From: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org (support-system-digest) To: support-system-digest@smoe.org Subject: support-system-digest V2 #311 Reply-To: support-system@smoe.org Sender: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk support-system-digest Thursday, October 21 1999 Volume 02 : Number 311 Today's Subjects: ----------------- non-liz list [brian d irby ] How to tell if your Liz Phair mailing list is in trouble. ["Bad Dreams" <] An article in response to Christina Rees (part two) [moe@lac2.gulliver.fr] An article in response to Christina Rees (part one) [moe@lac2.gulliver.fr] I'm glad it was appreciated..... ["Sally Mae" ] Liz Change ["Al" ] Liking High Places ["M.L. Magdalene" ] The Almighty pen...well, and other stuff. [Shelly ] Don't get me started... [Jason Long ] Bounced message [Jason Long ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 00:47:32 -0500 From: brian d irby Subject: non-liz list Ok, thought I would weigh in on my favorite non-Liz songs: 1. So Lonesome I Could Cry, Hank Williams 2. Driver 8, REM 3. Blue Skies, Allman Brothers Band 4. Walls of Time, Bill Monroe 5. Miner's Prayer, Dwight Yoakam 6. Lost Highway, Hank Williams 7. Paradise, John Prine 8. Guitar Town, Steve Earle 9. Winter's Come and Gone, Gillian Welch 10. Mama Tried, Merle Haggard By the way, whoever mentioned the Bob Wills song, where can I find that? I haven't ever heard that one! Brian ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 01:32:18 PDT From: "Bad Dreams" Subject: How to tell if your Liz Phair mailing list is in trouble. The list consists mainly of everyone's favourite non-Liz songs. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 11:33:44 +0200 From: moe@lac2.gulliver.fr Subject: An article in response to Christina Rees (part two) Corin Tucker, famous for her operatic banshee arias, sings with "a kewpie-doll voice"? This is... ah... debatable. Rees dismissively compares Sleater-Kinney's alleged lack of "musicianship and hooks and cohesion" with Chrissie Hynde's "great songs in the post-Beatles tradition: two-guitars-bass-drums, two-part harmony, one-three-five chord progressions." This is an apples-and-oranges scenario based on sloppy, selective history. Hynde and the Pretenders perfected and updated the classic, R&B-inflected rock of the mid-'60s. Sleater-Kinney are the direct descendents of the Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex and a post-punk generation that both used and joyfully disrupted those same musical tropes. In punk rock, musicianship is expressed with rowdy, garage-spun spirit, not hot licks; anarchic creativity triumphs over cohesion. As for hooks, anyone who can't find the chorus in irresistible songs such as "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" and "Dig Me Out" isn't listening very closely. Only S-K guitarist/vocalist Carrie Brownstein gets kudos for cool, though "the only reason her coolness was conceded was because she loped around stage and enjoyed the instrument in her hands with the ease of a guy." Still, Rees warns, "just because a woman slings her guitar low and attacks a song with some confidence doesn't make her perfect." Let's get this straight. It's no longer enough that a woman display "the confidence and focus of a man." She must now also be perfect. Rees cites, by way of imperfection, Elastica's Justine Frischmann, who had the requisite male attitude down, but was formulaic and turned out a lackluster second album. By Rees' thesis, no sophomore album by a male group has ever sucked. No male performer has ever used formula. No man-band has ever been imperfect. But man-fans have. Rees has the goods on males who actually enjoy listening to women musicians. They're "either just as frightened of male constructs as women [are], horny, or gay." Rees does find a few young women singer-songwriters worthy of praise. But while few will argue that "PJ Harvey and Björk are too busy forging their own sounds to be concerned with what the boys or girls are doing," it's a bizarre line of reasoning. This is an essay on gender in rock and roll, and neither of these formidable performers is a rock musician: Harvey is an R&B singer-songwriter (with a male backup band); Björk is an electronic dance maverick (with a sampler and a male backup band). Women slamming women is a conundrum as tired as my 20-year-old cat. The real question is how much longer we're going to allow it before we stop calling everything with breasts a "sister" and begin recognizing the enemy within. Why, after all, should ornerier male elements change when there will always be a Christina Rees to back them up? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 11:35:57 +0200 From: moe@lac2.gulliver.fr Subject: An article in response to Christina Rees (part one) Trashing Women Rockers Just quit it, pleeeeze By Neva Chonin, Special to SF Gate Friday, October 15, 1999 Women rockers just can't seem to get it right. Or so says Christina Rees, a writer for the Dallas Observer who trashes everyone from Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon to punk trio Sleater-Kinney in a Sept. 30 article titled "Girl Trouble: Rock and roll is still a man's, man's, man's, man's world." Her 1,800-word screed eviscerates women musicians for everything from their choice in instruments to the way they walk. She doesn't like their voices, the way they hold their guitars, the fact that they're too sexy, the fact that they're not sexy enough. None of this is new, and in the process Rees does make some good points; unfortunately, these only serve to make her many careless conclusions sound worse. Her opening shot that "women in rock haven't come a long way, baby" is sadly true -- though some would say this results from a lack of opportunities rather than, as Rees suggests, an intrinsic lack of testicular talent. She's also dead-on in deriding many early female MTV divas for selling sex more than music. Madonna will always rock, of course. But how could anyone, then or now, take Pat Benatar and her spandex minions seriously? As Rees scoffs, "Instead of challenging the male-dominated world of rock, they titillated it." It's no big revelation that women have historically used their bodies to wriggle their way out of cultural straitjackets. Let's face it, for centuries sex was their best and only option. But the rub is that this sexuality-for-sale approach has become a crutch for contemporary performers who continue to use it as a path to crippled empowerment -- even as it denies them what they want most: To be taken seriously as musicians. Still, progress has been made, albeit slowly and painfully, a fact Rees overlooks in dismissing a groundbreaking musician such as Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon as "just another chick bass player with a sideline career of designing tiny T-shirts." Let's not even tackle her omission of Gordon's production credits and many side projects, for which she's played various instruments, including guitar. Let's talk, instead, about the role of the bass player in the genesis of women rockers. By Rees' own admission, girls of Gordon's generation grew up in front of the rock stage, not on it. They didn't pick up guitars at age 10 and mime performing solos in front of screaming masses because it never occurred to them that they could. It wasn't until punk dawned in the late '70s and decimated traditional rock gender codes that many fledgling girl musicians began picking up the bass because it was the easiest to learn. They were making up for decades of lost time, and they wanted to get onstage pronto. That's called chutzpah. That's what rock 'n' roll is all about. In the last 10 years, the female bass player/male band archetype has all but died as a new generation of girls grows up with their chosen instruments in hand. Sure, Kid Rock has a token chick in his band. And she's the drummer. True, girls once grew up considering their relationship with rock "a hormonal affair," as Rees says. But they did so because for 30 years the rock paradigm stated that boys played in bands and girls slept with them. Conversely, it's worth mulling over how many hormonally tormented boys started groups as a means of getting laid. Rock is sexy for everyone. The real question is who gets to play top and who bottom. Rees decries knee-jerk support of girl bands as PC tokenism by a predominantly male press. If that's the case, their token support is anemic at best. How many all-girl rock groups (don't even mention Britney Spears) have graced the cover of Rolling Stone this year? Is Kathleen Hanna's new album the main feature in this month's Spin? Consider. Discuss. Rees gives an example of a band she considers undeservedly lauded: Sleater-Kinney, whose success has been modest by any industry standard, and whose following remains devoted but primarily underground. But for Rees, even a little is too much. "You couldn't help but wonder,'' she sniffs of one sold-out S-K show, "whether the club would have been quite so packed if the band on stage... were made up of three men instead of three women." Well, we've all wondered the same thing about many bands of many genres and both genders. The fact is, selling out a club-sized venue is more akin to basic math than calculus. It's hardly a sign of the Gold Rush or a massive, feminist-loving male conspiracy. Rees goes on to complain that drummer Janet Weiss wears "that awkward, constipated look common to female drummers" while vocalist/guitarist Corin Tucker sings "her defiant lyrics in a kewpie-doll voice." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 02:46:39 -0700 From: "Sally Mae" Subject: I'm glad it was appreciated..... >anyway, thanks to whomever posted that article; best thing on here in a long time....< That's ok, I thought you people would appreciate it. If you want to comment on it, you can post on a message board at http://www.rockrgrl.com like me! Sally *********************************** chickclick.com http://www.chickclick.com girl sites that don't fake it. http://www.chickmail.com sign up for your free email. *********************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 08:47:29 -0400 From: "Michael Worrell" Subject: Re: Boredom Morgan wrote: "I started thinking about how funny it would be if Liz and Tori Amos were to collaborate on an album!!! I know there are some Tori-fans on this list!!!! What are some songs those two would come up with? Here's what I came up with:" Heh! Hahahaha...I needed a good laugh here at 8:24 AM. It'd certainly be an unusual record--pair the queens of terrible diction for arguably one of the most dense (and interesting) albums ever recorded. I'd certainly buy it, hands down. Eugene Isaac Juarez, eh? Better send some money and keep that monkey quiet. :P As an aside, I found that Rees article exasperating, infuriating, culturally Neanderthalic, but I damn near fell out of my seat laughing at the first part of the Lilith Fair crowd characterization. Sure, it's wrong, but the unexepected quality of that line amid all that other idiocy was pretty welcome. Of course, I didn't like the second part of the bit, 'cause I'd rather radically disagree (nevermind that I didn't get to go; I don't fit in any of those three categories. You could maybe add a fourth, "Wants to see among others Liz Phair, Heather Nova, etc...?) Oh well. "To Guyville and Back"--would this be a two-record album or what? Michael NP: "Smile", Colleen Fitzpatrick in the life of...Vitamin C ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Oct 99 10:32:21 -0700 From: "Al" Subject: Liz Change TADude responded to my post by stating: >This statement is so wrong, of course it could end up being true but I'm >sure >it depends on how insecure someone might be with growing older(which we all >do every day) themselves. I sure as hell hope LP is doing what she does best >at age 40 and beyond. That would be so cool. >From my point of view age is irrelevant in everything we do. Age is a state >of mind, no more no less. If you don't believe this you will become like the >people you surround yourself with through the course of your life, which >usually means old for most of us. I don't mean to generalize here but I've >seen it happen all to often. I can agree with that, but there still is nothing we can do about it if the artist (LP) feels the need for a change. It is like the aging process. My whole point I was trying to make by posting this (which I guess I didn't point out ;-)), is that sometimes the artist doesn't want to do stuff they did when they were younger and from reading all of the Liz Phair interviews over the past year, it seems like she is going in this direction. For whatever reason, she seems to want to move away from her Girlysounds, EIG, WS, days of lo-fi production. Don't get me wrong, I love the lo-fi sound. It's more raw and her guitar is much more prevelant, but she needed to do something different. If you take the WCSE Sessions, you can really see where she changed, but she still kept to her true identity and some of those songs on there, well, they are so awesome. I also don't really care for the WCSE which is supposed to be the finished product. There are some really good songs on it, but I can't throw it in the CD player and just let it run like I can do with EIG and WS and the WCSE Sessions CD's (Thanks Ken!). I like that she tried to move in another direction with WCSE, but the one thing I don't like about that new direction was that she lost her trademark so to speak, by covering up that twangy