“The first band featured this week on Jam in the Speaker has a very special place in my heart. Not only is Frightwig responsible for inspiring countless women to start bands of their own, but they’re also the coolest, funnest, and wittiest gang of rockers…”
Click here for the full article.
We were there for the first Bikini Kill reunion shows in 2019. They were a profound and moving experience. We didn’t know what COVID was yet, which upended this tour and, well, still upends everything. I’m grateful that they managed to find a way to get back on the road. Everything feels really hard and continues to feel hard, and this band has always been the thing that gives me the strength to persevere and find reasons to be hopeful in the face of hopelessness.
Black Belt Eagle Scout was originally supposed to open, but a medical emergency upended those plans. (I adore this band, and KP is an amazing human, and if you have any money to spare, please help her with medical expenses.) With a few weeks’ notice, they scrambled to find someone to fill in the void, and we ended up with… FRIGHTWIG!!! A band whose influence and legacy helped inspire and shape bands like L7, The Melvins, Nirvana, and… BIKINI KILL.
Opening with bassist Deanna Mitchell showing off her impressive vocal chops with an unexpected a capella rendition of Tanya Tucket’s “Delta Dawn” while guitarist Mia d’Bruzzi had to do some emergency repairs to her guitar rig, Frightwig took us on a journey in a short 30 minutes that took us through a wildly eclectic assortment of politically charged, feminist rock songs. They were a hardcore band, a new wave band, and they played metal and psych. I guess after 42 years of experience, you can pretty much do whatever you put your mind to.
Click here to read the full article.
Reunited ’90s riot grrl band Bikini Kill returns to the Bay Area for only the second time since they originally split up over two decades ago, headlining the Warfield for two nights starting Sunday.
Led by charismatic singer Kathleen Hanna, the band came together in Olympia, Washington in 1990 when she teamed with fellow Evergreen State College students Tobi Vail (bass) and Kathi Wilcox (drums) and guitarist Billy Karren. Inspired by her mother’s activism at a young age, Hanna had already been channeling her feminist politics into visual art and spoken-word performances before following the advice of writer and counterculture icon Kathy Acker to start a band.
The band’s eponymous debut EP in 1991 produced by Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi) was a visceral blast of politically-charged punk. Songs like “Double Dare Ya” and “Suck My Left One” carried the same “girls to the front” message of Bikini Kill’s blistering live performances — Hanna would frequently leave the stage to confront male audience members who were harassing female attendees — and the feminist zine the band produced that shared its name.
The band would spend time in Washington, D.C. that summer as Hannah collaborated on a pair of musical projects (Suture with pioneering DC punk Sharon Cheslow and Wondertwins with Tim Green of Nation of Ulysses) as well as the Riot grrl zine that had been started by members of Bratmobile and would essentially become the manifesto for the burgeoning underground feminist punk movement.
Bikini Kill would release the seminal riot grrl anthem “Rebel Girl” on their second effort, a split EP with the British band Huggy Bear the following year as they built on their growing fan base, bringing their explosive stage show to England for a tour with Huggy Bear that would be filmed for the documentary, It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill in the UK. The group would return to the States and begin working with another feminist punk icon, Joan Jett, who would produce and play on a second recording of “Rebel Girl” in addition to Hannah co-writing new songs for Jett’s Pure and Simple album.
The group played their first Bay Area show in over 20 years when they headlined the closing night of the Mosswood Meltdown in 2022. The band comes back to headline these two shows at the Warfield in San Francisco. The Sunday night show will feature an opening set by Portland, OR-based trio the Ghost Ease. Started as a bedroom studio solo project of guitarist, singer and songwriter Jem Marie in 2010, it expanded to a duo two years later when Nsayi Matingou joined on drums in time for the recording of their shoegaze-influenced post-punk debut in 2013. The group has cycled through multiple bass players since then, releasing several albums, including the acclaimed Psyche Lifeline in 2022.
On Monday, Bikini Kill will be joined by veteran San Francisco punk act, Frightwig. The pioneering all-female group was formed by bassist/singer Deanna Ashley and guitarist Mia d’Bruzzi in 1982 (drummer Cecilia Kuhn joined later). Taking a decidedly feminist stance in response to the hostile reception they often received when they took the stage, the band would have male audience members perform onstage striptease for their song “A Man’s Gotta Do, What A Man’s Gotta Do.”
Having become an established band at San Francisco underground punk clubs, Frightwig recorded their debut album Cat Farm Faboo with guitarist and frequent Residents collaborator Phillip “Snakefinger” Lithman in 1984 in the space of just 72 hours. The abrasive, noisy songs and salicious lyrics heard on that album and the 1986 follow-up Faster, Frightwig, Kill! Kill! would prove to be an enormous influence on the riot grrl movement and groups like Bikini Kill, L7 and Hole the following decade. While Frightwig split up in 1994, they would reunite nearly two decades later. Last fall, the band released its first new album in 37 years — We Need To Talk… on Label 51 Recordings.
Kathleen Hanna, the pioneering punk singer, artist, and frontwoman of Bikini Kill & Le Tigre, goes shopping at Amoeba Music in Hollywood. Kathleen Hanna’s new memoir ‘Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk’ is available now from Ecco/Harper Collins.
Check out her picks:
Sugarcubes – Life’s Too Good (LP)
Bruce Springsteen – The River (LP)
Isaac Hayes – Joy (LP)
Frightwig – We Need To Talk… (LP)
Queen Latifah – The Best Of Queen Latifah (CD)
Santigold – Spirituals (CD)
Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (LP)
Selena Gomez – Revival (LP)
Demi Lovato – REVAMPED (LP)
Chris L. Terry & James Spooner – Black Punk Now (BOOK)
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
