Ladyfest S-D

Parodixical = puns originating from Dixieland

OMIGOD YOU WERE IN THE LEGEND! WERENT YOU??? I LOVE THE LEGEND!!!

HOW COME YOU NEVER DID ANYTHING EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE SINGLE! THAT WAS FANTASTIC PROTO BLUES HIP HOP GARAGE SOUL!

Jerry you lunkhed why do you always chooze in-mag politXoR over ears? Who cares how many blues records the Gossip have listened to? None = a million. They were grate. And Sarah D wuz very extremely useless, at least at the Spitz. I wuv the Lollies becoz Kate St is my friend, and I always support my friends. I left before the Bangs becoz I am even older than you (just), and bed called. But not before I slooched up the behind- scenes story haha. It is old and ordinary, of course.

Actually I also wuv the Lollies for a proper objective-grownup-critic reason, which is that they were totally NOT what I was expecting them to be. Remember the Barney Bubbles sleeve to Armed Forces? (yes, you do): OK, Lollies are to MBV what BB/AF is to Pollock and Rauschenberg. Hah!! That will make me enemies, Kate foremost among em ulp.

I am an indie sort who has probably never heard a decent blues record, and I think my reaction to The Gossip was: 'That's really fucking good'. Possibly because they are, and are even better for carrying on after the plug was pulled.

You mean the Lollies are a grate charging rock elephant compared to MBV's infantile doodlings ;-)

No I mean if you don't fold those stupid tabbed-out corners in properly, the postcards fall out and get bent.

I never like what I'm told to like. I'm not denying The Goss might seem exciting to someone who hasn't (i) heard Mecca Normal, Sleater-Kinney or 20 other krs bands, and (ii) heard Irma Thomas (say, and yes I know she ain't blues) but I have. Loadsa times. I can't pretend not to be influenced by circumstance and knowledge. The final Goss song was great: and that justifies many sins, but to use that Barney Bubbles analogy one stroke futher, they played Neil Gaiman to MN's F Scott Fitzgerald. Not the same game.

Being friends is reason enough in itself. I too was totally taken aback by the Lolls total disdain for rock convention, and rather thought it provided a welcome counterpoint to the rest of the fine Brighton fare, a sound that had turned into a style many years back. I don't like sounds that turn into styles, hence my comments about the Goss again. As estate agents yell into your ear while whipping you blind, pop music is all about context context context - and if I'd seen the Goss support U2 (cheers Mark!) I'd have loved them blind and sworn undying fidelity. I didn't. It was left to the Lolls to play the role of the outsider, and they did so with great spirit.

I do not think people should be encouraged to fit in, ever - but here I am clearly in the minority. Look around you, at music.

The Gossip record is pretty boring, and although the idea of someone making bluesy music who's only heard one blues record sounds like a recipe for an interesting performer, in this case they really do just sound like a band who would greatly benefit from exposure to more records so that they can come up with something that doesn't sound as bland to these ears. Some bands can infuse once-cliched musical ideas with new life, but the Gossip are hardly in that category.

I've heard loads of blues records and I mostly didn't like them but "blues" is kind of a red herring for The Gossip I thought: they're a lot more abstract. (At least live: the recorded material I've heard is kind of songy and yes, a bit blah). I would say more but I'm trying to write something about them and dont want to skewer it. The crucial difference between S-K and Gossip is visual, though.

the gossip are a mess. there is nothing redeeming about them either live or on record. the singer has attitude but unfortunately it doesn't resonate in the songs, more in the in between song banter which is all too comical too. chain wallets, sheesh.

I think the difference between gossip and s-k is yes, that s-k are immensely dull live (although I did only see them at a festival about one in the afternoon so I may not be the best qualified to talk about this!)

but they rilly rilly weren't a mess at tha spitz, they were tight and shuddering and angry: mr true were you not there? or did you see em in brighton only? i haf heard NOTHING of them before sight on-stage, and was just struck. What I always wanted the cramps to be like, except not o-so-chic-and- so-thin. "blues" = completely totally the wrong word for what they were doing anyway, more like swamp rockabilly (guitarfuzz = vanishingly minority item in "blues")

if mellowed even slightly they wd be pointless: perhaops they were not cross enuff after a day by the sea?

Sure they swore. So did I too.

The reaction to music of people who've never heard Blind Faith is to be trusted and valued much more than the reactions of those poor unfortunates amongst us who have.

I don't know Sleater Kinney, Huggy Bear, Bikini Kill blah blah blah. Shoot me now, a gurl who doesn't understand riot grrrl cos she MISSED IT and who's experience of queeer cultchuurr has been S Club at G.A.Y. And I refuse to diligently GO BACK AND RESEARCH for that is a load of oul' NONSENSE. Sorry, I know there has even been a "textbook" written on this but it makes me bristle to think I can't react in a certain way to something coz I aint gots me a riot grrrl past.

