Emma Gaze womaning the kit; image courtesy of flickr.com
A little while ago, Electrelane drummer Emma Gaze dropped me a line in appreciation of my post on the band’s penultimate album, Axes. Having been a fan for some time, this was a really affirming e-mail to receive. That the entry was originally forwarded to Gaze by guitarist Mia Clarke made me do a happy dance.
I took the correspondence as an opportunity to ask Gaze some questions about drumming, which I then submitted to Tom Tom Magazine. You can now read the interview on their Web site. Enjoy!
So, after recovering from the pleasurebomb that was SXSW 2k10, I’m finally able to recap the rest of the week. Tonight, I’ll post my thoughts on Thursday and Friday. Tomorrow, I will summarize Saturday’s festivities and highlight a few of the events I attended on Sunday.
With that, Thursday.
Left work around 4. I had a staff meeting earlier that morning and very much did not want to galivant around in biz-caj attire. I went home to change and of course, by 4:30, traffic was at a stand-still. Parking was harder to come by, so I ended up leaving my car on east 12th in front of my friends’ house. Got to Club Deville around 5.
Liars – If you’ve seen them before, you’d imagine how this went down. Loud, intense, sweaty, and their new album, Sisterworld, sounds good. Not as awesome as when I saw them at the Pitchfork Festival back in 2006 when they were supporting Drum’s Not Dead, but that was one of the best, most exhausting performances I’ve ever seen. Plus, there was some cigarette and pot smoke billowing around the tent outside the venue, but not enough to compare with what was floating around on that muggy Chicago summer day nearly four years ago.
After that, my partner and I ate some Hoboken Pie on the curb out front and plotted out our itinerary. We went to the Ghost Room to catch General Elektrik at 8 p.m., running into our friend Jacqueline along the way. When we got there some pseudo-house band called Scorpio Rising came on. Ugh. The obvious wah-wah bass was surpassed by the outfit’s hippie feel-goodisms. We promptly went to the porch and I read Tracy Morgan’s interview with BUST, his first magazine cover. The upcoming issue also has a feature on sissy bounce, which is a queer hip hop movement based out of New Orleans. Check it out when it hits newsstands.
General Elektriks – White boy French funk outfit. Good energy. Reminded me a little bit of Mellow and Beck circa Midnite Vultures, an era I wouldn’t mind if he returned to at some point.
Mountain Man – Heard about this almost exclusively a capella Vermont-based trio thanks to my friend Will. These women sang in three part harmony only occassionally accompanied by an acoustic guitar, which members Molly Erin Sarle and Alexandra Sauser-Monnig shared at various points during their set at Buffalo Billiards. They’re still new and a bit green, as evidenced when member Amelia Meath intimated that they had never sung with microphones before. Sometimes they weren’t completely together as a group. But when they were, which they were for much of the time, they emphasized the power unaccompanied vocal ensembles have in creating symphonies of sound. I also liked the Sapphic subtext to many of their songs, one of which was about living on a female commune, and the support they gave one another. A lot of hand-holding and hugging on that stage. They’re on my radar.
Explode Into Colors – Their show at Wave was on my must-see list, especially since I missed them at the festival last year. This Portland trio were really great. As I already wrote about them, I’ll say two more things: 1) More bands should have multiple drummers and 2) if you can’t get down with a bassless ESG scoring a post-apocalyptic Western, I can’t help you like things.
After this, we kind of hit a low point. We went to Aces Lounge to check out Jean Grae and Talib Kweli, who were amazing. Unfortunately, 88-Keys and Strong Arm Steady opened for them and they were derivative and making the bill run behind schedule. 88-Keys has worked with Kanye and I could see becoming a bit of a draw, particularly on the college tour circuits like 40 Acres Fest. Unfortunately, he’s also the type of rapper to dedicate songs about his sexual prowess to the laydees and say “no homo” when introducing songs about men (specifically one-minute men, which he assured us he wasn’t). Strong Arm Steady were a West Coast crew who worked with Madlib but were not themselves particularly remarkable and actually pretty messy in terms of delivery. The only highlight of their set was when Fashawn spat a couple verses on some song whose title I didn’t catch. I was getting super-annoyed, but then . . .
