Feminist Music Geeks Ask “Is It Art?”

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Feb

Covered: PJ Harvey’s “Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea”

Cover to "Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea" (Island, 2000); image courtesy of wikipedia.org

People sometimes refer to Polly Jean Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea as a kinder, gentler sound from the English singer-songwriter. Frankly, I don’t know what they’re talking about. Maybe it’s to do with the relative lack of drama involved in the album’s recording process, as Rid Of Me and To Bring You My Love were reportedly fraught with tension. It can’t be its content. Harvey may not make her lover lick her injuries, compare her selflessness in a relationship to a Sheela na Gig, or forsake heaven here, but the stakes couldn’t be higher. It may be love that she’s feeling, but it’s still potentially destructive and dangerous in its power, especially when let loose in (pre-9/11) New York City. It’s evident from opening track “Big Exit.” She wants the fucking gun, people.

If that isn’t enough vitriol for you, may I direct you toward “The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore” and “Kamikaze,” two songs that may be responsible for the extraneous parental advisory notice printed on my copy of the album.

Stories From the City was my PJ record for a while, though Is This Desire? would later come to challenge my ears and ideals more. The first album I had was To Bring You My Love, which I got for Christmas my junior year along with The Chemical Brothers’ underrated Surrender. It was a profoundly upsetting listening experience. After listening to it all the way through, I listened to “Teclo” a few more times and hid the CD under the bed, a place that I’ve only since reserved for The Afghan Whigs’ Gentlemen and My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. Its intensity scared me. But once I got used to it, Harvey’s intensity became one of her most clearest assets as a musician. It became especially appealing when juxtaposing her out-size voice, guitar playing, and stage presence against her shyness.

Some people also categorize Stories as her love album, which I also don’t understand, regardless of whether or not this album is about a rumored affair with Vincent Gallo. For one, I can’t pick an album of her’s for you that doesn’t focus on love. But this album seems most closely fixated on how love evolves, rather than obtaining it or being dashed against the rocks by it. Perhaps these were the same folks who quoted the lyric about Harvey watching her lover undress in the “This Is Love” and thought no more about it.

Did they hear “A Place Called Home,” “This Mess We’re In,” or “We Float”? Yes, these are love songs in a sense, but they are not about the beginning of a relationship but the restlessness or disillusion of it and the hope that it can become good or something else. There is no stasis here. Harvey’s bombastic guitar playing and Thom Yorke’s presence as a guest vocalist, most notably on “This Mess We’re In,” only ramp up the tension.

Even songs like “Good Fortune,” which seems to be an ode to wandering around New York’s streets with a lover, ends with the protagonist ready to uproot her sense of home.

I came to Stories during the winter of my senior year in high school. I was just about to break up with my first boyfriend. We dated for over a year, were totally unfulfilled and bored in our relationship, but were fairly a popular couple amongst the social circles of Alvin High School, which also made us kind of obnoxious. I was tired of being in his shadow and ready to move on. The album’s erotically charged content drifted me toward fantasies of galavanting around New York City with a mysterious stranger I met on the subway. This led me to project the album’s feelings on to the boy I started dating a week after I broke up with bachelor #1. It’s something I might share with fellow Harvey fan Rory Gilmore. Yes, songs like “One Line” are that powerful.

But the more I listen and reflect on Stories, the less I think about it as an album about the love shared between two people. Instead, it seems to be about the love a woman has for her interior life and how that’s manifested in her engagement with uncertain, sprawling terrains. These areas inform the album’s title and its content. For me, its most evident in Harvey’s engagement with the street, defined by longtime collaborator Maria Mochnacz‘s cover. Note that Harvey’s sunglasses, which protect her eyes from all that neon, present the illusion that she’s looking at you. It actually appears that she’s looking over her shoulder, perhaps confronting what may loom behind her. I think this freedom bewilders and excites her, as it does for many women who take time to acknowledge what a politicized act it is to walk a city street alone. I don’t do it near enough. When I do, I’m very aware of my size, sex, and, gender. I need to be more comfortable with it. I need to reclaim it.

It’s this love of the street that motivates her to study geography, navigating her environment alone in order to acquire a sense of fluency, since she has no interest in finding home beyond the journey toward it. Sometimes this leads to danger, which can also lead to epiphany. Sometimes these travels lead her to find someone to walk with, but can just as often prompt her to leave if her partner can’t or won’t keep up. This seeming departure from the wild, romantic gesticulations that characterize her early period into more mature, complex, and unresolved inter/personal reflections continues to inform her subsequent work (I’d argue it’s evident on Is This Desire?). Even if she doesn’t identify as a feminist, I’ll still follow the woman traversing the crosswalk alone.

Feb

Covered: The Breeders’ “Pod”

By Alyx Vesey 3 Comments

I’ve noticed that all the album covers I’ve considered so far all feature the artist responsible for the work. Since I’ll soon write a blog entry on Joanna Newsom’s pseudo-odalisque for the forthcoming Have One On Me, I thought it would be fun to pick a cover that not only doesn’t feature musicians, but instead has an image that’s damn indecipherable.

