Chicks On Speed: S and D?

Is anyone, or has anyone ever met a female Chicks on Speed fan? Ditto for Ping Pong Bitches and Peaches and the other clit pop that gets lumped in together. I really am curious.

Kreidler are currently remixing them: Kreidler versus Chicks on Speed.

Not sure if they like Chicks On Speed but I sure do.

For girls who do like Chicks on Speed, Peaches, etc. - do you actually like them for musical content, or because they are wild, "strong" grrrls out there "doing their thing" or whatever.

Please, no one accuse me of trying to "second guess" why people have the appreciation of music that they do. I really am interested in the reply.

Because I dislike said artists on two levels- 1) I really do not connect with the music at all (maybe a dislike of synthpop or beatbox) and 2) I find it vaguely annoying, condescending, patronising when people (not implying that this is any of you, but people have said this to me) say that they love them *because* they are strong, sexually empowered types.

This, to me, is almost a subtler sort of sexism, like patting girls on the head "I really don't think you're music's any good, but I'm going to overlook that cause you're a strong, sexually empowered woman." (If I hear a strong, empowered male artist whose music isn't any good, I don't give him any such benefit of the doubt.)

If I'm way off base here, please tell me what you do see in said artists. Not trying to insult anyone, just trying to open up a genuine discussion.

It also annoys me the way people call them The Chicks, when there is already a mildly trendy band (Sonic Youth like them, Royal Trux are/were producing their debut album, they have been mentioned in music papers) called The Chicks. But they're from Dublin, so the NAZI media doeSSn't feel any need to take them seriously.

Peaches... I came to them/her through the Rough Trade compo, and it wormed into my soul before I'd picked up any context about them. But I'm not female (not today, anyway) so I can't answer Kate's question.

Stereo Total are another great example of this kind of group.

Peaches: Musically I hate Peaches, whose ep was out in Canadia last fall. What I do like is her willingness to take it to a hostile crowd (ie 3rd stage Edgefest) where she can't convince people she is being trendy, art schooling, thought provoking or even kitsch. Shes just doing it cause its her show on stage.

My educated guess is that they're something along the lines of Le Tigre/Brassy but more electro and less guitarry - is this fair? Art pranksters too, I'd wager.

Thoughts? Please?

Yeah, it's late, so sue me, I've been sitting on it - it's the first review I've done in a while (along with the Gonzales one a bit further down), anyone care to respond?

I don't know how their non musical qualities effect other people's appreciation but when I first heard the album on the recommendation of a friend I thought they were probably a front group.

I thought there was some fat, sweaty balding sleazy gut making up the music and getting some pliable, sexy girls to sing over it.

Then I found out the truth and it hasn't changed how much I like them at all.

I do like the Chix though, I always thought of them as trying to be an updated Slits for the '00s! Which is a fantastic thing to aim for. Although they kind of forgot the reggae!!

It's kind of embarrasing to admit (on ILM anyway) but I will anyway, that an unholy collision of that COS collection/remix record, Mouse On Mars and "Vespertine" was pretty much all I needed (going back a few years) to get me straight back to some kind of electronic music obsession I'd abandoned along the way in the late 90's, mostly as a result of having little access to good music shops and not having discovered internet shopping. Caught up on Glitch/Basic Channel/Kompakt/IDM etc not long after... somehow the axis of obsession tilted heavily towards Germany this time round.

/ramble

Chix - You can probably skip their own stuff (just go straight to the covers! there's some stuff I love on "The Unreleases..." that I'm not sure are covers - "Mind Your Own Business", "Procrastinator"?)

More and more though their record label one that I'm very glad exists. Definitely a Good Indie outfit.

and this (3XCD!) thing they're putting out in the Autumn: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/tracks/B000H8SEJY/ looks -super fantastiche- to say the least.

