"Rockrgrl Weekend and Oh Courtney and Olympia: Nov. 2-6, 2000, Seattle WA," by Nanon Turner (Punknet, December 2000)
Dear Punknet Readers,
My band, Bionic Finger, flew out to Seattle for the Rockrgrl Music Conference. No, we didn't get into the actual festival but we thought the event would be worth attending anyway and it was Rockrgrl's sad loss for not including us. We booked a gig for ourselves in Olympia anyway. So there.
Oh celebrities. We saw so many. Ann Wilson, Carrie Akre (okay she's my personal celebrity because I've got a crush on her--that voice that makes me melt like cheese fries at Odessa Diner--check out her now defunct bands Goodness and Hammerbox-yeah baby!), Jill Sobule, 4 Non-Blondes, Pamela Des Barres, Kate Shellenbach, Amy Ray, and Ronnie Spector.
I felt a bit guilty when Ann Wilson was speaking at the "Songwriting" Panel. I kept fantasizing about her sister Nancy in that sequined catsuit leotard in the "Never" video. While I don't really dig Heart's music, I'm intrigued by their personal lives and how they struggled as a band. I guess they saved their stories for VH-1. My favorite panel was one that Ann Powers moderated called "Woodstock '99 to Eminem: When did women become the enemy?" We didn't talk much about Woodstock '99 but we discussed Eminem at length. Ann kept the discussion flowing by asking us to explore the psychology behind those people who find Eminem's music cathartic. She also asked us whether Eminem had a responsibility as an artist to create art that wasn't sexist and homophobic? Some of the audience felt that he did, but that didn't mean they were advocating censorship of his material. There was one girl on the panel who found Eminem amusing and thought he was enacting a character and was not supposed to be taken seriously. The only thing the audience agreed on was that if you find his material offensive, then don't buy his records. Well, okay then.
And let us not forget Courtney Love. She did a Q & A session on the last day of the Conference. I'm so fascinated and repelled by her. If she actually spoke to me I'd either blush or tell her off or maybe kiss her. She reminds me of my former acting teacher, frank and intimidating. One of my favorite moments in this panel was when a cute girl with bobbed hair and a sweater set told Courtney she had an awesome punk-pop girl band and asked her what their chances were of opening for Hole? Courtney said something like this (it's not word for word-but this is the gist): "Well what is pop punk? You have to give me a comparison--who do you sound like? Is it Go-Go's meets Slipknot? Cause if it is, then I'd be interested. You've got to start thinking like a record company executive. I need a reference. You can't just tell me that you're good or you play pop-punk. In that sweater set you might do better opening for Sheryl Crow-I don't know what your music is like but I tend to like bands that are a little violent." She said we needed to ask ourselves what we wanted from being in the music business. Did we want to be huge? Cause if we did then we needed to think about an image and words to describe ourselves that were marketable. Courtney said she got a nose job because she knew it would help her sell more records. She wasn't advocating that girls get plastic surgery, but she was telling us that looks were a very important part of a bands' success in the music business.
YUCK. How the hell are young girls going to have a healthy body image with this kind of talk? It's one thing to wear a sexy dress because you want to (for its own sake-because it makes you feel good) and quite another to wear one because you think that you SHOULD wear it because people will like you better and you will sell more records. Hmm...no wonder Courtney reminds me of my acting teacher. Maggie was always going on about how fickle the acting business was and how we needed to get ourselves in shape and really work on our bodies---because we'd be judged primarily on our looks and not necessarily on our acting. I head for the chocolate and my favorite "Cramps--Bad Music for Bad People" t-shirt when I hear people talk like that.
Courtney is symbolic of the contradiction inherent in our culture--the one that says girls can be or do anything but that they should look pretty while they do it. It really isn't her fault. She's had her surgery and she's ready to shine. The fact that there aren't many successful women in the business means less competition. I don't know why she chose to come to Rockrgrl, as she was more of a spectacle than a font of wisdom. But maybe she did give a reality check to some girls, as she's a living example of how much compromise and determination it takes to be successful in a shallow and corrupt industry.
She talked about a conversation she had with Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney where she told her that they (SK) were throwing away all of their talent because they could be HUGE if they wanted to. And she said she respected Janet for telling her that they didn't want to be huge. Sleater-Kinney is proof that one can have a modicum of success with relatively few compromises. The girls in Sleater-Kinney make great music and they also manage to pay their bills from it. They are not rich or famous, but that was never their definition of "success" to begin with. Courtney's definition of success includes not only making money but being famous, or HUGE. It all comes down to your priorities and how much of the music-bullshit-game you are willing to play. Someone like Courtney is willing to play that game full-out and make compromises to ensure her success. A band like Sleater-Kinney is not willing to make as many compromises and would rather play the game on their own terms and have more control of the business process (i.e. they've stuck with their indie label, Kill Rock Stars, despite offers from bigger labels, because they feel their interests are best represented by a small label).
As for me, I'd like to smear chocolate all over my body in some kind of performance art ritual and then scream "Bionic Finger" at the top of my lungs 20 times. A marketing tool? Perhaps, though not a direct marketing ploy. It just seems like something that would be fun to do. Maybe that is the way to deal with the business of making music--do things that you think are fun that incorporate your band and then you will have marketed & promoted yourself without feeling cheap and dirty. The bright side of being so shameless is that I like chocolate and I like to shout. And it's not as traumatic as getting a nose job.
Part II
So after our Courtney-fication and the Rockrgrl weekend, Bionic Finger was ready to RAWK. And for more than our two friends who lived in Seattle. We headed down I-5 to play in Olympia, the hometown of Sleater-Kinney. It was an all-ages show at Le Voyeur, a bar/restaurant/club in downtown Oly (for those of you who've been to Oly you have to try the food at The Urban Onion--yummy!). The place was packed with swanky blue and blond-haired Space Ballerina wanna-be's. That's one of the bands we played with. The Space Ballerinas. Their music was like some new wave nina-hagen Star Trek episode where the Ballerinas had taken over the ship and were teaching port de bras combinations. I loved their audience-led ballerina workout in the middle of their set, and also their slide show. The other band that played with us was really one girl---called Tracy and the Plastics. Her real name was Wynne. She had drum loops and synthesized sounds as the background for her talk-story songs. And she had a television on stage that made cool swirlie designs. I liked her spontaneity---talking to the audience in the middle of her songs---she got every kid in that place dancing! Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney showed up at the club and I proceeded to drop all the cds I was carrying. Talk about embarrassing. Well, what am I supposed to say to one of my biggest musical inspirations? Okay, okay, how about "Hi"? But that would be too easy. Sharky (Christine's nickname) kept torturing me about how she brushed her sleeve and how Carrie looked right at her. Good god.
The Bionic Finger set was lively. I wore my Molly Ringwald-inspired green prom dress (cause I'm so all about image ha ha) and scared the other fingers by jumping wildly and forgetting all the words to "Sweaty". I'm not sure the audience knew what to think when we kept screaming "I've Got a Big Dick". Maybe they thought we had a real one? And when we pulled out the "Naughty Girls Need Love Too" and "Talk Dirty" segments at the end of "Karen", they seemed scared. Perhaps they were afraid I was going to use the whip in my hand? We certainly gave them the FINGER with our down and dirty messy-haired pop songs.
Well, it's been fun. I think I need to go now. Feel free to write back and get a discussion going about any and all I've talked about. We've only just begun.
xoxo
nan "mimi" turner