We're Down With High Culture, Are You?

I was surprised and touched by the number of men scattered amongst the still predominately female crowd at Ground Zero, silenced and awed as they stared up at the stage where the lovely speaker gestured at the screen as cheery, colorful slides sped by. Dressed chic in all black, with black lustrous fur and incomparable thick, black rubber skin. She was a Guerilla Girl, appearing at USC in her full badass regalia of head to toe black and the iconic rubber gorilla mask. As she turned her head to address the audience, we could see flashes of glittering red from behind the cut out eyeholes; either wicked glasses frames, or the flames of her ardor for activism burning in her eyes. Whichever, just seeing one of the founding Guerilla Girls on the stage was one of the coolest things I’ve gotten to do at USC, or, y’know, ever.

The Guerrilla Girls are a band of female activists who work through art and anonymity to protest the under representation of women and/or minorities in the art world, Hollywood and politics. Through posters, billboards and biting wit they’ve been working since 1985 to redress wrongs and be “the conscience of the art world.” The anonymity is key; all members assume the name of dead female artists, and never appear without their masks. When asked how they settled on this particular persona, she answered: “We decided to be anonymous from the beginning… you couldn’t hate what we were doing because you hated us. Then we realized we needed an identity. One of our early members was a terrible speller, and during one of our meetings she was doodling GO-rilla girls the animal as opposed to GUE-rilla girls the freedom fighters… it confounds expectations and pushes people’s buttons.”

She entered the room after the lights were turned off and the bar closed the curtain to business, and broke the ice by handing out bananas on the way to the stage. The presentation then started with a PowerPoint talk covering the history of the Guerilla Girls activism, a sort of lite intro into what they were all about. It covered them from the beginning, when they were a small band of outsiders and renegades in New York, going out late at night to plaster the city with posters and stickers to the present, with their posters hanging in the TATE permanent collection, and shows at contemporary galleries around the world from Shanghai back to New York again.

Not that the recent somewhat ironic embrace from the art world has dulled their acerbic commentary any. At the recent opening of the Eli Broad gallery at LACMA, the Guerilla Girls protested the under-representation of women artists and artists of color at a tax supported museum, whose mission is purportedly to “educate a culturally diverse population.” When the curator of the Broad collection claimed that Cindy Sherman has forty-nine pieces on display, the Guerrilla Girls responded with another letter, pointing out that there were only four female artists out of thirty, and one black artist out of thirty. These numbers don’t coordinate with the number of women artists, and of artists in minority groups just in the Los Angeles area. It runs into the problem of museums, as elucidated in the Guerilla Girls activity book, as “places where rich people put their stuff.”

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/dearestelibroad.shtml

Not that they are limited to the art world; they have pointed out similar failings in the Hollywood system, and especially recently in the problems of government. My favorite is the “estrogen bomb” a poster and billboard campaign to bomb the various houses of government with estrogen pills to chill them out. They approach everything with a sense of humor; “communication is really important to us… if you don’t have a sense of humor we cannot speak to you.”

It was in that swinging sense of humor that she ended the presentation by getting a guy into skirt. There’s a cool story behind it, of course: the New York Times published an article and accompanying photo entitled “Arnold Glimcher and his Art World All Stars;” all of which were white men. The Guerrilla Girls did a responding poster entitle Hormone Imbalance Melanin Deficiency, catching the attention of Village Voice art critic Betsy Hass. Hass called Glimcher to ask him about his collection, and the skit was a re-enactment of the transcript of that telephone conversation. The guy from the audience was called up to play Hass; the Guerrilla Girl took on the role of Glimcher. It was both funny and disturbing, especially Glimcher’s lines—“we only represent artists who fit into our program,” and the suggestion that they continue the conversation “maybe over lunch.”

For the Guerilla Girls, it’s not a matter of men versus women, but of enlightened human rights and equality for all, and for not settling for tokenism. Their verve and jocularity were refreshing and inspiring, especially in the recent political and social climate, which considers the battle for equal rights basically won, and demonizes feminism. And their attraction isn’t an isolated phenomenon. They apparently receive tons of mail, especially in response to one of their earlier posters “Advantages of Being a Woman Artist” from female artists, most of which tend to be musicians, saying that this is the story of their lives.

By the end of the talk, the general excitement was such that the news that the Guerilla Girls weren’t looking for any new members, that in fact they preferred to stay small, and so didn’t solicit members in any way cast a tangible pall of disappointment over much of the room. She advised us to “find your own crazy way to be an activist… Speak out against what you think is wrong. The art world is a very f*cked up place.” She ended with this call for more activism, with undertones of addressing the type who make up the USC community especially--young people with all the advantages of education. The most important thing is to be active; after all “you wouldn’t be paying attention to a woman wandering around in a gorilla mask if it wasn’t attached to a body of work.”

