Women in Rock (Women In Short Skirts)

I still like music. I'm probably more involved with actual music than I have been in a long time. But back then I knew names of bands, I could tell you the names of current LPs, all those trainspotting facts. Now I just care about how something sounds, where a tune goes, if it rocks, if it makes me feel happy, sad, or whatever. If I can use it in a performance and to what effect. I can appreciate punk or indie or old jazz music or country or '60s pop or new wave or classical, 'cause there's a time and a place for all of them.

-What is it about this if you really like a band then you should know the name of all the songs you like, not to mention what LP they're on and what year it came out? I mean what's up with the pop trivia? I just say the one that goes da-da-de-da or whatever, and that's just fine by me.

(This is the part where I start showing off that I've just come back from a 7 week trip to America).

It's funny to compare tastes in my peers in America with what's acceptable over here. For a start, goth music, or gothic as I guess they'd say, isn't quite as stigmatised over there- I guess a lot of the old punk goth crossover bands I haven't listened to since my, well, goth days are still considered 'punk'. And indie music- back when indie music was indie music, in the late '80s when I knew what I was talking about, a lot of the bands you looked up to (as an indie kid) were American- Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Pixies, that whole Boston scene, and the English bands tended to emulate them. Now the funny thing is seeing the Pacific North-West grunge thing having been replaced by U.S. indie bands trying to copy Brit-pop, with bad hair-cuts and even worse accents. Leave 'em to it, I s'pose- it really has nothing to offer me.

And then you've got these American hardcore bands suddenly going all nice and making records that are basically indie music, except they're not as good at it. Fuck, I'd much rather listen to Throwing Muses than that Texas Is The Reason crap. This trend bores me shitless.
It's so fuckin' asexual. Hardcore music right now has probably gone as far from the original sexually dangerous roots of punk as it is possible to go. Punk had a certain theatricality about it originally and it seems that element has been rejected by h/c as 'goth' or 'glam'. The oh-so-serious (yet ultimately meaningless, so far removed are they from that other entity, the real world) h/c politics have inflated as much as the baggy pants which proliferate the scene, another sign of asexuality and blandness.

Well, I don't care. Personally I'm having some kind of rediscovery of that theatricality. The 10 days In Los Angeles at the tail end of my U.S trip were spent immersed in a kind of retro glamour which, granted, may have had its lameness were it to become a long term thing, but I found it god damn refreshing to talk to a 40 year old punk rock performance artist who doesn't go anywhere unless she's wearing high heels (including cycling) about the Mary Louness of it all. (And she had more reasons than some I met to be angry with her lot.) I basked in Babylonian nostalgic Hollywood mindless glitz, and there was something satisfying about it.

On my return I tried to make it through the 1in 12 November hardcore festival, but I was down with a bad cold and it was hard just walking up those steps without a rest. Early Sunday afternoon, a medicinal whisky down my neck, I managed to forget my feverish, wheezy composure for a few minutes due to the concept which is The Cath O'Connor Sound. Talking about women in bands, women who rock. Or stage presence. Or looking good. Or sex appeal. Or just plain having fun and being happy to be there. I wouldn't've liked to follow that and the band after could merely do just that- follow.

On another tack (kinda) at the beginning of the summer I was on this huge discovery of Sleater Kinney trip- like I already knew of them but the Dig Me Out LP on Kill Rock Stars (I'm trainspotting now!) is fuckin' amazing! I hate to complain about women bands, but generally they seem to have a tendency to fall into 2 categories; funny quirky or really garagey. And they never quite seem to rock out enough to really get there, like they start off good but it never really climaxes. It's often not a very full sound, like quite sparse- I found this with Spitboy. I'm sure it's something to do with how women go about constructing songs in the rhythm section. It does seem to be different to how boys construct music together. I dunno. Anyway Sleater Kinney really do get there. I was pushing them to everyone and I surprised a few people who thought they'd be wimpy-assed riot grrrl. Now I find they're huge in America and selling out shows in London, so I guess they don't need my advertising but good luck to 'em anyhow.

So I'm finding myself now doing the old punk maid thing of being bored shitless with 10 bands, all 4 boys with guitar, bass and drums. Standing there. The wonder is not that I'm 'losing it' (hey-y'ever hear about evolution?) but that I've stood it this long. Really, you're gonna have to do something more that that. Until then I'll go and listen to Johnny Cash or Bessie Smith, something with a bit more sass and feeling. Someone whose life really was hardcore.

-Write to me at- Jane S. Stamp, P.O. Box 47, Bradford BD8 7TX.

Jane