Viva Voce at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, 6/04/09

(above: Anita Robinson, mid-solo)

I wrote recently in this blog that Anita Robinson is an unsung guitar heroine, and I've never been so sure of it as I was last week while watching her perform with Viva Voce in Brooklyn. Robinson is a gifted and unself-conscious lead guitarist who likes psychedelic sounds and the effects pedals needed to produce them, but who never overdoes it or hides behind her effects. And tracks from Viva Voce's new album, Rose City, showcase Robinson's skill at playing the kind of simple, elegant, keening and bending guitar lines that would make "Wonderful Tonight"-era Eric Clapton both jealous and ashamed at his clumsiness.

But Viva Voce is far more than Anita and her guitar. The band began as a duo, a creative partnership between Anita and husband Kevin Robinson, who is the kind of fearless performer capable of playing the guitar and drums at the same time without seeming obnoxious. The chemistry between Anita and Kevin seems to be the key to their previous records. In between the many guitar overdubs and oohing and aahing back up vocals and occasional old-school style funk bass line, they produce something on Lovers, Lead the Way!, The Heat Can Melt Your Brain, and Get Yr Blood Sucked Out so fun, so spontaneous, so vibrant, that you can't imagine how they could recreate it live. But recreate it live they did, and as a duo.

Leave it to the Robinsons to risk this and challenge themselves by deciding to quit their duohood, quite possibly for good. Viva Voce now includes Corinna Repp on guitar, drums, and theremin (yes, theremin!) and Evan Railton on drums and keyboard. Version 2.0 of Viva Voce is on the road in support of the new album, but you wouldn't know the recent additions were recent from hearing them play. The band played a tight, comfortable, set that was suffused with their own brand of slightly-bluesy, uninhibited, relaxed Portland indie cool. Their new songs are surprisingly somber, some moving at dirge-like tempos, with lyrics about exhaustion, homesickness, loss and futility. Where older Viva Voce sounds bright, hot, and radiates like a heat wave, Rose City is rainy, dark, moody, and lush, like its namesake.

above: Corinna Repp, l., and Anita Robinson, r.

But the band keeps their show light and energetic. In version 2.0 of Viva Voce, Kevin Robinson plays bass, and his warm, lively presence up front is felt, and provides a nice counterpoint to Anita's focused, intense guitar playing. [Sidenote: One can't help but notice this interesting role reversal -- here, a woman plays guitar, while a guy plays bass, which has long been unfairly pegged as an 'easy' instrument that girls play.] Corinna Repp helps to fill out the band's sound with rhythm guitar, percussion, drums, and yes, theremin solos. Evan Railton is a fine drummer, but I think his real contribution to this show was as a keyboardist -- new piano-driven tracks like "Midnight Sun", "The Slow Fade", and "Flora" wouldn't have worked without the sound of a brooding, forceful, "Let It Be" type keys.

The new Viva Voce only benefits from its new bandmembers. The group and its previous strengths -- its versatility, its familiarity with classic rock, its ability to take older sounds and make them seem new, -- are all enhanced. The same goes for the maintenance of the group's gender ratio: since their inception, Viva Voce has been proving, without ever discussing any sort of politics, that indie rock doesn't have to be dominated by whiny guys with acoustic guitars, and that rock in general doesn't need to be based on machismo. Viva Voce 2.0 functions seamlessly and shows that it is possible for men and women to get together and play music without the sort of off-putting sexist posturing and divisive rhetoric that seems to be audible in almost every style of popular music these days.

Above: Anita, Evan Railton, and Kevin Robinson

Courtney Hate?

"This all-girl [band] fantasy I've had my whole life -- well, it's not going to happen. Like, there are fucking riot grrrls banging on pots and pans and talking about their vaginas, and that's all really lovely, but the music blows. You have to sit in your room and practice. You have to fucking learn how to play guitar."

Where to begin, dear readers, with what's wrong with this quote? Well, okay, I'll begin with a full disclosure: the Riot Grrrl movement, its music and ideas, its DIY, all ages, pro-feminism devotion to creating space for girls within punk and in other areas of life, its core idea of physical and political empowerment for young women, have made me who I am today. I can't overstate how much Riot Grrrl has meant to me. And therefore, anyone who disparages the movement is pretty much automatically dead to me.

Here's my second full disclosure: I feel like I can critique and criticize Courtney Love without malice because I once worshipped her. When I was a chubby wallflower struggling through middle school, I worshipped Love mostly because she was a woman who wasn't afraid to scream and play guitar, but also because I coveted her abrasive, loud, I'm-a-bitch-so-what attitude. I wanted to tell my tyrannical teachers, stupid classmates, and my controlling family exactly what I thought about them. But I couldn't, so I listened to Live Through This every day instead. That is, ironically, until I discovered post-riot superstars Sleater-Kinney (my love of them is already well-established though).

