As a queer feminist, I find representations of myself in American culture seldom. When I do, it’s more often in music (Le Tigre, The Gossip) than in the art world. Seeing Wynne Greenwood’s video work with K8 Hardy last Saturday night made my queer feminist little light shine brighter than it has in a long time.

New Report, 2005. With K8 Hardy.

At Hiawatha Artist Lofts, she showed several of her and K8’s videos as the first event in Feminist Form, Wynne’s screening series of feminist and queer video from the Pacific Northwest. The screenings will take place monthly, with future locations and dates to be announced.

The videos were pretty simple in form, yet boundless conceptually. In several, Wynne and K8 were news anchors, both named Henry. They plodded forward in their pursuits as news anchors without entirely knowing what they were doing. They were pregnant with. . . motivation, mostly. The videos are hilarious, but at the same time, breathtakingly serious. I think I was sitting on the edge of my seat the entire screening.

For one, they’re sitting as though on a panel; the panelists are Henry Iragary (K8), Henry Stein-Acker-Hill (Wynne), a furry pussy (K8’s, we presume) and a breast (Wynne’s, supposedly). Henry and Henry are pregnant with deliberation as they try to talk about the objectification of women. I, for one, felt pregnant with anticipation during their attempts— which were all the while animated by the dislocated (“cut off– as if by a knife”) body parts floating sheepishly next to them. Oh yeah, also: K8’s legs are spread under the table with a camera pointed at her crotch, and Wynne’s shirt is haphazardly pinned up to reveal her left breast.

There are so many things that can go wrong when one attempts to represent feminism that the disappointingly few self-proclaimed feminist artists seem to have largely given up.  A self-proclaimed queer feminist, Wynne Greenwood has not given up, and when you encounter her work you forget that feminism was ever considered a bad word. At least, that’s the way it seemed last Saturday. And each month the crowd is just going to get bigger.

Thank you, Wynne. I’m so glad you live in my city. And I’m so glad the city we live in knows you’re a genius.

“Johanna (of Le Tigre) had that day told me about her new philosophy of living which was, what would a man do?  Which is kind of like about confidence something that’s about….  You know living your life not apologizing for existing or for being right.  And demanding what you deserve.”

JD Samson on the the title of her new band Men.

She’s a model, a style icon, a make-up artist, and now Raquel Reed can add “musician” to her evergrowing CV.

Three tracks are currently available to listen to on her Myspace page. Personally, I can’t get enough them, especially The Fast Lane.

Raquel’s music is fun and very 80’s inspired, I’d recommend it to any fans of electro, particuarly bands like Le Tigre and Lady Gaga.

Check out her music here: http://www.myspace.com/ewraquel

*                                                        *

With some bloggers, we don’t need to be a spy to know all about their life… Just read is enough !

During years, they wrote so much about themselves, with so much details, sharing their diary problems, with the whole planet !

*

When we read their blogs like a newspaper, we got to know their boyfriend’s nervous breakdown in the metro or some intimate problem . They invite us to make a judgement into their couple’s quarrels and even to give our advise about the right time to leave him. They want we laugh about the gift they received from their new disgusting lover who doesn’t know that someone is writing on the Net about him. These bloggers don’t care about their private life but also the private life of their familiar friends.

*

Last January, a French blogger, Marc L. suddenly became a real star of the web. This Net surfer had the displeasure to find his life precisely narrated in LE TIGRE, a magazine who had the idea to create a new column, entitled “Google portrait”. In this column that kept all the information let by Marc L. on the Net, we got to know he was working in a architect office near the city NANTES. His holidays, his ex-girlfriends. A very big part of his life was in that way disclosed. This column begins by these words :

“Happy birthday Marc. In December 5th 2008, you will celebrate your 29 years old. Do you allow me to be in familiar terms with you ? You don’t know me, it is truth. But I know you very well. It is on you that the bad luck to be the first Google portrait fell. A very simple column : we choose an anonymous man and we relate his life  with all the  tracks he had voluntarily or not let, on the Net. In that way, what is the hidden message behind the idea of this column ? Of course : the idea that we don’t really care about the private information available on the Net, iwhen synthesize can suddenly give an worrying highlight…”

To those bloggers who don’t want to be listened , here’s an advise : don’t shout your private life at the Net world.