and friggin awesome guitar on the album that was finally released. If she had released the WCSE Sessions CD, she, in my honest opinion, would have been totally successful in going in a new direction. The released version of WCSE is just too different. It's like she's a totally different musician or something. It's good, but its not the Liz Phair I got hooked on many year's ago. Anyway, I just want her to realize what an awesome tool she has in her guitar playing and she needs to incorporate it into her music like she did with EIG and WS. That is one of the cool things that really keeps her a part from the Alanis' and all those female musicians. It gives her her own identity. Something they cannot steal from her. Whew!!! Finally had enough time to really think this out, why I am uncomfortable truly embracing the new Liz and now that I sorted it all out, just had to vent a little. Oh well, this probably doesn't make sense. My mind kept wandering from one thought to the next on this subject. Al I'm just an ant in Alaska to you! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 15:49:01 PDT From: "M.L. Magdalene" Subject: Liking High Places >this is a very cool liz-related story.....the other night i was >eating >dinner at my aunt's house........ >I would have to agree, this is a very cool Liz related story... >What are some songs those two would come up with? Here's what I >came up >with: This is an extremely ammusing idea..i just wonder what exactly it would sound like.. I'm so glad to see so many people post The Cure in thier top 10 non-Liz songs!! Yay! Long Live Bob! M ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 16:19:54 -0700 From: Shelly Subject: The Almighty pen...well, and other stuff. s-s-d #310 contained the following comments: Mark Henninger "How anyone could deem _The Hot Rock_ "unlistenable" is unfathomable to me. Sleater-Kinney are (and I think that a few of you out there will agree with me) an amazing band on recorded disc who are even more amazing live. " ~~All I can say is a healthy & hearty "Hell Yes!" (Well, that and a "thank you" to Mark) Greg Bishop wrote: "3: Camel Walk - Southern Culture On The Skids 10: Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads.......Any like-minded people out there on these songs/ music?" ~~(raising my hand & fervently waving it) "Walk Like a Camel" just kills me every time...pointy toed boots...*hee hee hee* and I've yet to hear a Talking Heads song that I don't like. I think out of anyone, anywhere that I could meet & interview, David Byrne would have to be that person. And, finally...last but certainly not least: From: Juvenilia@aol.com Subject: ... The Un-Liz List: " 0009. Dar Williams - The Pointless, Yet Poignant, Crisis Of A Co-Ed..." Robbie, you are now my hero. The fact that you quoted Dar William's is proof of your genius. Thank you. Again...off to the dirt. ~gunshy~ Shelly "And she can dance a cajun rhythm..." ("Sugar Magnolia"~The Grateful Dead) NP: "Box of Rain" The Grateful Dead ][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 00:14:21 -0400 From: Jason Long Subject: Don't get me started... Okay, that article about "women in rock" by Christina Rees is about the most appalling, stupidest thing I've ever read. Although I likely shouldn't bother, I can't help but want to respond. Apologizes in advance to anyone I may inadvertantly piss off; this article was so infuriating, I'll likely end up saying a few things I shouldn't. >Girl trouble >Rock and roll is still a man's, man's, man's, man's world Bull-fucking-shit. > Trees was packed that night, and you couldn't help but wonder whether the >club would have been quite so packed if the band on stage, Sleater-Kinney, >were made up of three men instead of three women. Drummer Janet Weiss was >capable but not great, suffering from that awkward, constipated look common >to female drummers. Corin Tucker sang her defiant lyrics in a kewpie-doll >voice and stood stock-still with her guitar. And the other guitarist, Carrie >Brownstein, well, she was all right. But the only reason her coolness was >conceded was because she loped around stage and enjoyed the instrument in >her hands with the ease of a guy, unlike her bandmates. She stood out by >comparison rather than by competence. Janet is "capable"? Corin has "a kewpie-doll voice"? Carrie is "all right"? Did Ms. Rees see a band impersonating Sleater-Kinney or the actual real thing? One has to wonder, especially if one has seen one of their kick-ass shows in the past, like I have. >Yet