Issues around legibility are why I didn’t choose to write about Vaughan Oliver’s cover for The Breeders’ better-known and wonderful Last Splash or his work on Lush’s Split. With the former, I’m 99.9% sure we’re looking at a heart-shaped strawberry covered in something more viscous than dew (edit: according to my friend Erik, it’s a liver). Also, that image compliments the album’s sticky ruminations on ripe female sexuality. Split‘s cover focuses on fruit as well, displaying lemons in a presentational manner that honors the album’s cinematic qualities but belies its ambiguous feelings toward dissolved relationships.

But what the fuck is going on with Oliver’s cover for Pod, the band’s debut? Is that some interpretive dancer wearing a leotard who has wilted green beans for arms? Are those even arms or are they another set of appendages? You got me.

Cover for The Breeders' Pod (4AD, 1990); image courtesy of merryswankster.com

(Note: again, according to my friend Erik, the cover is a picture of Vaughn Oliver dancing with eels strapped to his waist. Whoa!)

The swirl of gauzy lighting, sugary colors, and ambiguous figures is a hallmark of Oliver’s work with 4AD. I believe he did as much to create an aesthetic to match the label’s definitive dream pop and shoegaze as Peter Saville‘s stark, exacting compositions did for Factory Records’ output. With 4AD, the defining principle around both its look and sound was abjection. Annie at Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style recently brought up issues of abjection with regard to the construction of Jessica Simpson’s celebrity persona. Simon Reynolds and Joy Press made similar claims in The Sex Revolts about the womb-like sonic quality and pre-verbal, gender-ambiguous vocalizations that characterized much of shoegaze and dream pop, singling out My Bloody Valentine and 4AD labelmates Cocteau Twins.

I think The Breeders align with the abject as well. The name references founding members’ Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly’s sex and the naturalized biological function of the female body in ways that confront and mock patriarchal convention as well as evoke fear. This sense of terror is perhaps further enforced by the presence of bassist Kelley Deal, Kim’s identical twin sister. The album’s title suggests gestation, a bodily process fraught with abject implications. This theme extends to its songs as well. As Erik pointed out, “Hellbound” is about a baby who survives an abortion. The band’s origins even suggest the process of casting off, as Deal and Donelly initially came together to form a side project during the twilight of their time with 4AD acts The Pixies and Throwing Muses.

Furthermore, while The Breeders seem to have a more conventional sound anchored by accessible melodies, their music is far emotionally murkier than initial listening may suggest. Pod showcases a surprisingly clear, crisp production aesthetic engineered by Steve Albini for a pittance, but there’s something too narrow about the sound and too intense about the bright vocals and high harmonies. They help create a distinctly female tension that doesn’t get resolved after a quiet verse transitions into a cathartic, loud chorus. When the other shoe drops, as it does on songs like “Iris,” there’s little chance of release after the chorus so much as the certainty of more claustrophobic terror constricting the still moments waiting in the next passage.

And songs like “Oh!” contain little structural release apart from Deal’s splintered yelp at 1:47. They just wait. The band pounce elsewhere on the album, and you’re never ready for it when they let loose. It just proves that with women, like albums, can’t be judged by their covers.

Jan

Covered: Ladytron’s “Softcore Jukebox”

By Alyx Vesey Leave a Comment

Ladytron's Softcore Jukebox (Emperor Norton, 2003); image courtesy of pitchfork.com

Alyx, seriously? Today’s post is about an album cover that features the women of Ladytron in bathing suits? Pin-ups for folks who wear cardigans, make library puns, and like skinny girls? Great. I’ll go back to poring over my Tegan and Sarah albums. They look similarly gamine and like streaky make-up but aren’t scantily clad in repose on the grass being shot from above like an American Apparel ad. You keep fighting that fight.

I bring up the cover of Ladytron’s 2003 mix CD entitled Softcore Jukebox for these reasons:
1) The cover is eye-catching, though obviously in a problematic way. It objectifies vocalists Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo, respectively wearing a sky blue tank and shiny black skull string bikini that I hope came from their own closets (but probably didn’t — do people swim in Liverpool?). In addition, it doesn’t even show the rest of the band, which is also comprised of dudes Reuben Wu and Daniel Hunt.
2) The title seems leering and provocative, but is also jibberish. What the eff is a “softcore jukebox”? Is it different from a “hardcore jukebox” in that it works with a crotch patch and doesn’t do penetration? Or would a cadre of queercore jukeboxes have to create a scene for themselves in response to the homophobic, homoerotic hardcore jukebox scene?
3) The cover is a modest revision of Roxy Music’s Country Life cover, which features Amazonian models in see-through underwear boasting serious 70s ladygarden. Country Life was so controversial upon its release that a revised cover had to be printed with the women taken out of the image.

Roxy Music's Country Life (Atco, Reprise/Island, Polydor; 1974); image courtesy of avclub.com

4) Apparently a German artist named Pia Dehne reconfigured Country Life to address the gendered aspects of camouflage and mimicry.
5) Softcore Jukebox came out during a wave of mix CDs that featured dance songs with electronic instrumentation alongside rockier fare. Critics like citing Kings of Convenience leader Erlend Øye‘s DJ-Kicks compilation, but he was hardly the first to do this, as compilations like the Back to Mine series suggest. Hell, he wasn’t even the first person to make a DJ-Kicks compilation. I’d also like to put in a plug for Annie’s DJ-Kicks compilation, which features ESG’s “My Love For You.” Hot Chip’s gets my approval as well, along with any mix that has songs from both New Order and Positive K.
6) A cover that references an iconic album cover seems relevant, especially because the women in the band are the cover subjects and said band created a mix CD of pre-existing dance songs. Seems camouflage and mimicry may apply here, along with reference. This might be characteristic of the band. After all, Ladytron didn’t just swipe the cover of Country Life for their mix CD. They took their name from a Roxy Music song.