*****************                            ********************

*

I finally watched Itty Bitty Titty Committee this weekend, and it put me in a total riot grrl mood!

1. Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl
2. Sleater-Kinney – I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone
3. Le Tigre – Eau D’Bedroom Dancing
4. Sleater-Kinney – Step Aside

]]> http://oldrope.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/songs-that-mention-yoko-ono-2/ Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:27:17 +0000 oldrope http://oldrope.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/songs-that-mention-yoko-ono-2/ http://ashleynieves.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/deceptacon/ Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:18:26 +0000 ashleynieves http://ashleynieves.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/deceptacon/

This is a little video I had be wanted to make for sometime now. After watching the original Le Tigre-Deceptacon video I knew I wanted to make my own new and improved version. With the help of my friend Alyecia we learned and even added in our own dance moves truly making this our own video. I must thank my friend Ed for letting us use his place and equipment and for being so patient.

Check Out the Original Video: youtube.com/watch?v=EU1CDSP7FRk

Some scholarly thoughts on Le Tigre. Actually, this is an excerpt from a longer piece on queer trauma (*all* copyright rules apply here). What ever happened to Le Tigre anyway?? I miss them.

From the Desk of Mr. Lady, an album recorded in 2000 by the feminist techno punk band Le Tigre, includes a piece entitled “They Want Us to Make a Symphony Out of the Sound of Women Swallowing Their Own Tongues.” Comprised almost entirely of ums, ands, as well as other hesitancies that similarly hinder or delay speech, Le Tigre’s song captures the ways in which uncertainty entangles the ability to speak and author inside a series of stutterances. This compilation of words and phrases repeated by a female voice respond directly to questions naively posed by a male interviewer at the beginning of the piece. Stumbling over his own words a bit himself, the radio interviewer imperiously asks:

What is it that they’re, that younger women are pushing up against? [sic] They
would seem to have a list of options to choose on, uh, choose from — a set of ways to construct their own identity that takes in everything; it’s just a vast smorgasbord. The options are not as narrow as they might have been thirty years from now. So where does the problem lie now?

Issues that surround gendered identities as well as those shaped by sexual desire must be understood as multiple: beginning with the vexing assumption that feminism fixed everything; that we’re all equal now; everything’s square. Le Tigre’s song demonstrates that one of the most debilitating problems lies in the inability to articulate what one has to say.

While the commentator sets up his question the woman being interviewed listens, emitting sounds that signal her recognition and understanding. Amongst all the stuttering in her response a few broken phrases get communicated, which indicate that what impedes her speech does not likely come from a lack of intellectual engagement or any shortage of things to say. Since she can neither describe what “younger women are pushing up against” nor define the third wave of feminism, we must do so for ourselves. The question, then, inquired of the woman, later referred to in the song as a “third wave girl,” ultimately turns out to be a query Le Tigre presents to their listeners. The commentator’s question, of course, still remains part of the piece, but the performance of those stutterances confronts listeners with the more critical issues pertaining to female authorship and finding the authority to speak. The uncertainty that stifles voices of “third wave girls” in Le Tigre’s song establishes feminism’s continued relevancy in a so-called post-feminist age.

The power dynamics that surround the ability to author, speak, and offer responses to questions such as those in Le Tigre’s song become enmeshed in identity politics. Women, lesbian, gay, bi, transgendered, multi-ethnic-racial-national, believers as well as non-believers — “just a vast smorgasbord” of people — allegedly have “a list of options to choose from — a set of ways to construct their own identities” that did not exist before. The truth of the commentator’s observation, however, varies widely and disproportionally between normative and non-normative identities. The ambiguous location of this “list of options” should also generate a healthy dose of skepticism. While pre-formed (performed) identities do exist, understanding the self as a construction fundamentally entails a rejection of those ready-mades — unless they serve as social commentary on binary oriented categories such as “woman” or “man.” No longer located in the body in an essentialized way, identity, now widely understood to be constructed and performed, often leaves subjects with the task of also creating a place, a platform, from which to speak. The sort of patronizing authority from which the commentator asks his question may very well not be one that the “third wave girl” can access, appropriate, or assume on the spot. She may not even want to. Le Tigre frames their performance as a new platform for inquiry, an alternative to the line of questions the commentator poses.

