Words And Guitars

apologies for the rather trite title. it is, however, one of my favourite Sleater-Kinney songs and relates better to this post than any other phrase i could think up. i haven't had a cup of tea yet this evening. can't start without a cuppa . . . ah, much better.


Now, this post will be concerned entirely with a few all-girl groups and their inate ability to create, inside of their songs, various instrumental and vocal conversations to go along with the main idea of the song. Ripping in, pulling out, delving deep and making up bullshit for you to run over the next time you listen to the songs.

First up: the Shaggs.

The Shaggs were three sisters from New Hampshire whose father bought the girls instruments and drove them to a studio to record them at their peak in the late 60's. Of course, "Philosophy of the World" ended up being one of the most gloriously inept, naive and dreadful albums ever put to tape. The songs have no meter, no rhyme, are held together only by eldest sister Dot's tenuous grasp on completing a story or idea. One of the best lyrics I've ever had pass by my ear, though, surely has to be "all the fat people want what the skinny peoples got/and the skinny peoples want what the fat peoples got" sung completey out of tune with any worldly chord.

Inside of the songs though, inside all the terrible playing the girls were talking. Every awkward twang, every hacked at drum beat was part of a larger conversation the girls were having with each other, with themselves and with whoever might chance upon their recording. Shit, I'm finding it really hard to give sense of how they did this. They weren't conscious of any of these ideas of course--they could barely speak properly--they just run over their guitars, ran over their drums, touching every note, every piece of skin they knew how. Talking with them, listening to them; asking them questions, responding with the only answers they knew.

Moving through the years, this converstation between a tight-knit group of friends and their instruments became for so many listeners a perfect contact, like sparks and shards electricity shooting from guitars, spinning out and rolling from throats. Whereas a group of men in a band is trying to show off who's the biggest, who's the loudest, who's wearing their cock right, their instruments pushing and pushing to explode a group of girls are going to let their harmonies and guitars make every scream, coo and call allowed. And not allowed.

Take a boat to London, late 70's, outside the Rough Trade shop. Amassing records by punk lovelies the Slits and the Raincoats. Acting out their lives, reproducing their telephone stories and love moods for songs running through dub to pop to waylaid sprite-punk.

Ari Up of the Slits hollering, ranting, discombobulating around the microphone with her best friends telling story-songs about what they did that day, who they spoke to and what they said. Every sentence, every paragraph of song on "Cut" is filled with lovely tappings, scrapings, active musical conversation.

Likewise for the Raincoats. Though they might sing in shriller tones and barely hit their notes on anything they sing or play they speak gloriously through song, and FOR EACH OTHER more than for us.

(Favourite 7" in my stack - 'Our Lips Are Sealed' by the Go-Go's. Perfect pop song from former LA punkers; singing about who's talkin' about 'em: "Can you hear them?/they talk about us/Telling lies/Well, that's no surprise.)

Sleater-Kinney, named after a freeway off-ramp near Portland, carried on wonderfully the tradition of soft to screaming holler over specks of guitar and drum carrying open ideas rather than firing male stoppages all over you. But they get over all of you: over and under and through to every inch of you. Its the wailing that gets me most of the time. That heavy holler, pained and free and aching for ears.

I type ambiguous because I am tired. Basically I love all girl bands. They speak to each other that extra bit easier than any other kind of band. They don't have to show off, they don't care if no one is listening; they'll speak forever in their glistening tones for themselves, for their friends, but mostly for me.