music writers across the country have trumpeted Sleater-Kinney's >victorious leap over old pop constructs toward a new approach to rock and >roll ever since 1997's Dig Me Out; they wax on about how this is one of the >most important bands of the '90s. But Sleater-Kinney's ascendancy feels more >like fad than fact. Months after the release of the group's third album, >it's doubtful that anyone listens to the unlistenable The Hot Rock anymore. Months after the release of the group's third album, _The Hot Rock_ had yet to even be recorded. _The Hot Rock_ is record number four by S-K; _Dig Me Out_ was their third. At least get your facts right, isn't that what a journalist is supposed to do? Secondly, I hardly find _The Hot Rock_ to be unlistenable; if anything, it's probably spent more time in my CD player than any other new release this year, with the possible exception of Aimee Mann's _Bachelor No. 2_ preview EP. >The fact is, Sleater-Kinney hasn't so much managed to rethink rock as to >drag it to an amateur slumber party, leaving things like musicianship and >hooks and cohesion behind. No hooks or talent? Yeah, that's why every time I hear "Turn It On," "Start Together," "Good Things" or any number of their other songs, I can't get them out of my head for hours afterwards. That's exactly why I'll catch myself humming them throughout the course of my day. Uh, okay. Also, I guess it doesn't pay to try to do something original, that hasn't been done to death and isn't entirely derivative. Rather than be noticed for your creativity and have the resulting work be recognized for its high quality and originality, you might end up being deemed an "amateur." >Guitars seemed a natural extension of their >bodies; Oooh, the phallic argument; I should have known that cliche would rear its ugly head at some point (so to speak). ;) >song structures and pop hooks were as intrinsic to them as eating >and sleeping. The key: equal parts effortlessness and swagger, something >female rockers at the time sadly lacked, and most of them still do, as >Sleater-Kinney ably demonstrated at Trees. Then they must have been having a bad show that night; when I saw them in Toronto in June, they exuded confidence and put on one of the best shows I've ever seen. They could smoke pretty much any other band I've ever seen off the stage. I'm sorry you didn't have a good time at the Sleater-Kinney show you went to, Ms. Rees. Did you feel out of place, like you didn't fit in -- is that it? You sound like you got mistaken for a venue employee or for an audience member's mother, and have had a chip on your shoulder about it ever since. So glad they give you a column so you can vent your frustrations and bitterness.... Good for you, take it out on the band and all of rock's women for that matter, let it out, everything will be all right.... >Of course, the members of Sleater-Kinney are handicapped; they come from a >generation that spent its formative years scanning MTV for role models. The >women who did join the '80s rock world showed up on the all-music channel >wielding a very non-democratic weapon, one that most male musicians didn't >need to sell themselves: sex. Yeah, like male musicians have never used their sex appeal before to sell records. That's such bullshit. Hello, like everyone from Mick Jagger to Trent Reznor doesn't fall into this category? >Like Ladies Night at a smarmy bar, most women get into the Rock Club for >free because they have good legs, not chops. And I could easily name 100 women for which this isn't the case. But that doesn't matter, because it doesn't block out the handful of examples this writer has been able to come up with to support her absolutely stupid, uninformed opinion. Besides, some women use their sex appeal as a way of being subversive; has that idea ever even occured to Ms. Rees? I bet we can all come up with several examples of Liz doing this.... >But some of them did have the chops, most notably Chrissie Hynde. The >Pretenders' singer-guitarist was one of the only women of that era worth >listening to, because she was lean and ballsy and wrote great songs in the >post-Beatles tradition: two-guitars-bass-drums, two-part harmony, >one-three-five chord progressions. Ms. Rees, I think you mean I-IV-V. If you're going to get technical, at least get it right. >But in terms of >writing and playing your own music, if the woman can't do it with the >confidence and focus of a man, then she should get off the stage. She should only get off the stage if no