Spotlight

Miss Murgatroid and Petra Haden's "Bella Neurox"

This is a joint project of Petra "Jones" Haden(on the left in the photos) who plays Violin, Piano, Mandolin, sings and was in the band That Dog with her sister Rachel, and Miss Murgatroid(a.k.a. Alicia Rose, on the right in both photos) who plays Accordion and sings and has recorded with Steel Pole Bathtub, Caroliner, Negativland, and Slug.

Sarah Litwin interviews Miss Murgatroid:
Sarah: How did the two of you either a. first meet, and/or b. decide to collaborate together?
Miss Murgatroid: I knew about that dog, and I heard their very first single and thought they were great. I think we just kind of met. And then years later she just kind of had a freak-out moment and came to visit me for like, weeks, it was almost a month. And we just did a lot of retail therapy, seeing movies, and then eventually started playing, like the last week she was there. It just hit it off. And then asked W.I.N. Records, the label that eventually put out our record, "Bella Neurox", if they wanted to pay for recording and put it out and he(Devin Sarno)said yes. And we said "okay" and we made a record.
S: So Petra was one of those people that never leave?
MM: The cool thing about it was that it was just instantaneous, when we started playing, we started writing. It had taken like five minutes and we had written "Jasper and Charlotte", one of the songs that we play all the time.
S: How would you describe the sound of 'Miss Murgatroid and Petra Haden'?
MM: I don't know, that's up to you.
S: What's your favorite city you've played in and why?
MM: Actually, I really do like playing in New York because people seem really open to weirdness. They don't expect you to be a rock band, they don't expect you to be anything, you can be whatever and sometimes people are really kind about it. We always get an incredible reception here. And also I think Texas, we play in Houston, we love it there. Chicago is great, San Fransisco sucks, L.A. is pretty good but not that great. It's all about the fans.

Ill Ease

Sharp was the longtime drummer and co-founder of New Radiant Storm King(a North Hampton Mass. based band which became a favorite of Robt. Pollard), and bassist for Skinner Pilot. She now has a new project called Ill Ease, which was inaugurated with a solo CD a couple of years ago now. Since then she has begun to allow other musicians to collaborate with Ill Ease, live and in the studio.

"I'm all about place," Sharp, a former denizen of Chicago, reports in the zine Space Age Bachelor Pad. "I guess just cause I've lived in so many places, I think geography totally impacts your state of mind. I lived in Minnesota for a year, and it was one of the more depressing years of my life. I felt like I was in this totally desolate place. The external environment looked like the Moon most of the time. And sometimes in my life, I might have found that inspirational or something, but it just wasn't doing anything for me at the time. And definitely, being in New York, there's so much stimulus and so much happening. That's one of the reasons I liked Georgia. Because I think I do pretty well, when there's a controlled amount of stimulus. You create your own environments. If you want to do something, you kind of make it happen. It's not like there's a million things happening at once. I totally think that geography -- that's kind of why it's cool, just from the history of American records or something, that there's so many different scenes in different cities. Now, you think of the Chicago sound, but it's been that way for whatever. There's a difference between the Chicago soul and the Detroit soul and its not just the recording style. There's a definite something in the environment that creates a certain --- but its also individuals feeding off each other and creating a kind of scene. Like, the difference between British music and American music. There's such a vast difference."

True B-Girls of the Hip Hop Nation
http://fly.to/Bgirls
Super B-girl Top Gun (aka Collision), and her collaborator, Hectic Nomad, have created a great site which covers female participation and innovation in all the elements of hip hop: Breaking, DJing, Graffiti, Emcee'n, and something they call "Mental". Check out their site if you want to know what they mean.

Da Mystress
http://www.bossdiva.com/bio.htm
A great site from an underground Bay Area hip hop diva, apparently known as Da Mystress or Bossdiva.

Missy Elliot
http://www.missy-elliott.com/
This is a front link to the official coporate site for Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot, which is unfortunately, pretty lame.
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Cove/4408/missy.html
This is a better site created by Missy fan Kinda Grant. But it takes a while to load and not all the sections are up as of this writing.