Disc: 1
1. Intro - Chicks On Speed
2. Fine As Fuck - Scream Club & Ben Adorable/Peaches
3. Demons Of Love - Mignon
4. Hot Topic - Le Tigre
5. Mountain Place - Morgenstern, Barbara
6. GG (Gaudy Good) - Reed, Angie
7. Honeyland - Hogg, Pam
8. Speedometer - Rhythm King & Her Friends
9. Get It Back - Elias, Hanin
10. Me Saw Me Momma - Kevin Blechdom
11. Full Moon - Da Silva, Ana
12. Virtual Leisure - Ben-David, Anat
13. Super Hero - Sir Alice
14. Plastic Surgery - Chicks On Speed
15. Launderette - Goldman, Vivien
16. Weymouth, Tina - Incognito
17. Down To The Underground - Client & Pete Doherty
18. Break Dance Hunx - Kids On TV
19. School Of Etiquette - Boyskout
20. Dust - Erase Errata
21. No Woman No Crime - No Bra

Disc: 2
1. Ungawa - Pulsallama
2. Typical Girls - Slits
3. Mind Your Own Business - Delta 5
4. Nameless Dogs - Cherry Sunkist
5. Get The Picture - Japanese Intelligence Mind Control
6. Anchors Away - Autonervous
7. Mr Chang - Cobra Killer
8. Changes - Planningtorock
9. Pita Pata - Hanayo
10. Storm - Bjork
11. Panic Of The Square - Vail, Tobi
12. We Shall Overcome - Gustav
13. Our Inventions - Bonnie Vs Hunter
14. You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory - Francoise Cactus
15. Die Matrosen - Liliput
16. Your Girlfriend - KATastroPHE
17. Sedition - Lesbians On Ecstasy
18. Sheets - Electric Indigo & Dorit Chrysler
19. Licking The Juice - Cosey Fanni Tutti

Disc: 3
1. Sucker Man - Hotel Motel
2. Girl Boogie - Gudrun Gut
3. Godzilla - Creatures (3)
4. Maybe A Dog - Soffy O
5. New Year's Eve - Ella Bandita
6. Somos Las Perras - Las Perras Del Infierno
7. You're Speaking My Language - Juliette & The Licks
8. Pinkitan - Miss Le Bomb
9. Sexy - Cat5
10. Get Rid - Robots In Disguise
11. Fom Fom - People Like Us
12. Manifesto - Melian, Michaela
13. Heroes - Brokesch, Susanne
14. International - Scream Club & Leonard DeLeonard
15. Crystal Cookie (Lesson 1) - Crystal Cookie
16. Say Trees - Caro Snatch
17. Your Turn To Run - Malaria
18. Shouting Out Loud - Raincoats
19. Seven Days - Goldman, Vivien & Andy Caine/Manasseh Sound
20. Baby Mother - Ari Up
21. Sell It 2 The Kids - Miss Pain

I think stuff like Kevy B and Planning To Rock does move beyond this though, it can seem a little strategically short-term otherwise. Monika Enterprise are certainly a little subtler about their promotion of the feminine. And then at the other end of the scale you have your Kristin Hersh, PJ Harvey, Björk's who simply don't -need- to flag their gender up, ever, because they're so clearly operating at/above the creative level of any patriachcal conservatives to begin with.

This, to me, is almost a subtler sort of sexism, like patting girls on the head "I really don't think you're music's any good, but I'm going to overlook that cause you're a strong, sexually empowered woman." (If I hear a strong, empowered male artist whose music isn't any good, I don't give him any such benefit of the doubt.)

this is one of the most ridiculous things i've ever read here, and that's saying something.

That's saying very little unless you tell us why you think this is.

I have a long-running debate with Suzy over the title of a book she edited ten years ago: Typical Girls: New Stories By Smart Women. Now, sure, George Bernard Shaw wrote The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism back in 1928. It meant, of course, something like "politics explained so that even a woman can understand it". But such titles, and such divisions of the intellectual world into separate tournaments for men and women, are completely unnecessary now.

Kate's right; imagine how absurd "New Stories By Smart Men" would sound.

I do think Kate makes a good point above (five years ago!). There are a lot of tracks on here which arguably would not have got put out if they hadn't attached themselves to this pseudofeminist thing.

But then maybe there's an even deeper double standard operating, as follows: we're used to rock bands who can't play their instruments, but we're not used to electronic bands who can't work their machines. So when we hear a really rudimentary electropop track it sounds awful, but when we hear an equally rudimentary punk track it sounds normal. So maybe positive discrimination isn't really operating, because the weaker tracks on this compilation aren't really worse than the weaker tracks on an average male-dominated punk compilation, they just sound like they are because we've learnt to demand, unreasonably, glossy sound design from musicians who whork with electronics.