Much of my interest in Ladytron is in Marnie and Aroyo. I like how they try to sound like robots (or ladytrons), mimicking their coldness and just-out-of-date technological make-up while singing songs about the inherent datedness and fickleness of fashion, beauty, and youth (see: “Seventeen,” “Blue Jeans,” and “Beauty No. 2″). This juxtaposes nicely with the band’s reliance on electronic instrumentation.

In their later work — particularly the brooding Witching Hour — more traditionally rock instrumentation like electric guitars spike up their sound on songs like “amTV,” suggesting that Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees were as much of an influence on the band as Kraftwerk. Also, I can’t help but point out that TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me” features a fuzzed-out bass line very similar to Ladytron’s “International Dateline,” though my hunch is that both bands probably got it from Bauhaus.

This brings me to the mix CD itself, which smashes dance music and rock music against one another, suggesting the band’s influences and approaches. It also unearths a long-obscured truth: dance music has always co-mingled with rock and, later, hip hop. And I’m not talking about The Rolling Stones’ “Miss You,” as their interrelation has a much deeper, storied history. I always hate it when detractors say things like “not another synth pop track” or “I hate disco,” as if rock music and its studied authenticity doesn’t rely on rhythm sections and repetitive passages of catchy melodies too. As if rock is about the truth and dance music is just piffle. C’mon now.

As for the album’s content? Meh. Some songs work better than others, and some of it is fairly forgettable. Oddly enough, the most effective offerings for me are the rock songs that I didn’t know you could dance to. I’ll stand by The Fall, Wire, Shocking Blue, and Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s classic “Some Velvet Morning,” which is the compilation’s haunting closer. I already knew you could dance to !!!, Fannypack, and Cristina, so they get a pass. You can kind of jig to My Bloody Valentine’s “Soon,” the intro from which Garbage stole for “My Lover’s Box.” I liked that I also like Ladytron’s cover of Tweet’s “Oops (Oh My)” — an ode to masturbation, a premonition for me that Tweet and producer Missy Elliott might be more than friends, Missy’s first “ping!” on my gaydar, and a cherished memory as the “poem” one of my classmates read aloud with deadpan faux seriousness in a college English class. I like the original much more, but I appreciate the band’s effort to suggest that hip hop and R&B influence them. Let’s listen and compare, shall we?

Thus the cover, like song selection and reinterpretation, becomes a messy process for both band and listener that is guaranteed to leave grass stains.

Jan

Covered: Sleater-Kinney’s “The Hot Rock”

By Alyx Vesey 3 Comments

Welcome to a new decade, readers. I was wracking my brain for what the first post of the teens should be yesterday. It should be something substantial and prescient in big capital letters. But that puts a lot of pressure on a person. As a result, I backed away from my laptop and got a little bit of much-needed post-New Year’s Eve napping. I also burrowed deeper in Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, which I felt I needed to finish before I could think about anything else anyway.

But now that I finished the book and am heart-broken over tragic Laura Chase, let’s ease into my first entry of the new decade by writing about an album that came out in 1999.

Cover of The Hot Rock (Kill Rock Stars, 1999); image courtesy of wikipedia.org

This album came out my sophomore year of high school, but I didn’t listen to it until I was in college. I knew of Sleater-Kinney because magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin paid lip service to them. Later in high school, I heard some of their earlier hits on KTRU (you know, “Words and Guitar,” “Little Babies,” “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone”). But I never really had my adolescent Sleater-Kinney feminist music geek phase like a lot of my contemporaries, probably because I was listening to Björk, Liz Phair, Cibo Matto, Erykah Badu, and PJ Harvey instead.

I would’ve made a little more room on my CD shelves, but I don’t actually remember seeing a Sleater-Kinney album in a record store until I was in college. The first cover I saw was All Hands on the Bad One. But the second one I saw was this one, and I’ve stared at it a lot more.

The Hot Rock is also my favorite Sleater-Kinney record, though The Woods and One Beat nudge for top ranking. Part of the reason might be that I felt like I discovered it. While I obviously hadn’t, I’d never heard any songs off this album until I was doing my own radio show. I wonder if this has anything to do with it being poorly received upon initial reception, as many bristled at the band smoothing over its once rawer sound (though I know at least one person who would disagree with that opinion). I also seem to remember some folks derisively referring to it as their “dance” record. But its dancability was a huge part of the record’s appeal for me.

It also let me know that they must be Joy Division and New Order fans. Listen to Brownstein and Tucker’s guitars on ”End of You” or “Get Up” and tell me that they’re not doing their version of guitarist Bernard Sumner and bassist’s Peter Hook interplay.

This was really important for me. New Order ruled much of my adolescence, along with Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Erasure, The Pet Shop Boys, and Electronic (Sumner’s side project with Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant and Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr). Before I heard The Hot Rock, I liked Sleater-Kinney fine but felt that their interests in classic rock like The Who and Led Zeppelin, while interesting in terms of gender, gave me little to relate to musically. But this album made me think, sing at the top of my lungs, and dance my ass off.