The Gossip totally blew me away. It's not just down to their SOUND, but their onstage dynamics, Beths bare feet, Nathans immense sound, the drummer hitting the bass drum so hard it threatens to fly across the room - they were in a different league to the other bands. Everything comes together with them and ends with them at the end of the night.

And the Bangs were TOTAL AND UTTER SHIT. Blah blah lets write songs! With guitars! And make them loud! And about... boys. And lets forget tunes too. YAWN.

Damn! I'm old. Thanks for the timely reminder.

I ain't gonna run from the fact either. You reach 40, you have my spirit then we'll talk. I was the only fucker dancing to Quasi last Saturday. The ONLY fucker.

I don't always like songs either. Just some.

you danced to Quasi? why???

Because they were so damn inspirational. (You're not the first person to have asked me that. Don't know what it is with people's preconceptions about what is and what isn't good dancing music. Surely, it's down to the reciever to interpret the music as s/he sees fit?)

yes jerry, i agree of course (people tell me not to dance to Bogdan Raczynski and i'm like wtf?), i'm all about preconceptions though;)

oops, have realised you thought i meant you shouldn't dance to quasi coz it was inapproriate, i actually meant because they are rubbish. but thats a whole other story;)

yeah, people say that to me about them too, sigh....

If Quasi's rubbish, then throw my white-trash ass in the landfill already. I'd go so far as to say that they're better than Elliot Smith right now - that's more due to personal preference, though. And Janet Weiss being a kick-ass drummer.

Closest I ever get to dancing at a "rock show" is some inspired head- bobbing and the occasional body shift.

I'd go so far as to say that they're better than Elliot Smith right now

This is not too hard a claim to make these days for just about anybody.

I'd go as far to say that Quasi are the best damn band in the world right now... (Incidentally, I'm not a big fan of Elliott, at all.)

Is the new Quasi any good then? (At least better than the last one, which wasn't enough after the brilliance of featuring 'birds'.)

Featuring Birds is still the best, but the new one does have a fair few moments of sheer sublimeness on - more than most.

I'm more referring to them live.

I saw them live the same reading s-k played. they only managed about 20 minutes, so don't really know what the live experience is like yet, to tell the truth.

bit late on this, but the gossip blew me away at ladyfest london too... personally,wondering whether the band or their fan have listened to the correct amount of blues records to be stomping in the way they do smacks of joyless elitism to me (why not just say you didn't like them, rather than try to justify it through acknowledging your 'superior' knowledge)... all i know is, a few years back i saw a whole bunch of sorry bequiffed chancers who couldn't stir up half the riot the gossip did that night,,, they strike me as knowingly-plastic faux-blues rockers, and they make a virtue of that, like james chance/black did on his best records - misunderstanding a clutch of blues/jazz records and spewing that half-heard noise back. and the gossip were certainly much more confrontational than i've ever seen sleater-kinney be (no poor reflection for them)...

sarah dougher = like when your teacher pulled out an acoustic and played 'parsley sage rosemary and thyme' during assembly. not very rockin'.

bangs = passable rock'n'roll - fun for a few minutes, but boring after a while. give me tricky woo anyday.

Oh, Stevie, and you say nought good nor bad about the Lollies because their PR person was the one that got you in for free or because we sux0red?

I will talk about the behind the scenes stuff in about 6 years when none of it really matters any more. It is hard to separate the personal crap from the music, so I won't even try. This tour destroyed the one thing I ever cared about in my life beside my band (my relationship) and that makes it too close to the bone to talk about frivolously in front of journalists.

The only thing I *will* say about it is that I resent that we were made to feel like baggage by some people on a tour that would not have even HAPPENED if it was not for us. This is not banging our own gongs, this is simply trying to get some credit. Certain people treated us like we were only on that tour because I was sleeping with Paul Strange. The actual truth is that Strange Fruit only took on the entire tour because I was sleeping with Paul Strange. We found the promoter. We picked the bands. Our PR person worked her ASS off trying to drum up coverage of it- pro bono, I might add.

I know that this seems like cheap carping, but it was just oh so hypocritical that the people crowing the loudest about sexism onstage were the people leaping to the sexist conclusions behind the stage.

Anyway. Enough. I am going to pretend real hard that the past two weeks never happened. Kudos to The Gossip if they get hype, they worked for it.

I hate Jon Spencer a lot more than I didn't enjoy the Gossip - and the main reason I didn't enjoy the Gossip was the consensus among the crowd, not the band themselves. I meant what I said about the U2 support.

Problems or no problems, I enjoyed the Lollies much, and I'm sorry that I was frivolous at the start of the thread. OK?

That's a great description of The Doug, by the way Stevie - even if I do think you're totally way off the mark.

