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.
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