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Archive for May, 2009

May

“Swagga like us”: Musicians do motherhood their way

It’s Mother’s Day weekend and to celebrate, I thought today I’d write up a tribute to some awesome women who balance and blend the dual identities of musician and mother in their own ways.

First up, Erykah Badu and Jill Scott.

Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, sharing the spotlight

So much to love about these two. They’re smart, talented, politically conscious, unconventionally beautiful, and have earned plenty of mainstream recognition but choose to stay on the fringe of popular culture.

Also, they’re autonomous women who have opted out of a conventional family unit. Both are unmarried. Badu had son Seven and daughters Puma and Mars from her relationships with André 3000 of OutKast, The D.O.C., and Jay Electronica, respectively. Scott is divorced and welcomed the birth of her first child, Jett, with her boyfriend, Lil John Roberts, last year at the age of 36.

And finally, I love that they’re friends, came up from the Philly “neo-soul” circuit together, and often perform together (as evidenced from the photo above; see also their stirring performance of “You Got Me” on Dave Chappelle’s Block Party). I like to imagine that they hang out together a lot, helping each other write, sing, or think through the struggles and joys of daily life.

Next up, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon.

The Gordon-Moores, rocking out on "The Gilmore Girls"

After being married to bandmate Thurston Moore for about ten years, Gordon (who kept her name, thank you) gave birth to Coco Hayley Gordon Moore in 1994, thus bringing presumably one of the coolest girls into the world as a result. I like to imagine that Coco was schooling her classmates about Merzbow by the sixth grade. Also, a friend of mine’s sister used to babysit Coco, and says that she is a really nice, well-adjusted kid. Yay!

I like that Kim had Coco — an only child — on her own time and later in life. It probably reminds me of my mom, who had me (and only me) at 36. Plus, Gordon and Moore performed a song with Coco on The Gilmore Girls. How cool is that?

Speaking of cool moms, what about M.I.A., who welcomed her first son Ikhyd into the world with fiancé Benjamin Brewer earlier this year?

M.I.A. at the Grammys, days before giving birth; image courtesy of fashion.mirror.co.uk

Unfortunately, I can’t find a hi-res version of the Grammy performance of T.I.’s “Swagga Like Us”, but I really love it. I love that M.I.A., whose song “Paper Planes” is sampled and provides the song title, opens the performance. I love that she interacts with the other rappers, who seem to be treating her as an equal. I love that the men she shares the stage with, all of whom are African American and thus stigmatized by the racist, sexist stereotype of the wayward, absentee black father, seem to be excited and happy for her. I love that she’s ready-to-burst pregnant in public and is wearing a tight, short, see-through black and white dress, thus confronting and subverting the conception of the sexless matriarch (in fact, she got a lot of flak for the dress; some people dubbed it “slutty” and “trashy”). I also love that she paired the ensemble with sneakers, because pregnant ladies gotta be comfortable. And most of all, I love that we haven’t seen much of baby Ikhyd since he came into the world, suggesting that the family wants their son to grow up a person and not a tabloid ficture.

Another low-key mom is Yoshimi Yokota, legendary drummer of Boredoms and singer/guitarist of OOIOO.

Yoshimi and OOIOO, debating whether or not to spare the rod

Like Gordon, she’s got one daughter, and seems to be pleased with that. But like M.I.A., she’s not forthcoming about her personal life, particularly the family she’s creating for herself. And finally, I love that unlike what we may expect from mom musicians, Yoshimi doesn’t think her entrance into motherhood has changed her music.

And finally, the mother of all cool musician moms, Björk.

Quality time with Björk and son Sindri; image captured from art-gallery.com

So, Björk is interesting for many reasons. Like Badu, she had two children with two different partners (son Sindri with former Sugarcubes bandmate Þór Eldon; daughter Ísadóra with artist Matthew Barney). There’s also an unsual age difference between her children. Sindri was born in 1986, when Björk was 21. Ísadóra was born sixteen years later in 2002. And, despite her diminuitive figure and elfin looks, Björk is fiercely protective of her children and their privacy (anyone remember when Björk went off and beat up a journalist who waved a microphone in Sindri’s face at the airport?). Don’t fuck with mom.

But these moms are just a few examples. Who are your favorite musician moms?

