Records for Rebel Girls and Riot Grrls from Bikini Kill
Riot grrrls and bois, listen up, because this is some seriously exciting news. It may seem hard to believe, but Bikini Kill is officially old enough to rent a car! To celebrate 25 years of being rad babes who make radical rock, they’re starting a record label and releasing a bunch of awesome goodies, including a reissue of their debut EP and brand spanking new merchandise. Commence freaking out!
They will also be updating the site with photographs, recordings from their practice sessions, unreleased songs, zines, flyers, and all the exclusive Bikini Kill swag that your little Kathleen Hanna-worshipping heart desires. While you’re waiting for new releases, you can grab their entire back catalog on their bandcamp, or go through their fan archives and cry a lot.
For those of you who haven’t listened to Bikini Kill and are just dipping your little queer toes into the riot grrrl genre, you might want to start with Sara Marcus’ Girls to the Front and listen to Autostraddle’s very own curated riot grrrl sampler, Grrls! Grrls!
Grrls!. Revolution girl style now!
Grrrls! Grrrls! Grrrls!: What I Learned From Riot
click for other "the way we were" posts
June is LGBT Pride Month, so we’re celebrating all of our pride by feeding babies to lions! Just kidding, we’re talking about lesbian history, loosely defined as anything that happened in the 20th century or earlier, ’cause shit changes fast in these parts. We’re calling it The Way We Were, and we think you’re gonna like it. For a full index of all “The Way We Were” posts, click that graphic to the right there.
1. Call For Submissions, by The Editors
2. Portraits of Lesbian Writers, 1987-1989, by Riese
3. The Way We Were Spotlight: Vita Sackville-West, by Sawyer
4. The Unaccountable Life of Charlie Brown, by Jemima
5. Read a F*cking Book: “Odd Girls & Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in 20th-Century America”, by Riese
6. Before “The L Word,” There Was Lesbian Pulp Fiction, by Brittani
7. 20 Lesbian Slang Terms You’ve Never Heard Before, by Riese
8. Grrls Grrls Grrls: What I Learned From Riot, by Katrina
I wasn’t there when it happened. Not by choice, just by circumstance.
In 1991, when the riot grrrl scene was growing in the Pacific Northwest and Washington, DC, I was one year old. I was taking my clothes off and screaming and breaking things, but that was probably just a coincidence. And even though I wouldn’t learn what riot meant for another 16 years, what was happening then would inevitably shape the feminist consciousness that I would grow to inherit.
My generation is the one that knows Kathleen Hanna from Le Tigre. Our friends who don’t run in feminist circles know Carrie Brownstein from Portlandia. And for those of us who do know who Brownstein was in relation to the movement, the only way we could have ever seen her gloriously kick and cartwheel across a stage was not with Sleater-Kinney, but with riot supergroup Wild Flag.
These are the heirlooms of riot. They’re what our foresisters left for us to make sure we would never forget.
We may not have experienced it firsthand, but there is a story that is told to us as young feminists, artists, organizers and – yes – rebel girls. It’s like a punk rock bedtime story to know by heart, sort of like a tweaked-out lullaby set to the tune of a thousand wailing guitars.
joan jett and kathleen hanna, 1994
Here’s how I understand it:
It wasn’t that riot grrrl was born out of punk. It was more like riot set punk on fire and rose screaming out of its ashes. Riot wasn’t about punk like feminism isn’t about men. It didn’t happen because we hated men, it happened because we loved ourselves and knew the kind of world we deserved. What riot wanted couldn’t be contained. And that was the point, wasn’t it? That women and grrrls didn’t have to accept a world built by men. Women didn’t have to adhere to men’s standards of beauty or power or worth. We didn’t have to have conversations using their vocabulary.
In 2010, Sara Marcus published Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution, a thoroughly-researched analytical memoir of the riot movement. Marcus explains the grrrls’ outrage:
“The girls were furious about things like parental-consent abortion laws, bikini-clad women who hawked beer and cigarettes on billboards and TV, and the archaic gender roles that pervaded the cartoon section of the Washington Post. They were ready to revolt over things like hallway gropes and sidewalk heckles, leering teachers, homophobic threats, rape, incest, domestic violence, sexual double standards, ubiquitous warnings against walking certain places or dressing certain ways … The affronts were neverending. The girls couldn’t block these things out and they didn’t want to; they wanted to stay acutely aware of the war against them so they could fight back.”
