It is late in the day, but that doesn't mean it's quittin' time just yet, and that doesn't mean there isn't time to have a little musical treat. Today, in honor of their new album that was released yesterday, we have a classic from Canadian scene darlings Metric:
Unfortunately, their label has 'disabled embedding by request', but the live version is pretty kickass. And, we can still link the official! Monster Hospital
Whether you prefer the studio or live versions, get down to the sound of Emily Haines singing about mental problems to a classic and irrepressible dance beat, and get ready to go home, already! Working 9 to 5 (or 9 to whenever) will drive you crazy if you let it, so don't let it -- get dancing!
Last week in class during our unit on gender, I talked about the Mirabal sisters in an attempt to teach my students about alternative constructions of motherhood. A trio of underground political activists from the Dominican Republic who were apprehended, tortured, imprisoned, and eventually killed for their attempts to bring down tyrannical dictator Rafael Trujillo, the Mirabal women carried out secret resistance work while taking care of their husbands and children. They were in part motivated to do political work by their need to protect their kids, and they encouraged other women in their communities and churches to help the resistance for the same reason. They appealed to other Dominican women as mothers, and their sense of maternal responsibility, rather than as citizens or political subjects.
Talking about this construct of motherhood, and thinking about how awesomely and unintentionally the Mirabals rejected the June Cleaver, Virgin Mary conception of momness, got me thinking about a program I saw on VH1 not too long ago. I am a total sucker for those several hour top 100 shows they do, and a few weeks back I saw VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the '90s. There was a lot of "where are they now" on the show, and of course, quite a few of the female performers featured have become parents since their hits charted a decade ago.
The two performers who really caught my attention were Sarah McLachlan and Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries. Both more or less told VH1 that since they had become mothers, their music careers seemed less important.
Well, you can imagine that this disappointed me in a major way. I know that both Sarah and Dolores were only speaking for themselves, but I hate this idea that women, in any industry, are required to find motherhood more fulfilling than any other occupation. And I really hate the idea that life as a musician, particularly a rock or punk musician, is somehow automatically incompatible with being a mom.
To be clear, I don't think that Sarah and Dolores are tools of the patriarchy just because they expressed a greater interest in parenting rather than playing. It is possible for a woman to find parenting more fulfilling than a career or paid job, and I don't think that that's wrong or bad. It's not as if I think it's wrong for a woman to want kids, or to put her kids before her career, so long as it is her choice. But what about choice, and what about this constant conundrum of "Work or family?" that women are always faced with? Would a man ever have this dilemma? Were Dave Grohl or Mark McGrath or the dudes from The Spin Doctors telling VH1 about how fatherhood had made them change their priorities and put their music careers aside? Of course not.
That we never seem to see examples of women in rock who have successfully combined a personal life with a partner and/or children with a musical career that is fufilling and edgy and making a real contribution to music is really troubling to me. And even more troubling is that motherhood doesn't seem to have a place in any genre of music, perhaps most of all in punk and hardcore. It seems to me that in every genre, there are certain things women simply cannot be. I think in any genre, a female musician cannot be too 'masculine'; that's off-putting. Women artists can't be too critical or say anything too substantive, they can't seem too independent, and none of them can be 'too fat' or not fit a certain physical type. In punk and hardcore, which is youth oriented because of its derivation from the original youth culture genre, rock, there isn't much room for real adults of either sex. The conception of the mother, as the sweet, mainstream, suburban angel definitely does not fit in with the punk ideology, or what's left of rock's ideology.
It's a relief to me that it doesn't have to be that way. My beloved Corin Tucker, of Sleater-Kinney, has written some of the punkest songs of all time since becoming a mom in 2003, and a bunch of them are about actually being a parent and caring for her son. And she certainly isn't the only woman who's doing this, Kristin Hersh, Liz Phair (regardless of what I think of her later work), and Kori Gardner of Mates of State are all carrying on with their careers while raising children.