Speaking of dancing your ass off, feel free to listen to one of their last shows, courtesy of NPR.

Also, I gotta give the ladies credit for setting the stage for what was to come. By 2004, people wanted to give credit to bands like The Rapture for creating dance-punk. I think Sleater-Kinney beat them to it, and managed to sound less dated in the process. They also gestured toward a band that I think had a continued impact on the music of this decade. At the beginning of the decade, a lot of people thought the key indie rock influence was going to be Gang of Four, but every third band I hear these days swipes from either Joy Division or New Order. How’s that for prescient?

Okay, I think there’s some of Gang of Four’s clangy electric guitar on this album too. “Memorize Your Lines” is one example I’ll offer.

But I can’t think of this album without poring over Marina Chavez’s cover photo, studying these three tough, professional ladies. Brownstein’s hailing a taxi to drive them to some unforeseen destination that I always imagine is the gig. Tucker and drummer Janet Weiss haul their gear and glance furtively at something outside the frame, ready to protect the unit from any unseemly element that doesn’t recognize that they’re not with the band but rather, they are the band. Wherever they’re going, they’re getting there together and splitting the cab fare. It’s as strong a feminist message of band solidarity and as hopeful a symbol of the untraveled road as I can find, and a gift I hope to share with you readers as we all embark on a new year together.

Dec

Lydia Lunch: Diva?

By Alyx Vesey 8 Comments

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.

Nov

“Feminist conceptual artist” is not a pejorative term: Yoko Ono and Pauline Oliveros

By Alyx Vesey Leave a Comment

Yoko Ono's 2003 performance of "Cut Piece"; image courtesy of commondreams.org

If you’re a follower of this blog and haven’t gotten a hold of the new issue of Bitch, I heartily recommend it. I also recommend that you get a subscription, something I intend to renew after the holiday season. As luck would have it, the current issue came in the mail just as I was heading to Fort Worth for Thanksgiving, and its theme is all about artists. In it, you will find articles about mediated representations of female artists in television and film, the troubled history of contemporary feminist art, and an indictment of the patriarchal implications of Donald Judd’s artistic take-over of Marfa.

Anne Elizabeth Moore penned quite the invective against Donald Judd's presence in Marfa

While I’d like some more coverage of iconoclastic artists like Kara Walker and an extension of the term “artist” to include women like contemporary dancer Louise Lecavalier, I recognize that the good people at Bitch only have so much negative space to fill and loved the issue all the same. It was just the thing to read while running on the elliptical machine in the guest room when in need of some solitary quality time. I am an only child, after all.

I saw Kara Walker's My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love exhibit at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth two summers ago and it blew my mind; image courtesy of blackhistorymonths.files.wordpress.com

One person I’m really glad Bitch focused on is Yoko Ono. By having 20 female artists contribute their words and feelings about this great woman, Ellen Papazian helps shatter the myth of rock’s dragon lady widow and considers her influence as an artist, musician, Japanese immigrant, feminist, mother, wife, and woman. Importantly, these women also challenge the notion that Ono’s cultural position as feminist conceptual artist was trite and instead suggest ways in which it was revolutionary and brave. Let’s think about this when we look at works like “Cut Piece,” wherein Ono invites audience members to cut off pieces of her clothes and hair — sometimes to dangerous effect at the hands of misogynistic participants — or “Y E S,” which is comprised of a ladder, a magnifying glass, and three affirmative letters scrawled on a board overhead.

Another lady I’d like to shine a light on, especially since she wasn’t featured in Bitch‘s Art/See issue is composer and fellow Houstonian Pauline Oliveros.

Pauline Oliveros with her accordian; image courtesy of paulineoliveros.us

I’m in the process of putting together a couple of entries for an encyclopedia for American women in popular culture. I’ve sent off two, but am stalling on an overview of female composers because, frankly, beyond Ms. Oliveros, Libby Larsen, and film scorers like Wendy Carlos and Shirley Walker, I actually don’t know too many myself and was hoping to use this assignment as an opportunity to broaden my own understanding. A Pandora guide I inherited from my friend Emily will hopefully expand my own knowledge base, but feel free to throw out American female composers I should discuss. In the mean time, I thought I’d share a piece by Oliveros, an accordian player and pianist who emphasizes the importance of breathing in music-making, cultivates the idea of deep listening in contemporary classical music, and incorporates it into her music for feminist reasons.

Let’s toast these female artists and others who’ve carved spaces for themselves and, as a result, tried to bridge the chasm between subject and spectator, hoping to forge that most feminist of ideals: communal space. Here here! I sip my Lone Star in their honor.

Nov

Ann Magnuson: Diva?

By Alyx Vesey 2 Comments

Ann Magnuson; image courtesy of papermag.com

When I originally started thinking about artists who might expand the definition of what a diva is, the first person who came to mind was the subject of this post. Who else but a diva could be seen in concert halls and magazines as well as museum exhibits, obscure sitcoms, and cultish b-movies? Campy, profane, versed in popular culture, obsessed with the fragmented nature of female personae, and tailed by a devoted audience, Magnuson definitely seems to meet the requirements of being diva.

