Around Hear
As she checked into the Madison Renaissance Hotel in downtown Seattle, Beth Scalet saw “women with every conceivable color of hair” and felt a twinge of anxiety. It was the opening night of the Rockrgrl Music Conference, and she was scheduled to perform a showcase at the Liquid Lounge in the lush new Experience Music Project rock museum. Scalet was starting to wonder how her subtle songs would be received in the home of the riot grrrl retrospective. “I’m a little bit past the rocker-girl age,” she says with a chuckle. “I expected that some of the punk types might look down on the older, quieter types, but that didn’t happen at all. Everyone was very open and very interested in what other people were doing.”
Scalet played to a room that was three-quarters full, which she describes as “a decent crowd for a Thursday night and for somebody no one had ever heard of.” The same night, in a different section of the same appealingly garish building, a charismatic rockabilly trio led by Josie Kreuzer opened for that genre’s leading female pioneer, Wanda Jackson. Former Heart vocalist Ann Wilson performed an intimate set hours after receiving — along with guitarist, sister, and bandmate Nancy Wilson — the Women of Valor Award. And the raucous Titanic-theme-covering Switchblade Kittens and the Hissyfits, which deal in infectious, intelligent punky pop, headlined a high-energy bill. All of these showcases and more (18 venues hosted shows) came courtesy of Rockrgrl, a ‘zine that focuses on women and their music without the auxiliary fluff that bogs down most mainstream “chicks who rock” profiles. (“No beauty tips or guilt trips” is the publication’s slogan.)
Carla DeSantis, Rockrgrl‘s publisher, addressed the crowd Friday morning with the inspiring rallying cry “Together, we rock!” She then introduced Ronnie Spector, noting that her band, The Ronettes, brought to mind “an age of innocence we no longer have.” However, Spector’s keynote speech revealed that dark circumstances lurked behind the creation of such sweet songs as “Be My Baby.” As related in her best-selling book, Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Mini Skirts, and Madness, Spector was essentially held captive in a spacious mansion by her manager/ record-label-owner/husband, Phil Spector. After she divorced him, he subjected her to various indignities: withholding royalties from her songs, prohibiting her from performing her songs in public, and petitioning to keep The Ronettes out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In an emotional climax, Ronnie revealed to her supportive audience that the longest court battle in rock history ended with her being awarded $2.6 million, thus bringing “the biggest crooks in rock to justice.”
The rest of the day was packed with panels, all of which were much more thought-provoking and audience-interactive than the typical big-conference discussion. The topics ranged from feel-good stories about networking and sisterhood to lesbian musicians’ descriptions of being sexually harassed by crowds and pressured to play free sets at queer-pride events. Switchblade Kittens singer Drama gave a harrowing account of being raped and left for dead by a deranged fan, one of many disturbing experiences to surface during a forum on stalking. Drama urged those being pursued to “stalk their stalkers” by finding out their personal information and creating a trail of documentation to lead authorities to the stalker in the event of an incident. She also recommended that artists who are concerned about privacy fill out the necessary paperwork to have a post-office box serve as a valid driver’s license address, remove their names from Internet search engines, and be as vague as possible in sharing personal details with the press.
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In addition to attending “Ageism: This Topic Is Getting Old,” which featured input from such experienced artists as Amy Rigby and Gretchen Christopher of the Fleetwoods as well as major-label teen star-to-be Shannon Curfman, Scalet contributed a demo copy of her soon-to-be-released third CD, Taking the Cure, to the Demo Derby, during which professional distributors picked discs and tapes at random and critiqued them on the strength of a portion of one song. Scalet was among the fortunate few whose offerings were perused. “I got a lot of valuable feedback, both from what they said about my album and from the feedback on other artists,” Scalet reports. “They said that with demos, it’s not so much quality that’s important as clarity of purpose — not noodling around with a long introduction, getting right to the point. It was very valuable for someone wanting to shop their songs as a songwriter, which is definitely part of what I want to do.”
Saturday’s proceedings began with Indigo Girl Amy Ray‘s pragmatic speech, in which she advised up-and-coming musicians to seek politically active publications, low-watt radio stations, and independent distribution. Even established artists can’t count on mainstream support, she emphasized, pointing out the Girls’ lack of radio support and hammering home the startling fact that this influential folk/rock duo has never been featured in either Spin or Rolling Stone. She then lambasted the latter publication’s treatment of female artists, with a spirited acoustic selection from her forthcoming solo record.
Ray appeared in the audience later that afternoon during a panel concerning politically minded music, during which artists and authors (Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, who penned Manifesta, a provocative and insightful look at modern feminism) agreed that musicians are under no obligation to produce political content, although Richards noted that they “aren’t exempt from the responsibility of being a citizen.” The conference’s most heated debate focused on the always-controversial Eminem, who was condemned to various degrees during “When Did Women Become the Enemy?” Eminem’s harshest critic likened him to Adolf Hitler, reasoning that while Slim Shady doesn’t actually kill or maim women and homosexuals, “Hitler never actually stabbed a Jew.” Fellow bad boy Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit also bore the brunt of the panel’s criticism, eventually earning an oddly appropriate comparison to Pat Robertson.
Weighing in with the most amusing anecdotes on Durst was Courtney Love, who remarked in a sprawling and often hilarious Q&A session that she’s been on several dates with the man behind “Nookie.” “The hat never comes off,” she revealed, also noting that Durst has asked her how to alter his women-hating image. Love offered deliciously snappy answers to stupid inquiries (skewering a misguided soul who asked for her daughter’s phone number and a brave one who referred to “allegations” that Billy Corgan was the uncredited source of melodies on Hole’s latest album) and knowingly advised upstart artists to compare themselves with the current big thing, regardless of whether it was true (“… meets Slipknot” was her preferred catch-all). She emphasized the power of charisma and image, and she made a passionate plea for instituting a strong music curriculum in public schools, lamenting that the only tapes of merit she receives from bassists applying for Hole’s vacant position come from Canadians who grew up taking music classes. (Love soon was swarmed with demo tapes from opportunistic bassists in the overflowing audience.)
From Spector to Ray to Love, to say nothing of the all-encompassing variety of hundreds of acts that performed over three nights, Rockrgrl was, in the words of DeSantis, “hella diverse.” This ambitious inaugural undertaking was remarkably smooth, with all events and panels running on time; although it mirrored the efficiency of larger industry get-togethers, it offered a refreshing grassroots vibe. “We’re like the Green Party,” Love aptly claimed. “It felt like sitting on a volcano,” says Scalet, echoing the sentiments of a friend who accompanied her on the trip. “I had a gas.”
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Scalet handed out several unofficial copies of Taking the Cure in Seattle, but her CD release party is scheduled for Sunday, December 3, as part of Brown Bear Brewery’s acoustic showcase in Lawrence. Composed of original songs, some of which date back 10 years (the album’s release was delayed by the closing of the analog studio at which such tunes were originally recorded), Taking the Cure includes “Desert Heart,” which won Scalet honorable mention from the Billboard song festival. The area’s proud Rockrgrl delegate also performs Saturday, November 25, at Borders in Lawrence. There, Scalet and songwriting partner Katherine Lorenzen play under the name Ruined By Fame.