See, I don't need people like Sarah McLachlan and Dolores O'Riordan to lie about their priorities, and I don't need them to abandon their kids and go back to music. (Especially not you, Sarah....sorry.) What I do need, and want for all women and girls, is representation for EVERY kind of woman, whether they want to be moms or not, and whatever kind of mom or even just what kind of person they would like to be, in rock'n'roll, and pretty much everywhere else.
p.s. I just found out that on her new show, Megan Mullally (Karen from Will and Grace!!!) plays an aging frontwoman and mom who was in Pony, a "seminal punk band from March of 1984 to late July of 1984). She is probably the only person who could take the issue of motherhood and rock/punk stardom and make it hilarious, without even trying to make any sort of 'statement'. (There's a couple seconds of her being obnoxious onstage at 0:05!)
Usually I post every Wednesday's Hump Day Treat from my bedroom, while I'm getting ready to go to work, or in the afternoon from my office. There's a change in plans this week because tomorrow I'll be accompanying my stepfather to a chemotherapy appointment, and this apparently will take up the entire work day. As you can imagine, the time spent at chemotherapy is really not what's upsetting about the entire affair.
It's fitting then, that this week's treat is "So Human", the catchy, upbeat new hard-times-are-for-dancing single from Lady Sovereign. It's the second single from her new record, Jigsaw, which was released in the U.S. today.
Now, just as you might have thought when I posted a video from M.I.A., you might now be thinking: what is Lady Sovereign doing here, when she is neither punk nor hardcore? It's simple really. My love of Lady Sovereign is based on four things:
1. She is a fearless solo female artist, boldly going forth in a genre with very few women performers; 2. Whether she realizes it or not, she mixes and reshapes dance, rap, and hip hop as genres in groundbreaking ways on her new singles; 3. She's funny and British; 4. She is, as far as I can tell, a great big homo.
So go and support the made-over, mature, consistently humorous, newly independent (...sort of) Lady Sovereign by dancing this Wednesday mess around to her latest video!
In honor of the release this week of their new record, today's Hump Day Treat is from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs!
But instead of promoting their new single, I am celebrating by posting my favorite song by them: "Date with a Night". A driving, stomping, slightly blues-tinged ode to 'going out', this is the perfect song to listen to while getting getting ready for a night on the town -- or while sitting in your cubicle, wishing you were going out. So chase away those Wednesday Ehs by pumping up the volume, ignoring your work a few minutes, and looking forward to the coming weekend!
Something I rarely discuss -- or even really think about -- is that I come from a family of musicians, singers, dancers, and music lovers. Music and dancing were a part of my childhood, but not in a Mary Poppins sort of way, not in a family-time, all-smiles and love, homeschooling kind of way. It was more like we soundtracked everything, even the bad times. Music was an escape, something we did even when my mother and my grandparents were fighting, unhappy, or dealing with financial problems.
And so it is unsurprising that even my 'click moment' was musical. A second wave feminist term, the 'click moment' refers to the awakening of a woman's consciousness, to that moment when it all 'clicks' into place, and you realize that feminism is necessary, and that you need to advocate for it in some way or another.
Example: Elizabeth Cady Stanton has a dramatic click moment story, according to historian Vivian Gornick, Cady Stanton and her husband traveled from New York to London to participate in the World's Anti Slavery Convention in 1840. The Stantons were respected abolitionists, and Cady Stanton was a vocal critic of slavery. But she -- and the well-known Lucretia Mott -- were refused entrance to the convention for being women. Gornick writes that at that moment, Cady Stanton realized that the rest of the world, outside her doting father and loving husband, saw her as "just a woman".
A little less than 160 years after this, I had my moment. In the spring of 1998, I was 14 years old, and fairly obnoxious about my taste in music. I knew that I was different from the other wimpy, prissy girls around me because I listened to classic rock, 'alternative', and bands like The Clash and The Ramones. Underneath the obnoxiousness was a genuine love of music, of playing guitar and singing, and of how listening to and talking about music brought me closer to my parents and my friends.
That year I had made friends with a girl who listened to 'alternative' music, but who also listened to a lot of bands that I had never heard of. (Turns out, I was nowhere near as cool and cutting edge as I'd thought I was when I was 14.) One of this girl's favorite albums happened to be Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney.