Blah blah blah. That did sound like carping, and I apologise intensely to everyone for not being able to go back and delete it. Blowing off steam, you see. The only thing that matters is the music and all that gubbins. Blah blah blah.

I can't sleep tonight, everybody saying everything is alright... sorry, just did Travis at karaoke tonight and the slightly inane words of that song have never hit so hard as they did now. I'm at home with the internet while my now ex-BF is out with The Gossip so pardon me if I sound bitter.

So my actual musical opinions on the other bands:

Bangs - I keep flip-flopping on them. I really loved the record when I heard it, but the first time I saw them live, I was slightly bored. They do what they do very well, but it seemed a bit like a car with only one gear. The loudness of their show also proved problematic for my tinnitus ridden ears. By the end of the tour, however, they had really grown on me, and I was loving them as just a good-time RAWK party band. After all the grandstanding and soapboxing of the tour, it was sometimes nice to just watch a band who only wanted to rock out and sing songs about fast cars, cute boys and good shoes.

The Gossip - I didn't see them as a Blues band. I saw them far more as a 60s garage band. However, seeing as so much of 60s garage was US bands imitating UK pop bands imitating US blues artists in a weird off kiltre way that made the third generation copy something far more interesting than the original, maybe the description is apt. Much of it was about charisma, which they have in spades on a good night. It's all about energy and crowd interaction, and when they're on, they're utterly dazzling. However, as I've stated before, hype is a disservice to any band.

Sarah Dougher was kind of the odd one out musically. Her songs were rather too dense and too complex to hold up in the sort of beery garage rock and frothy pop arena that the other 3 bands created. For me, personally, the politics rather got in the way. Although her intentions may have been good, a statement like "thanks to all the queers for coming down tonight" may go down a storm in London, but it went down like a lead balloon in Sheffield.

Remember the Barney Bubbles sleeve to Armed Forces? (yes, you do)

I am intrigued, Mark... please explain? Wish I'd read this earlier or I'd have pestered you in the pub.

The other question that I wanted to ask was... what do people think about the very *concept* of Ladyfest? Are all female festivals or tours a cool idea showcasing females, or are they some sort of niche market ghetto? We proved that female bands *could* pull crowds, but is the idea a quaint anachronism or even worse, just reverse gender discrimination?

I admit, Kate, that I'd have wanted to go anyway since I do know you and all -- let's assume I didn't, that I had heard the Lollies and the tour had been announced. Me, I would have given it a whirl, why not?

Because I was on the other side of the Atlantic during Ladyfest (which led to my non-attendance, much to my chagrin), I will comment on all-girl shows in general. I used to think that all-girl shows were just as much bullshit as all-boy shows, and in a perfect world sort of black and white, right and wrong sense, they are. Something like Lilith Fair had a negative effect on female musicians in the end, IMHO, because in the organizers' quest for the Big Money, they allowed what was really a pretty diverse grouping of artists to be marketed as one MOR sound, and called it "women's music", which in the end just reinforces the stereotype that women are all into lousy folk-derivative easy listening shit. I'm sure after it was all said and done that a woman sending a rock demo to a record company wasn't going to have any easier a time getting a contract - instead of asking her to make it sound a little more Debbie Gibson like they might have done twelve years ago, it'd be "can we put some hip-hop beats behind the verse, and make your guitar an acoustic? You know, that Nelly Furtado / Natalie Imbruglia vibe?"

On the other hand, seeing women up on stage doing a great show can have such an inspiring effect on young girls, and the opportunity to see positive examples of female rockers is obviously still needed since 90% of rock bands are still male dominated. On the other hand, if it's an all-girl show, the message that gets sent is not "women can do this for themselves, they don't need men to put on shows" but that "men are the problem. if we exclude them from the process, the problem goes away". Some of my friends talk about how they deal with sexism in ways that scare me quite a bit. Honestly, I don't know if they're a good thing or a bad thing. When I get killed by pissed off riot grrls coming out of a Le Tigre show brandishing sawed off shotguns, I guess I'll have made up my mind...

kate, i say nought good or bad re: the lollies because i wasn't overly bothered either way, and because i loved your fanzine and so didn't want to dribble lukewarm praise over worthy people. it was fun, but i wasn't crazy about the lollies. my girlfriend thought you were wicked, however.

and, for the record, i asked emma, your PR, to put me on a PAYING list for the show - because it's for a good cause - because I wasn't sure when we could get there and i didn't want to be left outside if it was a sellout. but we got there at 8pm, so had no problem getting full-price tix. [i believe the nme journalist reviewing the show also paid to get in. for the record].

i really liked Sarah Dougher's last album, btw, but putting her on after the gossip at london was a baaaaaaad move. i thought the bill was all out of whack, and didn't do any of the bands any justice.

speaking to a number of people behind the scenes at the spitz, i got the impression that this great show was subject to some pretty shady behind-the-scenes politics. you have my sympathies, kate.

