April 5, 2024 No Comment

FAR OUT Magazine:
Frightwig: Kathleen Hanna on a “hugely influential band” for Bikini Kill

While Kathleen Hanna is undoubtedly highly respected, it’s clear that she doesn’t receive mainstream acknowledgement for her outstanding contributions to women in music. Serving as the creative powerhouse behind riot grrrl trailblazers Bikini Kill and dance-punk icons Le Tigre, Hanna rightfully takes her place alongside pioneering figures like Poly Styrene and Siouxsie Sioux.

An influential figure in third-wave feminism during the early 1990s and a boundless source of energy on stage, Hanna’s impact endures to the present day. Without her legacy, alongside Bikini Kill and the riot grrrl movement, it’s difficult to assess the trajectory of gender equality.

In Hanna’s own words, “To make riot grrrl move into the future in a new way with a bunch of new names, a bunch of new energy, younger people have to learn about it and apply it to their own lives and own modern conversation. And they are.”

Of course, certain facets of the world have progressed past the need for the more seemingly outdated feminist tropes prevalent in the 1990s. Still, Hanna’s contributions significantly bolstered important conversations and helped many feel confident and valued enough to stand up for what was right. In short, we owe a lot to figures like Hanna for her unwavering dedication to good causes.

Regarding her own influences, Hanna points to Frightwig as a “hugely influential band on Bikini Kill”.

Explaining her appreciation for their seminal album, Faster, Frightwig, Kill! Kill!, Hanna remarked: “There are lots of radical political moments on this album—really feminist, but it was also really funny and really beautiful. There’s this one skit about this fucked-up rich valley girl who loses her Amex checks and is trying to get new ones. There’s also a song on it about hating some stupid groupie who’s fucking around with someone’s boyfriend—stuff probably from the band members’ lives.”

Although Hanna also praises the works of Blondie and Carole King, one artist and album she deems “close-to-perfect” is esteemed rapper and singer-songwriter Lauryn Hill. Hill is largely regarded as one of the best rappers of all time and a defining voice of a generation. Discussing Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Hanna said: “I bought this at [New York hip-hop store] Fat Beats when I turned 30, and it was really inspirational. She does it all—she sings, she raps, she produces. It has all these references to Stevie Wonder and old reggae songs that I love. Again, a close-to-perfect, classic record.”

Overall, Hanna’s influences are a reflection of her commitment to instigating change. As a central figure in a movement advocating for female empowerment, her musical preferences exemplify her distinct style and resilience, solidifying her status as one of the most impactful figures in the music industry.

Originally posted at faroutmagazine.co.uk

 

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January 21, 2024 No Comment

GRAMMY.com: 10 Bay Area Punk Bands To Know: Dead Kennedys, Operation Ivy, Green Day & More

From pioneers the Nuns and Crime, to Pinhead Gunpowder and the Donnas, Hickey and Ceremony, the San Francisco Bay Area holds its own against any other punk epicenter.
JESSICA LIPSKY GRAMMYS/JAN 17, 2024 – 06:02 AM

Punk was punk before punk had a name and, as such, has many great epicenters. From the Ramones, who rocketed out of New York City to London’s sneering and spitting Sex Pistols, and Detroit rockers such as the MC5 and the Stooges who set the attitudinal tone for the genre, punk is often considered an east-of-the-Mississippi (and across the pond) phenomenon.

But that thinking negates the very prolific West Coast, and generations of California uber alles. The San Francisco Bay Area, specifically, is home to a multitude of punk bands — as well as crucial venues like 924 Gilman and the Mabuhay Gardens, and revered pubs including Search and Destroy, Cometbus and Maximum Rocknroll, as well as festivals like Mosswood Meltdown — whose music helped define the genre from the late ’70s onward. Detractors best take warning: From pioneers the Nuns, Crime and Flipper, to MDC, Pinhead Gunpowder and Capitalist Casualties, the Donnas, Ceremony and Scary Scare, the Bay’s multifarious scene holds its own against any other punk epicenter.

In honor of a new album from hometown heroes Green Day and major anniversaries of the group’s seminal LPs Dookie (1994) and American Idiot (2004), press play and get in the pit with these 10 essential Bay Area punk bands. Welcome to paradise.

Frightwig

Crucial album: Faster, Frightwig, Kill! Kill!

Precursors to the riot grrrl movement, all-female group Frightwig left a lasting mark on both San Francisco and early ’90s alt-rock/punk. (In fact, Kurt Cobain is wearing a Frightwig t-shirt during Nirvana’s “MTV’s Unplugged” sessions.) Founded in the early ’80s by teen San Franciscians, Frightwig spent over a decade “screaming and shredding their way through glass ceilings and unapologetically leaving behind a pile of shards,” according to their website.

Expectedly, the trio and sometimes quartet received a fair amount of attention for simply being young women in punk. They were known to turn the tables by inviting male fans onstage to dance and be ridiculed while playing “A Man’s Gotta Do What A Man’s Gotta Do.”