Flo Brown
http://www.okayplayer.com/flobrown.htm
Flo Brown is an underground MC who has written about her perspective on hip hop.

The Center of the Universe
http://www.7cipher.com/~MzGoldie2u/
If you want to see the world from the perspective of an educated, strong, New Afrikan woman, check out this site. MzGoldie ends the intro page with the following poem:

AND IF WE DON"T FIGHT
IF WE DON'T RESIST
IF WE DON'T ORGANIZE AND UNIFY AND
GET THE POWER TO CONTROL OUR OWN LIVES
THEN WE WILL WEAR
THE EXAGGERATED LOOK OF CAPTIVITY
THE STYLIZED LOOK OF SUBMISSION
THE BIZARRE LOOK OF SUICIDE
THE DEHUMANIZED LOOK OF FEAR
AND THE DECOMPOSED LOOK OF REPRESSION
FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER
AND THERE IT IS....."
Jayne Cortez "There it Is"

Misty Mo's Punk Arse Page
http://www.angelfire.com/mo2/booyak
A Sex-femme Riot Grrrl from Toronto, Onterrible, Canada, with a fun web site.

the puta-pons
http://www.geocities.com/theputa_pons/
In 1998, Reba Slither and Mischa Maow Maow--cofounders of the band--left behind the comforts of their sleepy college town (Madison, WI) and moved to Chicago, IL. See what they've been up to....

Sandy Stone
http://sandystone.com
Cultural Theory as Cottage Industry. As seen in Art Forum and Wired. The famous Associate Professor and Director of the Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory in the department of Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. She says she studies issues related to interface, interaction and desire and experiments with theory as performance. Her web site has a huge transgender activism section: "gender is a performance", okay? How can you not check this site out?

DragKing Links from Club Casanova in New York City
http://www.pipeline.com/~jordinyc/cc_links.htm

Philly's first DragKing contest, the photographs don't lie.
http://critpath.org:80/~birdy/king.html

An article from New Haven about DragKing Phil McCracken
http://music.newhavenadvocate.com/articles/dragking.html
This is a first person account by self described "girlie girl" Colleen Van Tassell of her transformation into Phil McCracken.

The extremely difficult to access Queercore web site
http://www.jet.com/queerpunk.html
Is this site dead?

A San Francisco DragKing contest,...and more....
http://www.madkats.com/Kondo/king/ds.html
This web site has links to No Wave verteran Annie Toone's Dykeabilly heart throb group, The Bucktooth Varmints, as well as Elvis Herselvis, and other Drag Superstars....

Queer Notions
http://www.queernotions.org/
Thoughts on the relationship of sexuality to revolution...from the followers of Raya Dunayevskaya who wrote, "the first act of liberation is to demand back our heads"...

Los Crudos
http://www.rockeros.com/crudos/crudosen.htm
This was a political hardcore band from Chicago(and was an anchor of the Chicago hardcore scene for years). Their music is loud, fast, agressive with great messages sung in Spanish. Los Crudos were not a queercore band, but lead vocalist Martin came out on their last tour and is reportedly forming a queercore band called Limp Wrists. Unfortunately, after almost 6 years Los Crudos broke up. They have performed and spread their message throughout North and South America, Europe and Japan. Hopefully this wonderful web site will stay up! La Lucha Continua!

Rockin' Rina's Women of 1970's Punk
http://www.comnet.ca/~rina/index.html
The only website in existence dedicated to all the WOMEN of the 1970's punk rockscene. Includes sections on the bands(with Real Audio clips for many of the featured groups), their music (discographies for many of the featured groups), the fashion, the history, an annotated bibliography (including movies and videos).

Phranc's Web Site (maintained by Random Girl)
http://www.phranc.net
Phranc has been known as the "all-American Jewish lesbian folksinger," "Hot August Phranc," "Surferdyke Pal," the "Cardboard Cobbler," and the "Milkman." Phranc started out as a a member of the burgeoning punk rock scene in LA during the'late '70s, Phranc cut her teeth in the performing world as a member of the synthesizer band Nervous Gender as well as the gothic reggae band Catholic Discipline. Her early exploits were even documented in Penelope Spheeris' heralded "punkumentary," "The Decline of Western Civilization." I have to give props to one of the originators!