Like Wynne Greenwood (aka Tracy + the Plastics), Magnuson made a name for herself through the available art scene, specifically by managing Club 57 in the East Village during the early 1980s. At the time, Club 57 — which originally claimed its residence in a church basement — was a burgeoning scene comprised of folks like Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, the B-52s, Klaus Nomi, and Fab Five Freddy. Magnuson and her patrons were obsessed with the radioactive kitsch of their Cold War-era adolescence and she would often arrange theme nights like day-glo erotic art show and Elvis Presley hootenannies or turn the venue into a putt-putt golf or a tiki lounge. During this time, she also became a part of Pulsallama, a percussion-based girl group that Magnuson thought of as an anti-band rebelling against the “fashionable primitivism” Malcolm McLaren was espousing with Bow Wow Wow, who he was managing (re: manipulating) at the time. Magnuson had left the group by the time they made “The Devil Lives in My Husband’s Body,” but you can get a good sense of what they were about by listening to this.

A key trait for any diva to me seems to be the ability to inhabit various roles, sometimes in opposition to one another, through performance. Folks might be quick to offer up a better-known pop icons like Madonna, Christina Aguilera, and Beyoncé, but let’s not forget Magnuson who often differed from these women by using her chameleon-like ability to create characters that poked fun at female stereotypes, materialism, confessionalism, and the hollowness of fame. Pairing up with Tom Rubnitz, she put together “Made for Television” in 1981 for PBS’s Alive From Off Center. The 15-minute piece, which simulates late-night channel surfing, features believeable send-ups of televangelism, soap operas, and game shows with Magnuson playing all the parts. Particularly with regard to how hollow and alienating our collective fixation of fame can be, it reminds me of Eileen Maxson’s “Lost Broadcasts,” which depicts the artist as a reality show hopeful whose staggeringly candid audition tape is being fast-forwarded and talked over by a disinterested casting agent fielding a phone call.

I cannot locate ”Made For Television” online, but I have seen it in exhibition. If you hear about it coming to your town, I suggest you see it. If you find it on the Interwebz, share with the group.

In the mid-1980s, Magnuson got together with Mark Kramer to form Bongwater, a band where this kind of performance was all too common.

Ever the actress, she would off-set duties with Bongwater with turns in the ABC Jamie Lee Curtis/Richard Lewis sitcom Anything But Love, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, and The Hunger as well as Susan Seidelman’s beloved Desperately Seeking Susan and Making Mr. Right (which totally looks like a movie I should see).

In 1995, Magnuson released her first solo album, The Luv Show, which was apparently inspired by the mad-cap narratives, sex-crazed vixens, and pop-art shine of Russ Meyer movies. It certainly explains the cover, though no explanation needs to be given for songs like “Miss Pussy Pants.”

Ann Magnuson, ever the saucy minx; image courtesy of salon.com

While Magnuson was never going to be a mainstream talent, it’s heartening to know that our media culture had room for a smart, cheeky lady all too willing to represent in the margins. Actually, they still seem to have the room for her, as Magnuson released her second solo album Pretty Songs & Ugly Stories in 2006, embarks on cabaret tours, and does occasional film work. More importantly, Magnuson seems all too willing to deconstruct the very idea of the diva, who she is, who she pretends to be, who she represents, and where her markers of identity blur and splinter. She might be Cindy Sherman‘s kind of diva. She’s definitely my kind of diva.

Oct

Tracy + the Plastics: Diva?

By Alyx Vesey 1 Comment

Tracy + the Plastics; image courtesy of criticalmiami.com

My friend Morgan is taking a grad seminar on divas through UT’s Theatre and Dance department. Kinda amazing, right? Makes you wish you were in school, talking about Mariah Carey and getting college credit, doesn’t it? Me too. I always remember this when someone posts a horror story on Facebook about admission cutbacks, hiring freezes, and when you’re supposed to make babies.

A class on divas fascinates me. If I were taking this class, I’d have so many questions. Who is a diva? What makes a diva? Does a diva have to be glamourous? Does a diva have to be campy? Is performance inherrent to being a diva and, if so, can anti-performance fit into this construction? Does being a diva mean vocal virtuosity? Is being a diva about turning spectacle into art, or deriving art out of spectacle? How do the interstices of identity play into the construction of a diva’s persona(e) and fan base? Can a diva be male, despite diva Beyoncé’s assertion that a diva is a female version of a hustler?

I think that last one is totally rhetorical. Guys can totally be divas. And as I support being flexible with language to include female contributions, I also endorse that we not masculinize originally female-gendered terminology when applying it to boys and men. I’ll not stand for this “divo” business — Kanye is a diva. A diva can also clearly be trans or intersex.

I think we can also agree on performance being intrinsic to the diva. But is there a specific way that performance has to be packaged? Does a diva have to make a scene at the Grammys or can s/he do it in some rundown cabaret or house party?

These questions lead me toward an issue I’m not so sure about, and am going to take this blog as a forum to play with. Does a diva require or need to project a lavish lifestyle, and thus tied to capital? I have a few ladies in mind to complicate the classed notions of the diva. Admittedly, they’re kinda art-fuck suggestions meant to subvert the normative positionings of this cultural figure. They’re also adult, white, and biologically female, perhaps causing them to abide by aforementioned norms. So if you’re like “what about _______?,” feel free to share.