Uncertainty produces a silencing effect in Le Tigre’s song not because the woman does not know anything about current women’s issues but because she does not know how to speak about them. Similarly derived from what the “third wave girl” finds unrepresentable in language, silence often occurs and reoccurs in cases of insidious trauma that arise from everyday oppressions. Conversations pertaining to the body and sexuality in particular commonly get suppressed because of taboos that surround these subjects in the public sphere. Examining how expressions of physical desire came to represent unspeakable acts, Foucault explains:

Without even having to pronounce the word, modern prudishness was able to ensure that one did not speak of sex, merely through the interplay of prohibitions that referred back to one another: instances of muteness which, by dint of saying nothing, imposed silence. Censorship. (History of Sexuality 17)

The tacit understanding that discourses on sexuality — especially non-normative ones — should be kept private or, better yet, quiet altogether remains readily applicable to contemporary society. Mechanisms such as censorship seek to make queers mute. Inevitably, the need to self-edit or expunge becomes internalized over time by both the imposer and the imposed upon. Such enforced silences, however, merely serve as symptoms, not the source, of queer trauma.

That which causes one to stutter, stifle, take back, apologize, censor, edit, erase, omit, or mute the self represents manifestations of troubled authorship. While the title of Le Tigre’s song gestures toward the seriousness of “women swallowing their own tongues,” it fails to capture the egregious nature of what lies at stake when certain identities must live in silence. A Jihad for Love, a recent film on the struggles homosexuals face in Muslim communities, more vividly portrays the traumatic effects caused by living in constant silence, shame, and fear — for both themselves and loved ones. The documentary includes a series of testimonies from homosexual women and men living in Muslim communities which treat same sex desire as a crime, punishable by law in many cases, Divine law by all. Arsham, an Iranian refugee in the film describes his experience of living in a nation hostile to his sexual orientation:

It’s very hard to describe the situation for homosexuals in Iran. It’s like a person who wants to speak but when he opens his mouth the words are caught in the throat. His cry has been suppressed. It’s a very heavy silence.

The silence of which Arsham now speaks reflects the trauma he has endured and its unrepresentability in language. What causes him to suppress his own cry seems to share no comparison to the “third wave girl” in Le Tigre’s song. The cultural contexts and degrees of suffering for both Arsham and the “third wave girl” differ vastly, almost too much to approximate their lives. One aspect of their experiences, however, remains constant: despite their desire to speak, neither knows how because neither have found a platform that would afford them the agency to do so.

Although the need to acquire political agency remains vital for progress in favor of legal rights and against discrimination in queer communities, the platform to which I refer primarily constitutes a place for being accepted and valued. It serves as a springboard for existence. Without it human failures, like not knowing enough or being imperfect, shadow the ability to accept the self, to live, and to be. Words, then, get stuck in the throats of Arsham, the “third wave girl,” and many many others similarly afflicted because the voice uttering such desired language would affirm an existence about which they themselves might be uncertain.

It’s super late in Mexico, I am here, sitting on my kitchen table, listening to some Le Tigre, and writing this. I feel Oddly blissful.

Since this Wednesday it’s my birthday, i decided i was going to celebrate it the whole week, I already have some things planned for this to happen. This are my plans for this week (Yes, this is one of those self-centered updates, )

Monday:
(This is basically today) Have lunch with my friends at one of their houses. I chopped the tomato, though i can’t stand it, and hugged a kitty for a while cause he’s the best (I adore kitties) and then went underwear shopping, cause, you may not know this, but i love getting new pretty underwear.

Tuesday:
Drink huge amounts of coffee with one of my best friends in my house while talking about ponicorns (F yeah!) music, art, pets, and then watch Kill Bill, cause I’m the only person i know who hadn’t seen it yet.