Tribe 8
http://www.tribe8.com/
Yes. Slade Bellum, Lynn Breedlove, Leslie Mah, Lynn Flipper, and Lynn Payne write brilliant punk rock songs like, "Old School, New School" and "Prison Blues" and too many more to mention here. This is one of the great punk bands. Ever since 1992's seven inch single, "There's a Dyke In The Pit" they have been the role models america needs.

HOMOCORE Chicago
http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~homocore/
The dictionary definition of "punk" is back on the web. For over six years Homocore Chicago has been presenting queer punk shows in the Chicago area (And even a couple in NYC!). Homocore Chicago helped spearhead a thriving scene here in Chicago - making punk visible in the queer community and queers visible in the punk community.

Huggy Bear
http://members.tripod.com/~goo37/huggybear.html
This is a great site suggested by Kate. Here's what karren ablate (of Ablaze! fame) had to say about the UK punk rockers Huggy Bear:
"Unbounded energy. Soul, nerve, guts, Like Jo announced 'With my gang i can do anything,' I see them and i know it's true. Threats of violence. Tenderness. Jealousy. Sexual and emotional waywardness. All those things you wanted to do but was too damn wise to... Being real, being too real (but not for real- they use markers, not knives. These kids are practical adaptationists). Huggy Bear knows how to use machines- that means they know when to switch them off. They know about tunes too, thank the bitch that is god- otherwise none of this would make sense. They know about rhythm and they know about vibes and they know about love, hate, all that shit."

Bikini Kill
http://rebelgirl.simplenet.com/BikiniK.html
Kate jokingly referred to Bikini Kill as "the only band that matters" when she told me about this web site. Well, they sure as fuck kicked the Clash's butts. Bikini Kill created itself in 1991 in Olympia, Washington. By 1994 they had been tagged as the living embodiment of "Riot Grrrrrrl" and Tobi Vail who played drums most of the time and sometimes sang with the band, felt she had to write about the band to make it clear who they really were and what they stood for, since the mainstream media couldn't get it right.(Tobi, along with Kathi, Billy and Calvin Johnston of K Records and Beat Happening had previously been in a wonderful band called the Go Team, which is the context in which I first heard her, but that's another story...)
Tobi writes, "We have been written about a lot by big magazines who have never talked to us or seen our shows. They write about us authoritively, as if they understand us better than we understand our own ideas, tactics and significance. They largely miss the point of everything about us because they have no idea what our context is/has been. Their idea of punk rock is not based on anything they have ever experienced directly or even sought an understanding of by talking to those who have, yet they continue to write about it as if their stereotypical suraface level view of it is all there is. A lot of times we have been asked why we don't do interviews very often if we are so concerned with being misrepresented. To us this seems obvious..."
This rebel girl site also has info on Babes in Toyland and Bratmobile. It has tons of photos, lyrics, writings, etc. from Bikini Kill(and also Julie Ruin and other post-Bikini Kill projects), and some rants, like "Why I hate eMpTV". It seems that the author of this web site lives in a world where the majority of her aquaintances actually enjoy watching the bullshit broadcast by the capitalist media typified by eMpTV. It must really suck to live there. Good thing she has access to the WWW and can create such great web pages instead of wasting her time with that bullshit.

The (completely unoffical) Team Dresch Web Site (created by Jessika)
http://members.aol.com/ringard/team.htm
For those who don't already know, Team Dresch is a great punk super group from the Pacific Northwest formed by Donna Dresch(formerly of Dangermouse, Lois, Rastro!, Fifth Column along with Screaming Trees and Dinosaur Jr.) . The current lineup consists of Donna Dresch, Jody Bleyle, Marci Martinez and Amanda Kelly or affectionately known as Jack. Kaia was in Team Dresch for both "Personal Best" & "Captain My Captain" but recently left to pursue her solo career as a punk rock folk dyke superstar.