For my first post on divas, I offer up the now-defunct solo project Tracy + the Plastics for consideration. Does Wynne Greenwood’s use of elliptical song structures, graphically candid confessionals, antiquated electronic instruments, and video installations to play with identity, gender, sexuality, and performance make her a diva? Why or why not?

Oct

Why I’m not surprised that Sonic Youth were on Gossip Girl

By Alyx Vesey 4 Comments

Categories: Feminist Music Geeks Ask "Is It Art?", Feminist Music Geeks Debate Whether to Wear Chucks or Heels, Feminist Music Geeks Go to the Movies and Feminist Music Geeks Turn on Their TVs
Tags: 100%, A&M, Addicted to Love, Afghan Whigs, American Music Club, Andy Warhol, anorexia, Atlantic, Babes and Toyland, Be Your Own Pet, Beastie Boys, Beverly Hills 90210, Billboard, Buffalo Tom, Bully, Burnin' Up, Cannonball, Carla Hendricks, Caroline, CBS, Chloë Sevigny, Ciccone Youth, Coco Hayley Gordon Moore, Cypress Hill, Daisy von Furth, Daniel Johnston, Danny Elfman, Danny Goldberg, DGC, Dirty, DJ Tanner, Ecstatic Peace, Epic, film scores, Full House, Gadzooks, Gilmore Girls, Go Simpsonic With The Simpsons: Original Music From The Television Series, Goo, grunge, Gus Van Sant, Heavy, Hole, Homerpalooza, Hullabalooza, I Love You Mary Jane, i need that record, I'm Not There, If I Were a Carpenter, Into the Groovey, James Mangold, Jason Lee, Jemina Pearl, John Fahey, John Zorn, Judgment Night, Judy Collins, Juliana Hatfield, Juno, Karen Carpenter, Kill Yr Idols, Kim Gordon, Kool Thing, Kurt Cobain, Larry Clark, Last Days, Last Splash, Leah Singer, Lee Ranaldo, Lily van der Woodsen, Lollapalooza, Madonna, Mall of America, Marc Jacobs, Mark Ibold, Matador, Matt Groening, Matthew Sweet, Mike D, Mike Watt, Mildred Pierce, Minnesota, Mirror/Dash, MTV, music video album, My So-Called Life, Partings, Pavement, Peach Pit, Perry Ellis, Peter Frampton, Pike Street, Pretty on the Inside, Punk: Attitude, Rhino, Robert Palmern The Whitey Album, Rufus Humphrey, Sassy, Sassy Magazine, Sheena Is a Punk Rocker, Shonen Knife, Smashing Pumpkins, Smells Like, Sofia Coppola, Sonic Youth, Sonic Youth Recordings, Spike Jonze, Starbucks, Starpower, Steve Shelley, Sugar Kane, Superstar, Tamra Davis, Text of Light, The Breeders, The Carpenters, The CW, The Eternal, The Flaming Lips, The Mall of America, The Ramones, The Simpsons, The State, The State's 43rd Annual All-Star Halloween Special, The Whitey Album, There Might Be Blood, Thurston Moore, Todd Haynes, Urban Outfitters, Virgin, Wayne Coyne, X-Girl, Young Life

LES meets UES in matrimony; image courtesy of gossipgirlinsider.com

So, I finally saw last week’s episode of Gossip Girl. For my money, there is nothing surprising about Sonic Youth performing “Starpower” and bassist/guitarist Kim Gordon marrying Rufus Humphrey and Lily van der Woodsen-Bass-etc. The reason, as I will outline chronologically below, is that flirtations with mainstream popular culture is completely in keeping with their career. This cameo isn’t an isolated incident. If anything this network-savvy band pioneered how indie does synergy.

March 1, 1988: Ciccone Youth, a side project formed in 1986 between the band and Minutemen bassist/co-founder Mike Watt releases The Whitey Album. In this configuration, they took part of their name from Madonna’s surname. They also covered some of her songs, including “Into the Groovey” and “Burnin’ Up.” For good measure, they also covered Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love.” Were they taking the piss or celebrating 80s blockbuster pop? Maybe both? You decide.

June 26, 1990: Goo is released on DGC, marking their major label debut.

In 1991, the Goo video album is released, a clip accompanying each song on the album. Among them are “Mildred Pierce” which features Sofia Coppola dressed as Joan Crawford, who starred in the 1945 film noir of same name, “Disappearer,” which was directed by Todd Haynes, and a few clips directed by Tamra Davis, including “Dirty Boots” and “Kool Thing,” which also featured Public Enemy’s Chuck D.

September 17, 1991: Kim Gordon co-produces Pretty on the Inside, Hole’s debut album, released on Caroline, a subsidiary of Virgin.

July 21, 1992: Dirty is released. Two noteworthy music videos come along with it. Actor Jason Lee, then unknown, is featured as a tragic skateboarder in ”100%. The clip was co-directed by Davis and Spike Jonze, who just made some movie about kids and monsters based on a children’s book. Chloë Sevigny, once a Sassy intern, stars in “Sugar Kane,” which also showcases Marc Jacobs’ Perry Ellis grunge collection.

August 9, 1993: “Cannonball” is released as the lead single to The Breeders way-ruling Last Splash. Kim Gordon co-directs the music video with Jonze.