Now that you know my bias, I'll move on to my petty initial reaction to this quote: Courtney Love is the last person in this universe who should be telling anyone that they need to learn how to play the guitar. She isn't exactly a virtuoso guitarist or vocalist herself, and anyone who's seen so much as a youtube video of a Hole performance can tell you that. I remember watching on Hole's MTV Unplugged as she basically sat there just holding her guitar, while the rest of her very talented band did the bulk of the work.

But Love's quote makes me feel a lot more than snark, it also kind of depresses and scares me. I mean, is this oblique sexism and apparent commitment to the patriarchal idea of 'playing the right way' really necessary? Love's quote suggests that you can't work with these crazy radical feminists; they don't play well enough, they don't play the 'right' instruments (pots and pans? Really?), and they don't write songs about legitimate 'rock' topics, because they write about their vaginas instead.

Courtney Love, despite her many flaws, and the mistakes she's made, appears to be an incredibly intelligent woman. So I hesitate to say that she doesn't 'get' Riot Grrrl, but that's kind of how it seems. Riot Grrrl is about the deliberate rejection of patriarchal standards in rock, and especially in punk. It's not about playing 'badly' or refusing to learn how to play, but about questioning where our standards for how music is supposed to sound or how an instrument is supposed to be played come from. This is of course derived from previous punk ideology, but Riot Grrrl brings a necessary gender and class perspective to the conversation. It's no coincidence that white, middle to upper class men, who can afford and obtain things like private lessons, studio time, mastering, full time touring, etc, dominate almost all genres of music, including punk. Riot Grrrl deliberately rejected those standards, in favor of punk rock and life that is more inclusive and more accessible.

I wonder sometimes if Courtney Love is jealous. Anyone who's read any of her many biographies knows that Love has despised Riot Grrrl for some time now. Does anyone else remember when Love punched quintessential Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill in the face backstage at a Lollapalooza tour stop? (Yes, kids, Lollapalooza used to be a cross-country tour.) Hanna was at the all day outdoor concert event as a guest of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, of Sonic Youth, a band Love admires. Hanna and Bikini Kill also worked with Joan Jett, who produced and guests on some BK songs, and I'm willing to bet that Love was a big fan of The Runaways back in the day.

Something else that can be gleaned from her biographies is that Love has always had problems with other women, especially her mother. I remember thinking, back when I was kid reading about her life, that Love must have felt betrayed by her mother, and that she must have been really wary of the other girls in the detention facilities where she was placed throughout her teens. Love seems like she still doesn't trust other women, and rather than working with them, Love competes with them.

And ultimately, Courtney Love wants to win. She doesn't want change, she doesn't want the sexual, feminist revolution that Riot Grrrl called for. I don't know what exactly she wants, if it's fortune or celebrity or whatever, but whatever it is, she wants it for herself. Love comes across as terribly selfish. (I think her selfishness is what I really liked about her when I was younger.) But now that I'm an adult, I understand that that selfishness is more antithetical to riot grrrl, feminism and women's continued progress in rock than any bitchy comment or physical assault toward Kathleen Hanna could ever be.

Hump Day Treat, Evening Edition

This week's late-in-the-day hump day treat brings you Texas' Girl in a Coma, who have just released their sophomore record, Trio B.C. *cheers and applause* !




It's rare that you get to hear queer, female, Mexican-American border voices in current rock and punk, and GIAC bring all three perspectives. They play a kind of fuzzy, jangling, driving rock that draws from old school rock'n'roll of the Buddy Holly and the Crickets sort, and invigorate the old form with an edgy and confrontational slink-and-swagger that is both lethal and enjoyable. I got to experience it for myself last year when I saw them open for Tegan and Sara, and their set had an energy that even the Twins from Above the 49th Parallel couldn't quite match. They did a fantastic performance of their single "Say", the official video for which you can see here!



So sit down, relax, pour yourself a different kind of Hump Day Treat, and finish off this rainy (at least in New York) day with this mid-tempo, modern classic.

Hump Day Treat, Summer kickoff edition

One of my biggest complaints about grad school is that you get so wrapped up in it that you can't keep up with current events. And of course, for me 'current events' means what records are coming out and when. So imagine my surprise when I found out during my first week of summer break that one of my favorite musicians of all time put a new record out just yesterday! That's right folks: it's time to give it up for Anita Robinson, underrated guitar hero of Viva Voce:



So in celebration of the release of Rose City, and first single/video "Octavio", I present what I believe is the first video from VV, "Alive With Pleasure". A true summer jam with a great melody and fantastic lead guitar part, there's no better introduction to these guys and their garage-y, soulful, just slightly psychedelic sound. There's also no better introduction to Anita's skills, which are nothing short of inspiring.