Jean Grae – Ya’ll, she’s the king as far as I’m concerned. Smart, challenging, confrontational, ingenuous, and the possessor of a killer flow, she’s one of the best in the game. And I don’t mean “good for a girl.” I mean on equal footing with or better than Mr. Lif, El-P, Brother Ali, Busdriver, Mos Def, Dead Prez, Jay-Z in his prime. She’s my favorite, and a grown-ass woman to boot. And I hadn’t actually seen her in concert since she did the Okay Player tour with The Roots back in 2004. So when she sashayed down a spiral staircase to Nancy Sinatra’s version of “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” in a flared cocktail dress and cardigan (somewhat atypical for her to me, as I’ve usually seen her in jeans and t-shirts), I got amped. And when she demanded that the audience “act right” and participate by dancing and singing along, I obviously complied. She’s Jean fucking Grae.
Talib Kweli – Obviously amazing and great, as well as the reason for the showcase, as he is the owner of Blacksmith Records. He and Jean also had a lot of rapport, cracking each other up as they performed together.
After that, I snuck a peak at Phantogram at Red 7 and saw The Very Best begin to play Beauty Bar‘s backyard, where our friend Barrett was working security and had met JD Samson of MEN a few hours earlier. Then home, because Friday was going to be hella busy.
I took Friday off from work so I could help out at the GRCA day show at the relocating Cafe Mundi. Totally worth it. OMG, are there ever so many women and girls ruling it out there. After set-up, Kristen at Act Your Age and I got to watch Charlie Bell and Darling New Neighbors perform. After that, we interviewed several acts who were on the bill, including some long-time heroines of mine. I’m happy to report that Exene Cervenka, Jessica Hopper, and Viv Albertine are very nice in person. Hopefully all of the footage (much of which was shot by Kristen as well as Zoe from Schmillion and I’m the Fox) will be up on the Web in the immediate future. We got a lot of interesting opinions from these ladies.
Jessica Hopper – Did a reading from her book, The Girl’s Guide to Rocking, which she also signed for people.
Exene Cervenka – Still great, still political, still rockin’ a spare set-up with acoustic guitar and back-up singer. I also appreciated that she mentioned during her set how important it is to have spaces like GRC for girls’ self-empowerment.
Akina Adderly & the Vintage Playboys – Straight-ahead funk with great vocals, fronted by GRCA vocal coach Adderly.
Chatmonchy – All-female Japanese rock band that aren’t as well-known in the states but are royalty overseas.
BO-PEEP – In my opinion, the best show of the day. Loud, theatrical, high-energy all-female punk band from Japan. They were also very nice when I interviewed them, particularly since I couldn’t speak any Japanese and they weren’t proficient with English. However, I did discover that they love The Smashing Pumpkins and that they design and make all of their costumes. If they’re playing near you, go see them.
White Mystery – A close second to BO-PEEP for best set. A brother-sister guitar-drum duo from Chicago, currently on up-and-comer indie label HoZac. Please don’t dismiss them as the next iteration of The White Stripes and please don’t reduce them to their big red manes. These kids ruled it classic rock style. Also, the Whites are super-nice people. In our interview, we discovered that their mother makes a lot of their wearable goods (including underwear), singer-guitarist Alex runs merchandise workshops for Chicago’s chapter of GRC, drummer Francis was born on Keith Moon’s birthday, and so much about gear and the importance of bands running their merch booths.
Girl in a Coma – Really excited to see this San Antonio-based power trio, who I’ve somehow missed for the past year despite the fact that members are themselves involved with GRCA. Their songs were great and they really got the crowd rockin’ with their timely cover of The Runaways’ “Cherry Bomb.”
Viv Albertine – A cheeky, stylish lady with a dry sense of humor and a romanceless attitude toward love. Really enjoyed her new material and got to chat with her a little bit about acts she’s into, like Talk Normal and Grass Widow. Also has the coolest business card I’ve ever seen, though hopefully I convinced her to make them scratch and sniff.
Rosie Flores – Legendary punkabilly. Didn’t get to interview her, but enjoyed her set.