one wants to hear what she has to say. No one is forcing you to watch, Ms. Rees. So, if you don't like it, don't fucking pay for a ticket and don't make a point of attending. >For example, Liz Phair's 1993 debut, Exile in Guyville, was lyrically raw >and crammed with loose, warbling hooks -- the kind of record that proved >some women could do it as well as or better than men. But then she showed up >at David Letterman's studio and delivered the album's punchy opener "6'1" >with hollow, shaky uncertainty and painfully real stage fright -- eyes glued >to her guitar neck, voice flatter than ever, paralyzed to her spot. I think Ms. Rees better cut down on her LSD intake, she's starting to have hallucinations. Liz has never performed "6'1" on Letterman's show; she has, however, played "Never Said," and didn't do too damn bad of a job of it, in my opinion. Also, I think it's sheer idiocy on the part of Ms. Rees to make such a generalization about Liz's performing style; has she bothered to check out any of Liz's live performances in the five years since that Letterman appearance? Liz has come a long way, baby. >Same goes for the Breeders. Sure, "Cannonball" was a great song, but the >rest of the album (1993's Last Splash) was awful, and, for that matter, so >was their 1990 debut, Pod. Like many of their peers, Kim Deal and company >were about as charismatic as cardboard, as interesting to watch live as a TV >test pattern. _Last Splash_ was awful? This is news to me; I genuinely enjoy the album and have yet to tire of it, six years after its release. _Pod_ may not be quite as great, but still has its share of good songs. Oh yeah, they don't just utilize I-IV-V chord progressions; therefore, they really must suck. As for having no charisma, there are a million bands made up of all males that this could be said about as well. Why does this quack make such sweeping generalizations based on gender; why can't she consider each band individually? Oh, yeah, because it would prevent her from writing such drivel as this. >But just because a woman slings her guitar low and attacks a song with some >confidence doesn't make her perfect. Justine Frischmann took Elastica to the >top of the charts (in England, at least) on the coattails of formula, >affected aloofness, and borrowed Wire riffs, and then went into hibernation, >apparently cashed out on ideas. When Elastica returned last month with its >first release after a four-year absence, it was obvious that Frischmann >didn't use the time off to come up with anything new. Like there aren't plenty of male bands that rehash the same ideas over and over? Hello, just look at any band with a sophomore album in the Top 40 album chart. Also, I did buy the new Elastica EP, and while it's not great, it does show much promise. Also, there's little on there that reminds me overtly of their debut, so I don't know what Ms. Rees is on about. >Courtney Love has an >ongoing and serious identity crisis, sometimes leaning back on temper >tantrums or the ever-reliable T&A to hold the spotlight. And Sonic Youth's >Kim Gordon is just another chick bass player with a sideline career of >designing tiny T-shirts. Role model my ass. Speaking of Ms. Rees' ass, can we get Courtney Love pissed off enough that she'll consider kicking it? ;) >Gordon is perhaps the perfect example of what is wrong with women in rock. >She is a stereotype: the token female in an all-male band, another girl who >decided at the last minute to join her boyfriend/brother's band and picked >up bass because it's allegedly the easiest of the rock instruments to learn. >Female musicians like Gordon did not spend their teenage years banging away >at chord progressions, building a record collection, or considering their >relationship with rock anything more than a hormonal affair. They didn't >start playing music because they were compelled to; they did it because they >might as well. Talent's not an issue, because they have none. Fuck, Ms. Rees just gets stupider the more she's allowed to ramble on. Is she not aware of the fact the Kim Gordon was playing bass long before she met Thurston Moore? And as for not building up a record collection, that's bullshit as well. Thurston and Kim were introduced to one another by a record store employee because they were always buying the same records. Gee, since they had the same musical tastes, is it that unbelievable that they might want to play or form a band together? >The most >offensive female crutch for weak musicianship is political, and