Kaia Web Site (created by Jessika)
http://members.aol.com/teamdrech/kaia.htm
This is a nice little web page with lots of great lyrics from Kaia.

Retsin's homepage on the Carrot Top Records site
http://www.carrottoprecords.com/artists/retsin/index.html
This has some beautiful Real Audio songs to listen to:"The Story of One Party" And "Never Again Blue". ...Tara Jane O'Neil & Cynthia Nelson became acquainted in 1993, when their bands (Rodan & Ruby Falls, respectively) were beginning to tour & play in each other's cities.

Arab on Radar
http://www.arabonradar.com/ or http://users.tp.net/jschneider/
Mr. Jeff Schneider and friends are a brilliant punk band from my home town, Providence, R.I. and this is their most recent web site. There is also info about them on the Fort Thunder web site: http://www.fortthunder.org/other/cal.html or the website of their own personal stalker creature, Mr. Pottymouth: http://www.toilettalk.homepage.com . They seem to travel quite a bit so watch for their amazing live shows.

The Butchies
http://www.mrlady.com/bands/butchies/butchies.html
The Butchies enjoy wearing outfits and being OUT lezzies. Their debut record, "Are We Not Femme?" on Mr. Lady, is a lot of fun. The Butchies are "Loud + Rock + Heartfelt + in love with music."

It's (not) a white world:looking for race in punk
http://www.worsethanqueer.com/slander/pprace.html
Mimi Nguyen edited a compilation zine called "evolution of a race riot", 100 pages of writing about race and identity by kids of color in punk/grrrl. This piece was previously published in punkplanet.

Emilia Smokebomb
http://www.brainlink.com/~ekingan/esb/esb.htm
Emilia Smokebomb is a video label and distributor out of Portland Oregon, inspired by talented women and low budgets everywhere. Magnetic tape is a cost efficient and universal medium that will foment the revolution.

God Is My Co-Pilot Web Site (Maintained by Allan Hise)
http://www.io.com/~hise/godco/index.html
"We're co-opting rock, the language of sexism, to address gender identity on its own terms of complexity. We're here to instruct, not to distract. We won't take your attention without giving some back." -Lyrics from "We Signify" by God Is My Co-Pilot.

Julie Ruin's Web Site (Maintained by Summer)
http://www.chickpages.com/girlbands/rebelgrl/index.html
This is a site devoted to the awesome Julie Ruin. In case you don't know who she is, Julie Ruin is Kathleen Hanna. Kathleen was in Bikini Kill, but they broke up

Sarah Dougher's Web Site (maintained by Jimmy)
http://my.voyager.net/jimmy/sarah.html
Sarah is a veteran punk who has played in numerous bands(in Portland, OR: Lookers, Cadallaca, Crabs and in Austin, Texas: Veronica, Administration, Weekenders) She wrote "Ridden Out On The Rails They Laid" with Nikki McClure(a collaborative project about the anti-Chinese race riot which happened in Olympia, WA on February 9, 1886), and worked on the "Free To Fight!" project. She even holds a PhD in Comparative Literature! Sarah is truly an talented renaissance woman.
Sarah has a new CD out on K Records. They put up another site with more info: http://www.kpunk.com/SarahDougher .
Here's a sample of an interveiw which Jimmy did with Sarah from that site:
Sarah:"When I lived in Texas I spent a lot of time thinking going back from Portland, Olympia and Texas, so I spent a lot of time thinking about "Where's home? How do you construct the place that you live so that you're happiest where you are, when you're there?" And especially because I really wanted to be in the Northwest, so I was always thinking about "What would it be like if it was actually Texas that I wanted to be in?" So because of all the traveling back and forth, I just really had to think a lot about that stuff."
About the song "Bella Abzug" on her new CD:
"Oh yeah. No, it's not made up at all. She was a congresswoman from New York. She was the first congressperson in the US Congress to speak out against the Vietnam war early on. She worked with an organization called Women Strike For Peace, which was women organizing against the Vietnam War, and she also helped draft the ERA. Earlier in her career she was a Civil Rights lawyer in the South and worked for integration lawsuits and things like this. Later in her life, in the 80s and 90s, she worked to fight US corporations involved in sweatshop labor overseas. So that's the thing about Nike stock."

