The Music Club

Rock ’n’ Roll Is a Big Tent

Yeah, it is actually. Selfish, I mean. One of the things I heartily dislike about indie rock as it’s evolved over the last decade is line-drawing. “This is for us, not for them.” It’s classic self-defeating behavior, and classic dysfunctional political behavior as well, where unsophisticated true believers lash out most harshly at the people who are closest to them, both politically and personally. They do that because they can’t quite see the big picture, and misidentify their own little corner as significant. In “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” that’s what Kurt Cobain is talking about when he sings, sarcastically, “Our little group / has always been / And always will / until the end.” I think I reached my point of exasperation with it a long time ago, when a local record-label guy in a Chicago club was railing to me how Liz Phair “ruined everything” when she signed with Matador records.

Let me decode that remark for readers not conversant with the ins and outs of the overheated indie-rock scene of the early 1990s. Matador at the time was the epitome of the iconoclastic, uncompromising independent label. For the guy I was talking to–a not-unrespected label operator in his own right–Matador’s irreproachable hipness and relatively tiny commercial imprint weren’t enough; he wanted Phair to record for essentially an underground label–in other words, to sacrifice her career on an altar of indie correctness. And the punch line to the joke, of course, was that we were talking in I guess it was early 1993, months before Phair’s first album was even put out! (The record, Exile in Guyville, would go on to be the most acclaimed release of the year.) I think resentful second-guessing like that can’t sustain itself. Rock ’n’ roll is a big tent. Anyone can play, and anyone can listen.

One of the hallmarks of the indie scene was bands and labels trying to figure out how to market their albums, even their shows, only to those who by their lights were deserving. I think you’re exhibiting the same sort of behavior. I mean, what did you mean saying that I was someone who couldn’t identify with black women? As opposed to you? Where did you grow up, Bed-Stuy? You think male rock critics are instruments of the sexist displacement of women’s rightful place in rock? You go fight that battle, Evelyn. That’ll change the world.

Critics have virtually no influence on record sales anyway, and you’re the one talking about keeping good music a secret. I can read your words on the page–the impulse of wanting to keep the late-night phone line to yourself–but the impulse doesn’t resonate with me. Every great record–or book or movie or piece of journalism or play–I’ve seen that thrilled me I’ve wanted to share. I would be wary of such exclusionary impulses. Forgive me for defining myself politically, but I consider myself a radical feminist, and over my career I’ve done I hope a lot to both publish women writers and write about female artists in the same way I do about male ones. You know, I don’t think I’m your biggest threat. Your impulse is a fanzine-y, rather than journalistic, one; you’re allying yourself on the side of the artist against the audience. I think it’s odd journalism, and bad in the long run for the artists involved.

In retrospect, I think the formulation of the debate–will there ever be a female Mick Jagger–was too provocative. As I said, I don’t like Mick Jagger, either, but I think your formulation of the Stones as followers is bad history. I guess in the literal sense I was defining a music in terms of its male practitioners. But I tried to explain myself, and I figured that a presumed goodwill would mark the discussion. (Oops.) I still think it’s weird that most peoples’ list of the most important rock artists wouldn’t include too many women in the top slots. That’s bad for women and bad for rock ’n’ roll. Your response is that it’s because men have defined the canon. I respectfully disagree, though it’s certainly true that woman artists were critically underappreciated to a certain degree, particularly in the 1960s. But I still want to see great artists, men and women, claw their way to the top, stay there, and make things different.

I don’t think The Hot Rock is the record that’s going to let Sleater-Kinney do that, however. We should remember that while Sleater-Kinney is a big name for us, their small label and limited exposure in the national press mean they’re an unknown to many. Their albums would be immensely rewarding to anyone with a taste for the exhilarating, unbridled rock ’n’ roll of peak period Stones, even the Beatles. To the sophisticated listener brought up on punk rock, the music exudes references to Television, the elegant, sinewy New York guitar band; the Ramones, the seminal New York punkers; the Gang of Four, the angular, uncompromising didacts from Britain; and many others. This thrilling cast of influences and the group’s chaotic vocal style combines for an urgent, sometimes apocalyptic emotional soundscape unlike anything else in rock right now. Corin Tucker’s keening voice is a drug, the songs syringes; on the band’s best tracks–most of them, as you note, on their last two albums, Dig Me Out and, especially, Call the Doctor–the fractured, tumbling lyrics (which are often sung on top of each other in rough contrapuntal fashion) create impressionistic emotional tableaux that range from the sublime to the uncontrollable.

Now, Evelyn, don’t you think Sleater-Kinney should be played on modern-rock radio, be in heavy rotation on MTV? Shouldn’t Corin Tucker be on the cover of Rolling Stone? “Modern-rock radio”; “MTV”; “Rolling Stone.” Yeah, I despise all of those institutions, too. Still, in the real world, right now, those are the mechanisms through which artists like S-K need to connect with their true fan base. We’re not talking here about the fanzine kids or the college-radio hipsters. There are people in every city, and scattered across exurbia and beyond, who don’t have a way to find out about a band like this. Should Tucker and Co. play it cool, stay on a tiny label, and have critics like you assist in keeping them a secret?

Bill