May

Music Videos: Björk and P!nk sex the self

By Alyx Vesey 2 Comments

Categories: Feminist Music Geeks Turn on Their TVs
Tags: All Is Full Of Love, Ann Ciasullo, Björk, Chris Cunningham, Funhouse, Homogenic, Jonas Åkerlund, Making her (in)visible: Cultural representations of lesbianism and the lesbian body in the 1990s, NSFW, P!nk, self-love, Sober

It’s pretty easy to objectify and make normative lesbian sex (for more on the subject, I recommend Ann Ciasullo’s essay “Making her (in)visible: Cultural representations of lesbianism and the lesbian body in the 1990s” as a starting point). Music videos, which already have a bad rap for objectifying female bodies for a (presumably) male audience, are no exception. But what happens when the musician is having sex with herself. And not just masturbating, but going to town on her twin?

First up, we’ve got Björk.

And, more recently, P!nk.

I for one think this is awesome — simultaneously an assertion of the self, the self’s sexual desires, and the self’s fragmentability. Also, this assertion is channeled through queerable female bodies (Björk as cyborg; P!nk as a model of “butch feminine”). An assertion from famous, marketable pop stars, no less.

May

“What about a tuba?”: Mika Miko and the telephone

By Alyx Vesey 2 Comments

Categories: Feminist Music Geeks Turn Their Headphones Up
Tags: Birds on the wire: Troping teenage girlhood through telephony in mid-twentieth-century US media culture, girlhood, girls, girls studies, Jennifer Clavin, Jet Blanca, Kill Your Idols, Lydia Lunch, Mary Kearney, Mika Miko, non-traditional instrumentation, technology, telephone, Victor Fandgore, We Be Xuxa

This post is dedicated to Caitlin, who could not wait to talk about this band and the instrument I will highlight when we presented on girls and subcultures in a Girls Studies class we took together.

Speaking of Girls Studies, if you’re interested in reading about on girls and telephones, might I suggest Mary Kearney’s essay “Birds on the wire: Troping teenage girlhood through telephony in mid-twentieth-century US media culture”? While she focuses on girls and telephones, and their mediated images, in a strictly post-war American context, it’s a pretty great piece and very applicable to what I’ll dive into here.

In the documentary Kill Yr Idols, Lydia Lunch rolls her eyes at the classic rock line-up (i.e., two guitars, bass, drums) and says something to the effect of “what about a tuba?” So, in the spirit of that question, I thought I’d periodically post some female musicians who I think are invested in the idea of reconfiguring the standard structure. First up, Mika Miko.

How I love this group. How I cannot wait to grab their new album, We Be Xuxa, which came out today. They’re a bunch of young spunky grrrl punks (and now one boy drummer) from LA. Their songs are super-short. They have two grrrl lead singers (Victor Fandgore and Jet Blanca). Their live sets are fun, loud, and at times conceptual (one of my friends saw them play a show in a tent). Oh, and did you notice that one of them (Victor, born Jennifer Clavin) sings through a mike welded into a telephone?!?!?

A telephone! I know. The signifiers pile up and tilt over. Young girls playing together, probably rehearsing in a band member’s house. Young girls manipulating gendered technologies. Young girls distorting how they sound, making their voices at once excessively girly and conversational, while also monstrous and unintelligible. And finally, young girls doing something besides singing pretty into a microphone — in effect, reconfiguring the microphone altogether. Fabulous.

May

Previews: “500 Days of Summer” and “Paper Heart”

By Alyx Vesey 4 Comments

These movies are coming out in the not-too-distant future. Can’t speak to whether or not the women in them are feminist music geeks, but the trailers suggest some geekery going on, and thus peaked my interest. Also, my friend Marlene posted them on Facebook.

So, first up we have (500) Days of Summer.

Directed by Marc Webb

Okay, so the positives first.

1. I like the leads. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is amazing in Mysterious Skin. Zooey Deschanel is charming and I’ve liked her in Elf, The Good Girl, and Almost Famous.

(Note: Ugh, something tells me I’ll have to get into Almost Famous on here at some point. To be brief, I kinda can’t stand that movie anymore, but still own my VHS copy from my late teens when I loved it. Fanboyness has ruined a lot of this movie’s appeal for me, as has growing tired of Cameron Crowe’s sentimentalism as I age. But people love this movie, so let’s get in a fight later.)

Okay, back to (500) Days of Summer.

