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5.18.00 : 04:13 p.m. I heart Earl but I think he missed my point. I have to say I'm surprised, but then again, I have yet to find a man who will say indie music (if not the music industry) is sexist; I have yet to find a woman who will say that it isn't. Yes, I'm very aware that most of the crap pop that's being made today is made by women. This doesn't make me feel better, necessarily. First of all, most of these women don't write their own songs, but instead they're part of a studio machine (and don't argue back to me with Led Zeppelin and the Monkees and most Motown girl groups). Secondly, they've been blessed with good voices and they fit a certain image popular today (either sexy/innocent Lolita in the case of Britney/Christina, or sexy earth mother, in the case of Sarah McLachlan, Madonna, Shania Twain, etc.). Are they good musicians? Well, they're good performers. I'm glad they are rewarded for the talent (and puzzled when they are rewarded for lack thereof, but whatever), and I'm glad they're succeeding, but I'm not sure if Britney, Christina, Mandy Moore, and Jessica Simpson are the people I want to be role models for girls growing up today. Would I be happier if Sleater-Kinney was bigger? absolutely. I would rather that teenage girls be exposed to women who don't give a flying fuck about men than live under the illusion that they should give everything up to be blonde, thin, lip-glossed within an inch of their lives, buxom, and only concerned with guys. Sure, Christina Aguilera is demanding "what a girl wants" but she's still deriving her happiness from what a man can give her. I think. I have to admit I've never actually listened to that song all the way through. It's all image, and Earl, you admit to that when you say that Melissa Etheridge and Bonnie Raitt are not as popular as they could or should be. I will never understand why insipid crap like Jewel is more popular. And artists like Fiona Apple and Tori Amos will always be dismissed as angry vagina music (as will Alanis Morissette). I assure you that "angry female" or "angry woman" will always pop up in descriptions of their music. Always, always, always. With names like Fiona and Tori and Alanis, I would have thought it was clear that they were women. And the angry thing, why is it so important to distinguish the artists who tell it like it is from the non-angry ones who write about love and happiness and bunnies? But anyway, I'm not talking about mainstream pop culture. I'm talking specifically about indie rock scenes - and the punk, hardcore, emo, whatever scenes associated with it. I have been to so many New Brunswick shows where the boys are all in front (including my 6'6" boyfriend who has a tendency to pick people up and spin them all around the club - which may contribute to why people might not want to be in the front) and the girls are all in the back. including myself. I have been to so many rock shows in New York and New Jersey where the lines are out the door for the men's bathroom but I've been able to just waltz into the women's bathroom for pretty much the first time in my life (not in Boston, though, for whatever reason). Yes, I'm glad that women are sort of dominating the pop music charts for their own singer songwriter type thing. And I'm not downplaying the importance of that particular kind of musical expression. a lot of my favorite artists are singer-songwriters without bands. But in some ways, it seems that they're less respected. Somehow, their musicianship can be more questioned if it's just them and a piano (or more rarely a guitar, or backing musicians) rather than as a band as a whole. I don't know why this is. I don't know why male singer-songwriters tend to command more respect in indie rock circles than females do (why is Elliott Smith so loved by everyone? But why is it that everyone I know or can think of who adores Lois Maffeo is a woman? to me they're interchangeable in terms of quality of lyrics, type of music, even the scenes from which they came). And I absolutely don't think it's right or fair to say that girls don't want to play guitar. I know tons of girls who desperately want to learn, who want to start their own bands, but so far they have no instruments. And even if they had instruments, they all tell me wistfully that their rock star boyfriends won't teach them, or they just don't know where or how to start. God knows that I wanted to play badly for years before I finally got up the courage to go do it. In high school, I knew just one girl who played in a band and I thought she was the coolest thing ever but I was still too scared to try to get into it. If there had been more women, who knows? it still might not have made any difference. it's my own fault for being intimidated, plus I was too big a dork in high school to feel like I had any claim to try to participate