Wednesday:
My birthday! My friends are coming over for lunch (Prepared by me!!), happy time, then movies with another friend, and maybe later we’re going to a coffee shop. <3. <3. I just want to be with the people i loooove <3

Thursday:
I’ll have my Only Vegan friend over for lunch, so it’s vegan day. Then, In the afternoon, nice date with a friend, this is the think i’m more excited about in the whole week.

Friday:
Visiting my mom, going to watch ‘Coco Avant Chanel’, being the fashion enthusiast I am, I’ve been waiting for it for a while. Later, we’ll have dinner together, I miss my mom so much.

Saturday:
A friend from a nearby city will visit me. Movies and trips all around the city. I have yet to plan this day as you can see.

Sunday:
Sad panda comes back to the city cause the collective i belong to, has a big installation to work on, So that will be a long, long day. I guess. Things can go differently.

So, this is just a small update on how happy I am (and stressed out, but happy) Don’t forget to congratulate Martinolli cause we boths celebrate our birthdays on the very same day. Just as Leonardo DiCaprio, Calista Flockhart and Demi Moore.

Amino Love and Acid Kisses

- Kou

posted by:  audra

uh oh, babies…i discovered today that i’ve committed a majorly terrible fashion faux-pas.  and before you go snickering about my white socks with hot pink sequined flats, cuffed jeans & furry coat…THAT was in the privacy of my own backyard and was NOT meant to be seen by my hot neighbors.  who are they to be looking through our transparent fence, anyway?  none of your fucking business, pervs!  ANYWAY, so today i finally heard the new lady gaga on le radio titled ‘bad romance’.  i nearly shat glitter & champagne corks.  isn’t it the bestest?!  she’s my new obsession.  i hated the gaga before, and have finally decided that she’s kind of amazing.  anyways…so of course i immediately checked youtube for the video–i’m quite taken with hers–and you know what i got?  wait for it…. 

…she DEBUTED bad romance  at the alexander mcqueen spring 2010 ready to wear show!!!  what the fuck?!  seriously?!  i  blogged this AGES ago, and who’s the retard that didn’t actually watch the show, but took the easy route & just looked at the pictures?!  god.  whatever.  here it is, and it’s quite amazing:

did you look at those fucking shoes?!  uh-mazing.  and speaking of arranging music for fashion shows….sam & i would be soooo good at it, you have no idea.  can you even imagine betsey johnson fall 2011 ready to wear with le tigre’s the the empty  on the runway?!  please!  your head would explode!

 anyone steals my bj idea & you’re dead fucking meat. 

Oh and check this fabulous band out. They’re no longer touring/recording, as far as I know, but they are still great…find their albums and listen to them. And get into feminism. Riot Grrrl style.

Riot Grrl on wikipedia…

Le Tigre…

Salon Light #6

On a tous nos mentors, et même si j’ai mis du temps à découvrir le “fauve” dans la jungle des canards français, voilà qu’en septembre dernier ma main tomba presque par hasard (alors qu’elle allait se saisir de la dernière édition de Clark) sur Le Tigre, numéro bleu bleuet. Coup de foudre immédiat. Ce “curieux magazine curieux”, qui donne une couleur différente à chacun de ses numéros (un des nombreux détails conceptuels qui font friser mes babines d’apprentie-félin), est aujourd’hui l’un des acteurs les plus actifs de l’édition indépendante en Europe, celle pour qui l’acte de publier reste avant tout un acte politique (du grec polis, qui donna politai, i.e. “acteur de la vie de la cité”).

Et bien, Mesdames et Messieurs, nouvelle absolument formidable: ce week-end, Le Tigre débarque dans la capitale, à l’occasion du salon Light #6, qui se déroule du 6 au 8 novembre au Point Éphémère, 200 quai de Valmy, Paris 10. Ce salon (et là, je reprends le communiqué officiel, vu que je n’y ai encore jamais mis les pieds) regroupe pendant trois journées “les maisons d’éditions indépendantes et artistes devenus éditeurs répondent à la démarche chère au Centre National de l’Édition et de l’Art Imprimé (Cneai), organisateur de l’événement, celle d’une valorisation des pratiques qui parviennent à se détacher des traditions éditoriales”. Un programme à faire rugir de plaisir. Point Éphémère, me voilà!