September 14, 1993: Judgment Night is released, along with a successful soundtrack from Epic that pairs alternative/metal acts with rap groups. Sonic Youth and Cypress Hill collaborate on ”I Love You Mary Jane.”

Cover to Judgment Night (Epic, 1993); image courtesy of brianorndorf.com

1994: Kim Gordon creates X-Girl with Daisy von Furth, a sister clothing line to Beastie Boys Mike D’s X-Large collection. I see DJ Tanner wear an X-Girl blue jumper on Full House and want one.

August 25, 1994: Sonic Youth contributes “Genetic” to the My So-Called Life soundtrack. Released on Atlantic, the compilation features other Juliana Hatfield, Afghan Whigs, Daniel Johnston, and (of course) Buffalo Tom, who every fan remembers played a show on Pike Street.

Track list to the My So-Called Life soundtrack (Atlantic, 1994); image courtesy of mscl.com

September 13, 1994: If I Were A Carpenter, a Carpenters tribute album, is released on A&M. An alternafest, acts like American Music Club, Shonen Knife, Babes and Toyland, and Matthew Sweet share time with SY, who cover “Superstar.” In late 2007, the song would make an appearance in the movie Juno.

Cover to If I Were a Carpenter (Rhino, 1994); image courtesy of whizzo.ca

October 27, 1995: CBS airs “The State’s 43rd Annual All-Star Halloween Special,” marking the MTV sketch comedy troupe’s network television debut. Sonic Youth is the musical guest. Few people watch (I am one of them), and CBS decides to pull the plug.

May 19, 1996: Fox airs ”Homerpalooza,” The Simpsons‘ penultimate episode of its seventh season. In it, Homer goes on tour with Hullabalooza (re: Lollapalooza), taking canons to the gut to the bemusement of thousands of jaded slackers. Several acts made guests appearances, including Smashing Pumpkins, Cypress Hill, Peter Frampton, and Sonic Youth. The band also provides an “alternative” version to Danny Elfman’s iconic theme song, perhaps getting closer in tone to what creator Matt Groening had originally envisioned when suggesting that avant-jazz composer John Zorn write the show’s theme song. The song is later featured on Rhino’s Go Simpsonic With The Simpsons: Original Music From The Television Series compilation.

"I'm so disillusioned!"; image courtesy of taringa.net

June 5, 1996: James Mangold’s debut feature, Heavy, is released in the states. Moore composes the score.

June 1998: I watch the “Kool Thing” video at a Gadzooks in the Mall of America during a trip to Young Life camp in Minnesota.

July 13, 2001: Larry Clark’s Bully is released in theaters. Moore composes the score.

July 25, 2005: Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, the director’s take on Kurt Cobain’s final days, is released in the states. Gordon appears as a record executive based on Danny Goldberg trying to turn the main character’s life around. Moore also served as a music consultant.

May 2006: Former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold joins the band. This has nothing to do with matters of synergy or cross-promotion; I just happen to think he’s kinda cute. He was also featured in a comic strip, but the name escapes me. His catchphrase is something to the effect of “I’m Mark, the bassist from Pavement” but I’m butchering it. My friend Susan told me about it, so maybe she’ll share in the comments section.

Mark Ibold, perhaps around the time he was dating Oksana Baiul and before the Pavement reunion tour; image courtesy of amazon.com

May 9, 2006: Moore and Gordon appear with daughter Coco in “Partings,” the Gilmore Girls‘ season six finale.

June 15, 2007: Pitchfork reports that SY will be contributing a new track to an SY retrospective distributed by Starbucks.

November 21, 2007: Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There is released. Gordon’s makes a cameo as folkie Carla Hendricks, who is based on Judy Collins. The casting furthers my suspicion that SY friend Todd Haynes must have been influenced by the band’s fandom of The Carpenters and preoccupation with Karen Carpenter’s tragic struggle with anorexia. They cover “Superstar.” He makes a biopic about Carpenter called Superstar. Coincidence?

September 8, 2008: Choosing not to renew their contract with Geffen, SY sign with indie stalwart Matador.

November 3, 2008: Moore and former Be Your Own Pet frontwoman Jemina Pearl cover The Ramones’ “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” specifically for “There Might Be Blood,” a season two episode of Gossip Girl.

February 16, 2009: Gordon debuts a clothing collection called Mirror/Dash for Urban Outfitters.

Is this bad? Hmm, maybe. I suppose it depends on your outlook. I’d say it’s no worse than The Flaming Lips performing on Beverly Hills, 90210 (although, maybe for it to be equal, Wayne Coyne would have to play a short-order cook at the Peach Pit). Beyond paying the bills and circulating their brand, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a fair amount of post-modern, art-school, post-Warholian why-the-hell-not? factoring into all of Sonic Youth’s above-ground forays. Or maybe they (gasp!) like many of these texts and ventures.

Perhaps the band knows that dabbling with the mainstream is tricky business. Maybe this explains why Moore (and, to a lesser extent Gordon and guitarist Lee Ranaldo, though not media-shy drummer Steve Shelley) cultivated an authoritative presence in recent music documentaries like Punk: Attitude, Kill Yr Idols, and I Need That Record! It may also have fueled a need for an outlet through which to channel more experimental projects, resulting in the band releasing more challenging work through the Sonic Youth Recordings collection, along with Shelley’s Smells Like label and Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label. In addition, Ranaldo has done a considerable amount of writing, creates installation projects with his wife Leah Singer, has an extensive solo career, and has performed improvisatory film scores as a member of Text of Light.