“We really wanted to play with what the status quo of womanhood was supposed to be visually and also sonically. That’s part of our mission, to really challenge what people think about what a woman is supposed to look like and to do,” guitarist/vocalist Mia d’Bruzzi later told SFGate.

The group — which experienced a number of lineup changes in its initial 12-year run — played many of San Francisco’s major punk venues and toured with locals Flipper and Dead Kennedys, as well as Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth, and Bikini Kill. Raw, noisy, feminist and tongue-in-cheek, the trio recorded two full albums — 1984’s Cat Farm Faboo and Faster, Frightwig, Kill! Kill! two years later — and several EPs before disbanding in 1994.

In 2023, a reconstituted Frightwig (with the expectation of long-time drummer Cecilia Kuhn, who died in 2019), released We Need To Talk. The 11-track album is a more polished, rollicking zip through the life of a 60-something empowered punk, with defiant tracks like “Aging Sux”  and “Ride My Bike,” political takes such as “War On Women,” and a re-recording of their popular “A Man’s Gotta Do.”

Click here to read the full story.

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December 5, 2023 No Comment

KQED Arts: The Best Bay Area Music of 2023

Frightwig, ‘We Need to Talk’ (Label 51 Recordings)

Back in 1983, Deanna Mitchell and Mia d’Bruzzi were just a couple of creative teens running amok in San Francisco’s vibrant, underground punk scene. Realizing they had something — well, a lot — to say, they formed Frightwig, a pre-riot grrrl rallying cry to the furious and disaffected women of America. Long acknowledged as influential to bands like Hole, L7 and Babes in Toyland among many others, the band’s decision to reform this year was a nice surprise. That the album that heralded Frightwig’s return succeeded in being caustic, clever and catchy was a legitimate thrill.

We Need to Talk consistently flings eye-rolls and middle fingers directly at bad men, misogynist policies, unchecked capitalism and even to aging itself. Delightfully, the 11-tracker is also imbued with smatterings of side winks and sharp humor. (And we’re not just talking about the fact that there’s a song here called “My Crotch Does Not Say Go.”) We Need to Talk is the unhinged, unfiltered, all-ages punk rock party we didn’t know we needed in 2023. A cathartic treat indeed. — Rae Alexandra

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September 29, 2023 No Comment

‘There was blood on the walls’: The wild history of SF’s female punk pioneers

Back when the pioneering punk band Frightwig released their first album in 1984, the minimum wage in San Francisco was $3.35. That’s how much bass player Deanna Mitchell and guitarist Mia d’Bruzzi, who have been friends since the age of 16, earned working at arthouse movie theaters along Market Street. At the time, that was enough money to afford the archetypical lifestyle of a musician.

“It was tight, but we didn’t care. … I lived in a number of s—tty warehouses. You paid your rent, we didn’t eat much, but it was doable,” said d’Bruzzi, speaking alongside her bandmates outside Duboce Park Cafe on Sanchez Street.

Thirty-nine years later, Mitchell and d’Bruzzi are still making music under the same band name and are releasing a new album, which they’re set to debut Friday, Sept. 29, at Bottom of the Hill alongside veteran drummer Tina Fagnani. Titled “We Need to Talk,” the LP is full of the type of vitriol that made them an influence on a generation of bands like L7, Hole and Bikini Kill, whose drummer Tobi Vail cited the band as an early introduction to feminism after original drummer Cecilia Kuhn’s death in 2017.

Although often considered to have laid the groundwork for the “riot grrrl” feminist musical movement of the early ’90s, Frightwig’s members dodge that label, as well as most other musical pigeonholes. They identify with the punk rock ethos rather than adhering to its musical associations and describe themselves as “cavewoman rock.” Their most popular song, “My Crotch Does Not Say Go,” shares more DNA with no-wave bands from early ’70s New York than the loud-and-fast power chords of fellow San Francisco punks and former labelmates Dead Kennedys. But in the early ’80s, there was something inherently punk about a loud, all-female rock band.

“We really wanted to play with what the status quo of womanhood was supposed to be visually and also sonically. That’s part of our mission, to really challenge what people think about what a woman is supposed to look like and to do,” d’Bruzzi said.

The band formed in the winter of 1982 when both d’Bruzzi and Mitchell were laid off from their jobs. They settled on the name Frightwig, inspired by a popular slang term at the time.

“It’s slang for a woman who has been out drinking cocktails, and she started out looking pretty good. Then it’s just the end of the night …” said d’Bruzzi.

“Her tights are ripped, her lipstick’s smeared,” Mitchell added.

“Mascara’s down the face, and she’s still tipsy,” d’Bruzzi said.

Like many punk rockers, Frightwig’s members started their band while they were still musical novices, creating what they referred to as “bad noise.” Soon enough they were playing gigs at now-legendary San Francisco venues like The Farm and Mabuhay Gardens. The bandmates said their identity as an all-female band did open some doors, but also brought out “the wrath of the sexist assholes.”

