Sleater-Kinney
CD Release, w/ No. 2, Gene Defcon
Crystal
Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St., 778-5625
8:30 pm Wednesday, May 3
$8
The official
CD release date is
May 2.
Tucker and Weiss
call Portland home; Brownstein commutes from Olympia.
www.killrockstars.com
"The Ballad of
a Ladyman" will surely incite questions about what exactly
is a Ladyman. The term originated when someone left the
band an anonymous note at a hotel that said: "Chalet 216--Ladyman:
Yes."
It was one of those sunny spring days that leaves you hoping
that there aren't too many tourists in town who might chuck
it all and move to Portland based on the ratio of flowers
to sun and ice cream cones to little kids.
We met the ladies of Sleater-Kinney on Southeast Hawthorne
Boulevard to talk about their latest record, All Hands
on the Bad One, and challenged them to a game of horseshoes
at the amenity-stuffed Laurelhurst Park. As we tramped through
the neighborhood, Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet
Weiss, the three rocketeers of the world-famed indie-punk
anthem factory, let us in on some secrets.
The Portland/Olympia band's last album, The Hot Rock,
sent rock critics and hepcat fans into quite the foamy lather.
In the course of a tour de force album, the trio wove the
threads of the early '90s riot grrl era, a decade of femme-powered
rock and emerging pop songwriting talent into one hell of
a cracking whip. Critic Greil Marcus, he of the Salon.com
column and numerous culture-crunching books explaining the
hidden meanings of rock, went so far as to proclaim S-K
"the greatest band in the world."
That kind of attention inevitably leads to a round of uncontrolled
mythmaking. A tidy little cycle of legends grew up around
the band--most of which were summarily smashed before the
first toy plastic horseshoe flew.
The first secret unveiled: Carrie Brownstein kicks ass
at horseshoes. We destroy the rest of the myths as we go.
MYTH NUMBER 1:
They've outgrown the riot grrl thing.
The broader sonic pallette of Hot Rock led many
(mostly male) critics to issue various (hopeful?) proclamations
that Sleater-Kinney had somehow "moved beyond" its grrl-band
beginnings.
All Hands on the Bad One, on the other hand, contains
more than a few moments that hark back to the feminista
band's clench-fisted early days. Raw, accusatory and full
of venom, "#1 Must Have" is a call for action: "There will
always be concerts where women are raped/ Watch me make
up my mind instead of my face."
"Youth Decay" is almost "Call The Doctor, Part II." Tucker
shrieks, "Daddy says I got my Mama's mouth/ I'm all about
a forked tongue and a dirty house." They even utter the
phrase--gasp--"riot grrl." In a pop world where Limp Dick
and Kid Cock rule the airwaves, this is the time for a full
frontal assault.
"I am a feminist and that's how I write," says Tucker.
"I've been doing this a long time and it's important that
I look at what's going on with honest eyes. I'm tired of
people saying, 'Oh, you're so above being a woman-in-rock,
you've really gotten out of that ghetto.'"
"We have come out the closet as riot grrls," says Weiss.
MYTH NUMBER 2:
Musically, they're a one-trick pony.
The same high-drama rushes of fast rock that worked on
the old records still work on All Hands on the Bad One.
Now, though, the band explores the full range of dynamics
in its arsenal, from stripped-down garage rock to the positively
glam lushness of "Milkshake n' Honey." There are even some
strings traipsing around the edges of the intertwining guitars.
Listen close.
MYTH NUMBER 3:
They are chilly, defensive rock stars.
We were a little frightened to meet with the trio. Just
a tad. The contingent of critically hip bands that surround
Olympia's Kill Rock Stars label, the band's indie imprint,
aren't known for their love of the media. And by now, S-K
must have been asked every question on earth--all the stupid
ones and all the smart ones and everything in between.
Three cheers for Sleater-Kinney, then, for being truly
engaged. They answered all questions thoughtfully and even
mocked Zach because the previous week he'd written that
this new record of theirs was good but filled with "a few
clunkers." What clunkers?, they wanted to know.
"We want to know what people think; we want criticism,"
said Weiss. Zach was flummoxed. (Upon reflection, he now
offers "Pompeii.") Band 1, Media 0.
MYTH NUMBER 4:
They live the glamorous rock-star life.
If you were to stand behind S-K in the supermarket, you'd
be more likely to hear Tucker talk about her obsession with
gardening than jet-setting to rock festivals. She spends
much of her free time and pocket change on growing pretty
things.
These ladies also have good advice when it comes to hair
care and home buying. How does Weiss get her hair so damn
straight? "A combination of chemicals, time and muscles,"
she says. For those of you who remember the shattering drummer
from her days playing in the band Motorgoat in the early
1990s, you'll recall that her natural hair texture is more
Betty Boop than Betty Page. After she went to a party wearing
a straight-hair wig with bangs, she decided this was her
destiny. And so it was. Do straight-haired girls have more
fun? "I don't know about that, but ever since I've had straight
hair I've had lots of fun," she says.
