Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
Such a great song of grrrl lust. I’d featured it – and the cover by Jack Off Jill – a while back. & So sad that she’s gone so young. She died of the double-barreled assault of MS & breast cancer.
Here she is with “Boys in Town” – a song that is so 1981 it almost hurts.
This is my favorite thing of the year so far.
& I’m sure many of you recall the very first Burmese punk, right? (She was born in Rangoon/Yangon.)
Or, as one Nadia from Brooklyn put it, “Do I really have to sign a petition telling women not to participate in an event that discriminates against women?”
C’mon, MWMF. Get on the right side of history already. You’re better than this.
& thanks to the Indigo Girls and Andrea Gibson from dropping out this year.
This musician, Ryan Lee, just sent me an email out of the blue: he’s a queer musician who’s doing some gigs in the area in the next week so I thought I’d give him a plug. I’m not so much of a singer/songwriter type, but I know a bunch of you out there are, so check him out. I found his story about upending and remaking his life pretty cool. He’s got upcoming gigs here in Appleton, in Green Bay, Madison, Waukesha, Minneapolis, and lots of spots in-between.
The Jam meets Mark Ronson meets Santigold. Cool. I heard this the other day in a bar and was fascinated: I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard a cover of “Pretty Green” before but I definitely had never heard one that reminded me of The Slits.
That’s Santigold on vocals.
Here’s a live version of the original Jam song, & here’s the original recording. If your life sucks, listen to more Jam. I swear it works.
Cool. More here, including photos of the signs. I think my favorite is the one outside Carnegie Hall.
I love this.
So they’ve chosen a pope. We don’t know who he is yet, though, so in the meantime, let’s have a singalong, shall we?
I saw these guys about a month ago here at Lawrence and they were amazing.
Only now did I discover this hour-long video of a performance of theirs from before 2004, and you can imagine – if they were this good then – how much better they’ve gotten in the nine years since.
(Props to my friend Veronica for making sure I knew about it and had tickets.)