“We got a lot of sexism. People would tell us we sucked. Which we kind of did. But they would keep doing it. ‘You sucked last week. I saw you tonight and that sucked. Next week you’re going to play again, right? I bet you’re going to suck.’ They’d keep coming back and keep coming back,” said Mitchell.

“They wanted us to suck was the thing,” d’Bruzzi added.

“But you keep practicing and get better at what you do. That’s what happened,” Mitchell said.

As a response to sexist criticism, the band wrote the song “A Man’s Gotta Do What a Man’s Gotta Do.” When performing it live, they called men from the audience onstage to strip, essentially turning the tables on stereotypes of objectification.

Just as their first album, “Cat Farm Faboo,” was released on San Francisco-based punk rock label Subterranean Records (which had released Dead Kennedys’ seminal “Nazi Punks F—k Off!” single a few years prior), Frightwig was invited to tour with legendary Texas oddballs Butthole Surfers. They traveled to New York to meet the band, which resulted in an extended stay on the Lower East Side and gigs at fabled venues like Danceteria and Pyramid Club. On tour with Butthole Surfers, they found themselves playing in venues reminiscent of the one portrayed in the 2015 punk rock horror film “Green Room.”

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September 27, 2023 No Comment

KQED: Frightwig, Legendary SF Punk Band, Is Still Smashing the Patriarchy at 40

In 1993, at the height of grunge’s powers, Nirvana hit the stage at New York City’s Sony Studios and recorded one of the most beloved MTV Unplugged sets of all time. Videos of the performance continue to garner tens of millions of views on YouTube. What few people might notice, however, is the white T-shirt Kurt Cobain wears under his iconic green cardigan. It’s a Frightwig shirt, worn to honor the all-female San Francisco punk band that smashed barriers in the ’80s underground scene.

Frightwig was an undeniable influence on bands like L7, Faith No More, the Melvins and, in particular, Hole. Courtney Love once said: “Me, Kat [Bjelland from Babes in Toyland], and Jennifer Finch [from L7] all watched Frightwig on the same night and all decided to start bands the next day. Frightwig are the true grandmothers of riot grrrl.”

Well, riot grrl is back — and so are its godmothers. In its original incarnation, Frightwig released two albums — Cat Farm Faboo (Subterranean Records) and Faster, Frightwig, Kill! Kill! (Caroline) — plus a couple of EPs. Now, 40 years after the outspoken band first formed, they’re releasing a new album, We Need to Talk. The record sees original bassist/vocalist Deanna Mitchell and guitarist/vocalist Mia d’Bruzzi joined by guitarist Rebecca Sevrin (in Frightwig since 1986), drummer Tina Fagnani and keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman. They’ll celebrate the album release with a show at Bottom of the Hill on Friday, Sept. 29.

We Need to Talk includes Frightwig’s 2014 single, the fiercely feminist “War on Women,” and swings frenetically between overtly political content (like “Redistribution of Wealth” and “Hot Air Rising”) and the deeply personal. “What Is Love?” for example, is a rip-roaring ode to single life that starts with a proverbial “toilet full of boyfriends” and ends in a furious crescendo that includes lines repurposed (and drenched in sarcasm) from the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and The Beatles’ “She Loves You.”

Elsewhere on the 11-tracker, there’s “Aging Sux,” a frenzied 43-second anthem of empowerment for anyone wishing to age ungracefully, and “Ride Your Bike,” a catchy, humor-imbued ass-shaker. In contrast, “Shine Your Light” is a five-minute ballad written and sung by original Frightwig drummer Cecilia Kuhn, who passed away from cancer in 2017. “Shine Your Light” will be released as a 7″ single adorned with Kuhn’s face and middle finger, still proudly held aloft.

Frightwig were one of those bands that slammed open a lot of doors for others, but never quite got the props they deserved themselves. We Need to Talk is an opportunity to right that wrong.

Frightwig’s ‘We Need to Talk’ is out via Label 51 Recordings on Friday, Sept. 29. To celebrate the release, the band plays Bottom of the Hill that night, with openers False Flag and Chaki.

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August 28, 2023 No Comment

Girl at the Rock Shows – Premiere of Frightwig “Redistribution of Wealth”

I like my songs short and punchy. Blame it on my self-diagnosed ADD or just the way that life is insanely busy and I feel like I can only really focus on something for a couple of seconds, I like songs that get to the point and hit me in the gut even if only for a short amount of time. That’s not what you get from “Redistribution of Wealth” from Frightwig but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Listening to this six and a half minute long song helped me find a sense of calm in what has already been a nutty morning. It gave me a second to chill out but also made my brain think about the poignant and important message of this track. Frightwig is not a new band and formed way back in 1982. You can feel that in this song because there’s something so well trained and deliberate about every note but there’s also this slight sense of angst and modern flare that keeps this song from feeling dated. Typically I will sit here and furiously write notes down upon the first listen of a song but this one left me just sitting there in awe of the composition and sheer talent that bleeds throughout this song.

Frightwig has a new album coming out on September 29th entitled ‘We Need To Talk…’. This is the first single from that album so, if you like what you hear today, go ahead and make a note on your calendar about September 29th!

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