And with that, Kristen made her way home and my partner and I met up with our friend George at TerrorBird and some really nice deejays from Berkeley’s KALX. Frank was closed for a private party, so we decided to head over to El Chilito to catch our second wind.
Zs – Something tells me these guys are familiar with Big Black, Glenn Branca, and The Flying Luttenbachers. Profoundly loud, crushing, guitar-based free jazz. I can dig it. They were playing at Beauty Bar’s backyard at one of Panache’s many showcases. I hung out there for a few other bands.
The Carrots – Hadn’t seen this local indie pop outfit since SXSW 2006 and they’ve only gotten tighter. Cute, fun, and coordinated — this is the band you want playing your prom. Also, a nice sonic contrast to frontwoman Veronica Ortuño’s other band, Finally Punk.
Julianna Barwick – Man, I really like her music. Some people might find a girl singing into a loop station boring, but fuck them. Barwick’s approach to song formation is to improvise parts and feed them through her loop station until she’s built an entire choir out of her own voice. I was riveted.
Met back up with my partner, who tried to catch She & Him and John Doe to no avail. Caught the last few songs of Uffie’s set at Mohawk, which were whatever. Some people are excited about her, and I’m not sure why. Sure, she’s young and French and there’s the connection with Justice. But she endorses this “I’m young and bratty and materialistic” ethos that I wish certain feminists weren’t so quick to champion (see also the Married to the Mob clothing line, though I do want MTTM’s Lady Kier t-shirt). I think we’re better than that. And I think this shit is boring, and I bet it gets hella played at American Apparel.
Fashawn – I think this Fresno kid has star quality. Put him on your mix tapes, boys and girls.
The Entrance Band – I’m not so into psychedelic hard rock, but they’re fucking great. Caught them at Red 7, the third time I’ve seen them in as many SXSWs. Nothing really to say other than bassist Paz Lenchantin rules the planet. Melissa Auf Der Maur, who was two people to my left during their set, seems to think so too.
After that, there were a few shut-outs. I couldn’t get back in to the Mohawk to see Grass Widow, perhaps because all the people with badges were watching Mayer Hawthorne and the County. We couldn’t find the Independent to see Anti-Pop Consortium. The xx show at Central Presbyterian Church was badges only. So we ended things with Dengue Fever at Encore. Fun retro pop outfit from Los Angeles and Cambodia.
Phew! That’s enough for now. I’ll wrap up my thoughts tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
I just finished the first five volumes of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim (not knowing that the final volume has yet to be released — yowzas, Vol. 5 drop-kicks you!). My friend Susan was good enough to let me borrow them — thanks, Susan!
The general premise is as follows: Scott Pilgrim is an aimless, jobless twenty-something Toronto resident with a band. He’s more than a bit scattered and commitment-phobic. At the beginning of the series, he dates a smitten Chinese Canadian teen (radly named Knives Chau), but falls hard for Ramona V. Flowers, an elusive American with ever-changing hair. In order to be together, he must defeat all seven of her evil ex-boyfriends in battle.
An otherwise mundane story about a guy and his social group quipping and shrugging toward adulthood, the series’ content clashes interestingly with its manga-influenced aesthetic and jarringly cut up with action sequences that hail the early Mario Brothers video games. Initially, the style was a little jarring, as the previous Oni Press title I had read was Local. Yes, the look is problematic, particularly in terms of how Japanese popular culture (manga, video games) are being used to tell the story of a primarily white group of young people. At the same time, being a twenty-something never seemed so fun, innocent, and lively. This is coming from someone who just signed a fat student loan check, so I appreciate these flights of fancy.
I’ll briefly launch into the reasons why I wanted to read it and why you might like it: 1) Edgar Wright is directing the feature adaptation, 2) Michael Cera is starring in it, and while his film work has been hit and miss for me, I’m still willing to see his movies, and 3) Scott Pilgrim is in a mixed-gender band, which I thought may be useful for this ol’ blog.
Now, if you’re a feminist and you’re like “ugh, I don’t really want to spend time and energy reading a comic about some slacker dude’s misadventures,” take comfort in Susan’s words to me. Like Luke Skywalker, Scott Pilgrim may be the protagonist, but in many ways, he’s the least exciting character. And, to me, the most interesting characters are all female. For the sake of specificity, I will focus on one of them — a firebrand drummer by the name of Kim Pine.
