Riot Don't Diet

Sleater-Kinney, Fat Souls, and Riot Grrrls


“The catharsis Sleater-Kinney seek is more than just fun,
it’s a battle in earnest for the human right to know and possess yourself.”

                                          -- Ann Powers

​Who are riot grrrls?
Wikipedia

Riot grrrl is an underground feminist hardcore punk movement that originally started in the early 1990s, in Washington, D.C., and the greater Pacific Northwest, noticeably in Olympia, Washington.

It is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as its starting point. It has also been described as a musical genre that came out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a musical movement in which women could express themselves in the same way men had been doing for the past several years. 

Riot grrrl bands often address issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism, patriarchy, and female empowerment. Bands associated with the movement include Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Excuse 17, Huggy Bear, Skinned Teen, Emily's Sassy Lime, Sleater-Kinney, and also queercore groups like Team Dresch.  In addition to a music scene and genre, riot grrrl is a subculture involving a DIY ethic, zines, art, political action, and activism.  Riot grrrls are known to hold meetings, start chapters, and support and organize women in music.

Why Riot Grrrl?

"[Riot Grrrl is ...] BECAUSE we girls want to create mediums that speak to US. We are tired of boy band after boy band, boy zine after boy zine, boy punk after boy punk after boy... BECAUSE we need to talk to each other. Communication/inclusion is the key. We will never know if we don't break the code of silence... BECAUSE in every form of media we see us/myself slapped, decapitated, laughed at, objectified, raped, trivialized, pushed, ignored, stereotyped, kicked, scorned, molested, silenced, invalidated, knifed, shot, choked and killed. BECAUSE a safe space needs to be created for girls where we can open our eyes and reach out to each other without being threatened by this sexist society and our day to day bullshit."

-- Bikini Kill, Communication, Culture & Technology Program, Georgetown University, Retrieved December 6, 2012

​

1. Well every day I throw a little party
   But if it would be more fitting, fitting
   And every time I come a little higher
   Should I leap or go on living, living?
   Hear the voices venomous and thrilling
   In their hair, they're always calling, calling
   But I wanna, gotta go the way my butt beats
   So I'm not falling for the folly, folly
   
   No one here is taking notice
   No outline will ever hold us
   It's not a new wave, it's just you and me
   Eyes are the only witness
   Die to prove we ever lived this
   Invent our own kind of obscurity
   
   Let's destroy a room with this love
   We can drain out all the power, power
   Steal from the makers who had made us
   Leave them nothing to devour, devour
   Well I am raw material
   Make me plastic, make me fuel
   I can be, I can be
   I can be all
   
   No one here is taking notice
   No outline will ever hold us
   It's not a new wave, it's just you and me
   Eyes are the only witness
   Die to prove we ever lived this
   Invent our own kind of obscurity
   
   No one here is taking notice
   No outline will ever hold us
   It's not a new wave, it's just you and me
   Eyes are the only witness
   Die to prove we ever lived this
   Invent our own kind of obscurity

Perfectionism, a fairly innocuous word, can in fact make us miserable and neurotic and play heinous tricks on our psyche.  It can make us sick.  Perfectionism is a dangerous game and, if not watched carefully, can turn tragic.  For example, women are inundated from an early age with magazine ads showing gaunt, curve-less bodies as if they are the “ideal.”  Anything outside the perimeters of that ultra-thin, half-emaciated ideal is to be stamped INFERIOR, and thus most of us go around feeling quite dissatisfied with—or even ashamed of—our bodies.  Thanks to the Tyranny of Thin, eating disorders continue to take their toll on—even kill—bright, talented young women...Truth is, Plato left to his own devices can cause a great deal of mischief.  He believed that every imperfect thing has a perfect ideal in some heavenly realm—and that only those perfect “forms” are truly, truly real.  Everything else—actual people, trees, and monkeys are mere shadows of their perfect counterpart ideals.  It’s as if there are perfect Greek statues lined up in the heavens—perfect body, perfect tree, perfect monkey—looking down on us in judgment...And the more divergent something is from the perfect ideal, the less value it has. 

-- Patricia Adams Farmer, The Beauty of Imperfection

NOW IS THE TIME TO INVENT
The Legacy and the Return of Sleater Kinney
by Jack Hamilton, Slate Magazine, 

A generation ago a trio stormed out of the Pacific Northwest to become the most critically acclaimed rock band of their era. They rode the crest of a fiercely independent, now-legendary musical subculture, steeped in the aesthetic iconoclasm and righteous angst of the best punk rock but with a twist of the ineffably unique. Their songs, blitzes of scalding guitar and thundering drums, were nonetheless sneakily melodic, featuring passionate, piercing vocals. When the dust had cleared—if it ever really has—they’d produced some of the best and most ferocious music of the past several decades. And they had a way cooler name than Nirvana.

*

...Forged in the riot grrrl cauldron of Olympia, Washington, Sleater-Kinney was the brainchild of singer/guitarists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein, late of the bands Heavens to Betsy and Excuse 17, respectively. Boasting an unusual lineup of two guitars and drums—Janet Weiss would eventually become the band’s longest-tenured and most iconic drummer—Sleater-Kinney was a perfect fusion of musical personalities, a spiky and sparkling rock ’n’ roll machine. Smart, funny, angry, beautiful, loudly and utterly unique, at their best they were a band for the ages, and as Start Together reminds, Sleater-Kinney were at their best nearly every time they stepped into a room together. ​

Note to Carrie Brownstein of Sleater Kinney from Helpmedinosaur

Carrie, when I was 12 years old I attended a music camp in Portland, Oregon called "Rock and Roll camp for girls", which you also attended that year as a mentor. During a self defense course there, you held up a large pad and let me practice kicking you. I was pretty terrified - I thought that I'd hurt you or knock you over or something - but you convinced me that it was okay because it was important for me to know how to protect myself and stand up for my personal boundaries. Then I kicked the shit out of that pad you were holding.  That was a pretty amazing lesson for a 12 year old to learn, and it is still one of my favorite memories from my early teen years.  I love you guys and saw so many of your shows during your reign, and "one beat" was essentially the soundtrack to my adolescence. I'm so happy that you're back! 

-- from Helpmedinosaur on Reddit

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SLEATER-KINNEY IN CONCERT
NPR Music, August 3, 2006

...The band emerged from the so-called "riot grrl" movement in the early 1990s — a subculture of young feminist musicians who sought to change perceptions of women in rock. It played traditionally male-dominated instruments like guitars and drums, screamed vocals and thrashed on stage. Though Sleater-Kinney has since distanced itself from that movement, the band still identifies with the fierce drive for independence.

"I was definitely a part of riot grrl when it happened way, way back in the early '90s," Tucker says. "But that all kind of took place and came and went really before Sleater-Kinney started. But I think that our presentation probably carries over a lot of feminist notions about wanting to be seen as multidimensional humans and as musicians first and foremost, and not wanting to be sort of seen as these objectified ladies."

...The band built a large following with complex, ear-splitting sonic experiments, masterful guitar work and sharp rants on gender inequality, politics and culture.

In a profile of the band, The New Yorker wrote, "It's insulting to call Sleater-Kinney the best female rock band in the world when they're one of the best rock bands, period."

-- NPR, April 3, 2006