, well-aware that I am one of those many music bloggers, even if I don't consider myself a tastemaker, or tell people what to listen to.
My friend's story has a happy ending, I'm glad to report, she read some print reviews of Grizzly Bear's record, listened to it, didn't like it at first, and then tried it again and ended up loving it. And that's great, but after I got off the phone with her, I found myself wondering, who are all these music bloggers? Because I'm a bleeding heart feminist, I'm going to assume that the majority of them aren't women writers. And of the ones who do happen to be female, I'm sure only a small portion of them are self-identified feminists, and that an even smaller portion are applying their gendered experience to their album and concert reviews.
The two women music bloggers I read on a regular basis are Trish Bendix, who writes about music over at Afterellen.com, and Carrie Brownstein, who writes for NPR's website. Who else is there? And how do we find these other unknown lady music bloggers? There are tons of live blogs out there, and as far as I know, there still isn't an efficient way to search blogs.
I started this blog because I didn't think there was anyone else out there writing about the ways in which women and gender have influenced punk and hardcore. But it's my experience that every field that has a limited number of visible women has a lot more unseen women than any of us realize.
So, readers, help me out here, and tell me: who else do you read? What other women bloggers are talking about music and art, making you think, and entertaining you? And lady music bloggers, if you're out there, we're calling you! Please report to the Rock and the Single Girl front desk, or at the very least, leave a comment and a link!