You get a full length mixtape this week because Halloween rules and I’m awesome.  That, and I had nothing to do after Mad Men.

1. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Satan Said Dance
2. Le Tigre – After Dark
3. Los Campesinos – We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives
4. Slow Club – Because We Are Dead
5. Of Montreal – Chrissy Kiss The Corpse
6. The White Stripes – Little Ghost
7. Franz Ferdinand – Shopping For Blood
8. Outkast – Dracula’s Wedding
9. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – I Put A Spell On You
10. Antsy Pants – Vampire
11. Beck – Satan Gave Me A Taco

O Le Tigre [O Tigre] é uma banda bem irreverente criada em 1998 nos Estados Unidos, na cidade de Nova Iorque por três garotas, uma bissexual, outra homossexual e a última transexual chamadas Kathleen Hanna, Johanna Fateman e Sadie Benning, mas sempre contam com a participação extra de JD Samson, também mulher. Elas juntas tocam um som punk dançante e são exclusivamente feministas e adeptas da causa e lutam pela participação e fim dos preconceitos entre os sexos e são ícones de comunidades LGBTs. Suas músicas são tendenciosas e não escondem nada contra insatisfações e elas fazem questão de exaltar as mulheres que se destacaram no mundo e atualmente o grupo está dando uma pausa para descanso.

Aqui para download o premiado álbum Le Tigre     Download

1 – Deceptacon

Have a nice Tuesday folks!! Little bit punky this time – going back to the roots :]

We had a super super fun fun day today, not at the least boring, honestly! I’m so excited, mostly to get out of my goddamn shoes…

This Le Tigre song is awesome, not the real video though, OBV…

Could be giving away part of my location with the possible new blog title.  But, I will have to make the change when I figure out how to transfer the thing, as it appears I partly share my blog-title with another treadmilling tune enthusiast. He’s being awful nice about it, but in the interest of preventing any confusion for the reading public out there… (hello… are you out there?) I’ll endeavor to swap the name soon.

Back to the tunes: 1st up a good rockin’ piece from Tool – Undertow, which got me back into things after a week or so of treadmill inactivity (mostly due to a couple of major events in my life, but also sheer laziness).  Got a bit of a run going early on, great powerful drumming and choppy metal geeetar.  This all happened yesterday btw – this session extends into a walk I did in the outside world earlier today, so not quite treadmill later, but still tunes.  Nice ones too.

Like the next one Brian Eno – A Clearing, from one of the very ambient albums.  I had to slow things right down to hear this one, which sounds like, well… a clearing really.  I was thinking that when people hear this they might say: “I could do this”, like when they see a Picasso or some other ‘primitive’ abstract art.  I feel a bit like that myself sometimes, but I guess Eno was at the forefront of this sound, and like a lot of innovators it’s  sometimes hard to appreciate what they’ve achieved when so many have come after him and been influenced by him.

Le Tigre – FYR Ah-ha had to google that – fifty years of ridicule according to the lyrics.  A feisty feminist anthem, with a rallying cry to the womyn out there to keep fighting the good fight.  Nice to have a bit of rrriot grrrrl inspired stuff on here. Finishes with a joke from the collective.

John Coltrane – Mr Knight.  I haven’t had much jazz come up yet, but I’m in the same camp as Tsiolkas on this genre.  He wrote recently that sometimes it just clicks – you might not understand it, but when it works it really works. And other times it can leave you cold.  Coltrane rarely leaves me cold, and I went with this one all the way.

Next up more Worldbeaters Los Yorks – Muy Facil, which from my very basic Spanish would be ‘very easy’… maybe. From Lima, Peru apparently with some nice 60s crooning and twangy guitar, singing about love – amore no doubt. They have a Spanish wikipedia page hmmm.

