"Thank Goddess* For Riot Grrrl"

"Punk boys can be just as macho and bro as the bros themselves... ... everyone claims to be so against the state, and they claim to do whatever the fuck they want... But really, the power relations between the state and the people play out in the very relations between guys and girls in the scene. How punk guys carry their own privilege and power into the basic act of sex (and even in how they relate to each other as people), and oppress women by silencing them and using them. The girls don't see them as allies, but as oppressors in their own scene.

Thank goddess* for riot grrrl."

Maybe It's Time To Get a Book Shelf.

The Riot Grrrl Collection, edited by Lisa Darms, collects seven years of Riot Grrrl journals, posters, zines, artwork, correspondence and essays between 1989 and 1996. Read about the NYU-Library-collection-turned-book at the Feminist Press' website.

"How The Spice Girls Taught Me To Be a Riot Grrl" By Mish Way

I remember watching the special "Girl Power A-Z" hosted by the Spice Girls. They named Courtney Love for C and showed a clip of the "Doll Parts" video. The Spice Girls commended Courtney for her anger, "Yeah Courtney! Throw that chair! Yeah! Raw! Courtney!" They clearly had no understanding of feminist politics, post-structural analysis or the fact that the inversion of gender roles is counter-productive and binary. But did I? Fuck no. That's something I figured out third year university. Deconstructing Spice was something I would do as a woman, not a girl.

Click here to read the full article.

"I Made About Five Million Dollars Last Year

and I'm not giving a red cent to that elitist, little fuck Calvin Johnson. No way! I've collaborated with one of my idols, William Burroughs and I couldn't feel cooler. I moved away to L.A. for a year and came back to find that three of my friends have become full blown heroine addicts. I've learned to hate riot grrrl, a movement in which I was a witness to its very initial inception because I fucked the girl who put out the first grrrl-style fanzine and now she is exploiting the fact that she fucked me. Not in a huge way, but enough to feel exploited. But that's okay because I chose to let corporate white men exploit me a few years ago and I love it. It feels good. And I'm not gonna donate a single fucking dollar to the indie fascist regime. They can starve. Let them eat vinyl. Every crumb for himself. I'll be able to sell my untalented, very ungenius ass for years based on my cult status."

 - Kurt Cobain, from an unsent letter to ex-girlfriend and Bikini Kill drummer Tobi Vail

Not that I dislike Calvin Johnson or Riot Grrrl (the complete opposite, actually), but this Kurt Cobain quote is so striking. I've never heard anyone disparage either with so much vitriol, especially not someone as high-profile and respected as Kurt Cobain.

Mish Way Quote

"Of all the things that piss me off, nothing pisses me off more than the term 'rock chick.' Why? Because it's 2012, that's why. The whole women-playing-in-bands thing is not shocking anymore. I hate it when people ask me what it's like to be a girl who plays 'punk' music. You want to know what it's like? ... The only difference about being a girl who plays 'punk' music is that people ask you that stupid question."

 - Mish Way, lead-singer of Vancouver punk band White Lung. More is contained in her mini-article for Vice Magazine in which she takes aim at Alanis Morissette and praises Courtney Love.

Christ, This Hurts the Eyes

The colours, the camera-cuts, the garish attires and hairstyles. Combined with the piercing feedback and overlapped shouting and yelping, this whole video makes for one angsty, dizzying head-trip - in many ways, sensory overload of the best kind.

The psychedelic punk freak-out doesn't stop with Huggy Bear. Here's Daisy Chainsaw, in their even more snarling, manic, cross-dressing, pink-boa-flaunting glory. Embedding has been disabled on this video, so click here to check them out.

These videos seriously look like episodes of Uh-Oh!

Let's Start A War

Some of my favourite Riot Grrrl images:

"Don't Need You": A Herstory of Riot Grrrl

"Don't Need You": A Herstory of Riot Grrrl may be my favourite music documentary - top four for sure. It randomly popped into my mind, and I decided to search YouTube for a trailer I could post. What I found was far better than a trailer: I found the whole damned film.

Since a couple of years ago, Riot Grrrl has been one of my favourite musical movements, due largely in part to this approximately thirty-nine-minute mini-documentary by Kerri Koch. I like Riot Grrrl for an obvious reason: it's simultaneously punk and twee (at least a handful of Bratmobile songs are twee). But Riot Grrrl is also probably the only musical movement the social/political ethics and aesthetics (redundant?) of which have ever interested me (besides male-dominated punk's D.I.Y. philosophy, which Riot Grrrl shares, and Straight-Edge movement); maybe it's my disdain for most things typically "male" or just macho "male" culture in general. That's not so abnormal coming from a guy. Hell, Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat and Fugazi front person and all-around punk icon) was a huge proponent of Riot Grrrl.

Anyway, I don't want to repeat any of my university essays, so just enjoy the documentary.