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Making a Scene
Olympia, Wash., bands balance ideals, music with powerful results
By Bill Friskics-Warren
MARCH 8, 1999:
For a band that once roared "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone,"
Sleater-Kinney sure have a funny way of showing it. After their second
album, Call the Doctor, struck a chord with critics in 1996, this
Olympia, Wash., trio became deluged with major-label prospects. Rather than
going that route, though, Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein, and Janet Weiss
decided to sign with the small but influential Olympia imprint Kill Rock
Stars. Two years ago, they released Dig Me Out to even more acclaim,
and last week saw the release of their latest album, The Hot Rock.
During this time, the band has emerged as one of the decade's staunchest
proponents of punk's do-it-yourself ethic. Seizing the anger and ideology
of such first-generation all-female punk bands as Liliput, the Raincoats,
and the Slits, Sleater-Kinney have wed sonic rebellion and liberationist
politics to dismantle the rock-star myth. In doing so, they've helped to
nurture and sustain an active musical community in their hometown. Indeed,
the fairly small city of Olympia (pop. 36,740) serves as a model of just
how fertile a supportive, independent music scene can be: Not only did it
give birth to the riot grrl movement of the early '90s, it continues to be
a place where women play a huge role in making things happen.
No wonder, then, that Sleater-Kinney were so reluctant to enter the
male-dominated world of corporate rock. "We talked to people, and we asked
them about how they saw us fitting into their roster and their label,"
Brownstein says. "Most of them did not have a very organic view of a band's
growth. They don't want you to take small steps. And they don't really have
long-term goals for you. That to us was very frightening and seemed like it
would be very disruptive to our lives.
"A lot of Sleater-Kinney has to do with the musical communities we've
come from, and feeling part of that," Brownstein adds, referring to
Olympia's dynamic music scene. "We didn't want to feel uprooted from those
communities or to be taken out of that context.... You can work with people
you care about, and people that care about you and your music, and still
put out records that a lot of people are able to buy."
The title track of the group's new album--an allusion to a 1972 movie
starring Robert Redford--bristles at the way music conglomerates package
the bands they sign. "An uncut stone is flawed and beautiful/Don't try to
size me down to fit your tiny hands," warns Brownstein, perhaps addressing
an A&R rep. These lines could of course also have more personal or broader
social connotations. But "The End of You," a song that invokes Odysseus'
close encounter with the Sirens, expresses Sleater-Kinney's wariness of the
rock-star trap with resounding clarity. "The first beast that will appear
will entice us with money and fame," Tucker sings. "If you listen long
enough, you'll forget there's anything else/Tie me to the mast of this ship
and of this band/Tie me to the greater things, the people I love."
Sleater-Kinney have reached an estimable audience while embracing this
ethic of resistance. Together, Call the Doctor and Dig Me Out
have moved 100,000 or so copies--no mean feat for a pair of indie releases.
The trio have also set a staggeringly high artistic standard for
themselves, one they uphold on The Hot Rock. Produced by Nashvillian
Roger Moutenout, perhaps best known for his work with Yo La Tengo, the
record is more refined than its predecessors. The band works with a broader
sonic palette and more spacious arrangements here, stressing the melodic
aspects of their vocals and guitars more than on previous albums. (In this
regard, Sleater-Kinney recall another influential punk group, the British
band Wire, which effected a similar transition on its first two
albums.)
The Hot Rock may not offer the visceral thrill of Call the
Doctor, nor the cathartic release of Dig Me Out, but neither
does its newfound subtlety come at the expense of Tucker's piercing, Poly
Styrene-like wail, Brownstein's stiletto guitar, or Weiss' rhythmic
command. Rather, consolidating the band's punk-bred strengths, the record
should appeal to modern rock audiences as well as to Sleater-Kinney's
longtime fans, many of them young women who came of age during the riot
grrl upsurge of the early '90s.
The band's link to its core audience, Brownstein insists, is integral to
its identity. "So much of Sleater-Kinney is about the intense reaction and
feedback that we've gotten from the people who come to our shows," she
says. "I would never want to suddenly propel ourselves away from those
people."
This spirit of kinship and accountability strikes at the heart of
Olympia's music scene, where ethical ideals often supersede aesthetic
considerations. "There's a sense of community here based on principles that
have more to do with economics than music," observes Sarah Dougher, a solo
artist and a member, with Sleater-Kinney's Tucker, of the neo-girl group
Cadallaca. "Younger people are encouraged by older people to take on
responsibility and to participate in a way that really transcends a profit
motive."