2. Zooey sings in the trailer. Have you listened to She and Him? I really enjoy her and M. Ward together. If you need an album to make breakfast to, might I recommend Volume One? Deschanel’s got a warm, grainy voice. I gave Elf and Yes Man (a family choice at the multiplex during the holidays — please don’t judge) a pass for similar reasons. She even has a band in Yes Man, and wears cute coats.

3. Summer doesn’t believe in love. Like some people don’t believe in God or, to borrow from Tom, Santa. Hmm.

4. I guess Tom gets lame and Summer has enough and that’s where the plot thickens. I like it when ladies have had enough. Ah, that reminds me. I’ll probably also need to write up something on High Fidelity.

But I’ve also got some cons.

1. As happy as I want to be about Summer invading Tom’s male geek domain in the elevator by a) interrupting his loud, melancholic reverie, b) showing musical savviness by saying she loves The Smiths and then c) singing the chorus to “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”, I can’t help but read this as a way to objectify Summer somehow. Maybe it has something to do with her sashaying out of the elevator and the camera cutting to Tom, slack-jawed and enamored, saying “Holy . . .”

1A. I’m sure some will bristle at the inclusion of The Smiths, or at least one of their more popular tunes, in a non-indie indie picture (Fox Searchlight, ya’ll). Perhaps they’ll get all territorial or offer up a more obscure song that could’ve been used. Personally, I don’t care. For one, Fox Searchlight has to appeal to a broad audience. For another, that particular song might mean a great deal to someone involved in the picture. For another, I just don’t care that much about The Smiths. Nothing personal. They just don’t do it for me. I tried liking them for four years (two years in high school, two years in college) and it didn’t click. However, I do love Schneider TM’s cover of said song.

2. Tom’s wonderment of Summer, combined with seeing her everywhere and claiming to want her back after the break-up kinda creeps me out. It doesn’t read as romantic so much as obsessive and predatory. But maybe that’s just the trailer.

3. This movie reads a little too closely as a template for romantic comedies co-starring the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (rarely is she the lead). Sad sack guy falls hard for madcap gal and is forever transformed by her, even though she really gets no character development (unless you think quirky dancing or being a fan of The Shins is development). Here’s hoping Summer gets some interiority.

4. Does this couple seem a little too white, middle-class, and straight to you? As I mentioned elsewhere, I think there’s room for progressive heterosexual romance in media, but there’s something a little too normative about this particular configuration. Again, maybe it’s just the preview.

On that tack, I like that Paper Heart is about an interracial couple. Better yet, the actors, Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi, might have some actual romantic history, thus blurring the line between documentary and feature.

Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec

Lots of pros:
1. Charlyne Yi co-wrote the screenplay.
2. Yi is multiracial and also kind of frumpy by Hollywood’s insane beauty standards. I like that the movie stars a “regular-looking” woman of color. One that co-wrote the script? Even better!
3. Dude, Yi is a musician and helped score the movie. Maybe she’ll play some songs!
4. Yi is 12 years older than Cera. Blah-dow.
5. “Charlyne Yi” the character doesn’t believe in love. While of course this gets tested, I like that she’s skeptical and unsentimental about it, and am curious as to how her feelings will develop.
6. Why hello, Bill Haverchuck. Yes, I see you, Ken Miller.
7. I want to be friends with the girl who says that love is buying someone hot wings at Applebee’s. She’s wise.

I may be jumping the gun by conceptualizing Paper Heart as a romantic comedy with, about, and for music geeks, but something tells me that it is and that this will be, if not a good movie, at least an interesting one.

My big ick with both of these movies is that they seem pretty cute. I’m pretty cute-averse, as a rule. I always have been. But maybe these movies won’t cross the line. We’ll see.

May

Lady Gaga — not buying it

By Alyx Vesey 21 Comments

Categories: Feminist Music Geeks Debate Whether to Wear Chucks or Heels
Tags: American Idol, Andy Warhol, BRIT Awards, Gertrude Stein, Hello Kitty, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, Pamela Robertson, Paris Hilton, Pet Shop Boys, Stefani Germanotta, The Fame

Lady Gaga sitting (without pants) in the lap of luxury

So, I’ll just come right out and say it. I don’t get Lady Gaga. Actually, no. I think I get her. At first I thought I was just being resentful that she got to perform in the Pet Shop Boys medley at the BRIT Awards and I didn’t, but now I just think there’s nothing to get. To take Gertrude Stein out of context, there is no there there.