in anything cool, but so it goes. and I like to think I'm more ballsy and more vociferous about my rights than most women are. I know there are a lot of great women in bands, who are musicians and leaders and all around fantastic. but I don't see these bands getting the same respect as all or predominantly male bands do. I know people who live and die for Fugazi, Bluetip, Hot Water Music, Braid. These are the same guys who tell me there are no good girl bands other than the Go-Gos and Wham. These are the guys who tell me women don't rock out as hard as men do. These are the guys who say that Jawbox was one of the greatest bands ever but Kim Coletta was the worst bassist of all time. These are the guys who dismiss bands like Sarge and Discount and Tilt and Avail, all of whom make, in my opinion, far better music than the more lionized Promise Ring or Get Up Kids. And you know, I know a lot of indie rock boys who don't play guitar at all, but they busy themselves with becoming scenesters or wry commentators and this is good enough for them. and I know boys who play guitar but aren't moved to be in a band and instead they're just scenesters or wry commentators, and it's more than enough for them. But based on the scenes that I've observed closely, or where I have friends who take part, women for the most part aren't scenesters. They're often working in the industry, but no one notices them. My friend Emily in Boston works for a distribution group; she's told me stories of going to shows with guys who don't have the power she does who get schmoozed while she gets ignored. There are a lot of girls who do wry commentating, mostly through zines and websites, and I definitely think that's worthy of respect and they do a fabulous job. But it's sad when they're mainly commenting on male music. It's sad when I read an article with someone who runs a 'zine and does PR and says she's willing to work with any female musician, no matter how bad, if just to work with women and promote them within the scene. Yes, it's good to have more women, but yes, it's bad to give them a break based on gender rather than talent because that just bolsters the notion that women are terrible musicians, that women can succeed on less talent and less skill than men because we give them that option. are musicians more liberal than the rest of the world? I don't know. I don't think so. I definitely think guys are still surprised when women want to rock, and they still see it as a novelty. (one exception I've noticed but can't really back up is when the woman in question somehow dampens her sexuality - acts more stereotypically masculine. but since I can't really argue this point strongly I'm just going to note it and leave it. you can argue against it and I can't defend it but that's an impression I get). Do I think the musicians themselves are more likely to have their minds changed than mainstream society? absolutely. But I think everything I've said about indie rock is true about mainstream rock, albeit on a larger scale. Based on bands alone (leaving the thorny issue of female singers/songwriters), from my brief flirtation with alternative music in high school, I can remember Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots, Candlebox, Collective Soul, Live (oh man, how I hated some of these bands!), and of course, R.E.M. Of bands with more than one girl, I can remember Hole, Belly, the Breeders, Veruca Salt. 10,000 Maniacs were female-fronted. Sonic Youth had a girl, so did Jawbox and the Pixies - all bassists. Even today, with my absolute lack of knowledge of today's scene, I'm at least aware of all those guy bands with numbers in their names (Matchbox 20, Third Eye Blind, Blink 182), those crappy, crappy, crappy bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit, and also various bands like Creed or LFO or Smashmouth that I can't say anything about because I don't know anything about them. On the female side, I can think of No Doubt, Garbage, both female-fronted. And that band that covered Come On Eileen. Anyone who can come up with at least 10 popular mainstream bands with at least one woman wins a prize from me. As an aside, I realize it's hypocritical for me to want women in rock and say, well, she's just a singer, or she's just a bassist. I know this is a bad thing. but I guess I just want more. Do numbers and lists prove my point? probably not. like I said, I know very little about mainstream music. I also know very little about indie rock. And the numbers are slighly better for indie rock, I must admit. I know this argument is hard to find points for and I know it's particularly hard to convince men of the institutionalized and long-term sexism inherent in their scene. They don't want to admit to it. But it's there, and I for one don't think it's right. and I'll take my blisters and my ulcers both, thank you very much, until my point is conceded