plus 3, "Girl Power": Riot grrrl revolution - Salon |
- "Girl Power": Riot grrrl revolution - Salon
- Jack Thompson Calls Kotick Out on Modern Warfare Comment - Escapist Magazine
- Police briefs: Smart car overturned - Windsor Star
- FEDERLINE ATTACKED BY DOGS ON TV SHOW - PR Inside
| "Girl Power": Riot grrrl revolution - Salon Posted: 21 Feb 2010 05:54 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Nearly two decades ago in Olympia, Wash., a group of lady musicians decided to plot a revolution, girl-style. "We really did sit down and say, 'How can we change what it means to be a girl?' and, 'How can we reinvent feminism for our generation?'" Bikini Kill's Tobi Vail told author Marisa Meltzer in her new book, "Girl Power." The revolution — an overtly feminist movement in the punk underground — was already percolating across the country. But these ladies gave it a name: Riot Grrrl. (Jen Smith of Bratmobile came up with the idea of a "girl riot" while Vail added the triple rrrs that made girls roar.) Like most of their compatriots in the punk underground, the riot grrrls held themselves and each other to high standards of artistic and political purity, which often included a willful distrust and disdain for the mainstream media. (After being caricatured in one too many newsweeklies, members of the riot grrrls actually instituted a "media blackout" in 1992.) But, as Meltzer argues in her new book, their overt feminism had an influence on women in rock throughout the decade: Bands like L7, Hole and Sleater-Kinney (the latter two bands both nurtured in Olympia) and musicians like PJ Harvey and Liz Phair loomed large in the alternative underground; songs by "angry women" (including Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple and "Bitch" one-hit wonder Meredith Brooks) shot up the mainstream pop charts, and by the end of the decade a bastardized version of "girl power" was used to market everything from the Spice Girls to the Powerpuff Girls (a condition that Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, the authors of the third-wave feminist tome "Manifesta," dubbed "Spice Girl Pencil Set Syndrome" — "girls buying products made by male-owned companies that capture the slogan of feminism, without the power"). Indeed, Posh Spice Barbie is a far cry from anti-rape anthems and the infamous tampon incident of 1992, in which L7's guitarist Donita Sparks allegedly flung her used tampon at hecklers at the Reading Music Festival. Author Marisa Meltzer went to school at Evergreen State College in Olympia, in large part to be near the epicenter of the movement. When Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006, Meltzer wrote in an e-mail to a friend, "My youth is over." That grew into a eulogy of sorts for the band on Slate. Eventually, Meltzer decided that a full-length book on women in '90s rock was the perfect follow-up to her first book, co-written with Kara Jesella, on the '80s and early '90s feminist teen magazine Sassy. I met Meltzer earlier this month at the Bell House, a music venue in Brooklyn. Meltzer was wearing an outfit — floral skirt, chunky shoes, blackish-red nail polish, leopard-print coat — that would have seemed entirely appropriate attire to go see Heavens to Betsy in some kids' living room in 1992, and just as appropriate for our evening's activity — a record-release party of "Teen Dream," by Beach House, a band on the Sub Pop label featuring charismatic frontwoman Victoria LeGrand. As we settled into the couches, sipping cocktails that just happened to be named in homage to feminist electroclash darling Peaches, we talked about the definition of feminist pop, how the riot grrrls gave birth to Beyoncé, and the difference between vagina music and cunt music. The ultimate slur in the '90s underground was to be a sellout. But you seem to think mainstream stars like Alanis Morissette and the Spice Girls played a role in this "girl power" thing for kids who had more access to Seventeen or Newsweek than zines. Did the artists of the '90s put too much emphasis on artistic purity? For kids of this generation, it's just a non-issue. But for people of our generation, it certainly is. I think we'll take it to our graves. I don't think we're ever going to be like: We're done with the purity-versus-sellout debate! But even as adults, we have to remind ourselves that it's not so easy to find artists or to find cool stuff. I think there are tons of people, myself included, who found out about bands through Nirvana's success. That's how I found out about the Raincoats and the Vaselines — just from obsessively reading interviews with Kurt Cobain after I saw "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on MTV when I was 14. I went