Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Cream / Cream Calendar Playlist: The Girls' Guide to Rocking Author Jessica Hopper
Posted by Steve Haruch on Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 8:48 AM
Jessica Hopper played in Challenger, along with Al Burien of the Burn Collector zine. She's since written a book called The Girls' Guide to Rocking, which is, well, what its title implies. I asked Hopper about the Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp and similar programs, and she had this to say:
I meet plenty of 9-, 10-, 11-year-old girls who are isolated in their love of music, in their family or at their school only sports are cool--[at music camps], for a week they can meet other girls like them, get some basic music instruction, learn about Nina and Chrissy and Dusty AND best of all have a band and play a show--which is a pretty big deal given that most girls, if they have their own instrument do not have a practice space, where they can turn up and rock out, and most kids don't have a PA at home. Going to visit camps, going to the showcases, meeting the young girls who come to my readings/events who are so excited about music--it is the best feeling, it revivifies my feelings about music. Whether they are in 4th grade and learning Coldplay songs on guitar or 15 years old and obsessed with The Pixies and Grizzly Bear, these girls really need all the resources and support they can get their hands on, because most of the world is just starting to accept that they aren't a novelty, that they can rock as well as any dude.
I also asked her to put together a playlist of a few favorite songs--loosely grouped together under the banner of forgotten/unknown female artists--and she was nice enough to do so. List and MP3s after the jump.
Hopper will be at Grimey's tonight at 6 p.m. with Katie Stelmanis Ghost Bees. The show's free and all-ages. You should go!
One day on the Internet, I was reading a blog that mentioned something about Family Fodder, and called them the sister band to This Heat, and I was like, "WHAT?!" I had never heard of them--total hiccup in my post-punk knowledge--and I tracked down this song. I was stunned that I had somehow missed a band this good. Supposedly this only sold 100 copies when it came out originally. People in 1982 were clearly stupid if that really was the case.
Her voice gives me chills. A friend of a friend's ex-roommate's boyfriend, she passed a few of her records my way last year and they blew my mind. She's fairly prolific, like an album a year, does cool stuff like have a two-day long shows where she plays in a tent for 10 20-minute sessions, and you book an appointment and come and sit in the tent and see her play. This is off her new album, which is just impeccable beginning to end.
All the Glasser tracks I have heard are kind of a very West Coast witchy solo-electro, which is great late-night hot summer listening. The woman who does Glasser told me that people never believe that it's just one woman solo, which is a shame. It's all her. This song makes me feel like how I wanted to when I was 19 and itching to be an adult with a cosmopolitan life. "Tanlines" works in a great steel drum/Coke bottle rhythm track. Two great forces united.
I have had some people tell me that they do not listen to girl groups because it's women singing songs men wrote for them, and no one ever got paid and a lot of early rock and r&b was young black women being exploited by boyfriend-managers and Berry Gordy and greedy producers. I can understand that, but at the same time I think it would be a bigger shame to not share and appreciate these women's talents. The Girl Group Sounds: Lost and Found box set that Rhino put out a few years ago is usually the top-played thing in my iTunes. I love this Cathy Saint song; it's basically about the frustration of dating a cad--a near-universal dilemma.
Shaw, who was largely unknown in the States, had a long a tumultuous career, during which she did everything from be a kind of soulful Petula Clark-type sanitized pop singer to some records in the early '90s on Rough Trade, doing Smiths covers. During a time where women were largely mouthpieces for songs men wrote, and interpreters of other people's work, rather than singing songs about their own lives, Sandie Shaw was knocking it out of the park every time. I feel like this version of the Led Zeppelin classic kind of has added meaning for that reason.
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Comments (3)
Showing 1-3 of 3
Thanks for this post/list, which contains intriguing mentions I'm not familiar with and will now check out.
One never-talked-about-enough lady artist (although not really obscure or anything) I wanna throw out there is Mary Timmony from Helium, who just always ruled for spellbinding, ethereal tunes back in the day.
Also, sweet vocab, Hopper. Any person who uses the word 'revivify' in casual convo is tops in my book.
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She also used the term "pussy-jail" once.
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=03/07/28/5858685
that column is classic. best line:
"No wonder I feel much more internal allegiance to MOP songs, as their tales of hood drama and jewelry theft FEELS far less offensive than yet another song from yet another all dude band giving us the 411 on his personal romantic holocaust."
Also, Hopper helps with music for This American Life sometimes, which is totes super cool...
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