Showing posts with label Ladies I Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ladies I Love. Show all posts

May 24, 2013

Football Etc.

It's always super exciting when a band sends you a message and it turns out they are really good. If bands like Tsunami, An Horse, Rainer Maria make you go weak in the knees, may I recommend to you Football Etc?





May 31, 2012

Ladies First

Let me get this out of the way first. I hate that my gender has anything to do with people's interest in the kind of music I make. In a perfect world people people wouldn't care if I had girl parts or not and they would focus on the kind of music I make rather than credit or discredit me in some way because I am of the female persuasion.

The reality however is that in the 20 years I have been in bands, gender is still a big deal. Journalists and music fans alike STILL say and write absolutely unfair and obnoxious things that they would never say about a male artist. (for instance Adele whose voice is infinitely more interesting than what size clothing she might wear and yet people still talk about her weight when if she was a man, body shape would NEVER be mentioned) And so, even if I don't want to be treated differently as a female musician, I always have been and feel like I probably always will be.*

It is because of this first hand experience of being treated differently (and in fairness not always unfairly) that I have an extra sentimental feeling attached to other female musicians and their art. We as woman often have to brave sexism within our own creative community (from men and other women!) so by putting ourselves out there in the way that we do, we are almost like silent partners.

I realize this makes me hypocrite because female musicians are selfishly more important to me when I just stated than I would rather the world not focus on gender and let us just be humans. Female musicians have to be brave and strong in ways that men will never have to face within their scenes. Knowing intimately the hardships female artists face makes me look to them and their music to fuel my art. Whenever I have ever felt frustrated because I can't just be a musician, I have to also represent my gender and be judged in a unique way because I am a woman, all I need to do is listen to any of the other artists I love who happen to also be female, and I feel re-inspired.

I can't be sure I own more music by women than other music fans but I can say that these records mean a great deal to me and whenever I have the opportunity to share my personal collection of records featuring woman, I am honored and happy to do so. DJing these records gives me the opportunity to share something  that has helped shape and inspire me as much as my family and friends.

I will be playing all vinyl and nothing but female artists during my Gallery 5 First Friday set (6/1/12 - 7PM @ Gallery 5 in Richmond, VA). You can read more about the event here. 

Here are just some of the woman who wow me and whose records I plan on bringing:


































* Examples of the sort of thing I have been told as a girl in a band. "So who in the band are you fucking?" "Show me your tits" (yes people really do yell that), "I hate all bands with a girl singer, no offense though." "You must be a lesbian (faggot, dyke....add your own slur here)" "All girl musicians suck."

I have also watched droves of people leave a venue when they see a girl (AKA me) take the stage only to return after a few songs when they realized my old band Dahlia Seed wasn't "pussy shit" as so many hardcore dudes assumed we were. Some of these guys would actually walk up to me after our shows and say "You were pretty good for a girl singer" and expect me to take that as a compliment.

Me circa 1996, final show.



March 30, 2012

Terrible Truths : New Favorite Band

What is going on with Australia. They keep churning out the best bands! I give you the trio Terrible Truths, for fans of Slant 6, post punk girl fronted groups, and Love of Diagrams.







January 26, 2012

Early '90s Flashback : An amazing band you probably never heard back in the day.

Earwig (UK band). There isn't a whole lot to be found about this band via the web but I did find this on YouTube:

"An air of mystery surrounds the indie trio Earwig and the few records they released from 1991 to 1992 on the small indie label La Di Da, based in their hometown of Hove, near Brighton, England. 

Earwig were Kirsty Yates,  Julian Tardo and Dimitri Voulis.

The band released three 12" EPs and an album titled "Under My Skin I am Laughing". The album - as well as the only single taken from it, "Everyday Shines" - received reasonably good reviews in both NME and Melodymaker. The band developed and refined a quite distinctive sound during it's existence by using both sequencers and electronics with more conventional instruments, to build introvert and claustrophobic pop songs about obsessive relationships and conflicting images of the self in an intimate personal drama."



What I personally know about them is this. In the early '90s I didn't relate to Riot Grrrl deeply and my female musician idols were not outwardly feminists but rather band members who happen to be female. (Lush, Jawbox, Superchunk, Velocity Girl, Scarce, Helium, MBV, and Swirlies to name a few examples)

A sales rep from Revolver Distribution back in the early '90s (I was working at a record store at the time). turned me on to Earwig and I managed to collect a few of their records during those brief years. Earwig never seemed to gain any real momentum with the masses and when I talk about favorite bands that feature women with music geeks, this is a group that few serious music nerds who pride themselves on knowing it all,  have ever heard of. It kills me because they are so good, so worth knowing about but their music is quite difficult to come by to this day so I guess that I shouldn't be completely shocked that remain a secret to this day.

