Punk Grrrls and Pittsburgh

BIKINI KILLPussy Whipped (Kill Rock Stars CD/LP) Ever heard of "Riot Grrrl"? Probably. And if you have, you've probably also heard of Bikini Kill, the band whose members ran the fanzine whose title, "Riot Grrrl," was almost certainly the first use of the phrase. Along with other similarly-minded bands and zines, Bikini Kill let thousands of teenaged-or-slightly-older grrrls know that punk rock styles and punk rock music could be, not just about them, but by them and for them. "Riot Grrrl" got lots of misguided (and sometimes hostile) publicity as a mass movement, but if the term means anything specific (besides Bikini Kill's fanzine) it's the relatively small community of women who've entered underground music and grassroot politics as a result of Bikini Kill and company's examples.

What you probably haven't heard is Bikini Kill's music. Mostly, it's first-rate, gut-level punk rock, linked in the slow songs to the immortal Stooges, and in the fast ones to the staticy, brittle, emotive rocking of other bands you've never heard, like Some Velvet Sidewalk. (Check them out, too, by the way.) There's a bit more syncopation, and a bit more distortion, than in this band's former outings, but the new songs aren't that different from the inspiring, loud old ones.

Kathleen Hanna's singing is as usual the most distinctive part of the record. Shrill, childlike, anguished, angry, bracing and sometimes bracingly variable, Hanna's isn't the "voice of a generation"--it's the voice of an individual woman/girl/grrrl, singing, mostly, this time, about the women/girls/grrrls around her: the traitors, the cool ones, the ones she hates and the ones she loves. The punk rock, while always simple and loud, varies enough with the lyrical mood to make songs of love ("For Tammy Rae") and of resentment ("Alien She," which taunts "She wants me to be like her, she wants me to be like her") equally convincing.

The little-girl sound in Hanna's singing (and in her frequent screaming) has, I think, a political function: like the term "grrrl" (and the little-girl photo on the cover), it seems to me to be reclaiming girlhood as a time of empowerment, before the heterosex drive kicks in and spoils everything. (If I'm right, it's a strategy psychologists have validated: Carol Gilligan and others have shown that girls in America have much more self-esteem before puberty than after.)

The back cover of Pussy Whipped shows Polaroids of the four band members: Billy's, Kathi's and Tobi's faces look normal, but Kathleen's is crossed out with thick black pen, as if the band wanted people to focus more on its music and less on its charismatic star. The music's fine (and the stardom must get annoying), but it's Kathleen Hanna's singing that sets this record apart. "Don't need you" was a catchy chorus from the last Bikini Kill disc, Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah. But by now, if you like punk rock at all, you ought to know that you need to hear her.

WIMP FACTOR 14 Ankle Deep (Harriet CD) They're from Pittsburgh. Their main instruments are an electric guitar, a ukelele, and sometimes found objects instead of drums. One of the songs seems to be about a guy who can't seem to win at Stratego. Others are called "Tale of the Loophole Guy," "How to Avoid Losing Small Objects," and "(It's OK to Work For) Rockwell International." The next They Might Be Giants? No way: Wimp Factor 14 is immeasurably better, less fake, more felt, and smarter than any of its obvious comparisons. The tunes are real tunes--you hum them--the rhythms roll along sharply, and rather than being (in They Might Be Giants fashion) cleverly amused at their own amusing cleverness, the Wimps put their wit to work in songs with real emotional resonance, songs like "Steam Rolling, But It Wasn't Steam Rolling" (which is really about the hopes we have for pop music, and how we lose them as we grow up). Failed term papers, dead-end jobs and general achy clumsiness are among the other topics on Ankle Deep, which mostly steers clear of boy-girl stuff in favor of far less charted lyrical waters. All the banging on sets of bells and strumming of ukeleles somehow add up to ingratiating, appealing music, neither clunky nor gimmicky, and neither "punk" nor slick. My favorite Wimp Factor song is "Role Model Glue," about a guy like me who can't bear to believe less than the best about his personal heroes: "Use too much role model glue/ To build up someone to look up to/ Not such a great idea." Here's a better idea: see Wimp Factor 14 at the Middle East this Sat. Nov. 6 (where they're opening for the Spinanes and Tiger Trap, two other really good bands). Then go to a record store and ask--ASK--for Ankle Deep, which will probably be either in a glass display case or in a bin with the 7" singles, since it comes in a tall manila envelope rather than a conventional square CD case--saving Harriet Records, and thus you, a few bucks on packaging. Who says underground rockers can't be practical?