No Shouts, No Calls

A March 2007 Fecal Face interview with Electrelane's Emma Gaze and Mia Clarke produced this zinger:

I’ve heard you compared to bands like Stereolab, The Organ and Sleater-Kinney quite often. Do you think contemporary influences seep into your song writing process? Are there obvious influences or inspirations that you pull from all the time?

Emma: Yeah, we're the same because we all have vaginas. Beyond that, there is nothing similar about us. At all.

Pistol-Packin' Mamas

Bill O'Reilly on the dangers of pink-pistol-packing lesbian gangs:



... and gun manufacturers using pink to market their products to ladies.

Uh, weird ...

Proof of how bizarrely huge the Gossip has become in Britain/Australia:

A contestant on Australian Idol covers "Standing in the Way of Control."



Seriously ... WTF?

The band terms it a "total embarrassment."

How strange, to go from a scrappy Olympia punk band to ... having your songs covered on Australian Idol?

The weirdest part about this: hearing Brace Paine's guitar lines in such a setting.

UB3

Dudes!

Ultimate Blogger 3 just started!

Speaking of nit-picking ...

College Radio 101

College stations (like KUGS) usually don't buy music. Instead, bands and promoters send the music to the radio stations.


Promoters (like Terrorbird, Team Clermont, Fanatic, etc.) often include a sticker on the front of the CD when they send music to a station. This sticker usually has biographical info about the band, and includes an "RIYL" list.

"RIYL" stands for "Recommended If You Like," and lists some bands that sound similar, so that you have an idea of what the music sounds like before you actually listen to it.

A lot of the time, this is really helpful information to have.

But sometimes, a promotion company is so off with their "RIYL" list that the list is close to useless.

My particular pet peeve is when any band that has a female vocalist gets an "RIYL: Sleater-Kinney." Especially the ones that say, "RIYL: Sleater-Kinney, Rilo Kiley." Because usually- these bands sound NOTHING like Sleater-Kinney. Or Rilo Kiley. "All female-fronted bands sound alike," you say? Right. About as much as Mount Eerie sounds like Spoon.

For reals, now. Vitriol, could you please be a little less overt in your sexism? C'mon- it's indie rock. I thought "indie" meant that we were trying to do things differently.

Parts for All Makes may sound a bit like Palomar, but merely being in possession of a vagina does not make you sound like Sleater-Kinney. If this was the case, I would've realized my Carrie Brownstein rock-star fastasies a LONG time ago.

Viva Zapata!

Lately, I've been spending some time with The Gits and 7 Year Bitch. And I had an epiphany, of sorts:


There are no women making really tough, straight-up rock & roll in the Northwest indie scene these days. Okay, maybe that is a sweeping generalization, but really- not much going on. Even nationally, among female indie musicians, the trend is for singer-songwriters (Tiny Vipers, St. Vincent) sweet indie-pop (Lavender Diamond, Best Friends Forever) or dance-pop bands (the Blow, You Say Party! We Say Die!).

And this is great! Women should be free to make whatever type of music they feel compelled to make. We all need songs about rainbows and broken hearts sometimes. And some of these musicians are truly trangressive, in their own ways. But the problem is: even if these bands are actually advocating radical politics (like the Gossip), their palatable presentation may result in those politics being lost or ignored by casual listeners.

Now that Sleater-Kinney is gone (arguably the last of these hard-rocking all-female bands from the nineties), who will carry the torch of shredding women? There are Screaming Females, the Coathangers, Marnie Stern- women who shred, but who aren't necessarily political. They're certainly not performing on-stage castrations in the same sense that Tribe 8 were- rather, their songs are ironic or simply straight-up unisex rock and roll.

However, there are bands like Gamine Thief and Swan Island and what looks like the next generation of queercore. Maybe this is where to look for the women who are unapologetic in their strength and anger. Because we still need women to sing songs like "Dead Men Can't Rape"- women who are terrifying in their fury and power.And really, there is nothing like a good on-stage castration.

Results of Vacation Day #2

Really good things are afoot in Bellingham right now.

I will say more when these things become more certain. I don't want to jinx them.

punk rock politix

Someone is FINALLY giving The Trucks some credit and some agency.

"A lot of “girl groups” have written songs about shitty boyfriends, but few have written songs that ask those assholes, “Why the fuck won’t you go down on me?” And of those few, an even smaller percentage have made sex-positive feminism as fucking fun as the Trucks. Brassy, raunchy, and absurd, the Trucks are electro-punk that’s irreverent but never irrelevant."

Christopher Hong's blurb gives them credit where other Stranger writers have not. In May, Megan Seling of The Stranger dismissed the band, recommending them only "if you're into that pseudo-feminist sex kitten à la Peaches sort of thing, which I am not."

Like Megan Seling, a lot of people seem to be really unsettled by how sexual the Trucks are. Folks keep acting like the Trucks are just dumb breezies with keyboards. Like they aren't conscious of what they're doing. Like they aren't all that different from the girls who enter wet t-shirt contests.

But yo! When are gals allowed to be performers who are both female and sexual without being treated like dupes? Yeah, it's not easy to pull off- most people probably won't understand your intent, and they might still treat you like you're just a pair of tits and an ass. But! How is this fearful regulating of any non-P.C. forms of female sexuality a positive thing? If the Trucks can't do their thing without accusations of "pseudo-feminism" being levelled against them, then what does feminist sexuality look like?

As far as I'm concerned, The Trucks are pretty fucking feminist.

a.They avoid male masturbation instruments like electric guitars; instead, they glorify that most-girly-of-instuments, the keyboard.

b. Instead of buying into the cult of the single male genius of most male bands throughout rock history, they play more communally- taking turns singing, singing all together, etc.

c.Also! They rock it Slits-style (or Ramones-style, if you prefer)- disregarding expertise at their instruments in favor of just making their voices heard.