The Lookers
http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/Curb/1065/LOOK/
Unfortunately, the Lookers have broken up. Sarah is still playing solo shows as well as playing in Cadallaca and along with the Crabs. Shanna is still also playing with Cadallaca and with her other band The Haggard. But this is a beautiful document anyway.

Cadallaca Web Site (maintained by Jimmy)
http://my.voyager.net/jimmy/cadallaca.html
"Start cutting + pasting those valentines, 'cause everyone has a crush on the cadallaca. featuring dusty on farfisa/vocals, kissy on guitar/vocals + junior bangin' the big beats, these ladies have created the soundtrack to your very own summer fling! "it's about the dark side of the night, + how we can take you there," kissy has joked about the song "night vandals." indeed."

Sleater-Kinney Web Site (maintained by Jimmy)
http://my.voyager.net/jimmy/index.html
"This page archives live Sleater-Kinney info: fans' concert reviews, tour dates, show info, the scoop on the members' other projects, etc. Because it's a fan resource, please send your reviews!"

Mr. Lady Records and Videos
http://www.mrlady.com/
A wonderful Dyke run distribution company founded by Kaia and Tammy Rae. They have tons of great music and video stuff, so check it out!

Heartcore Records
http://www.heartcorerecords.com/
Heartcore Records is the love child of Sascha & Ernesto. They write: "One of our main goals is to promote the works of queers of color that have been marginalized in the queercore community. We exist and we will be heard. The home of The Haggard, self-described "punk feminist dykes".

Kill Rock Stars
http://www.killrockstars.com/
This record label's web page has pages for every band which ahs ever recorded for it. And there are more great bands which have recorded for Kill Rock Stars than most labels its size. Sound samples are provided for bands with full-length records on Kill Rock Stars, like, for example: Bikini Kill,Bratmobile,Dos,Free Kitten,Frumpies,Heavens to Betsy, Huggy Bear, Mary Lou Lord, Peechees, Phranc, Julie Ruin, Sleater-Kinney, & Elliott Smith

The Chainsaw Records Web Page
http://www.chainsaw.com/
Home of the legendary "Chainsaw Records Message Board" and chat room, and too much wonderful music to mention here. This web page is a fantastic resource with one of the best links pages around(maybe because so many different people contributed to it?). In fact don't even bother reading any further just go here!

K Records
http://www.kpunk.com/index2.html
In their own words, "a small, locally oriented label". In my opinion they are an important resource for punk rock in the tradition of Simple Machines and Dischord. This web site is a lot of fun.

ROCKRGRL (the big sell out, or just buying in?)
http://www.rockrgrl.com/
Here's what they have to say for their capitalist selves: "ROCKRGRL is the only national magazine to exclusively feature, encourage, provide resources for and inspire women, the fastest growing segment of the music industry. Our readers are mostly females (93%), aged 13-45. They are professional musicians, aspiring musicians, and people working within the music industry. They are educated, well-read, ambitious, and spend much of their disposable income on music related items such as instruments, amps, gear, microphones, CDs, concert tickets, etc. If you are in a music-related field, there is no better way to reach this powerful and virtually untapped demographic than advertising in ROCKRGRL."

I can't leave out Riot Girl, now can I?

Here's the Washington D.C. Chapter's Web Site
http://www.freespeech.org/rgdc/temp.html
Riot Grrrl Washington D.C. They write, "This is the chapter site for riot grrrl dc. riot grrrl is a non-hierarchal movement. we do not necessarily speak for, or represent riot grrrl as a whole. we are all individuals from different cultures, backgrounds, and ways of thinking. do not attempt to limit us by categorization, we will knock you down every time." This is actually the most together Riot Grrrl chapter on the web. Unless you know something I don't!

