Pity Party | Sammy thrashLife

I’m so fucking sick of discussions about “punk’s problem with women” that make reference to the Warped Tour and its “ShiraGirl stage.’’ I don’t give a fuck about the Warped Tour and I don’t really see what the fuck it has to do with punk rock in the first place.

The last DIY show I went to was five days ago in Madison. Two of the bands playing were Lipstick Homicide and Rational Anthem, both fronted by women. The last band I bought a shirt from was The Turkletons, a band in which lead vocals are traded off between the guitarists – one male and one female. The last set of records I bought from a distro were three 7-inches – by Boys, Pity Party, and Skinny Genes. Only one of those doesn’t prominently feature women and that’s only because it’s a solo effort by one guy. But that one guy’s active band is Science Police, of which two of the members are women.

The gender of the performers wasn’t even a thought (until this morning when I read another of these articles and asked myself if there was any validity to its criticisms). I don’t support any of those bands because they have women in them; I support them because they’re great punk bands. When I interviewed Rational Anthem for Razorcake, I asked singer/guitarist Noelle Stolp about gender and punk rock. She said and I quote: “To me – I don’t really fucking care. I don’t feel any different. I just know that I can shred better than some dudes and it kills their self-esteem as well as their boners.” Beautifully fucking articulated.

Punk rock is whatever the fuck we want it to be. If you don’t like the shows being booked at 924 Gilman or Charm City Art Space, become a member and book your own shows (one of the only rules to do so is “no sexism”). If you don’t like the coverage in zines like Maximumrocknroll or Razorcake, write your own articles, conduct your own interviews, and they’ll print them! And if you feel like whatever group you identify with is underrepresented in punk, then start a band, put out records, and go out on tour.

Are there sexist attitudes in the punk scene? ABSOLUTELY! (Kind of like how there are sexist attitudes – oh, I don’t know – EVERYWHERE). Is that a bummer? Of course. But I think we do a way better job (in the punk scene) at being inclusive and open to people of all genders, races, ideologies, etc than 99% of the rest of this planet (and we’ll continue striving to be even better). Punk rock is important to me so I’m sorry if I’m getting defensive but I don’t appreciate all the shit you’ve been talking on this scene that I love and that so many of us (male and female) work so hard for.

See you in the basement (not at the Warped Tour).

The Google search that brings the most traffic to my Storenvy site is “rough sex images.” Something tells me these people might not be finding what they’re looking for…

I got an awesome package in the mail from Justin at Underground Conmunique today. And just in time to utilize my new li’l record listening station that I set up yesterday.

Adorable. (Right???)

Every song by The Heat Tape sounds like another song by The Heat Tape. It’s a good thing that they’re all really, really good.

VBS thanked me on their record insert (which warms the cockles of my little heart). Wanna hear a funny story? When I first agreed to do the Vacation Bible School split with The Brokedowns (which as we know, wound up on It’s Alive after Traffic Street crumbled) I requested that VBS record extra songs so that I could pick and choose since I thought their track record was a little spotty. Before that happened, I wound up releasing their split with The God Damn Doo Wop Band, which featured “The Swarming” (a song better than anything most bands ever record) and since then, they’ve yet to record a single song that I wouldn’t be proud to release. If anyone’s ever (inadvertently) “shown me,” it’s definitely those guys. I might only just now be getting a physical copy of their album (“Ruined the Scene”) but I’ve been listening to it since it came out (two plus years ago) more consistently than (maybe) any other record to come out in that time. If you haven’t heard it / don’t own it, do yourself a favor and correct that.

And so long as I’m rambling – speaking of awesome packages from Justin… he was the first person to send me a care package when I was in treatment at Tranquil Shores. We’ve only met (briefly) a couple of times, in the midst of whirlwind fests, so for him to go out of his way like that for me / show me that he cared… it really meant a lot to me.

It’s really easy to bum out about how awful this planet can be, but it’s not all that much harder to take a step back and really recognize just how outstanding it can be. People can be rotten sometimes, but – far more often – (in my daily life anyway) I see, again and again, evidence of just how wonderful a lot of us are.

Originally this update was just gonna be a couple sentences but since it’s gone this far…

"Eye." 1/17/13. Charcoal. 9x12". — “Eye.” 1/17/13. Charcoal. 9×12″.

I think this piece fits in well with what I’ve been writing about. My friend, Mary Beth, was about to leave treatment and go back to Atlanta so she was granted a day pass to go out with her nephew. When she came back, she had a bag of art supplies that she had bought for me. Stuff that I had never used before. This is one of my nine “learning-to-draw-with-charcoal” sketches that I did shortly thereafter.

And it’s funny that the only person that currently owns a print of this piece is my friend, Doug, who I met at Awesome Fest 4 when he invited me to stay in the room he had reserved at [whatever that hotel in San Diego that used to be cool is called]. Not only did he let me stay for free, but when I found out that Dead Mechanical had nowhere to sleep, I sheepishly asked if … could they maybe… possibly… also sleep in the room? “Of course!” he said without a second thought. AF4 was the most fun I’ve ever had at any fest and Doug was definitely one of the people that made it what it was.

So… here’s to people like Doug, Mary Beth, Justin, and those lovable tykes in Vacation Bible School. I wouldn’t wanna live in a world without ’em.