I think the tour would have pulled crowds without being promoted as the ladyfest all-girl tour etc, because people want to see some of those bands (including yours!) anyway. You could have just promoted it as a tour featuring these certain bands and it would have been the same crowd. People will go and see bands no matter who is in them. (Apart from maybe nu-metal, but I think the chances of any indie- related tour pulling in the nu-metallers is a bit slim, to be honest.) In Oxford I didn't even notice rampaging promotion everywhere, least of all around the venue, to be truthful, so did it make any difference there? Further than this, I don't think I'm qualified to comment seeing as I only really came to see the Lollies in the first place...

I just realized that my use of a certain phrase in my last post made it appear that I have three hands.

It should have been called Ladyrave.

Ah, Stevie, I was teasing about the guest list thing. Was slightly piqued at the omission, but fair point and thanks for clarifying. The biggest piece of criticism thrown at us during the tour was that we get things we don't deserve because of who we are friends with- I *far* prefer honesty.

The only thing I'll say about the order is: I feel sorry for *anyone* who has to go on after The Gossip. (I heard a rumour that they are going to be supporting Hole on their next tour... I feel truly sorry for Ms. Love)

We did hype the whole Ladyfest angle of the tour because we did want to prove a point- get 4 very different artists from 4 different genres who are all good and all femalecentric, playing together to prove that female music is *not* just about either weeping folkies or angry riot grrls, it's about the whole spectrum from folk to pop to blues to punk.

So we did prove our point that way. And we did prove that femalecentric acts COULD pull huge crowds- and incredibly mixed crowds. That was the one thing that struck me- the diversity of the people watching did indeed match the diversity of the bands. But it also made me wonder how many people were there for individual bands, and how many people were there just cause it was advertised as Ladyfest. That did seem like niche marketing and pidgeonholing, and I wonder if it was fair to all the bands involved.

i was talking to a band that had formed because of december's ladyfest who are alive to possibility.

Oh god, I'm scared to read this thread. I'm really scared to read this thread. It'd be like a journey backwards through time into total madness.

i thought this was a calum thread

It's...odd reading in retrospect. Does anyone care about the Gossip either way any more?

OK, I read it. That was really hard, but it wasn't as hard as I expected. Sometimes there is something to be said for keeping your mouth shut.

None of the behind-the-scenes crap matters any more, and 90% of it turned out to be lies and manipulations emmanating from one specific person, so, well, no big surprise there.

Knowing Stevie's taste in music a bit better, I'm actually *glad* that he didn't like us. Hah! Remembering events in Brighton and London, and the shows that resulted, I'm not surprised that Jerry had the opinion that he had. (And I'm not surprised that he flip-flopped on us when he no longer perceived us as "outsiders")

But, what SRW says is what interests me. Having been back to many of the same towns that the Ladyfest tour visisted, multiple times on multiple tours, I do have to say that the perceived effect of Ladyfest was positive, due to the number of women who Ladyfest inspired to go out and start their own bands. OK, the world could probably do without Valerie, but the world is a richer place for We Start Fires and the Fairy Traders and Kovolchy and others.

That makes it harder for me to say "if I could live my life over again, I would never get involved with Ladyfest." I learned a lesson, but it was a very hard lesson. I've not been to any of the other Ladyfests. I think they're probably a bad idea, but what else can you do?

So what's wrong with Ladyfest? Is there another thread on this?
I'm on the verge of maybe getting involved.

Proceed with extreme caution. I have both personal reasons (which I'm not going to get into) and political reasons - I don't think that equality is ever going to be achieved through *separatist* events.

From what I know of the politics they can be hugely misguided but it might mean getting bands I love to play round here and it's worth it for that. Also, I've got friends who are interested in getting involved too and it would be interesting from that point of view.

There are some bands I like that might only play at a ladyfest in this country. Though I'm a fan I have to admit that some of the things the band members say would be decried as fiendish mysoginy if the gender roles were reversed. As a man I'm on the end of their negative comments, but I don't mind too much because I think I know why they say some of those things.

I've not been to an actual Ladyfest yet but I've been to a few of the benefits they have and they were good gigs though I didn't see any of the behind the scenes stuff.

I think if I get the chance I'll proceed, but with caution as you say.

Kudos to The Gossip if they get hype, they worked for it.

Oh boy, ha ha ha, I went looking for this thread after seeing Beth Ditto in the gossip pages of the Metro or London Lite or some other barometer of actual B-list celebrity. It was weird enough seeing them top the NME cool list.

God, what a long time ago this all was.

I laugh at the stuff said about HYPE then. Imagine what you would've all felt if you knew what was going to happen a few years later.

ps does sinkah still like them?

God, what a long time ago this all was.

2nded!