And here's Riot Grrrl Brampton's home on the web!
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/9705/
And here's Riot Grrrl Cincinnati's home on the web!
http://members.tripod.com/~RiotGrrrlCincinnati/index.html
And here's Riot Grrrl New Jersey's home on the web!
http://www.gurlpages.com/activism/jerseygrrrls/main.html
Riot Grrrl Atlanta is just starting up(10/99) and has begun a web page
http://www.gurlpages.com/activism/riotgrrrlatl

Riot Grrrrls Midwest is an email list
http://students.ou.edu/F/Janet.G.Frey-1/rgmw/index.html
Here's what it all about: "The purpose of this mailing list is to provide a forum for grrrls of the midwest to discuss our lives, our projects, our real true feelings, our hopes for the places we live. It is also intended to show that there is a just as many great things happening out here as there are on the east and west coasts." Props to my neighbors here in the midamerican desert

SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men)
http://php.indiana.edu/~ljtaflin/scum.html
The famous Manifesto by Valerie Solanas(who shot Any Warhol, see the movie). She writes, "Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex."

Revolution Whores
http://welcome.to/revwhores
Their slogan is great:well behaved women rarely make history! Revolution Whores is "an organization, branched of the original ethics of riot grrrl, for grrls and bois who want change in the fucked up standards and prejudices of society. We are not going to take the backseat and just figure that change will come eventually, cos it won't! If nobody does anything about the problems, they will not be fixed."

The X-Womyn Collective
http://www.gurlpages.com/nolabel/x_womyn/
Damn. This site has tons of great D.I.Y. links and helpful information. It's really pretty impressive. They write, " We, as punk womyn and men, are sick of seeing our scenes and communities perpetuating the hierarchy of sexism that we are supposed to oppose. Although the theory of punk rock promotes the idea of a non-sexist, non-racist community, we rarely see this in our local communities. Our scenes are still dominated by men - in our music, politics, zines, and actions. Well, that's about to change."

DragQueen, the punk band
http://www.geocities.com/Sunsetstrip/5754/
Okay, this is Jessica Delich's band, based in beautiful Kansas City, and now that she has had her baby, they get return to their usually busy performance schedule.

Tuuli, the punk band
http://surf.to/tuuli
This is Toronto's premiere punk band starring Claire, Swain, Jenny, and Robby. They get air play on KROQ in LA, they have rocked CBGB's in NYC, and their CD, entitled, "Thanks for Ruining My Life", should be out soon. But the best part of this web site is all the freaked out photos.

Stink & Linger, self-described "all chick punk rock band"
http://www.angelfire.com/punk/stinkandlinger
The Stinkers are from Portland, Oregon and are currently playing and seeking shows in the Pacific Northwest area.

Ex-Girl
http://www.0505.net/ex-girl/index_E.shtml
Enter the strange and frightening world of Ex-Girl, an all female experimental pop ensemble from Japan.

The Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13: Official Web Site
http://www.geocities.com/queenthing13/
North Carolina freaks inspired by Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Hanoi Rocks, and other "horrible 80s metal". They released their first tape, "Dumpster Mummies" in 1994. The b-side on their seven inch vinyl is called "Graverobbing U.S.A.". They sell videos with titles like, "Transvestite Chainsaw Massacre", "Kung Fu Monster Mash", "Kill Ya to Death", and "Devil Worship, Inc.". A visit to this web site is worth it just to see all the fotos of the these guys in their goulish drag horror movie outfits. This is high camp at it's most revolting...and I mean that in a positive way. My only caveat is that they hang with some bozo who calls himslef "the Confederate Crusader". Fuck the Confederacy. Fuck the confederate flag. And fuck the "the Confederate Crusader". Why do these drag queens hang around with that loser?

Lydia Lunch
http://www.levity.com/corduroy/lunch.htm
To know her is to fear her. And of course, you have already heard of this pioneering spoken word performer from NYC.

Stef wrote me an email demanding to be listed here, ...so here she is at:
http://fly.to/nailzscratch,
...and again at http://www.gurlpages.com/nolabel/geekisme/index.html.
Nailzscratch appears to be a punk band and Geek Is Me appears to be a web zine.

Return to the top
Return to somewhere in the middle