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

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  • From: Kelli Miller <kelli AT goodgrrrldesign.com>
  • To: "Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)" <typicalgirls AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [TypicalGirls] Riot Grrrl book
  • Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:58:09 -0400

I get what your saying, but I totally disagree. Because someone crosses over into the world of mainstream approval does not void them of their roots, so to say Beth Ditto doesn't count is a real slap in the face to her/Gossips history before, say 2006.

It is important to document these movements. All history is told through some slanted lens and why is it such an awful idea to tell it through this one? I think hoping for traces of indie/DIY culture to disappear is equally nostalgic and extremely elitist. It's holding on to a secret memory that "shouldn't" be shared. Be sure this still happens, obviously not every bit of ephemera will be catalogued and replicated 10 years after its prime. What's wrong with building a history of subcultural movements and allowing that to inspire future generations/misfits/girls/boys/whatever??? And honestly, if there is a qualified academic willing to write about this stuff, from my perspective, that adds a certain amount of legitimacy to the hard work that was done during those times. Of course it's not easy to find alternate ways to be creative, to get your work out there, etc.... it's F'ING hard, damn near impossible sometimes. If documentation like this stuff ceased to exists the blueprint gets lost with your 1985 mixtapes.


On Sep 14, 2007, at 12:32 PM, Layla Gibbon wrote:

Funny that they have the music editor of ID magazine
(well she was at the time.. Susan Corrigan) but no
members of any bands or zine writers involved in the
movement as contributors. So lame. (Beth Ditto, though
I am happy she is a pop star now, doesn;t count!)
Everything written about Riot Grrl except for the
zines themselves is either written from an academic
perspective or a rock critic perspective. Outsiders
writing about a subculture they were absent from but
is useful to them career wise.

One of the things I like about punk culture is that it
is transient. It kind of annoys me that suddenly now
everyone is so reverent towards the ephemera, people
bidding on ebay for fanzines and demos that would have
disappeared in previous generations. Not that girl
culture disappearing is a good thing necessarily, but
I feel like people need to make their own culture
rather than worshipping one that they missed out on,
then trying to replicate it. I played in an English
riot grrrl band (skinned teen) and remember finding
the English scene kind of lacking, I loved Huggy Bear
and the Slampt Underground people, but generally felt
kind of exploited by the music press (we were all
teenage girls in the band) and found most of the other
people involved just there for the ride rather than
trying to actually make their own scene.

I know England has a weird underground culture, I am
sure it's different now, I haven't lived there for
years, but when I was younger everything was instantly
written about by the NME or the melody maker, and it
was impossible to exist outside of their watch. Our
first ever show was written up in the NME and the
melody maker, which is so ridiculous! I can't imagine
a punk band here getting their first show written
about in like Spin, we played with a Huggy Bear side
project called the Furbelows so it wasn't even a 'big
name' event. Just endless vampire attacks. We put on
an exhibition at the ICA which I can't even remember
the name of now, but one of the papers sent one of
their women writers armed with fake zines about how
empowered she felt because she had her period at the
same time as so many other women, just stupid mock 70s
wimmin's meeting stuff... Everything we did was met
with laughter or disdain, people came to shows to fuck
with girls, it was just another thing for the Oxbridge
educated soho media crowd to mock... I didn't meean to
write this much!
I just get so irritated when everyone has to write a
book about something they weren't even there for and
probably know nothing about, because they probably are
either rock journos or academics who were not involved
in any kind of DIY or underground punk culture. I like
that each generation's zines and tapes disappear and
are randomly rediscovered and repositioned, but I wish
people weren't so starry eyed and nostalgic about
something they missed out on, it was hard work and
really confrontational/violent, well from my
perspective at least, but I guess we weren't playing
'punk' shows with 'enlightened' audiences because that
doesn't really exist in England, . It wasn't like a
constant group hug in a safe space with everyone
talking about how great ESG are!
girls should make their own riot grrrl but call it
something else

Also: I know this is really epic already, but I wanted
to point out that Mika Miko and FInally Punk are not
super into being considered post riot grrrl and think
that it's a lazy reference. Neither of them really
write political songs... I have more to say about this
but I have to go to a dr's appointment plus I am bored
of trying to explain it somehow as I am not sure I
have exactly said what I meant to here....

Layla

--- Marc Masters <marc AT crankautomotive.com> wrote:

Apologies if this has been mentioned here before,
but there's a book on
Riot Grrrl coming out via UK publisher Black Dog in
October. For more
info...:


http://www.blackdogonline.com/all-books/riot-grrrl.html
http://www.myspace.com/revolutiongirlstylenow

Marc M.




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