or at least acknowledged. Find me one girl in indie rock who isn't aware in some of way of the sexism in the scene. Find me one woman musician who isn't made to feel like a token, who hasn't been put down in some way by her fans or her fellow musicians. When you can, then you can tell me to shut up and sit down, that my points aren't worthwhile, but until then, don't talk about something you know nothing about. If you've never experienced this sort of thing, of course you're not going to care about it. But it affects a lot of women I know directly in different capacities - as artists, as label owners, as PR workers, as zinesters. And it affects me personally as well. So forgive me if I'm uppity about it, but I see no reason why it should continue, why guys should drift along blithely without any care for what their actions are causing, why girls should go on thinking it's ok for them to always want something but never try for it. I am so tired of the New Brunswick scene where the girls want so badly to be noticed by the guys and when they aren't, they just form stupid cliques to make themselves feel better. I want those girls to break away, to start their own scene and fuck what the boys think. I want them to make music for themselves and their friends instead of accepting that this is what happens and letting themselves be pushed to the fringes of the scene. When I can buy a guitar without someone asking me if it's for my boyfriend, I'll be happy. When I can go into a guitar store with a guy and not have the salespeople assume that he's the one who wants to buy something, I'll be happy. When we can stop making an issue of each time a female performer takes the stage, I'll be thrilled. And when people stop making stupid statements like "girls don't want to play guitar," I'll be astounded. 5.17.00 : 01:34 a.m. Where have I been? well, not doing work, I can tell you that much. Some observations on girls and guitars, and then try and convince me some more that indie rock, or all rock, isn't the province of the male: - In the New York Times, a blurb about the upcoming Sleater-Kinney show, with a caveat along the lines of "with Hole and Garbage on hiatus, this is as good as girl rock is going to get for a while." what? first of all, let's not even get started with the fact that Hole and Garbage are the first two female-led bands that come to this music writer's mind. Shirley Manson, as far as I know, just sings the songs; Courtney Love can't escape all the bitter backbiting and rumors that other people (men) have written all her songs (Kurt, Billy Corgan). Second of all, no one would ever say anything like this about guys (I mean, what would you say? "Go see Elliott Smith because Will Oldham isn't touring and Jeff Buckley is dead, get your fill of droopy male singer-songwriters while you can."). Fuck that. Third of all, I know I'm arguing an argument that Elizabeth Elmore has already given, and much better, but why this pigeonholing? I don't think Sleater-Kinney is the best band ever, even though they're all girls. I'm not going to go out and listen to them even though they're all girls. I do derive some sense of pride that a trio of women can succeed in a male-dominated field, even if they're always pegged as a novelty act simply because they're women (and lesbians). When will the label "girl band" cease to become necessary and implicitly derogatory? The hidden message is that women can't be seen as men's equals as musicians; the hidden catch is that a female musician can never be sure if her success lies in her talent or because someone is cutting her a break because she's a girl. - We're at the Princeton Last Show, a long, hot, and ultimately pointless indie rock festival. Of 10 bands, I only saw/heard one female musician. if you say there are usually around 4 people in a band, that's 39 guys, 1 girl. A singer. Jeff West, who went with us, claims that indie rock isn't sexist at all. I point this statistic out to us and he has no response. Later I'm discussing the festival with some (male) friends and they keep talking about the guy who put it together. "But a girl organized it," I mention. "Oh, maybe she helped, but a guy usually puts on the Terrace Club shows," is the reply. "But it's the Last Show because it's her last show, and she's the one who's listed on the webpage as the contact." No one's mind is changed. they all still think a guy put it together. not that it matters, it was a piece of crap anyway as shows go. - Jeff West sent Katey an e-mail about a conversation he had with a co-worker:
Jeff: "I was with my friend Katey while she was shopping for her guitar" Katey is in fact a superbad bitch, and she totally rules. but why the fact that a girl bought a guitar is so surprising makes me sad. I've complained about this before and at length, but no one gives girls guitars when they're young. I bought my guitar myself at the age of 21 last year as a present to myself and taught myself when none of the useless indie rock boys I know would actually teach me how to play. My parents gave my brother a guitar, and they don't even like rock music. he played it for about 2 weeks and then lost it somewhere. And I would have killed if they'd just done that much for me (all right, so I got 14 years of violin lessons, what's your point?). All you fucking indie rockers, when you have kids, you'd better be giving guitars to your daughters if you're going to be shoving them into your sons' hands, or you have no right to say that indie rock isn't sexist. because you'll be the sexist ones. - my own experience in guitar buying - I inexplicably bid on and won a guitar on eBay for some ridiculously low amount of money. so I call up the store and give them my credit card so they can send me my guitar. It's a nice quick transaction and I've gotten a pretty decent guitar for about 1/3rd of the store price. but at the end, the guy asks me, "so is this guitar for you or for your boyfriend?" I'm so staggered, all I can do is laugh, as bitterly as I can, and tell him my boyfriend doesn't even know how to play guitar. Which he doesn't! And for some reason every time I go over to his place I try not to show what I can play on guitar and as a result he thinks I can't play at all! Why do I act like this? Am I so afraid to hurt his male pride? God knows I don't spare him in other arenas, so why this one? or more likely, he's been a roadie for a lot of bands, so he's around musicians all the time and I'm afraid he'll judge me by those standards, even though I've only been playing for months and those guys have been playing years. but I don't want to be seen struggling, until I'm ready. All of this is giving me an ulcer. I'm already so nervous about wanting to be in a band. and I know Katey is terrified, too, of being judged by a different set of standards than most of the musicians we admire. If we're bad, people will chalk it up to being girls. If we're good, people will be surprised and lionize us for doing so well despite the fact that we're girls. Every day I become more and more convinced that I should just give up while I am still out of it, that there's no good reason to put myself out there. And every day I become more and more convinced that my creativity is completely lacking, that anything I might do might be OK if I were a guy (god knows enough crappy music gets made in this world, why shouldn't I contribute to it?), but I want to do better because I want to prove that girls can be good, too. But why should wanting to be a musician have to turn into a gender war? I wish I could just relax, go into it for the fun of it, remember that I'm doing this because I don't want to die without saying I gave something I wanted this much a chance. But it's inevitable. I can't ignore it. the issue of my being female will come up whether I think it should or whether I want it to, at least in the province of indie rock. It's not fair, it's not nice, it's not good, but I can't change it. Even if we're actually good, even if we play well and write good songs, we alone won't change very much. not to sound cheesy, but this revolution has to start from the ground. More girls should get guitars, drum kits, basses, and just put themselves out there. I know I shouldn't be saying this if I myself am afraid to do it myself, but I'm doing it anyway, despite my fears. If you suck, well, think of the many millions of crappy high school bands started by boys and press on. I know there are enough talented women out there to do this, to make it less of a novelty and more the norm. Maybe I'm wrong for thinking sheer numbers will change the face of anything, but if nothing else, it'll at least address the enormous gender gap. Whether it can change whether women are respected as musicians at all remains to be seen. I think that we have a number of incredible female musicians now, but they're too few and far between. I long for a day when you'll see a girl on stage with a bunch of guys and she isn't playing the bass or singing for them, but instead she's playing lead guitar or drumming. I doubt I'll ever be a lead guitarist; while Katey is figuring out all the solos I'm patiently learning all the damn chords. But the way things are going, it looks like we'll both be playing guitar with a female drummer. And all the bass players I know are guys. I like the idea of inverting the traditional rock band lineup. ultimately my complaining is fruitless without action. And I know this. but feeling like I have to struggle harder pisses me off and disinclines me from pursuing my dreams. I'm glad to have trailblazers to look up to, but I don't understand why advancing the progress of women in rock is taking so long with so little to show. 5.2.00 : 10:36 p.m.
thinking: argh argh argh argh. so of course I'm updating my pita. |