The grrrls were coming to realize the extent to which violence pervaded culture. They knew that violence wasn’t necessarily rape or abuse (though it certainly was that, too); it was also something much more quiet and insidious than that. Violence was a systematic force that worked within our society to tell us, as Kathleen Hanna put it in her Riot Grrrl Manifesto, that “Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak.”
Marcus’s book received overwhelmingly positive reviews from both mainstream media as well as the women who were involved in the founding of riot. This was a particularly huge accomplishment, as riot was decidedly averse to mainstream media, making it practically a policy to refuse interviews for fear of misrepresentation. But this policy came at a price, because there’s something that happens when you don’t let the mainstream media represent (or misrepresent) you: people either make their own judgments based off stereotypes and hearsay, or they forget you exist. Facing the issue of erasure, the riot grrrls created their own narrative, writing their history through art, music, documentaries and zines that honored the work they were doing using their own words and their own voices.
Riot was a way for women to politicize themselves while remaining creative and badass. Creation in itself was a form of resistance and a validation of their existence. They weren’t asking for permission or respect. They didn’t need to ask. That was also the point: not needing anyone’s fucking permission.
When we live our lives bending to patriarchy – intentionally or not – we do this thing where we sit around waiting for someone to tell us it’s okay. Riot said we didn’t have to. It was a coming-of-age where women who were making music could stand next to each other on a stage without fearing a comparison or a pigeonhole. Standing alongside each other wasn’t a threat, it was an honor, and it was solidarity in an unprecedented manner.
Riot showed us what revolution could look like. We had a new concept of what power could be. We could find it within ourselves and in each other — and we didn’t have to ask. Power lay in our ability to create and in our refusal to be silenced or ashamed or sorry. We could use this to build communities, validate ourselves, have our own voices and see ourselves reflected in the world we wanted to live in, the world we wanted to create.
For grrrls in my generation, riot is literally a history. Two years ago, the papers of Kathleen Hanna were added to the Riot Grrrl archive at the Fales Library at NYU. The university’s newsletter covered the decision, explaining that “the Riot Grrrl Collection will support scholarship in feminism, punk activism, queer theory, music history and more.”
We didn’t see the riot, but we saw the aftermath. We came to the point where we could view it with a critical eye, and we’re coming to understand the ways that race and class play into our activism today. And that’s our responsibility, isn’t it? To hold each other accountable, to respect what came before us, and to keep the legacy strong in the best way that we can.
babes in toyland
So without further adieu:
Rebel Girl – Bikini Kill
Crying Shame – 7 Year Bitch
I Like Fucking – Bikini Kill
Shove – L7
Brat Girl – Bratmobile
Ladybug Superfly – Slant 6
Vintage Piranha – The Bangs
Uncle Phranc – Team Dresch
Off With Your Head – Sleater-Kinney
Bruise Violet – Babes in Toyland
Terrorist – Heavens to Betsy
Smells Like Teen Spirit (cover) – Kathleen Hanna
Stream the playlist on 8Tracks!
Get it, grrrls.
Playlist: I’m the Sh*t Pt. II
You already know you’re the shit. Like Gabby says, there are days when you “wake up on time, get your workout on, meet the most perfect person, say the most perfect things, problem solve all of the problems, make that money, land your art installation in a gallery, fund your web series, and find twenty bucks in a pair of jeans.” And on those days, you are the shit. But you know what? There are also days when your boss blames you for something you didn’t do, someone hits your car in the parking lot, your ex won’t stop texting you, your mom is passive-aggressive about your haircut, you have your period and a UTI at the same time, and your cat throws up on something. And even when it seems like everyone and everything in your life is conspiring to convince you that you ain’t shit, that is not true. Even when everything is terrible, you are still the shit. And this is the playlist for that.
PS I’m sorry for the Eminem. I hate Eminem. At least now you can say you listened to a mix that had both Eminem and Bikini Kill, though?
sarah connor is the shit.
I’m The Shit Pt. II [on 8tracks]
6’1″ – Liz Phair
I Don’t Owe Nobody Shit – Das Racist
Om Nia Merican – Saul Williams
Dirt Off Your Shoulder – Jay-Z
Listen Up! – The Gossip
XR2 – M.I.A.
Make It Take It – Amanda Blank
Forgot About Dre – Dr. Dre feat. Eminem
Diva – Beyonce
Bloody Ice Cream – Bikini Kill
Hard – Rihanna feat. Jeezy
U Should Know Better – Robyn
Unstoppable – Santogold
This Year – The Mountain Goats
Want to suggest a playlist theme? Hit Crystal up on Formspring and someone on the team will make it for you.