Some long ones from Coltrane and Eno there meant  not much writing, but the walk today had more to give.  Starting with Love – My Little Red Book, all about Arthur losing his girl and finding his list of pretty girls didn’t fix his problems after he lost that girl. What a cool band, and they sound pretty wild when they get cranking.

As do these guys Bird Blobs – Settle Down & Breed an antipodean band I don’t know much about, but this song is pretty impressive.  Makes me yearn for the days of rockin’ out at the pub to some scuzzy band.  I should try to get out now and then to see some of these local rawk bands, still flying the flag for Australian pub rock.  I suppose I’ve settled down, but no breeding for me, and no real desire to either.

Ah the first reggae I think from a free Mojo compilation Sugar Minott – Hang on Natty.  This one’s nice with trumpets and whirlygiggy smooth reggae sounds – just cruisin’ along.

One of the original Oz pub-rockers gone all soft and sentimental Cold Chisel – When the War is over an anti-war song I gather with the other guy on vocals, which is always a relief to me, although Jimmy is pretty smooth here – not the usual screaming from him.  Was never a fan when I was young, but they did write some great songs, and I can see what the stadium appeal would have been for many, and there were many over here.

This one just annoyed me Mystic Moods Orchestra – Cosmic Sea. Can’t really be bothered checking out what it is, from some pervy dance compilation.  Probably French, with some funky funk, and some violins.

Glen Campbell – You’ll Never Walk Alone The song made famous by Vera Lynn, but is now the song for the Mighty Reds of Liverpool – I should learn the lyrics really.  Gotta say it’s much more rousing when the kop sings it, than the old Rhinestone Cowboy here.

Beatles – Let it Be a classic, even though it’s a McCartney.  Hard to listen to these songs that are so ubiquitous – going for a bit of a gospel feel here isn’t he? Almost religious – church going music from Sir Paul.  Well they did think they were bigger than Jesus…

Finish off with R.E.M. – Oddfellows Local from the album that saw me moving away from the band I had been pretty obsessed with for a number of years. This is great atmospheric stuff, but was done better on Fables a few years earlier – the clean production, which got cleaner and cleaner for the next few albums continues to grate a bit.

Could be giving away part of my location with the possible new blog title.  But, I will have to make the change when I figure out how to transfer the thing, as it appears I partly share my blog-title with another treadmilling tune enthusiast. He’s being awful nice about it, but in the interest of preventing any confusion for the reading public out there… (hello… are you out there?) I’ll endeavor to swap the name soon.

Back to the tunes: 1st up a good rockin’ piece from Tool – Undertow, which got me back into things after a week or so of treadmill inactivity (mostly due to a couple of major events in my life, but also sheer laziness).  Got a bit of a run going early on, great powerful drumming and choppy metal geeetar.  This all happened yesterday btw – this session extends into a walk I did in the outside world earlier today, so not quite treadmill later, but still tunes.  Nice ones too.

Like the next one Brian Eno – A Clearing, from one of the very ambient albums.  I had to slow things right down to hear this one, which sounds like, well… a clearing really.  I was thinking that when people hear this they might say: “I could do this”, like when they see a Picasso or some other ‘primitive’ abstract art.  I feel a bit like that myself sometimes, but I guess Eno was at the forefront of this sound, and like a lot of innovators it’s  sometimes hard to appreciate what they’ve achieved when so many have come after him and been influenced by him.

Le Tigre – FYR Ah-ha had to google that – fifty years of ridicule according to the lyrics.  A feisty feminist anthem, with a rallying cry to the womyn out there to keep fighting the good fight.  Nice to have a bit of rrriot grrrrl inspired stuff on here. Finishes with a joke from the collective.

John Coltrane – Mr Knight.  I haven’t had much jazz come up yet, but I’m in the same camp as Tsiolkas on this genre.  He wrote recently that sometimes it just clicks – you might not understand it, but when it works it really works. And other times it can leave you cold.  Coltrane rarely leaves me cold, and I went with this one all the way.

Next up more Worldbeaters Los Yorks – Muy Facil, which from my very basic Spanish would be ‘very easy’… maybe. From Lima, Peru apparently with some nice 60s crooning and twangy guitar, singing about love – amore no doubt. They have a Spanish wikipedia page hmmm.