Now, the reasons why I should be in love with a comic book character are obvious to me. And not just because she reminds me of a girl I had a crush on in college. And I’m not alone.
To the right, a fan-made Kim Pine pin with a message that I quote in the entry title
For one, Kim Pine is the brains of the operation known as Sex-Bob-Omb. She’s rational, level-headed, practical, and responsible. There’s a reason she’s referred to as “The Smart One.”
She’s also “The Rhythm.” Importantly, she’s not the bass player (the role in the band that Scott actually occupies). She’s the drummer, and a pretty good one at that. Traditionally, women tend to be bassists if they play in a mixed-gender band (ex: Tina Weymouth, Kim Gordon, Kim Deal in The Pixies, etc.). They also tend to be the only female in a mixed-gender band. Pine is the only female in Sex-Bob-Omb, a speedy punk outfit, and she drives its beat.
Kim Pine on drums; Scott Pilgrim on bass
Refreshingly, Pine does not suffer fools gladly, and usually not at all. But she does most of this without getting mad or even raising her voice. A withering look or a deadpan response is all that is required.
Kim Pine is not impressed with you
That said, she’s loyal to Scott, who she dated in high school but has no romantic feelings for as a woman in her early 20s. But she also challenges him, and doesn’t let him slack on her couch or get too mopey.
She’s also really good friends with Ramona. They have a stable, supportive relationship based on mutual understanding and respect. She also is shown having good relationships with her co-worker Holly and Lisa, an up-and-coming actress who also dated Scott in high school. Yay, steady female friendships!
Kim Pine and Ramona Flowers
Kim also works at the neighborhood video store. As someone whose opportunities in local media retail have always eluded her (probably because of my prediliction for button-up shirts), I’m always jealous of people who have cool, if not financially lucrative jobs. My friend Allison works at Waterloo and is happy to do it, not because of the pay, but because of the atmosphere, the sense of community, and the discount (also, I’d imagine, the free beer).
This aspect of Kim’s characterization was so great to me. Her job, along with the others that Scott’s friends occupy (barista, dishwasher, cook, courier, telemarketer), reminds me of some of my friends Joe/Jill jobs. None of Scott’s friends go to college (Kim talks about enrolling), but they still have access to the same kinds of shit jobs that many of my friends were qualified for after graduating college. None of the characters in Scott Pilgrim have “careers” in the traditional sense. Yet, despite this supposed lack of financial responsibility, these characters are trying hard to find some kind of creative outlet, suggesting the DIY spirit is alive and well in today’s twenty-somethings.
Also, duh. Kim’s really cute.
Apparently Alison Pill is playing Kim in the film adaptation and I’m excited. I especially hope we get to see her make out with Knives (along with another female character who engages in a lesbian relationship). Pill would certainly get more action than she did playing Harvey Milk’s uncharacteristically desexualized campaign manager Anne Kronenberg in Gus Van Sant’s otherwise great biopic.
Until the final volume reaches the bookshelves and the movie makes it to the multiplex, let’s enjoy The Wonderful World of Kim Pine, courtesy of O’Malley’s flickr.
If Michelle Obama’s arms deserve the names “thunder” and “lightening,” than Janet Weiss’ should be called “nuclear” and “atomic.” The drummer for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Quasi, and the now defunct all-woman power trio Sleater-Kinney, has long been admired as one of the top female percussionists in the rock world for the sheer power and complexity of her beats, and nowhere is that clearer than during her live performances.
My first encounter with Janet Weiss appropriately coincided with my inaugural indie rock show in Portland, Oregon. At this point, I’d never heard a single Quasi track, nor had I learned much about Sleater-Kinney. At the age of fourteen, my younger brother’s tastes belied his years and rural upbringing, and I at sixteen benefitted from his interests. Still too young for our protective parents to release us into the wilds of downtown Portland, my dad and another relative accompanied us to the legendary Crystal Ballroom for a show headlined by Quasi. Overzealously, we arrived at the time shown on our tickets and planted ourselves on the floor next to the stage. We sat through noisy opening acts before Janet finally emerged with Sam Coomes, Quasi’s other half and Janet’s former husband.