down that rabbit hole that people do. People can be really critical of Miley Cyrus or Lady Gaga, but 8-year-old girls might just be seeing their power — that's what they identify with. I think that's what I was identifying with Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. I didn't understand any of the references or any of the subtext. But there was just something about their urgency and power, something I identified with as a common girl experience on a really primal level. I try to remind myself of that when I look at pop stars now. I do think that's part of the success of Taylor Swift — she is a "nice girl" first and foremost — but she does have some of that anger laced delicately through her songs. As part of the research for this book, I went to see Pink, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, MIA and countless teen bands and girl bands. That was another thing: realizing how fun arena concerts are. I saw Beyoncé with her 15-piece all-girl backup band — two female drummers! — and I was like, if riot grrrl didn't succeed, I don't know what did. It's a bit of a stretch drawing the line between riot grrrl and Beyoncé, but I'll do it. I was just like, Wow! That's feminism right there! That's amazing. And if you're some little kid, and you're going with your mom to see that, how inspiring! I cried. Many of us were obsessed with riot grrrl, but you came to your expertise honestly. You actually "went to school in Olympia," as the Hole song goes. Kathleen Hanna lived upstairs from me. Olympia was at height of its coolness, so you'd be at parties and someone from the Beastie Boys would be there. I was at this disco party and [R.E.M.'s] Michael Stipe just happened to roll in. And of course you couldn't acknowledge that person or their fame. Writing this book was hard, because I had to tell myself, OK, I'm not seeking these people's approval anymore. I think it's balanced. I'm biased, of course, and it comes with a lot of love. But there were definitely moments when I pictured people reading it and thinking I was an outsider criticizing their experience. I felt like my adolescent self all over again. What makes a girl power band? Do the ladies have to identify as feminist? Or just be ladies in a band? I go back and forth. I think there's something really powerful about seeing an all-girl band, and that power is never really going to go away for me. I'm always going to have a soft spot for it, and I'm always going to have respect for it. Something like the No Doubt-Blondie female frontwoman with a guy band — it's like when friends change their names when they get married. I don't think they are bad people, but there's this little part of me that just wishes it were a little different. That probably has more to do with my own prejudices and insecurities, but that's how I feel about it. But now it seems there are a lot of bands that are just mixed. It's not just about the hot female frontwoman, or you just have a duo, a guy and a girl. It's become more normal for girls to play music, and thus they don't always have to band together in order to do it. I think people should make music with whoever they are creatively compatible with. But I wish there were more all-girl bands now. I think a lot of them are not so much my thing. I mean, I like the Donnas. The Dum Dum Girls are a great all-girl band. I love Best Coast. That's a girl and a guy. But they aren't girl power — like singing about the female experience. And that's fine. I don't need every band to be commenting on feminism or to have songs about friendship and PMS. But I do like a song about tampons as much as anyone. If they can bring Lilith Fair back, they can bring the tampon throw back. Aha! That brings us back to Lilith Fair, back at a stadium near us this summer. I have to admit, the first time around it just didn't seem so punk rock to me. What are your thoughts? When it first started, I was in college, I had been going to shows for like seven years. I didn't need some stadium rock touring thing that was expensive and I had to listen to vagina music. I wanted to listen to cunt music. But now I think, What was I thinking? Lilith Fair was amazing! Now I'm kind of into that vagina music. I'm excited about Lilith Fair in retrospect because it felt, like, radical. Here you had a touring festival of women, and they made a ton of money to give to charities, and they sold out everywhere, and they had these booths devoted to things like abortion rights. Why was I so dismissive of that? So now I couldn't be more excited for Lilith. I actually think the lineup is pretty hot. La Roux, Heart, Indigo Girls, Sia. Sarah McLachlan is obviously playing. They're not afraid of raw feminism, apparently, at Lilith 2.0. It's a nice mix of vagina and cunt music. I'm super-psyched! I can't wait to go. I'm ready to buy a shirt to support the fight against breast cancer or whatever. