Bookmarks: Le Tigre

A photoset from Mike Evans of Le Tigre playing CBGB's in 2000

Bookmarks: Kathleen Hanna

You might have enjoyed Everett True's interview with Kathleen Hanna in the Guardian last week; today he's posted the original transcript to Collapse Board:

When I was 13 me and my best friend Angela Cheever were out on a Friday night, hanging out at video arcades, playing Ms. Pac Man, flirting with boys from our school etc…While walking from this place called ‘Pins and Cues’ to ‘Jerry’s Sub Shop’ I noticed a man was following us. We were near the road but there were no cars and when I told Angie about the man we both started walking really fast and so did he, and then we ran and he started chasing us. Nothing was open but we saw a light on at a funeral home so we ran up the stairs and started pounding on the doors screaming. No one came, but the guy freaked out and backed off. I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened if we didn’t run and he would’ve caught up with us.

From puberty on, I felt like me and my friends were always running. From abusive Dads, men on the streets, or even running away from mean things people would say to us that got stuck in our heads. But running meant we thought we were worth saving. That’s why the record is called Run Fast.

Beth Ditto: Useful

Beth Ditto is charming. It might explain why she seldom gets asked any difficult questions and can say quite surprising things without interviewers going "what was that?"

So, chatting with Tim Jonze in yesterday's Guardian, she said this:

"I feel like I've made a difference for certain people and that's what matters. Growing up with riot grrrl, I feel like I owe it to the me of tomorrow – without sounding too ridiculous – to do this. The people who listened to Gossip when they were 14, they're 20 now and it's no longer cool, but when they're 30 they can look back and think, 'I listened to the Gossip and it was really helpful', and that will be how Bikini Kill or Nirvana were for me."

Jonze is interested more in how Ditto feels in the world of celebrity and so doesn't pick up on the curiously bloodless claim.

Sure, some people grow to be embarrassed by the music they listen to during their teenage years, and, yes, perhaps some look back later on and think "actually, that was quite an important thing that I did for the time". But is that really the way Bikini Kill resonate through people's lives? Riot Grrl was, for those there at the time, a life-changing thing; it wasn't just a phase.

It was a mission, and people on a mission might leave the path, but not because it ceased to be cool. It wasn't dressing up and trying out, it changed the way people fundamentally lived and thought and did. The Bikini Kill Archive is stuffed with evidence of that.

Ditto's description might fit the Gossip. And The Osmonds. And perhaps you might get Le Tigre in to do a remix when you're in need of the attention, then drop them when it's not going to help get the prime-time TV slots, looking back on it later as useful. But it's a total misjudgement of what riot grrl was.

(By the way, isn't it normal when a newspaper writes about a former columnist to normally acknowledge that they wrote a regular piece for that paper? Even if it was a slightly cringey one like What Would Beth Ditto Do?)

Who wants to fetch coffee for Kathleen Hanna?

Okay, okay, form an orderly queue, then.

Le Tigre are looking for someone to do stuff for them while they prepare a DVD.

Is having an intern entirely The Right Thing? I mean, I'd probably pay good money to hang out with Le Tigre and do their filing, but getting people to work for nothing on commercial projects doesn't really resonate with the equality and fairness doctrine you'd normally associate with the band.

Le Tigre meet Christina Aguilera

So keen were Le Tigre to write for Christina they came out of hiatus to do so.

Yes, that Le Tigre; yes, that Christina Aguilera.

Apparently, what would expect to be a gulf between the two sides politically can be quite easily bridged:

"[We] found a ton of common ground in our aim to make upbeat danceable tracks celebrating female friendship, strength, and of course, PARTYING," [Johanna] Fateman said. "For a feminist band obsessed with pop music, it was pretty much a dream come true."[

Hmm. Yes, there's clearly common ground - although much of Aguilera's after school movie emoting has sounded more talking point than heartfelt belief - but isn't the central message of Aguilera's career curve been about how you can sell a lot, lot more records if you take your pants off for a Maxim cover or two? Isn't there even a discussion to be had there rather than just going "woo - we all like to PARTY"?

I could very well be wrong - but what's disappointing is that Le Tigre don't even seem to want to tell me why I'm wrong.

Hot topics! Le Tigre spin-off ahoy

JD Samson and Johanna Fateman from Le Tigre are taking advantage of a very, very long break from the band to do something different. Something DJ-led. Something called Men:

"We were kind of burned out after the tour promoting 'This Island,'" Samson tells Billboard.com. "Everyone wanted to do their own thing -- Johanna opened a salon, Kathleen (Hanna) went back to school and I was on tour with Peaches for a year."

After Le Tigre decided to take a break, Samson began DJing in clubs around the world as an income supplement. In the spring of 2007, Le Tigre was invited to DJ at the opening of WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Hanna, who fronts the group, couldn't appear because of school obligations, but Samson and Fateman jumped at the opportunity.

"As time went on, we kept DJing together and talking about writing original material that lent itself more to the club atmosphere," Samson says. "One day I just texted Johanna and said, 'I'm ready, let's make a record.'"

For continuity purposes, and (we'd imagine) to help carry across some fans, they're mashing up some Le Tigre stuff.

See them on tour in the US, and at SXSW; sample them at their MySpace.

Lavigne & Christina "duped" by Amnesty, says group

One of the many US anti-abortion outfits, the slightly shady Rock For Life, is seeking to draw attention to itself by noisily condemning Amnesty International for including Avril Lavigne and Christina Aguilera on a fund-raising album for survivors in Darfur.

Why, you might wonder, would even a slightly barking group object to raising funds to help people who've survived terrible events? Well, in RFL's blinkered worldview, Amnesty International aren't a human rights organisation, they're a "pro-abortion organisation":

Erik Whittington, director of Rock for Life, said: “The human suffering going on right now in Darfur is horrific. To add insult to injury, however, using this tragic abuse of human rights to raise money for a pro-abortion organisation is hypocritical and beyond belief.

“The manipulation of musicians to fund this hypocrisy is maddening.” He added: “We are writing to all the artists to ask for their views.”

What's that? Oh, yes. Rock For Life haven't actually been asked by Aguilera or Lavigne to intervene on their behalf; and haven't, in fact, even bothered to ask them yet before issuing this press release.

Indeed, despite having a very long list of bands who they name as supporters (none of whom, except perhaps POD and Bryan 'the mass parades and the flags' Ferry, you're likely to have heard of), neither Lavigne nor Aguilera are listed.

Now, even if your views on abortion aren't liberal, you might spot there's a slight tang of hypocrisy here: A group condemning an organsiation for "duping" artists into supporting a cause that those singers have happily signed on for, using those same names for their campaign without seeking their permission.

Neither Aguilera nor Lavigne have said anything, but Lavigne's management has managed to make a statement which demonstrates the sort of half-synapse powered thinking that Lavigne specialises in:

An aide to Lavigne said: “I don’t think she would want to comment on this. But what has abortion to do with Amnesty? It’s for a lot of different things such as prisoners of conscience and human rights.”

Yes, why would there be any link between human rights and the right to make your own reproductive choices?

We also love this entry from RFL's "pro-abortion" (they mean pro-choice) bands:

Le Tigre: often seen giving Gloria Steinem the mic

Queerzine

Always nice to come across a magazine for non-straights that isn't stuffed with cock, and solanasonline is certainly one of those. We mention it here because it's got a LeTigre feature in it.