Riot Grrrl – the collected interviews

Riot Grrrl Melody Maker cover

By Everett True

[After having posted that excerpt from a Melody Maker letters page, it occurred to me that this following post might be offline. Thought I better rectify that, and fast. The following was originally published on my old Music That I Like blog. I haven't actually checked the myriad of featured links, so if any of them are dead please let me know and I'll fix that - Ed]

So … I thought I’d put all the parts of the Riot Grrrl interviews I did with Julia Downes for her PhD thesis on DIY Queer Feminist (Sub)cultural Resistance in the UK in one place. I’d never really gone on record about any of this stuff before – but I trusted Julia because I liked her contribution to the Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now! book, published by Black Dog. So I answered at far greater length than I’m sure she required. Anyhow, Julia kindly gaven me permission to reprint my answers, which I’ve done.

P.S. The hand lettering on the MM cover reprinted above was actually done by me – meant to indicate a ‘fanzine’ style of design. The effect is somewhat lessened by the addition of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Right Said Fred as drop-ins.

P.P.S. The answer I gave regarding my role at Melody Maker is specific to the three months surrounding the height of coverage given to Riot Grrrl in the music press. I can remember one conversation with Simon Price vividly, where he was trying to engage me in informed discussion and I kept repeating, “Which side are you on?” Clearly, I couldn’t have felt like that the entire time I worked at MM …  although even now, I have considerable sympathy with the views stated below. Indeed, some might regard both Careless Talk Costs Lives and Plan B Magazine as natural end-results of holding those views. [And possibly Collapse Board as well - Ed]

(continues overleaf)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 at 8:40 pm. It is filed under Columns and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

6 Responses to “Riot Grrrl – the collected interviews”

  1. golightly says:
    November 2, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    The word Riot is synonymous with the word Violence. The word Violence is often synonymous with Anger. I don’t understand why you get hammered at the end for undermining the Riot Grrl movement for portraying them (us) as angry… except for when you (as in when one) analyse what the problem with anger in this context is: women are not allowed to express anger and still be seen as feminine. If they are not seen as feminine, they lose their feminine privileges and don’t gain any male privileges, leaving them vulnerable. At worst women’s anger can be treated with the same insignificance as a toddler’s tantrum by men with influence. At best, a woman’s anger has tended to be sexualized (see mud wrestling image and note male connotations) but on its own it is taboo. Why? Because anger is a force that creates action and power. Women are banned from the emotion behind most forms of power in our social world. Think about it. If Riot Grrls weren’t angry, why on earth were they trying to change things and have a revolution in the first place? Of course they were angry about living in a hostile environment. Who wouldn’t be angry about that assuming they noticed, which given that sexism is in the Bible and everything else since, they would be forgiven for blindly accepting as standard. But they didn’t and neither did I or my best friend as UK respondents to what we read about Riot Grrl… certainly couldn’t get hold of any of the music (similar in hindsight to what I later read about Kurt Cobain, not getting to hear the UK punk he read about and then trying to make some himself), where we lived, we could barely get hold of Hole records! Anyway, I vaguely had a point there, but I’m tired and it’s turned into some semi-autobiographical rambling…
    But I enjoyed reading this. It brings to mind why all women should have to agree or all feminists (male or female) should have to agree… all men don’t have to agree and they get to run the world. Meanwhile, after 60s feminist movements, Riot Grrl, Girl Power (God spare me that atrocity against women!) and after everyone going around saying basically “shut up, women have it equal now” I have to deal with this: http://www.tntmagazine.com/tnt-today/archive/2011/09/15/topshop-sexist-t-shirts-what-breed-is-your-girlfriend-off-shelves.aspx message sold as fashion aka walking billboards for domestic violence and dehumanising women. It doesn’t make the male gender look particularly worthwhile if they are wearing something of this nature or speaking these messages… but it will be women left to defend themselves over being ‘angry’ in such situations as per fucking usual. The spokesperson even thanks the shop for correcting a sick wrong on their part. “We have received some negative feedback regarding two of our printed t-shirts.” If you read that article… then every woman reading those tshirts would have been receiving negative feedback regarding being a woman.
    Yes I am angry.

  2. Princess Stomper says:
    April 24, 2013 at 12:27 am

    I realised something while reading a link a friend had shared about feminism: the reason why it’s never resonated with me. I can’t quite find the right word to express it, but the closest one would be my sense of entitlement. Not the grabby, greedy type of entitlement, but the simple assumption that the world is a big pie and I am naturally allocated a slice. People who are used to being heeded speak in confident voices which, when people hear them, invite the assumption that their words must be worth hearing.

    I get the same sense from my infant daughter. She knows that she’s entitled to express her opinion, that her feelings are valid, and that while she might be overruled or disciplined, she’s generally valued and respected. When she babbles, she expects people to listen. I sometimes make the mistake of ignoring her and reading my emails on my phone, only to be berated by her indignant squeaks. She expects my full and immediate attention, and my only course is to apologise and put the phone down.

    The difference is that it’s not a tantrum. She’s not losing her temper out of frustration, but calling me out on my bad behaviour. People don’t listen much to tantrums, because they assume that you’re just being bratty and unreasonable. I guess that’s why I didn’t get on with Huggy Bear, because it sounded to me like a tantrum: ineffectual ranting and noise without that sense of expectation. My baby doesn’t really expect to get her own way when she she does throw a tantrum, she’s just venting her frustration.

    Hole, on the other hand, had that innate sense of validity. Courtney seemed very, very used to being listened to and expected your fullest attention. I didn’t get the sense that she was venting her frustration against an unjust world so much as calling people out on their bad behaviour. I imagine she’d have a word or two to say to that t-shirt guy (@ Hannah) but it wouldn’t be from a sense that she was being wronged, so much as the sense that the other person was an unreasonable dick who needed a damn good kicking. That’s why I admired her, back in the day.

  3. Wallace Wylie says:
    April 25, 2013 at 8:12 am

    Feminism is throwing a tantrum. Throwing tantrums is wrong. Therefore feminism is wrong.

    I think this qualifies as a deductive fallacy.

  4. Princess Stomper says:
    April 27, 2013 at 11:20 pm

    Huggy Bear (sounded to me like they were) throwing a tantrum. Hole did not.

    “I’ll always be a feminist” – Courtney Love

    I think that qualifies as “Wallace didn’t read what I actually wrote.” :p

  5. Princess Stomper says:
    April 27, 2013 at 11:47 pm

    Hmmm … come to think of it, what WAS I on about?

    Oh yes: two types of Riot Grrrl, or perhaps two types of feminist. Thinking on it, it might be North/South thing or a class thing, but some are raised to be polite and have an undertone of passivity that undermines the aggression, and that comes across in the music. The other sort are more assertive, regardless of whether aggression is involved. I tend to meet more of the former, but tend to prefer the latter. (As for the actual bands, I got Babes In Toyland’s autographs once, but they were the only ones I ever met.)

  6. Erika Meyer says:
    April 30, 2013 at 2:36 am

    FWIW Princess Stomper, I get what you are getting at. I really do. It is very hard to articulate … That line from Nobody’s Daughter “I’ll kick down the doors if you don’t let me in” I GET IT. Sometimes, fuck politics. Fuck the doors being closed. Fuck the boys club (Seattle). Fuck the hipster club (Olympia). Fuck the glass ceiling (everywhere). Sometimes, you just want to bust through, and sometimes you just want to open up and bleed. Is that feminist? Yeah, I think it is.

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