And, you know. The band is still really good. Even as folks mine their discography or weave them into above-ground mainstream corporate media culture enterprising, they’re still challenging themselves and making great music. Earlier this year, the band released The Eternal, their 16th album. Peaking at #18 on the Billboard charts, it also boasts a consistently great set of songs and a painting by late guitarist John Fahey for its cover. This blurring of art and commerce, for good or for bad, is in keeping with the band and their contributions to music culture.

Sep

Post-Cinemakids Monday rad list

By Alyx Vesey 2 Comments

Categories: Feminist Music Geeks Ask "Is It Art?", Feminist Music Geeks Go to the Movies, Feminist Music Geeks Take to the Streets, Feminist Music Geeks Turn on Their TVs and Feminist Music Geeks Turn Their Headphones Up
Tags: Aerobicide, All Is Love, Archeophone, Beth Ditto, Bright Star, Bush Tetras, Business Cats, Bust, Cheapo Discs, Cinemakids, Cynthia Sley, Dolly Parton, Downtown '81, Entertain, Fanny Brawne, Fisher-Price, Flow, girls, Hounds of Love, Jane Campion, Jennifer's Body, Julie Ruin, Karen O, Kate Bush, Kill Rock Stars, KOOP, KOOP Kilowatts, lower East side, Mad Men, Mary Kearney, Mika Miko, Molly Schiot, New York City, Oreos, Pat Place, post-punk, Sadie Benning, Sally Draper, Sleater-Kinney, Sophie Tucker, Spike Jonze, The Big Sky, The Gossip, Too Many Creeps, Valley Girl Intelligensia, Where the Wild Things Are, Whip It!, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

So, I’m still a little brain-drained from working on Cinemakids this weekend. I helped a group of nine-year-olds make a short movie about skatin’ dudes and pie fights (or, more accurately, walked them through the basics of making their own movie, tried to keep them positive and focused, sometimes mediated arguments, and sometimes provided them with Oreos). It was fun and if you want to see the movie ”Team I Want Some Pie” made, along with the other participants, the screening is on November 7th.

And sometimes being a little brain-drained is good. It’s inspiring. And because today is Monday and we might all be a little slow getting back into our weekly routine, I thought I’d make a quick list of rad stuff I’m stoked about or inspired by. Feel free to share your rad lists as well.

Sadie Benning. Thanks to grad school and Kill Rock Stars, I know who this is. Benning is my go-to “girl filmmaker,” however essentializing that term may be. But I kept thinking about her work all weekend and how, if you have a vision and a Fisher-Price camera, you can start making movies at any age (an experimental filmmaker parent may also help, but not necessarily guarantee inspiration). If you don’t know her work, I highly recommend looking at some of her shorts. You can also watch her work in Julie Ruin’s “Aerobicide” music video.

On that tip, Molly Schiot has made some great videos too. Might I point you in the direction of Mika Miko’s “Business Cats” and Sleater-Kinney’s “Entertain”? Also watch the interview footage Schiot put together of Pat Place and Cynthia Sley of Bush Tetras talking about being tuff feminists on the lower East Side in the early 80s. This interview plus a recent screening of Downtown ’81 convinces me that I’m not tough enough to have lived in New York and the early 80s, and neither are most people of my generation. These women lived “Too Many Creeps.”

Oh hai Jane Campion. I’m looking forward to seeing Bright Star. Additional points of interest for apparently configuring Fanny Brawne as a proto-punk fashion icon.

Haters be damned, I still wanna see Jennifer’s Body. The reviews aren’t in, but I think we can assume I’m still going to see Whip It! next month as well.

Karen O, music supervisor of Where The Wild Things Are. How is Spike Jonze’s new movie not going to be awesome? Regardless, I know the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman’s musical contributions to the movie will necessitate its own post. Can’t wait for it to come out!

Dolly Parton box set – We’re getting closer to its October 27th release date! This release comes out mere months after Archeophone released their Sophie Tucker anthology.

The Gossip are coming to ATX next month, two days after Parton’s box set is released. Yet another reason why October is for winners. We can only hope that Beth will pull out the wig and cover some Dolly.

I missed Mad Men last night because I was cheering on the KOOP Kilowatts. I suspect others may have missed last night’s episode too due to the Emmys (or at least had to back-and-forth it). Regardless, apparently Betty and Don’s angsty eldest daughter Sally discards a Barbie doll her mom gives her in last night’s episode. Ugh, you totally don’t get my ten-year-old girl needs, mom. Season three has been Sally’s season, in my mind.

"Oh, just wait for my teenage rebellion, mom and dad" -- Sally Draper makes cocktails; image courtesy of flickr.com

Oh, on that tack, I need to rewatch season two and see the documentary on women’s liberation that was included in the DVD set. For more on the subject, Mary Kearney just wrote a great Flow column on it. I wonder how Sally will be impacted by these changes.

I recently bought Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Cheapo. Yes, that does mean that I listened to “The Big Sky” on my drive to work.

I have been pairing this with Julie Ruin’s “Valley Girl Intelligensia,” bringing us back full circle to grrrl germs.

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