Some long ones from Coltrane and Eno there meant  not much writing, but the walk today had more to give.  Starting with Love – My Little Red Book, all about Arthur losing his girl and finding his list of pretty girls didn’t fix his problems after he lost that girl. What a cool band, and they sound pretty wild when they get cranking.

As do these guys Bird Blobs – Settle Down & Breed an antipodean band I don’t know much about, but this song is pretty impressive.  Makes me yearn for the days of rockin’ out at the pub to some scuzzy band.  I should try to get out now and then to see some of these local rawk bands, still flying the flag for Australian pub rock.  I suppose I’ve settled down, but no breeding for me, and no real desire to either.

Ah the first reggae I think from a free Mojo compilation Sugar Minott – Hang on Natty.  This one’s nice with trumpets and whirlygiggy smooth reggae sounds – just cruisin’ along.

One of the original Oz pub-rockers gone all soft and sentimental Cold Chisel – When the War is over an anti-war song I gather with the other guy on vocals, which is always a relief to me, although Jimmy is pretty smooth here – not the usual screaming from him.  Was never a fan when I was young, but they did write some great songs, and I can see what the stadium appeal would have been for many, and there were many over here.

This one just annoyed me Mystic Moods Orchestra – Cosmic Sea. Can’t really be bothered checking out what it is, from some pervy dance compilation.  Probably French, with some funky funk, and some violins.

Glen Campbell – You’ll Never Walk Alone The song made famous by Vera Lynn, but is now the song for the Mighty Reds of Liverpool – I should learn the lyrics really.  Gotta say it’s much more rousing when the kop sings it, than the old Rhinestone Cowboy here.

Beatles – Let it Be a classic, even though it’s a McCartney.  Hard to listen to these songs that are so ubiquitous – going for a bit of a gospel feel here isn’t he? Almost religious – church going music from Sir Paul.  Well they did think they were bigger than Jesus…

Finish off with R.E.M. – Oddfellows Local from the album that saw me moving away from the band I had been pretty obsessed with for a number of years. This is great atmospheric stuff, but was done better on Fables a few years earlier – the clean production, which got cleaner and cleaner for the next few albums continues to grate a bit.

A colleague posted this site on my facebook page and I thought maybe a few of you would be interested in checking it out. Looks like an amazing project.

Also, some awesome clips from Le Tigre in the Sound Art section.

ArtFem.TV

ArtFem TV

WHERE DID KATHLEEN HANNA GO?

Theres no words that can properly describe how fascinating  this riot grrl is.. Shes talented, has an amazing voice, good values (the best), shes gorgeous, shes funny – shes got it all.. Shes one of the few women I’d go lesbian for.. That’s gotta say it all.. ANYWAY, heres some Hanna-facts:

• Born November 12th, 1968
• Shes an american singer, songwriter, feminist activist and zine-writer
  
• Lead singer og Bikini Kill and Le tigre
• Collaborated with Green Day, Yoko Ono, Atari Teenage Riot and Mike Watt
• She also plays guitar, bass, and drums (!)
• She’s amazing – but where the fuck i she now?

So, this is the old Kathleen – now she teaches art classes at the NYU grad school, she volunteers as a band coach for a rock camp for girls AND shes married to Beasty Boy Adam Horovitz.

KATHLEEN NOW:

I miss the old Kathleen, with her high pony tail and bangs – so adorable, shes still great though, but i keep crossing my fingers for a Le Tigre comeback!

You learn that the only way to get rock-star power as a girl is to be a groupie and bare your breasts and get chosen for the night. We learn that the only way to get anywhere is through men. And it’s a lie.

- Kathleen Hanna <3

(Kathleen in a Sonic Youth video)

Hey everyone!

At 5 pm TODAY log onto spiritlive.net and click “tune into spirit live” to hear McClung’s Magazine’s first-ever radio show “This is what a feminist sounds like.” It will be podcasted and later linked on the blog. The show is EVERY Thursday!