Brownstein agrees. "A lot of people in Olympia have taken the time, in a
sort of apprenticeship ideology, to pass on their skills to other people,
allowing them to do things for themselves."
Ever since the punk explosion of the '70s, this sensibility has been a
crucial part of the American musical underground, in cities as far-flung as
Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. By the mid-'80s, it flowered in
Olympia, thanks in large part to the anti-macho, antiestablishment rhetoric
of Calvin Johnson's K label. And by 1991, Olympia's supportive, tightly
knit scene had given rise to riot grrl, establishing the town as the center
of the punk feminist movement.
"Grrl" bands soon started popping up all over, and not just in Olympia
and the Pacific Northwest. Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Huggy Bear, and others,
inspired by the in-your-face sexual politics of such groups as Mecca
Normal, Babes in Toyland, and Frightwig, reclaimed punk's insurrectionist
spirit and spoke out against rape and other forms of violence against
women. Taking aim at incest, Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna would tear off
her top in concert and scream, "Suck my left one!" In "My Red Self," Corin
Tucker's former band, Heavens to Betsy, confronted the socialized shame
associated with menstruation. True to this spirit of liberation, riot grrls
soon began urging their peers to examine issues of race, class, and
sexuality as well. In particular, the movement became an open and affirming
scene for lesbians and gay men.
Along these same lines, riot grrls created locally based alternatives to
the cockrockracy of major labels and the male-dominated, post-Nirvana rock
underground. Foremost within this infrastructure were fanzines, such as
Jigsaw, Girl Germs, and Bikini Kill, as well as record
labels, most notably Kill Rock Stars, Boston's Villa Villakula, Olympia's
Chainsaw, and Portland's Candy-Ass.
Alternative means of expression such as these are what drew Dougher, a
Portland native who was getting her doctorate at the University of Texas,
back to the Pacific Northwest. "There weren't many women in the Austin area
who were taking an active role in creating the infrastructures of music or
creative communities that I felt like I could be a part of," she recalls.
"There are some great women musicians there, but there aren't labels run by
women, and there wasn't, at that point, any riot grrl stuff going on
there."
Dougher cites Cadallaca's emergence as evidence of the possibilities
inherent in Olympia's close-knit musical community. "I bought this Farfisa
organ and set it up in Shanna's basement," Dougher explains, referring to
Shanna Doolittle, her bandmate in the swell, but now defunct, band the
Lookers. "Corin and I just went over to Shanna's one day. I think maybe we
were drinking, but we went downstairs and just started writing some songs.
And when we had 10 songs, we were like, 'Hey, let's make a record!' "
From there, Dougher called Calvin Johnson to ask if he would mix their
album. Johnson, in turn, offered to release the project, Introducing
Cadallaca, on his K label. "We had no idea what we were going to do,"
Dougher says. "So we were like, 'OK, sure, we'll put it out on K.' It just
happened like that. We're pals, and Calvin had enough knowledge and respect
for our other projects that it was easy for him to say 'yes' without ever
having heard us."
The speed and openness with which this scenario unfolded couldn't be
more foreign to the way that mega-majors like Universal and EMI operate.
And yet it's this spirit of reciprocity, nurtured by a deep and abiding
sense of community, that makes the Olympia scene and a handful of others
like it so unique. Where else, except perhaps in Olympia, would a punk band
like Cadallaca have license to release a record that exults in the sound of
'60s girl groups even as it reminds us of how those groups were exploited
by their male producers and record execs?
"Having a respect for what every person has to offer is a fundamental
ethic for me," Dougher says. "I'm really amazed and flattered that people
want to come see me play. But I also want to know, if I have energy for it,
what kids are doing in their communities. Are they in bands? Are they
making films? Are they creating structures so that they don't come say to
me, 'Oh God, I wanna move to Portland'? And when they do, I say, 'Tell me
more about Medford. What's going on there? How can you make Medford your
place and make it good for you?' "
Helping people claim their own strength, Dougher believes, is what most
Olympia bands are trying to do. "A lot of people are saying, 'OK, I've done
those things, but you can do them too. I've been in a famous band, but that
aside, have you registered to vote?' It makes people realize their power,
and that's important."
It's also what Sleater-Kinney's "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" is
ultimately about--tapping into one's own power and saying, "I can do this,"
and then going out and doing it. Sleater-Kinney have certainly achieved as
much. They might have attained minor stardom, but the true measure of their
success lies in the band's adherence to the very ideal espoused by their
record label: They've proven that you can sell lots of records without
buying into the rock star myth.

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