While their music may not be timeless, I'm glad they're making it. This is true ecriture feminine. Hellza punk rock. Hellza feminist.

wynsomme melodees

New Lloyd and Michael album is available! You can listen to one of their songs here.

Although I didn't get to see them at What the Heck Fest, this almost makes up for it. Oh, sweet, sweet soundtrack to my summers.

They're making a documentary about Rock Camp for Girls!



This is so, so punk.

And, I mean, it's got Carrie Brownstein.

Rock Camp for Girls makes me shiver with hope and possibilitiy and inspiration, in the same way that Jessica Hopper's writing sometimes does.

I WOULD LIKE TO ARGUE FOR A HETEROSEXUAL FEMALE MASCULINITY.

About a year ago, my friend embarked on what she termed “the Girlie Project.” A yearlong adventure into the world of conventional femininity, my friend (previously a jeans-and-tennis-shoes sort of girl) started buying new clothes, wearing heels, and getting mall makeovers. As the Girlie Project progressed, she planned to document her experiences via blog. In her words, “taking care in how you look isn't non-feminist.”

While discussing her endeavor, she suggested that I begin my own, parallel project- the Masculinity Project. “Yeah,” I said. “I stopped shaving a while ago. I might as well.”

Good idea, in theory. But what does female masculinity look like? I wasn’t interested in being butch. Furthermore, I was identifying (at the time) as a straight person, and I had no idea what straight female masculinity looked like.

And this is why I take issue with the exclusion of heterosexual female masculinity in Judith Halberstam’s Female Masculinity. Her discussion of female masculinity is, by her own admission, “concentrated on the masculinity in women that is most often associated with sexual variance” (Halberstam 268). Perhaps this is because it is the most visible, the most easily identified.

Halberstam's analyses of heterosexual female masculinity is half-hearted, at best:

“I also think the general concept of female masculinity has its uses for heterosexual women. After all, the excessive conventional femininity often associated with female heterosexuality can be bad for your health. Scholars have long pointed out that femininity tends to be associated with passivity and inactivity, with various forms of unhealthy body manipulations from anorexia to high-heeled shoes. It seems to me that at least early on in life, girls should avoid femininity. Perhaps femininity and its accessories should be chosen later on, like a sex toy or a hairstyle” (Halberstam 269)

Okay, so: femininity is bad for your health; therefore, take a dose of masculinity along with your veggies.

Really, though, if Halberstam's entire argument for (queer) female masculinity is that it's an inherent, legitimate (though marginalized) gender expression, then why is her assessment of heterosexual female masculinity grounded in entirely different rhetoric? Not only does Halberstam utterly devalue and dismiss femininity, but she also fails to acknowledge the import and potential radicalism of hetero female masculinity.

Heterosexual female masculinity totally destabilizes conventional gender roles in a male-female relationships! Flips 'em on their head! Renders them practically meaningless! Allows women to exist outside of a patriarchal paradigm that confines their gender expression!

As for my own experience: when I was identifying as straight, friends and acquaintances assumed I must be queer, because my radical feminism and masculinity surely could not be legitimately contained inside a straight female body. And while I do now identify as queer, I base that decision less on sexuality and more on gender identity: I’m still solidly in the “Q” camp of LGBTQ, but I felt no place for my masculinity within conceptions of heterosexuality as I know it. This shouldn’t negate the masculinities I explored as a straight woman, but I do feel more freedom to explore my gender identities when I’m under the umbrella of “queer.”

Perhaps this is why there is such a black hole when it comes to discussions of straight female masculinities- the fear of rejection by the patriarchy, the age-old fear that "no man is going to want you if ..." When your heterosexuality inscribes you into the patriarchal system, you have a lot less flexibility in terms of alternate gender expressions.

Where are the masculine straight women? Just on daytime-television makeover shows? If we want to someday live in a post-whatever world, we're going to have to do a lot more work toward destabilizing the relationship between gender presentation and sexual identity. We deny straight women their agency when we decide that female masculinity is synonymous with queer identity.

What Autistic Girls Are Made Of

There's an article in today's New York Times Magazine discussing the different challenges facing autistic girls and autistic boys. Since autism is usually associated with males, females with autism have often been marginalized in research, and writer Emily Bazelon cites recent studies that explore the links between sex and autism (including quoting Simon Baron-Cohen- who knew that Borat's first-cousin was a leader in that field?!)

What the article comes down to is this: the girls with Asperger's are anxious and depressed (more so than Asperger's males) because they crave social relationships with their female peers more than do the Asperger's boys, and they have a harder time making those connections.

Girls value emotional connections! Boys like math and chess! Emily Bazelon writes, "It is easier for Asperger’s boys to find other boys — either on or off the autistic spectrum — who want to spend hours on their Game Boys or in a realm of Internet fantasy." A psychiatry professor at the Institute of Child Health at University College London elaborates on the gender difference: “Girls with autism are rarely fascinated with numbers and rarely have stores of arcane knowledge, and this is reflected in the interests of females in the general population."

Throughout the whole article, Bazelon doesn't really explore the cultural possiblities for this behavior; rather, she cruises right on into talking about the biological reasons behind all of this. Researchers in the field believe that the different female/male manifestations of Asperger's (and other forms of autism) are evidence of a chromosomal link for the disorder.

Intriguing, but problematic. Admittedly, if the science behind chromosomal links to autism is legitimate (and not just the 21st-century version of phrenology) ... then maybe gender essentialism isn't so unreasonable. Even though essentialism is awfully gauche in feminism these days, I think we've gotten in the bad habit of crying "wolf!" without looking critically at what lays beyond the essentialism.

Assertion: let's not cast the baby out with the bathwater.