Earlier this week, I went to Music Monday at the Drafthouse. This week’s offering was David Bowie’s 1973 concert feature, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, which shows the legendary conclusion of the artist’s breakout tour which went out with a bang at the Hammersmith Odeon. It was directed by D.A. Pennebaker who Dylanologists (snicker) might revere for shooting Don’t Look Back and synth-pop enthusiasts the world over can credit for capturing Depeche Mode’s 1988 Rose Bowl performance in 101. Stardust is a valueable historical document of the artist, his band (particularly guitarist Mick Ronson), and the last days of glam rock, a subgenre that would capture the imaginations of a generation of boys and girls on both sides of the pond.
While I think Pennebaker and his film crew constructed a few minor but unfortunate heterosexist images here (i.e.: showing teenage female fans in a clear state of religious/sexual ecstacy but not pointing the camera at any of the boys that assuredly were in attendance; downplaying the sexual dynamic between Bowie and Ronson’s on-stage interplay by framing Ronson’s extensive solos as a chance for Bowie to change costumes with the help of several female personnel), it cannot be denied that Bowie is a helluva entertainer and an assured diva candidate.
His interest in cultural provocation and reinvention impacted Madonna, who inducted the purposely absent icon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. His androgynous look and campy performance style paved the way for like-minded male artists like Prince and Adam Lambert, the latter of whom is apparently too hot for prime time because his orientation has turned queer subtext into text. And finally, his theatrically nasal voice and lyrical wordplay have influenced indie rock singer-songwriters like Dan Bejar of Destroyer to turn odes to girls and books into labrynthine pop.
Oh, and let’s not forget Bowie’s fantastic turn on Extras. I know Andy Millman won’t.
But all of this means nothing, as I’m going to be focusing on Lydia Lunch, a woman who probably has no use for Bowie or any of his accolades. Fitting in a way, as she’d probably have even less use for being called a diva. While I have no problem declaring her one anyway, I’m also pretty sure she’d tell me to fuck off.
"The fuck is this diva bullshit, Alyx?"; image courtesy of fan-belt.com
For those unfamiliar, Lunch made her mark fronting no wave group Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Like many of that scene (who’d probably even hate to be referred to as such), this band constantly deconstructed what bands were, what songs were, what music was. Nonetheless, they made an upsetting, exciting scrawl.
And Lunch became imfamous for her confrontational vocal and performance style, something she also brings into her art and written work. Lunch doesn’t sing songs, create installations, make paintings, and write essays and poems so much as disembowel salf-fashioned, sometimes hilarious psychodramas about sex, abuse, death, drugs, and the grotesque implications of image construction. And filth. Always filth.
"Not again!" -- Lydia Lunch, otherwise occupied; image courtesy of flickr.com
On my must-read list; image courtesy of fromthearchives.com
Acerbic and frequently bored, she’s a delightful addition to any music documentary. In fact, she practically saves 2004′s Kill Your Idols, Scott Crary’s otherwise messy attempt to outline the New York downtown scene from the proto-punk offerings of The Velvet Underground and Suicide to the ascendance of then-up-and-coming acts like The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Liars. Here, she tells her version of the unhistoricizable subgenre that is no wave and strongly endorses against band formation and traditional instrumentation, suggesting kids pick up tubas instead of guitars.
Unfortunately, Crary feels the need to frame his subject in such a way that her heaving bosom is in nearly every shot, which contrasts sharply with the interview footage of Swans’ Michael Gira, which is almost entirely comprised of low-angle head shots. To further pronounce the Citizen Kane indebtedness, Gira’s shot in black and white. Lunch’s breasts apparently required color.
That said, I struggle with Lunch in ways akin to how I struggle with Patti Smith.
Nobody's Patsy; image courtesy of last.fm
On the surface, they’re very similar. They’re both northeastern female underground music-art world figures who made their names blurring filth with art with persona. They also got their start working and aligning with men, sometimes causing me to wonder if they find a particular kinship with men over women, if music historians have overemphasized their work with men, or if they want to absence gender from any discussion of their work, except when they’re making the argument themselves.
Of course, Lunch has worked with a number of women, including Exene Cervenka, Kim Gordon, and Annie Sprinkle. And both women occupy interesting cultural positions that challenge gender roles that line up perfectly with divas. While both women actually employ collaborative processes in their work, the heavy lifting of their male instrumental counterparts is often relegated to the background to emphasize their singularity.
Of course, that I’m doing much of the emphasizing along with generations of like-minded commentators should not be ignored. Instead it should be challenged in terms of how we’re perpetuating the idea that women are better suited to the iconographic role of the solo artist and not toward a further understanding of art- and media-making’s inherently collaborative process and what roles women have, or choose not to have, in it.
Of course, both women seem to like being perceived as cults of personality, which tends to be the realm of the solo artist. Many women have followed, and continue to follow, in this path. We need to keep asking why. I’d like to start by offering up this question: could there ever be a collective of divas working together on a musical project?