Earwig as a trio are minimal but they still manage to be loud. They are filled with tension and energy but not in a predictable, overdriven theatrical way like Hole or Babes in Toyland. Think cool melodies ALA the Breeders or Velocity Girl but with an early electronic twist that remind me of modern day Morr Records artists like Lali Puna or  Ms. John Soda. I was inspired by Earwig  because they opened my ears to a new style of abstracted rage that that sounded completely fresh but even more importantly like something that with enough practice I might be able learn how to recreate on some level. I am terrible at naming all the band who have influenced me along the way as a musician but I can say with total confidence that Earwig is among that list. Even more exciting to me is that their songs still sound as important, beautiful, and raw as ever.

In fact, if by some stroke of dumb luck and ex member or friend to the band reads this I would kill to know more about the band and would seriously give my right arm to help reissue their catalog. (I have a small record label) These songs are too important to go unheard. I am totally serious. Calling all members of Earwig, I want to reissue you first three EPs. Pretty please? Pipe dream aside, it feels good to share a post about a band who has been important to me for not one but two decades.

Enjoy.











November 28, 2011

Babes In Toyland : We are Family

Huh. I missed this completely. Apparently is was on their final album Nemesisters in 1995. I think I had given up on the them by that point in time but someone on turntable.fm just played this song and that led to me uncovering this video.


October 15, 2011

Favorite New Artist of 2011 (new to me at least) : Chelsea Wolf

Thanks to Talia for directing me towards her and as fate had it, a perfect fit for the David Lynch Cause + Effect show I am working on for this week. Her newest album Apokalypsis is out now on Pendu Sound Recordings.










August 15, 2011

Give it up for the ladies.

...the Norwegian ladies who make up the band Razika.







No embed link but worth listening to.

July 20, 2011

Super Ladies

With swinging theme songs.










Annoying that the embedded link had been disabled - but here is Wonder Woman's link. The first season has the best theme.

Women's Lib in comics article can be found here.

August 17, 2010

Mira Cook

Mira Cook is my newest musical obsession; all thanks to the recent Aquarius Records recent review of her Capella CDR.
"With only a single cassette release to her name, Mira Cook has already become one of our favorite delicate, hypnotic and entrancing music makers of the last few years. We've been lucky to get to see her play around town so much, each time watching as she adds a new self taught instrument to the mix, as she creates songs that are really like these miniature fairy tales of the everyday. Her cassette only release, was one of our best selling tapes of 2009, and for good reason. It introduced us to her unique, inviting and warm sensual world of sound. Signs contains some reworked versions of songs that appeared on the cassette along with a bunch of brand new tracks. Using loops as a way to create endless entrancing melody, and taking so sweetly to everything from dulcimer, to drum machines, to piano, to organ, etc., it's Mira's assured and captivating voice that transports us so utterly and completely. It's hard not to think about people like Joanna Newsom, Juana Molina and Bjork, as there is that same kind of unique vision, charm and golden presence in Cook's songs. We're also reminded a lot of that a capella record that Petra Haden made covering The Who's Sell Out. Like the musical equivalent of a Joseph Cornell box, every song on Signs is filled with such unique treasures!"

August 4, 2010

Guilty Pleasure: The Like

A) I always feel a little creepy as an adult liking kiddy rock but once you see the video, you will understand why I hold a torch for them.

B) They seem a little too perfect and well put together but after reading up on them via Wiki, I understand why that is.

"The Like were formed in September 2001 by Elizabeth "Z" Berg (vocals/guitar), Charlotte Froom (bass/vocals) and Tennessee Thomas (drums) at the ages of 15, 15 and 16, respectively. All three are daughters of music industry veterans; Berg's father is former Geffen Records A&R exec/record producer Tony Berg, Froom's father is producer Mitchell Froom and Thomas' father is Pete Thomas, longtime drummer for Elvis Costello. [2] From childhood, Froom, Berg and Thomas were immersed in classic rock, and all three took piano lessons before teaching themselves their current instruments.
They formed when the parents of childhood friends Thomas and Froom learned that Berg had been writing songs and showed interest in forming a band. Froom learned bass two weeks before joining, and the three began working together, getting fast results. The name comes from a habit that the girls, as many do, have of saying "like" all the time. Thomas' mother suggested the name and it stuck.

Over a period of three years, the band independently released three EPs (I Like The Like, ...and The Like, and Like It or Not), which they sold at shows and on their website. Their song "(So I'll Sit Here) Waiting" was featured on the soundtrack of the film Thirteen . "

C)  On the flipside, I am always happy to see girls playing music, instruments and all . . . rather than just playing the pin up vocalist.

D) Fuzzy guitar tones and a fun Mod theme. YAY!