Brownstein is training to be a volunteer fire fighter in
her spare time.
MYTH NUMBER 5:
They're too big for Portland.
Just because they've had a modicum of success doesn't mean
they are going to pack it up and move to Gotham. Brownstein
doesn't see the need to flee Olympia. Both Tucker and Weiss
own homes in Portland and don't plan to leave anytime soon.
What about the overheated fans who can be heard bragging
about seeing Tucker getting her oil changed at Jiffy Lube
or Weiss scoring a turkey at Fred Meyer? Wouldn't the band
dig the anonymity of a slightly bigger village?
"People here are more relaxed about that stuff," Tucker
avers.
"I guess people leave because of the desire to live in
a thriving metropolis," Weiss says. "But I've been playing
music in this town for 10 years. It's not as active as it
was in the early '90s, maybe--or maybe I just think that
because I'm older--but it's still a great, supportive place
to be a musician.
"Maybe I won't got to Fred Meyer in my pajamas anymore,
though."
As we walked down a Southeast street lit with flowers and
cherry blossom trees in bloom, Tucker exclaimed, "How could
you not want to live in Portland?"
MYTH NUMBER 6:
They are too big to be on an indie label.
It's safe to say that Kill Rock Stars moves more product
for Sleater-Kinney than it does for any of its other bands.
So how well does the Oly indie keep up with the needs of
a band that could easily make the major-label move?
"Any obstacles we encounter, we work through them together,"
Weiss says. All three of the S-K ladies are quick to sing
the praises of Slim Moon and his KRS crew.
"It's a team, a partnership," Weiss continues. "You're
sharing the work with people you know. It's not like a huge
label where you don't know who the people are, what they're
doing or if, in fact, they're doing anything at all. Basically,
all we need from Kill Rock Stars is for our records to be
in stores, and they've done an incredible job of getting
that to happen."
"They take pride in the fact that they're not jaded," Brownstein
adds. "They're excited to take part in the success we've
had. They're genuinely excited when they say, 'Wow, such-and-such
store just ordered a bunch of your records.' It's new to
them."
And what of the band's tentative embrace of the video monster?
The trio just shot a vid for "You're No Rock n' Roll Fun"
with New York filmmaker Brett Vapnek. Will the paragons
of Northwest indie fame-rejection go MTV?
"Everyone tells you, 'Don't make a video, it's a huge waste
of money,'" Weiss says. "But we did it because it was fun,
and we could work for cheap with someone we liked. It's
like we're trying to make a small difference in the pretty-disgusting
pop music landscape."
"There are a lot of people who don't have access to the
indie scene," Tucker adds. "Maybe we can reach some of those
people."
MYTH NUMBER 7:
Technology will be the saving grace of independent
musicians everywhere.
S-K released "All Hands on the Bad One" as an MP3 through
Kill Rock Stars' Web site. The band maintains an active
site of its own, replete with updates and heartfelt Q&A
sessions with fans, and has inspired a host of tribute sites
of varying degrees of fawning love and semi-stalker psychosis.
So is S-K part of the purported Digital Music Revolution?
"It's more complicated than just getting control of your
own music using the Internet," Brownstein says. "I still
have faith that music is about a whole range of social experiences
you can't get just by downloading a song. It's about going
to see bands, about going to buy records."
Indeed, in the midst of the MP3 frenzy, it's refreshing
to talk to musicians totally unawed by the hysteria.
"The Internet is fine, but it's a very non-social way of
dealing with music," Tucker says, seconding Brownstein.
"It feels so removed from what we do and what it really
is like to play in a touring band."
"When you're on tour, you forget that people even look
at the Internet," Brownstein says.
LUCKY MYTH NUMBER 8:
They enjoy karaoke because it mirrors the experience
of being on stage.
Do not believe the rumor, perpetuated on the Kill Rock
Stars site by none other than Carrie Brownstein, that Janet
Weiss is quitting karaoke forever. It's not uncommon to
see Tucker or Weiss belting away in one of PDX's karaoke
arenas. In fact, Weiss has garnered critical acclaim for
her rendition of Duran Duran's "Ordinary World." Now, thanks
to prying articles like this, people keep badgering them
about karaoke. So they're laying low on the karaoke tip.
But, in case you were wondering, they don't view karaoke
as an extension of what they do as a band.
"It's not creative," says Brownstein.
"About the only thing they have in common is that with
both you have a microphone," says Tucker.
Will horseshoes be next?
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Willamette Week | originally
published April 26,
2000
|