Great song, good beat, positive vibe, and hot guitarist = awesome way to start a vacation.

Hump Day Treat, Semester Survivor Edition

In celebration of having made it through my first term of school as an instructor/"professor", I present this surprisingly good video of Pretty Girls Make Graves performing "Selling the Wind".



It's hard to believe, but two years ago yesterday I saw PGMG on their farewell tour. They announced their breakup just a few months after my other two favorite bands, Sleater-Kinney and Rainer Maria, announced their breakups. As you can guess, it was a rough year.

That spring I finished my MA, and I had been accepted by my program to stay for my Ph.D. I didn't know exactly what I was doing, or even I wanted to be doing that; I just knew that three more years of school would give me enough time to figure out what to do next. This probably isn't the best reason to get a doctorate degree, and I wouldn't recommend that anyone else use a graduate program that way.

I still don't know exactly what I'm doing, though I have a much better idea of it two years later, but I can say this: spring comes again, and it might seem obvious, but it's easy to forget when you're bogged down in winter for so long. The members of Sleater-Kinney, Rainer Maria, and Pretty Girls Make Graves have all moved on to new bands and projects, which will soon result in new cds. But for now, listen to "Selling the Wind" on this hump day, and celebrate this seasons and all the seasons before, no matter how turbulent they might have been.

Hump Day Treat, Experimental Edition

On this particular hump day, Rock and the Single Girl presents Erase Errata, and their single "Tax Dollar".



Erase Errata is a lot of things, but right now, I'm kind of feeling the jittery, tightly wound percussion of their sound, and how comparable it feels to a bad day at the office in which you're running around frantically, fighting with various office machines, and drinking too much coffee. Erase Errata's appeal lies in its ability to convey a manic urgency through sound. It's like listening to a florescent light seizure, and to be able to create a certain feeling, especially such a strange one, with music is what we as musicians all want to be able to do, right? It's a skill that EE has down pat.

This live video from South By Southwest, that halcyon of indie music cool, is one of my favorite videos on all of youtube. It's a well-done video, even with its shaky camera and less than stellar sound. You've got a good, clear view of all the members of Erase Errata, not to mention a few seconds of Hannah Blilie of The Gossip rockin' out on the left-hand side of the stage! But to bring it back to EE: I fell in love with Jenny Hoyston as a performer and guitarist because of this video, and also realized just how amazing drummer Bianca Sparta is. Perhaps that's why it holds such a special place in my heart.

But for those of you who prefer the clarity of an official video, here's a link.

Hump Day Treat, Slacker Edition

It's turning out to be one of those days: I overslept and couldn't eat breakfast, felt all off while I was teaching, skipped my office hours because it looked nice out (but then of course it started to rain), and now it's almost 4:30 and I have a TON of stuff to do. I'll probably be working well past 7 tonight.

Such days require breaking out one of your best vintages. So today, Rock and the Single Girl presents: Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation"!



I'll be honest: I have mixed feelings about Joan Jett. I'm not really familiar with her more recent work, and her earlier stuff sometimes seems simplistic. HOWEVER: there's some buzz abrewin' about the new movie that's coming out about The Runaways, with which Jett is very much involved. And I've been wondering lately about the initial reception to The Runaways and to Jett's solo work. It occurs to me that nowadays, I tend to take 'girls with guitars' and female-fronted bands for granted. There aren't enough of them, of course, but I'm still spoiled by the amazing work done by bands like Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney and Bratmobile, and by the existence of musicians like Marnie Stern and Anita Robinson. What was it like for Joan Jett -- with her 'androgyny' and tough appearance, with her insistence on writing her own songs and playing her own music, with her ultimate decision to start her own label -- back when mainstream music only had women like Linda Rondstadt and Stevie Nicks to offer? She's not my favorite musician of all time, but Joan Jett is a true pioneer, and I'm grateful for everything about her, from her Gibson guitar to her sometimes off-putting leather clothing.

So on this slow-going hump day, turn up the volume on your computer, and celebrate Joan Jett and her "Bad Reputation" -- and celebrate your own, too!

This Hump Day Treat is dedicated to my girl Alma, from Rock Camp. Without Alma and her admiration and respect for JJ's accomplishments, I never would have come to appreciate either her solo work or her work with The Runaways.