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Jack Thompson Calls Kotick Out on Modern Warfare Comment - Escapist Magazine Posted: 21 Feb 2010 06:23 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Jack Thompson is still waiting to pounce on anything and everything he can possibly spin to his advantage. Videogame hater Jack Thompson is a nobody, a nothing even, with no value to his public presence on the planet humanity currently resides on other than to prove how awful some people are. Basically fueled by a post on GamePolitics, Thompson's latest trick was to send out a letter to California State Senator Leland Yee (known for criticizing the videogame industry in the past) saying Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has proven with a recent comment at D.I.C.E. that videogames are worse for the nation's youth than juggling chainsaws with no practice. The line of Kotick's that Thompson attacked was: "I play from time to time, but the nature of my personality is such that if I was regularly playing Modern Warfare 2, I would not be able to stop and it would be at the expense of all my regular responsibilities." The same could be said about unicycle riding, or playing with Legos (ooh, they're so fun!), but to Thompson this statement is the kiss of death for the videogame industry. In Thompson's letter, he writes: "My old boss, Sam Powers, taught me that if the other side talks long enough, they will give you all you need to win ... This admission flies in the face of video game industry spokespersons' false, sometimes perjured assertions, that video games do not affect the behavior of minors. Here is a full-grown adult (at least in chronological terms) admitting just the opposite." I don't know who Sam Powers is, but if he helped form Thompson, I hope he's lost in a jungle somewhere. He ends with: "Please contact me at your earliest convenience," and I can just imagine that Yee flew to the nearest phone. Kotick definitely does point out the sometimes addictive nature of videogames here, but seeing as Kotick is an adult I'm not sure how well this ammunition will serve Thompson. Videogames are fun, but so are movies, television, books, playing music, dancing to Britney Spears, riding bikes, and cup stacking. Anything can make people shirk their responsibilities, but that doesn't mean that the videogame industry can somehow be taken down due to a CEO's lighthearted remark about his addictive personality concerning his own company's products. Regardless, I know we'll unfortunately be hearing this quote again if Thompson ever makes it back on Fox News. Source: Joystiq Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Police briefs: Smart car overturned - Windsor Star Posted: 21 Feb 2010 06:16 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. A car left toppled in a Kingsville driveway has police on the lookout for an unknown suspect. Officers arrived at a house in the 70 block of Harbour View Drive at about 5 a.m. They found a smart car rolled onto its side in the driveway. The officers were able to tip the car back onto its wheels. Police are asking anyone with tips to call Kingsville OPP at 519-733-2345. Notes, clothes taken from car A missing duffel bag full of clothing and class notes has left Lakeshore OPP with homework of their own. Police say a car was broken into between 6 and 10:30 p.m. Saturday in the 100 block of Commercial Avenue. The black Nike duffel bag was taken from the unlocked vehicle. The bag contained notes from St. Clair College's nursing program. It was also full of clothing, including a blue St. Clair College hoodie, black dress pants, a pearl necklace and hoop earrings. The bag also contained Britney Spears perfume. Brazen robber rifles purse Windsor police are looking for a man who robbed a Windsor woman in the early hours of Saturday morning. The woman was walking along the 1300 block of Walker Road when the suspect approached her. He grabbed at her purse and took several items from it. The woman suffered minor scrapes to her wrists. The suspect is described as a black male in his 20s. The investigation is continuing. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| FEDERLINE ATTACKED BY DOGS ON TV SHOW - PR Inside Posted: 21 Feb 2010 03:38 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. 2010-02-22 00:33:03 -
BRITNEY SPEARS' ex-husband KEVIN FEDERLINE had attack dogs on his heels a= s he tried to lose weight on a U.S. reality TV show. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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