I went out and bought the album at my local Border's, and I'll be honest: I bought it because I wanted that girl to like me. But as soon as I plucked the cd from the rack in the bookstore, it stopped being about her, and it became something else entirely. I remember looking at the front of the cd, my eye drawn to the black and white of the guitar and the bright red of a girl's hair. I turned the cd over, glanced at the photo of the three girls in the band on the back. I turned it over again, held it in both hands, and felt this funny feeling in my fingers. It traveled up my arms and spread to my chest, my face, and my stomach. The hairs on my arms stood up, and I ran to the register to go buy that feeling.
I put the record on as soon as I got home. The opening chords of the title track, "Dig Me Out", brought back that feeling, that apprehensive excitement I'd gotten at the store. Corin Tucker's keening vocals and Janet Weiss's low, aggressive drumming came in a few seconds later, and I thought to myself: why doesn't all music sound like this? Sleater-Kinney made every girl I'd ever listened to, Fiona Apple, Gwen Stefani, Shirley Manson, etc, sound wishy-washy and boring, and made almost every classic rock band sound archaic.
And that was when it all clicked: the arguments with my father's super traditional Italian family, the machista ideas of my mother's Puerto Rican relatives, the way my mom and I had rejected the Catholic church, my mom and grandmother's struggle to support us, and my constant resentment of how much better boys were treated at school...somehow, all of it made sense. It all fit together. And nothing made more sense than how upset I was, how annoyed I was that I hadn't heard music like this before, and how excited I was to have finally found it.
It would be years before I really understood feminism, or even the many layers of meaning located within Sleater-Kinney's songs. It would be years before I really proclaimed my advocacy of feminism, and committed myself to supporting women in music. But it started with that one click moment in my bedroom. Click moments are inherently bittersweet, and they are paradoxical: you have a painful realization of how powerless you are in society, but the knowledge then somehow empowers you. My consciousness was brought to life by "Dig Me Out", and I can't think of a more appropriate band or song for that rite of passage.
this post is dedicated to every woman and girl who has ever inspired anyone, and to every woman and girl who someday will; Rock and the Single Girl has faith in you.
Here's a mellow, steady beat to get you through this Wednesday, whether you're hung over or just tired. This week, we present the M.I.A. hit "Paper Planes".
I know what you're saying: M.I.A. is neither rock nor a single girl, what's going on!? It's true that she is neither rock nor a single girl, but M.I.A. is a luminary, and one of very few women in mainstream music that one might consider looking up to. A refugee and descendant of a wanted political dissident, M.I.A. writes songs about her experience with the complex and unequal relationship between 'First' and 'Third' World nations. She is not just some vacuous pop star. Kanye West has pronounced her the 'future' of music, and while I am loathe to admit this, I agree with him.
And besides, luminary or not, hip hop, punk, post-hardcore: they all come from the same place, if you think about it. They're kind of cousins, in a way. Far be it for me to exclude any family members based on genre distinctions. No matter how she might characterize her music, I feel like M.I.A. epitomizes punk. Seriously, is there anything more punk rock than taking on stereotypes about immigrants in a hip hop song that uses a sample from The Clash?
So fight off those Wednesday blues and The Man with a little bit of the unlikely, but loveable "Paper Planes"!
Make it Work: as seen in the video above, it's the mantra of hit reality competition show Project Runway, but it's also my mantra. And it is presumably the mantra of all aspiring artists, no matter what medium they use.
Being an aspiring artist, whether you're broke and unemployed or working a comfortable but non-fulfilling job, or somewhere in between, means taking limited means and turning them into something you can use. It means stealing away a few minutes here and there to do something you love, and letting those few minutes sustain you through subsequent hours of drudgery. It means creating opportunities out of what consistently feels like nothing. It means doing a lot of really hard work so you can do that one thing that makes you happy.
This is how it is whether you're male or female, but let's face it: in reality, this is different, and generally much more difficult for women. I'm still not entirely sure why it's harder for women. Women seem to do a lot more work than men, and women, in general, are saddled with a lot of responsibilities we didn't necessarily ask for. We are expected to take care of everyone around us without complaint, and make one sacrifice after another. And this isn't the case only with married women or mothers. None of my girlfriends are married, and none of them have kids, but they all feel pressured to be good, giving daughters, granddaughters, sisters, and girlfriends.