Janet Weiss doing double-duty with drums and vocals
While part of the power of this Quasi show derived from its status as a “first” experience, Janet’s role as the band’s drummer made this concert particularly significant for me as a budding feminist. Even ten years later, female drummers are an exception rather than a rule in mainstream bands, and it is even rarer for female drummers to play in a heterogeneously sexed band. Sure, there’s Meg White, Karen Carpenter, Sheila E., and Moe Tucker, but these drummers deploy a deliberately feminine and/or simplistic style, in effect reinforcing assumptions about women and drumming. Granted, it would be masculinist to say that the styles and skills of these women made them any less legitimate as artists, but on a gut-level, they fail to challenge the stereotypes aligning certain sexes with particular instruments.
As a girl, these alignments between sex and gender and rock performance impacted my options for self-expression; I remember asking my mother if I could play drums in the sixth-grade band, and she responded that it wouldn’t be “lady-like.” I even remember her describing women drummers as “butch,” in effect confirming a fear that drumming might turn me into an aggressive lesbian (like that would be a bad thing anyway). To be fair, my mother later back-peddled on her stance, saying that she really discouraged me from drumming out of fear of the noise it would bring into our home, but regardless, my mother’s statement still reinforced what I already felt and knew from experience—rock bands were boys’ clubs that only the bravest women could infiltrate. My feelings of exclusion certainly weren’t unique, since several of my female friends confessed to having similar feelings, and Carol Jennings’ research on girls’ identity formation and rock bands finds similar trends of sexism in local music scenes. (If interested, please check out “Girls Make Music: Polyphony and Identity in Teenage Rock Bands” in Growing Up Girls: Popular Culture and the Construction of Identity. Eds. Sharon R. Mazzarella and Norma Odom Pecora. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. 175-192.) In short, there are barriers to participation in rock performance for girls that do not exist for boys.
For these reasons, I gravitated toward the mainstream female singer-songwriters so en vogue in the mid to late-nineties. I accumulated a massive collection of Tori Amos memorabilia, attended not one but two Lilith Fairs, and watched VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll with rapt attention. Still, none of this shattered my perceptions the way seeing Janet live did.
I emphasize the “live” element of the experience because Quasi’s composition resulted in a unique spatial arrangement on stage; with only two instrumentalists, Janet’s kit occupied half the stage, allowing fans closer proximity to the drummer than usual. (Note: Quasi added a third member, bassist Joanna Bolme, to the line-up in 2006.) And while Janet herself puts on a stoic game face most of the time, her drumming itself is dynamic, athletic, and unrelenting. I could throw more adjectives out there, but I will just let the drumming speak for itself.
Seeing Janet play did not change my life over night—I never joined a band, and I never bought a drum kit—but as the years passed, I gravitated toward bands like Sleater-Kinney, The Gossip, and Le Tigre. These bands not only had roots in the Northwest but also placed women musicians in the forefront, addressed queer issues, and kicked ass musically. In other words, they raised my consciousness and helped me grow as a feminist.
Caption: Janet Weiss (center) with Sleater-Kinney bandmates Corrin Tucker (left) and Carrie Brownstein (right).
These days, I’m seeing more incredible women drummers, both locally and nationally. My 17-year-old cousin took up the instrument, and one of my brother’s bands featured a friend of ours beating the skins named Keely. Hannah Blilie of the Gossip has also knocked me on my ass during several live performances.
Best of all, organizations like Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls are encouraging girls to drum, and social-networking websites like Drummergirl create a sense of community for female percussionists who might otherwise feel isolated in their respective music scenes. While there remains a disparity between the sexes with respect to drumming, these resources (limited as they may be) are a move in the right direction toward correcting it.
But for many women and girls, just seeing a female confidently and skillfully hit the drums is the first step toward breaking through a mind-set in which men are inevitably physical and aggressive as performers, while women must be soulful and subdued. For me, Janet was one of those icons that shifted my paradigms, and for that, I will forever thank her.
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?