My immediate problem with her is that she seems to have garnered a lot of attention around her fashion choices. Admittedly, she’s got an interesting look on the surface. Glittery, glam, vaguely militaristic, often without pants. She certainly throws together a spectacle. But my big question is where is the commentary? What is the critique exactly?

Based on the video for “Beautiful Dirty Rich” (or, indeed, the title of her debut album, The Fame) one might assume the commentary is on the desperation and boring vapidity of fame and wealth.

But, the thing is, she’s totally buying into it, perhaps in the same way that her idol Andy Warhol bought into it. There’s not really a commentary. She wants to be famous. She wants to be rich (a goal not difficult to obtain unto itself, as she was born into an upper-middle-class family). Basically, it seems like she wants to be Paris Hilton. And not to comment on her. Just simply to be her.

Heygirlhey.

To add to which, the glamor of Lady Gaga further seems to enforce the idea of fabulousness as being politically progressive. That if women own their fabulousness and earn it for themselves, it’s their choice to spend their money on jewel-encrusted, shoulder-padded bathing suits and designer sunglasses, and creating room for that kind of excessive materialism is empowering to women, somehow.

But you don’t see Lady Gaga appropriating thrift-store togs or found objects, as my friend Kristen astutely pointed out. Her key accessory of late seems to be the tea cup. This, combined with her taking up of the title “Lady”, suggests that there’s no reason for women to question high fashion’s or society’s dependence on capitalism (which also has a nasty habit of keeping patriarchal practices in power and, as a result, oppressing marginalized groups) but, in fact, to embrace it.

A Lady who lunches with high society; photo taken from gofugyourself.com

And let’s look closer at this image for a moment. Another thing that I think is interesting about her look is her predilection for appropriating East Asian (specifically Japanese, it would seem) fashion cues. This kind of pilfering further emphasizes her whiteness and her compliance with it — while she may have been born brunette Stefani Germanotta, she reinvented herself as Lady Gaga, a white, bleach-blonde pop star with an ear for pseudo-Aryan techno dirges and a desire to make herself as racially normative as possible. And how better to be white than appropriate from other cultures? This is evident in the picture above, where Gaga’s lips are made up in a pursed style popularized by the geisha, and in the look below, where she has manipulated her (wigged?) hair into a Hello Kitty bow.

Lady Gaga by way of Sanrio; photo taken from kittyhell.com

Of course, many may defend her constructedness as being progressive because of how performative and excessively feminine it is, suggesting that it’s all drag and thus may be totally queer and subversive. Which is a fair claim to make. What was her American Idol performance of “Poker Face” if not one big, campy drag revue?

But a look to the lyrics. Apparently the song is about how Lady Gaga was having sex with a guy and pretending he was a woman. Shock me shock me. But you know what, Lady? Rather than suffer through some lame guy’s inability to satisfy you, why don’t you get out of bed and find another partner. Also, I’d be more impressed if you actually had a substantial male member, but you probably don’t. So the illusion is broken there.

And, of course, it cannot be ignored that the popularity of drag was another bit of appropriation white pop stars exacted from black, queer subculture. Maybe putting it on the Idol stage is interesting, but I’m sure much of its context and subtext was lost.

If all of this sounds super-familiar, it’s because it’s also not new. Having just read Pamela Robertson’s Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp From Mae West to Madonna, this basically reads to me as Madonna Redux. And let’s not forget that Madonna herself borrowed from Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, and was big on appropriating images and customs from black and gay culture, which bell hooks suggests in her essay “Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister” further highlighted her white blondeness, as well as her compliance with patriarchy.

And while I’m all for feminist camp and female drag queens, I’d like to see some models of it (perhaps, gasp, some models of color) who actually make a comment on patriarchy, capitalism, race, sexuality, and normative feminine beauty ideals. If this critique isn’t there, then what keeps folks like Lady Gaga, who may seem progressive, subversive, or even transgressive, from actually endorsing a very staid set of class, gender, racial, and sexual norms and charging it all to their credit cards?

May

Looking for something to do on a Saturday night? What about Kareoke Underground?

By Alyx Vesey Leave a Comment

Categories: Feminist Music Geeks Take to the Streets
Tags: college radio, Kareoke Underground, Parentheses, The Blow, The Nomad

If you’re in Austin, might I suggest hopping over to Nomad tonight to do some indie lung-shredding for Karaoke Underground? Hannah and Kaleb, the lovely folks who run KU, have a night at the Nomad the first Saturday of each month. So come on out, knock back a few drinks, and sing some college radio classics.