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CMJ Night One: Jens and His Technicolor Top Half

As learned by last night, the key to CMJ is to commit to one venue for the evening. I trekked to the Music Hall of Williamsburg, an amazing 3-floor venue for the Brooklyn Vegan showcase. Somehow, I stood throughout 5 acts, albeit my legs were shaking, my feet were aching, and I was totally dehydrated. The Sammies were unfortunately an unpleasant start to the night. The dorky four piece from Charlotte were the typical pop-punk outfit with lead, rhythm, bass, and drums. Charming as they were, the music was utterly forgettable--predictable and repetitive--but well-rehearsed. Their best songs were near the end with some obvious southern rock 'n roll influence, but overall, I liked the karaoke band at Arlene's better (see: Jeff's blog). Shearwater was a super awesome, older fivesome playing dreamy, somber, country-inspired rock. The highlight was Thor, their drummer/clarinet player who had a sleeveless blouse, bangs, and one pigtail braid. On stage sat two keyboards, a tambourine, banjo, trumpet, three bass guitars (two electric, one standup [with and without the bow]), acoustic and electric guitar, and the aforementioned clarinet and drums. They were a pleasant surprise. Ponytail totally took me back to L.A. 'cos they remind me of so many Smell bands. Four kids playing the funnest noise pop/tropical-y punk is fronted by this little androgenous yelling kid who had some sort of ADD. The energy on stage just permeated through the crowd, and the night really began to take off. I loved seeing two Telecasters battling. Ponytail plays well-coordinated, well-practiced pop. Restless for Jens Lekman, I thought I would not survive Passion Pit, but I actually was pretty absorbed in their set. Five of the cutest boys from Cambridge, MA played (suprisingly not annoying) keyboard/synth dominated electronic pop. The lead singer looked like a skinnier, hip Booger from Revenge of the Nerds and had a voice like a (less annoying) version of the Mars Volta dude. Three keyboards alternating with bass and guitar made for dreamy but energetic, fun dance music. I have to admit, when the moment finally came, and Jens Lekman appeared like a god descending from the sky, in a pink parrot sweater, I was disappointed. I suppose I expected more singing from the "singing DJ" gig, but the set was still tons of fun. The people around me had been standing up for more than four hours at this point, but managed to dance their feet until they were numbed. Jens was set-up on the far back corner of the stage. His pale complexion was reflecting 100% of the spotlights, so that he glowed orange, pink, and green while mouthing Mariah Carey's Fantasy and doing his characteristic old man clapping. The point was hammered home that Jens likes American female pop... a lot. All in all, Brooklyn Vegan put on an excellent showcase and I may go to their other events this week. Tonight, I must choose between Tobacco and Fujiya and Miyagi at the Mercury Lounge, or the Carpark/Paw Tracks showcase (Beach House, Tickley Feather) at Le Poisson Rouge. I will blog again tomorrow, probably from this $2/20 minutes computer. Missin' you, L.A.

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KSCR@CMJ: A woman transformed

The first in a series of articles from the KSCR contingent at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City. We all have a pretty strong idea of who we are as social creatures -- how outgoing we are, which lines we'll cross -- but there's an interesting mix of energy, encouragement, and ample liquor that can help us discover how inaccurate our self-images can be, how different a person can be hiding inside. That was certainly the case for the crowd at Arlene's Grocery last night. In the Lower East Side grocery store turned rock venue, Monday night is karaoke night, but calling what happens at Arlene's karaoke is kind of like calling Times Square an intersection. Arlene's offering differs from the familiar Koreatown karaoke experience in two ways:

1. You've got an audience -- no, a crowd. Not a bunch of Japanese businessmen trying to drink away the day either; these are the kind of diehard rockers who always seem to pose a few articles of clothing during an extra-wicked solo. And they're all cheering for you.
2. Forget TVs and tinny PAs; you're accompanied by a full live band that'll play you through any song in "the Bible," a 4-inch binder filled with lyric printouts, from memory.

Giving amateurs the chance to song real rock classics in a real stage at a real rock club with a real audience is the vocal equivelant of Guitar Hero: you get caught up in the simulation. Otherwise shy patrons vanish into themselves and become Nikki Sixx or Blondie or Johnny Rotten. Case in point: Julie from Belgium. Small, stylish, thick European accent, first visit to Arlene's, first time on stage. Say goodbye to Julie and hello to Bono, circa 1992. Some regulars did pitch-perfect versions of Rage Against The Machine or The Clash without so much as a glance at the lyrics book, but it was the performers like Julie, the live-band karaoke virgins caught up in the electricity of the moment, that really set the room on fire. And we, the audience, eat that shit up. From the second you grip the mic you are our personal Jesus. When you say, "Rock," we say, "How hard?" It's the kind of magic that stays with you long enough to make the late-night trip back uptown on the Hydra-headed New York subway system pass by like a dream. Check out CMJ Music Marathon here. Got a band you want us to catch? Restaurant that can't be missed? Leave us a comment!

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Japanese Office?

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