Perhaps Lunch and Smith’s configuration as solo artists has something to do with their iffy relationships to feminism (the former instead aligning herself with humanism when she feels its necessary to align with any isms; the latter out-right dismissing feminism).
But one thing I respect about Lunch is her stubborn resolve not to be considered a historical figure. Or an artist. Or a musician. Or a poet. Or a writer. Or a woman sometimes and a human almost never. Because to her, the categorization that inevitably comes from creating or complying with the instation of identity markers create limits on people. Thus, she also resists the entire process of canonization. So I know she’d reject the impetus behind this blog’s assessment of the cultural import behind her personae and body of work.
But canonize I will because, as a feminist, I feel like we have to create a space where we value these sorts of contributions from women and girls. We should also contend the complexities of our art and its political implications. Feminism is tricky and slippery, and most exciting to me when it kind of hurts my head. So is the work of valueable, smart women who will wrestle free from any categorization. Even if I think they’re divas. Even if they think the entire construct (or any construct) is bullshit.
Another great piece on some folks I admire! I realize that your focus is not on Patti Smith, but since you brought her up, I have to throw in my two cents…
I’m not exactly sure which men you are referring to when you state that Smith “got her start working and aligning with men,” but the two men that immediately come to mind for me in relation to Smith are Arthur Rimbaud (perhaps her greatest source of inspiration) and Robert Mapplethorpe (her lover and friend) – two iconoclastic, highly-controversial gay men that while questionable in their gender politics are not exactly representative of the patriarchal status quo. They are, in fact, quite queer company with which to align oneself. Which brings me to my next point: For me, Smith is not so much female, as queer. Or, more precisely, transgender. (Indeed, hasn’t Smith done for FTM androgyny what Bowie has done for MTF androgyny?)
Smith zerself has stated that zhe, “Always enjoyed doing transgender songs” and, more famously, that, “As far as I’m concerned, being any gender is a drag.” This latter statement cleverly summarizes one of the main tenets of queer theory and may even suggest that Smith’s gender identifications rest somewhere between female and male (I suspect the latter identification is stronger). Given zer romantic/sexual interest in men, it is no wonder the gay male company zhe keeps!
So perhaps it’s unfair to expect Smith to identify as a feminist. I have qualms about identifying as a feminist myself because I feel that I haven’t earned it and, as a man, never can. Smith is more of a man than I’ll ever be and, as someone so male-identified, perhaps feels disconnected from feminism.
Haha! Curran, I bring her up so you’ll throw in your two cents!
And BTW, the offer always stands that you can write about her at any time. Or anyone else, for that matter.
But for the purposes of clarification, I *was* referring to those two men. In addition, I was also referring to the Patti Smith Group (specifically guitarist Lenny Kaye) and Sam Shepard (they co-wrote the play Cowboy Mouth). And since I didn’t mention fandom in the original post, I will throw in the dudes Smith often refers to as influences: Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, and William Burroughs. In addition, there are of course the men whose songs Smith covered — perhaps most famously Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain. Those guys too.
Oh, but quick thing. Does Smith identify as trans? Obviously, playing with gender construction is a major part of the artist’s recordings and performances (i.e., covering men’s songs without switching the pronouns, singing songs as a man, etc.). But I’m curious as to how Smith’s feelings about gender and being (biologically) female have evolved over time, especially after serving traditionally feminine roles like a wife, mother, and widow. How might these roles impacted later musical output? How might they enforce or defy traditional configurations of trans identities?
Oh, and again — the offer still stands if you want your own blog entry.
Also, I like your Bowie/Smith read.
Thanks for the post offer! I’ll definitely take you up on it at some point. Yes, I don’t think that Smith has ever identified as trans per se. This is my own queer reading of zer gender play and seemingly conflicted relationship with zer zex/gender. Smith might call this something else. But, for me, “trans” seems like the correct word – perhaps especially since, from what I know, Smith (along with [slightly] later folks like Annie Lennox and Grace Jones) has been a source of inspiration for drag kings and identification for transfolk. In this regard, I read Smith’s “feminine roles” as essentially gay. As someone who has modeled so much of zer life after Rimbaud, it only makes sense that ze would be a man who loves other men – and gay men (Mapplethorpe) at that! Of course this doesn’t help to explain “mother,” but perhaps this adds generatively to the gender confusion. In any case, my reading is just a reading, but I still think there is something “different” about Smith (precisely because of zer various male-identifications and gender performances) that complicates the label of “female artist” and, in turn, “feminist.” And, in a way that goes beyond Lennox and Jones, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, Bowie, Prince and Adam Lambert. Perhaps this is because Smith’s cross-gender performances seem less spectacular and showy than these other artists and more organic (to me, anyway) and because these other artists haven’t articulated the same cross-gender identifications and alignments, or at least not to the same degree. In other words, there might be a way in which the way Smith has situated zerself as one of/among the boys can be seen as queerly productive.
Thanks for elaborating, Curran. I knew you were on to something smart in your original comment.
PS – I’d also like to know how Smith’s “feelings about gender and being (biologically) female have evolved over time. Research project!
Totally. I’d champion that cause!