And, in honor of KU, kareoke, and independent music, here’s the kareoke-themed music video for The Blow’s “Parentheses,” one of many songs you can sing tonight.

May

Talking about records at the Feminist Bookstore

By Alyx Vesey 1 Comment

So, folks are probably familar with ThunderAnt, a very funny sketch comedy duo comprised of SNL‘s Fred Armisen and former Sleater-Kinney axwoman and music blogger Carrie Brownstein. They’ve done two sketches on Women and Women First, a feminist bookstore. In this one, Candice and Toni sort out CDs they’ve received for the store to determine which ones they’ll sell.

And here are the things I love about it:
1. Hippie dancing
2. They don’t want to sell an album from someone who bleaches their hair
3. They also don’t want to sell an album they don’t have any problems with
4. Lampooning white privilege is always funny
5. Lampooning the white privilege inherent to much of the feminist movement in America is necessary
6. Lampooning some of the spiritual woo-wooiness that comes with much of the feminist movement speaks to much of this white privilege and also acknowledges that some feminists (like me) aren’t very spiritual
7. I also say a little prayer when I hear a car siren because I’m sure it’s a cop unjustly harrassing someone (probably a person of color)
8. Drums = cop lashing
9. “Over-bodied”
10. “That is the sound of my chard”

Now, I know that some folks may take offense to making fun of a feminist bookstore, because the people who run them are hard-working and often go unpaid to stay local, independent, and political (much love to MonkeyWrench, much love to Book Woman). Also, some folks may take offense to the very second-wave depiction of feminists. To which I say, Toni and Candice, hire a young feminist. And let her be me.

But don’t ever fahcking tell Candice what to do.

Fun fact: This sketch was shot by Lance Bangs, son of Lester Bangs and baby-daddy to Corin Tucker, Brownstein’s former bandmate.

May

Records That Made Me a Feminist, by Brea

By Alyx Vesey 3 Comments

In an effort to reflect on how music came to inform political beliefs, I asked some people if they’d be willing to share the records that made them feminists. The first entry comes from my friend Brea.

i’ve been thinking a lot about this. at first i thought of how important my first mix tape with riot grrrl bands and spoken word was. i had never heard anything like Heavens to Betsy screaming, “Stay Away!” or the spoken word artists whose names i’ll never know.

The Hot Rock, released in 1999 on Kill Rock Stars

The Hot Rock, released in 1999 by Kill Rock Stars

then i thought of when The Hot Rock by Sleater-Kinney was on constant repeat in my car my senior year of high school. i’m not sure how i would have survived without “Banned from the End of the World.” but my feminist awakenings happened earlier. i really had to dig in my head to think about what album it was that i decided that i loved female vocalists.

it took a while to figure that out for me – my love for female vocalists that turned into a radio show i did for several years in college. i loved them because i could sing along in ways that i couldn’t sing along with all the dudes. trying to hit the notes Mike Ness hits is just a joke.

it was like first i discovered punk and i was like, “fuck yeah.” and then i discovered that i, too, could play an instrument and put out a zine and the world got better and became clearer. but there was always something missing between Minor Threat and The Get Up Kids. growing up in a small town, i grasped at what i could and it was much easier to find bands like NOFX than Bratmobile in the local Hastings or even in mailorder catalogues.

and then, there was Sarge. i have no idea how i found this band. i think my friend Marisa from Dallas bought their cd somewhere. and it was love at first listen. Sarge played kick-ass indie rock. Period. and i was really done with a lot of punk at that moment, probably when i was about 16, and really considered myself very “indie.”

The Glass Intact, released in 1998 on Mud Records

but the best part about Sarge was that that girl, Elizabeth Elmore, could sing and she sang like a girl. she sang like me. i don’t know why that was important but it felt like i was playing in bands, loving music, but not really connecting to a lot of the music i listened to outside the whole punk rebellion part. Sarge sang about shitty boys that did you wrong, being called a slut, and having crushes on girls. they felt rebellious and cool and most of all, Elizabeth’s voice sounded like mine. i could hit those notes. i could sing along at the top of my lungs.

i think that’s where my love of music really started – with bands that i could relate to, sang about stuff i knew about, and most importantly, sang like me. it made me realize that i could do so much more than try to be a part of the local boys’ punk scene. i could create my own scene, write songs about things i wanted to sing about, and most importantly, sing like a fucking girl and love it.

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