Also, women typically have less money than men, because we're still paid less in almost every single field. So we have the trifecta of disadvantages: less time, less money, and less energy to devote to creating. It's no wonder that there seem to be fewer recognized women artists -- there are fewer women's works in the literary cannon, fewer women in music, fewer works by women hung in the halls of museums, right? It's not just me?
I've been thinking about this lately because I haven't had the time or energy to so much as look at my guitar for the past couple weeks, forget practicing or writing music. Right now I'm a graduate student, and I'm working on my dissertation and teaching as well. As a teacher, I of course make very little money; the work has become 'feminized' and therefore undervalued, as is all work that can be construed as carework, or work that is done mostly by women. And like my friends, I also have responsibilities to my family. I have very little time for anything personal, whether it's hanging out with friends or listening to new music. It is horribly frustrating. And I feel even further frustrated by the fact that I'm not alone -- right now things are scary, most of us are worried about money, and my artist friends are on the verge of panic. It's not great times for artistic creation.
But we have to get through these un-great times. Here are some tips and tricks for getting through the day-to-day that work for me.
1. Maintain a space of one's own. In her book A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf argued that women artists need just that: their own room where they can work. Some of us have to share rooms though, and we face other space limitations. But find a way to make a little bit of space for your work, even if it's portable and has to be dismantled and reassembled. The physical work of preparing space, an kind of artistic nesting, if you will, helps get you grounded. I know it calms me down and helps me to think.
2. Try to stay healthy. In these hard times, it's easy to make sacrifices, especially if you're responsible for other people. But it's so important to get the rest, food, and self-grooming we need. We need to be strong for the people who depend on us and, and we need to be strong if we're going to be creative, so try not to cut corners when it comes to eating and sleeping. No matter what medium you work in, your body is ultimately your instrument. So take care of it.
3. Work in bits and pieces. A viola teacher once told me of a great violinist who only practiced during the five and ten-minute breaks he had between giving lessons. "It adds up," she explained. I didn't try this until I was absolutely forced to, and found that she was right. It's not ideal to work in little bits in pieces here and there; it is definitely preferable, for me at least, to have a lot of time to concentrate on what I'm doing when I write or practice an instrument. But I've found that a few minutes a day is a lot better than not playing at all. It's difficult, but if you can learn to work this way, the daily boost of doing at least a little creative work can make all the difference in how you feel.
4. Stay in touch with other artists. I find that when feeling drained and demoralized, as so many of us probably are at this time, it's easy to withdraw. Don't let this happen to you! We all human contact, and we all need some kind of support, no matter what we do. A short phone or AIM conversation with a friend, especially one who is also struggling to create, can make you feel so much better. It can make you feel less alone, it can make you laugh, and it can be an opportunity to talk about the work you're trying to do. And being able to talk about your work and how you feel about it is indispensable for an artist, especially if you're still developing your skills and ideas.
5. Readjust your expectations. This is another one that's hard for me. I have a tendency to berate myself for not squeezing enough school work, personal time, and music or writing into my days. Beating yourself up like this is absolutely counterproductive; instead, we women in all professions need to be realistic with our expectations for ourselves. We need to accept that things are going to be more difficult, and that our work is going to come more slowly. And then we need to learn to be good to ourselves, and to appreciate the progress, however small, we make with each day. It's not about how quickly you get something done, or how much you can produce in one day -- it's about the experience of making something, of being an artist. That feeling is something you can't quantify. Why quantify your work?
6. Finally: Enjoy! With all these adjustments, and with how frightful things are these days, it might be hard, but at the very least, try to enjoy the time you do get for yourself and for your work! Making the time for art typically requires you to do a lot of other hard work. So make the most of that time that you've worked for, and let it make you feel better about life, about the economy, about whatever other catastrophes might come our way, about everything.
Got any other tips for starving aspiring artists? Hit me up: soundoftheatlantic@gmail.com