the riot >grrrls are the biggest culprits. Spawned from the anger of youthful >feminism, this contingent careens along on recycled gender theories about >the imbalance of power and has yet to show that one of their own can write >and play a decent tune. It would be far easier to listen to a political >sermon from a woman who knows her E-string from her g-spot. If you don't >like the music guys make, then pioneer your own musical forms, but keep in >mind that two-chord abuse and shrill ranting does not a pioneer make. Gee, tell that to the punk forefathers whose aesthetic is similar to that of the riot grrrls. And while you're at it, why don't you criticise *them* for the same thing, if it's such an issue? After all, we can't have double standards, now can we, Ms. Rees? And for the record, I find albums by Bikini Kill and Bratmobile to be a thousand times more compelling than the cock-rock Ms. Rees likely prefers. >And all those guys in the Lilith audience >are either just as frightened of male constructs as women, horny, or gay. Or perhaps they're tired of all-guy bands like Matchbox 20 and Third Eye Blind that -- in no uncertain terms -- suck, and they want to hear something different for a change. >Not surprisingly, the few women who have successfully redrawn some of pop's >parameters for their own aesthetics aren't cynical young girls in tiny Ts or >post-folkie earth goddesses; PJ Harvey and Bjork are too busy forging their >own sounds to be concerned with what the boys or girls are doing. If these >two bona fide musicians sometimes come off angry or anguished, it has >nothing to do with a battle of sexes -- it has to do with being human and >communicating human conflict. I thought this article was about "women in rock?" In that case, while PJ Harvey would have once qualified, I don't feel that the music she's making now is particularly rock-based. As for Bjork, no offense to any of her fans, but I find her incredibly pretentious and her music bores me. She just rubs me the wrong way. Is what she's doing really progress? Ms. Rees thought that Joni Mitchell was "tedious," but rewards points to this? >And there are women rockers out there who can do the same. For every >guitar-frightened Liz Phair, there's a Carrie Brownstein; Wait, I thought Carrie Brownstein "stood out by comparison rather than by competence"? Make up your fucking mind, Ms. Rees. Are you praising or criticizing her? And another thing, Liz is hardly "guitar-frightened" these days. Check out a show sometime, then let's talk. >for every >numbingly self-righteous Natalie Merchant, there's an unassuming drummer >like Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley. Uh oh, I don't think Georgia Hubley can be used as an example. After all, she is the token female in her band, and not only that, she is married to one of the other members. You wouldn't want to be hypocritical now, Ms. Rees, about one of your earlier diatribes. >It's enough to almost give you hope. But is it enough to shut you up? >Instead of turning off the stereo at the first sound of a female voice, wait >a few bars to see where she's headed. But more often than not, she'll likely >end up at the same place Sleater-Kinney resides: at the top of this week's >critics' list, with nary a great tune in sight. Well, if what Sleater-Kinney makes aren't great tunes, I'll have many more of them, thank you very much. God only knows what you'd prefer I listen to.... Off to listen to some amateurish band with a singer with a "kewpie-doll voice" whose ascendancy is only a fad, Jase ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 00:18:54 -0400 From: Jason Long Subject: Bounced message [Note from Jase: Please don't quote the entire previous digest when sending a message to the list; it will just bounce to me and won't make it to the list until I have a chance to forward it.] From: Cynthia Weaver Subject: Re: support-system-digest V2 #310 Hey! Morgan, your Liz/Tori email is fabulous! You're a genius! Space Dogs of LA! I am also a huge Tori fan, and am glad that she isn't another allanass on this list! Fave non-liz tunes: hyper ballad -- bjork doughnut song -- tori amos horses (plugged) -- tori amos spring haze -- tori amos god mad me -- the sundays 24 hours -- the sundays suede -- tori amos bulletproof (i wish i was) -- radiohead subterranean homesick alien -- radiohead high and dry -- radiohead don't laugh. cynthia ------------------------------ End of support-system-digest V2 #311 ************************************