Playlist: I Kissed a Gay Girl and I Loved It
michigan womyn's music festival - 1976
Last night’s episode of Glee was entitled “I Kissed a Girl” and features hands-down the gayest girly playlist of all fucking time: Melissa Etheridge, Dolly Parton, KD Lang, Cyndi Lauper, and that Katy Perry song we all love so much. Of course not all of those musicians are gay, but that’s besides the point, I suppose.
A while back we did a Lez the Fuck Out: B-Sides playlist, but I was inspired by last night’s incompleteness to assemble the Lez the Fuck Out A-List.
Prove it On Me – Ma Rainey
Fast Car – Tracy Chapman
Hot Topic – Le Tigre
I Kissed a Girl – Jill Sobule
Do It Like a Dude – Jessie J
Take Me On the Floor – The Veronicas
As Cool As I Am – Dar Williams
Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover – Sophie B. Hawkins
If It Isn’t Her – Ani DiFranco
Nineteen – Tegan & Sara
Power of Two – Indigo Girls
Rebel Girl – Bikini Kill
Become You – Indigo Girls
Secret – Missy Higgins
Constant Craving – k.d. lang
Weakness in Me – Joan Armatrading
Take Me or Leave Me – Cast of RENT
Some Kind of Wonderful – Pam Grier & Betty
Drive – Melissa Ferrick
You Don’t Own Me – Lesley Gore
Say So – Uh Huh Her
Young James Dean – Girlyman
Come to my Window – Melissa Etheridge
Playlist:
What are your favorite lesbian songs? Remember that to make these mixes we actually have to own the songs ourselves, so if you see something that isn’t on here and you are absolutely horrified by that omission, you gotta email me the song!
Want to suggest a playlist theme? Hit Crystal up on Formspring and someone of the team might create it for you.
Playlist: Talkin’ Bout a Revolution
This is shaping up to be quite a time, kids. Quite a time. Basically The Occupy Movement has shown us we’ve got enough people on our side to win this thing if we all just mobilize properly. Therefore it’s important to be as militantly committed to your politics at all times, so that we can mind control the government into getting their shit together. This music will help keep you in a state of constant Occupation.
Career Opportunities – The Clash (1977)
Revolution – The Beatles (1968)
Stars and Stripes of Corruption – The Dead Kennedys (1985)
Grandmaster Flash – The Message (1982)
Let’s Get Together – The Youngbloods (1969)
Power to the People – John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band (1971)
Hammer and a Nail – The Indigo Girls (1991)
American Idiot – Green Day/Broadway Cast Recording (2009)
Changes – Tupac (1992)
Which Side Are You On? – Natalie Merchant (cover, originally written in 1931)
The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Bob Dylan (1964)
Redemption Song – Bob Marley (1980)
Freedom 90 – George Michael (1990)
Rebel Girl – Bikini Kill (1992)
If the Kids are United – Sham 69 (1978)
What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye (1971)
Uprising – Muse (2009)
Talkin’ Bout a Revolution – Tracy Champman (1988)
listen at 8tracks or here:
Playlist: Lez the Fuck Out (The B-Sides)
You either know the classics (or have intentionally avoided them all your life) — Indigo Girls’ Closer to Fine, Melissa Etheridge I Wanna Come Over, Tracy Chapman Fast Car, Ani DiFranco Untouchable Face and so forth.
But let’s take a slightly deeper look into the Lez the Fuck Out Canon — all the musicians on this list have kissed a girl and liked it.
Lez the Fuck Out
This Is Everything -Tegan & Sara
Blood And Fire – Indigo Girls
To Feel Real – Melissa Ferrick
I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone -Sleater-Kinney
The Promise – Tracy Chapman
Parentheses – BLOW
Where I Stood – Missy Higgins
What Can I Say – Brandi Carlile
TKO – Le Tigre
Camp Out – An Horse
At Seventeen – Janis Ian
Crying – KD Lang
Troubled Mind – Catie Curtis
School Night – Ani DiFranco
Cruel and Clumsy – Chris Pureka
Rebel Girl – Bikini Kill
Genius – Murmurs
Not An Addict – K’s Choice
I Need This – Jessie J
The Weakness in Me – Joan Armatrading
You Don’t Own Me – Dusty Springfield
Everytime I Go to Sleep – Holly Miranda
Lovertits – Peaches
STREAM THE PLAYLIST HERE
Add your favorite lez the fuck out tracks in the comments below!
Want to suggest a playlist theme? Hit Crystal up on Formspring and someone on the team will make it for you.