Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/features/story/0,,1932110,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=21

Listen up!


A hardline feminist punk trio with a-larger-than-life singer isn't an
obvious choice for a BBC chat show, but as Tim Jonze (and Jonathan
Ross) learn, you haven't fully discovered the Gossip until you see them
in action ...

Saturday October 28, 2006
The Guardian

The Gossip
Thrilling blast... The Gossip
 

The Gossips?" asks the security guard at the entrance to BBC Studios,
scanning his list of guests. "Hmmmm ... and what's your name?" "Beth,"
says The Gossip's feisty lead singer. "Beth Ditto." He eyes the list
again, then shakes his head. If their name's not down, they're not
coming in. Beth turns to look at her bandmates (Brace and Hannah) and
groans: "Am I gonna have to poke this guy in the ass with a fork?"

The BBC door staff might have no idea who these three Portland disco-
punks are, but there's no denying that their star is rising. After five
years spent as every indie fan's favourite underground act, The Gossip
gatecrashed the clubs this summer with Standing In The Way Of Control.
A thrilling blast of art-rock soul, it left a trail of dancefloor-
slaying remixes in its path and is currently holding the decks of every
disco in Britain hostage. Despite a lyric that rants against Republican
homophobia, it's managed to get them mainstream acceptance, too,
including tonight's appearance on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross.

"People might say we're selling out," says Beth (the band are signed to
ultra-independent label Kill Rock Stars). "But I grew up broke-ass. If
I wanna do something for money then I won't feel inhibited. Most
musicians I know came from an upper middle class background - who are
they to judge me?"

When Beth uses the phrase broke-ass, she doesn't mean that Mommy could
only afford to buy her the one pony. She was raised, along with
guitarist Brace Paine, in rural Arkansas, a place where food-stamps and
mums working 60-hour weeks was a reality. It's not somewhere your
average pampered rock'n'roll band would be familiar with: trailers used
as crystal meth factories would frequently explode, whereas Beth admits
to being so poor she'd sometimes have to catch and fry squirrels for
lunch.

"If my dad hit a deer in his car he'd just say 'sweet!'" grins Brace.

"Then he'd drive home with it on the hood and we'd cook it for tea."
Sounds tasty!

"People in Arkansas can be crazy," he adds. "This guy on my street shot
his entire family and then went on the run. My dad gave me a shotgun
while I was checking my emails and said, if he comes to the house,
shoot him! And then there's the one about my schizophrenic aunt ..."

"No! I want to tell the one about my schizophrenic aunt!" interrupts
Beth, while Hannah shrieks with laughter. "She turned up on our
doorstep once saying how she'd just won millions of dollars and had a
bionic eye put in her pussy!"

Okaaaaaay. In a world where rock'n'roll singers are fearful of having
anything resembling an opinion, Beth is an outspoken, politically-aware
breath of fresh air. Surrounded by identikit rock stars who seem to
have more in common with bland celebrity culture than they do the
counterculture rebellion of yore, she stands out as a real alternative,
alongside just a handful of other modern-day musicians. Smart, sexy and
the proud owner of two room-shaking lungs, she refuses to diet or deny
her sexuality just because music bigwigs think it would make her "more
marketable". Doing things her own way appears to have succeeded. Minor
fame has brought its problems, too. Later, during the show, another
guest Russell Crowe will force Hannah to sniff his armpits when
Jonathan Ross suggests he brings out his own brand of perfume. Right
now, Beth is facing an even more daunting prospect: hair and makeup.

"There's a lot of fat-phobia in this industry," she says, before
getting dressed. "I like stylists as people, but I hate the idea that I
need to dress differently. And when clothes come from a stylist, they
never fit me. It's always too small. Styling is so sexist, too. Brace
could put on a wet rag and they'd be like 'Oh my god that's amazing.'
They won't allow that with me. They'll beg me to put things on. So try
telling me that being a woman of size doesn't affect the way you're
marketed! It does - people in charge are scared of stuff that's
empowering."

As a band who are all about empowerment, you must have hit a lot of
brick walls in this industry ...

"It was weird not being approached when everyone else was. I would look
at Karen O and think, she's amazing. But she's not better than me."

Hannah agrees: "We're not your typical styled-up indie boy band. We've
not got the skinny blonde frontwoman or the quiet folksinger girl.
People don't know how to market us!"

Beth blames the state of today's skinny-centric music scene on
"television, video and their corrupt ways. You can blame a lot on TV -
right now in America people are being violated their civil rights, but
there's a weird complacency because people are comfortable. As long as
you have air con and cable, why complain? Video killed the radio star,
it's totally true."

But this rant about television, however righteous, sits awkwardly
alongside the fact she's about to appear on one of the UK's leading
chat-shows. It's this kind of compromise that the band are still trying
to get used to, especially when the host's chat comes with a hostile
undercurrent.

"I can't believe all those questions [Jonathan] was asking his guests
about fitness and weight," Beth says afterwards. "He even asked Russell
Crowe if he'd consider taking a movie role where he had to become
grotesquely fat! I just thought, how blind are you?"

Luckily, there's opportunity for revenge. And when The Gossip take the
stage, Beth's first venture on the mic is to ask Ross: "Are you gonna
talk to me about my diet, too?" Ross squirms, ignoring the question.
It's cut out of the television edit.

What's left is a performance bristling with righteous punk attitude and
seemingly powered on sexual energy alone. Faced with a pro-fat soul
singer hollering about the pitiful state of gay rights, it's fair to
say the prime-time audience don't know what to make of it. One OAP
sports a shit-eating grin, tapping his feet while his wife grips her
seat and looks on in mild terror. Clearly, she's not au fait with the
latest, gospel-powered, punk-funk acts.

But whereas half the studio are left bemused and bewildered, others
take the opportunity to chase after the band once the lights go down
and shower them with praise. After soaking it up for a while, Beth
slips down a corridor, away from the studio's bright lights. Once back
in the dressing room, a huge grin breaks out across her face. On the
way out, nobody needs to ask who she is.

· Standing In The Way Of Control is out on Monday


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