Girl Bands on the Grind

By Molly Norris
Special to Washingtonpost.com/MP3
Thursday, September 8, 2005

Inquiring listeners want to know. What it's like for local female groups in a rock scene dominated by men?

Carmen Vasquez used to be the only woman in her old band. Practice meant a dingy basement and cans of Budweiser. Now in Federal City Five, the guitarist says, "We boil peanuts. We eat strawberries."

Going on the road highlights other differences. In Del Cielo, one band mate always stays sober and the group often sacrifices the tour tradition of sleeping in strangers' houses, shares drummer Katy Otto. Other realities she mentions: "Sound guys not being that cool to us, and people not expecting us to play our instruments."

Federal City Five played the Clash's "London's Burning" in a cover band show at the Black Cat. Surprised audience members approached Vasquez and complimented her for pulling off the guitar solo. It reeked of condescension, she confides, and she wondered if they would've said anything to a male guitarist. Vasquez sums up the expectation, "We're supposed to look good onstage, but not be so technically proficient."

Speaking of looking good. the Caution Curves took their name from a road sign spotted in Pennsylvania, but some fans assume the experimental, female trio is referring to its silhouettes. "If you're all women, people are going to comment on it no matter what, says Laptop and sampler player Rebecca Mills, "even if you're called Sausage Fest."

Sometimes venues will try to book a night of all-women bands like it's a genre, or even a gimmick. The music industry often echoes this idea making girl groups in or out of style, says singer Allison Wolfe from the classic Bratmobile, now providing vocals for the internationally acclaimed D.C. band Partyline. Wolfe adds, "We are also treated as if there's not enough room for all of us, but only for a few tokens, like Le Tigre or Sleater-Kinney, or rather Britney."

All the bands we talked to expressed exhaustion with comparisons to other big-name female bands, despite significant differences. "The Sleater-Kinney comparison gets old after a while," says Otto, "especially because they don't have a bass and we do, and they have two guitars, and we don't."

"I think they expect us to sound like Sleater-Kinney or the Donnas," says bassist Kiki Schneider from FiveFour. "And we specifically don't want to sound like that."

Do women experience things men wouldn't when they play a show?

"I don't think so," Vasquez says. "Absolutely," vocalist Tina Plottel answers simultaneously. FiveFour's Schneider breaks Federal City Five's split opinion, saying the difference is girl groups get stalkers.

In Wolfe's extensive tour history she remembers a smattering of sexist catcalls and disrespect when showing up at a club. "The people who work there never guess that I'm in the band; but rather treat me like a groupie sneaking in, or someone who doesn't belong there somehow."

Although the climate hasn't always been an accepting one, most of our interviewed bands label Washington as a pretty supportive place for female musicians. (In the early '90s, the hardcore, masculine punk era caused a feminist backlash genre called riot grrl. Bands threw all-female shows and scrawled the words "slut" and "rape" in permanent marker on exposed body parts.)

Now, the District's female bands inspire and reach out to girls starting out. Schneider's advice: "Just play the way you want, not how you think you should."

"There are people who are going to expect you to look better than you play," says Vasquez, "and you just have to ignore that. Don't let anyone else shove that down your throat."

The sum of their advice: Focus on playing music, not playing into stereotypes.