Kill my blues with yr love

I interviewed Corin Tucker during the lead up to the 2012 US presidential election. We talked politics, feminism, motherhood, zines and the benefits of being an older musician. I also asked her if its true that the person on the front cover of All Hands On The Bad One is in fact her, and that the picture was taken while she was being carried out of a gig after picking a drunken fight with a bouncer and passing out, because I read this somewhere aaaages ago and have always hoped it was true.   

http://wearsthetrousers.com/2012/12/corin-tucker-interview-2012/

Wears The Trousers 2011 Yearbook

You can enjoy a big ole slice of independent, UK-based femalecentric music press with your Christmas cake this year, because the Wears The Trousers 2011 Yearbook is now available for pre-order! Its printed on thick, uncoated paper, features the awesome Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs in superheorine covergirl pose on the front, and for a mere £5, you can expect to enjoy:

• Interviews with tUnE-yArDs, St. Vincent, Tori Amos, Ane Brun, Zola Jesus, My Brightest Diamond, Joan As Police Woman, Alela Diane, Emmy The Great, Dum Dum Girls, EMA, Eleanor Friedberger, La Sera, Lisa Hannigan, She Keeps Bees, Drugstore, Big Deal, Tennis, Sharon Van Etten, Gazelle Twin, Amy Klein, The Sandwitches, Jenny Wilson, THEEsatisfaction, Jennie Abrahamson and more!

• A rundown of our top fifty albums of 2011! 

• A peek into the future with a look at some of next year’s most promising artists and albums!

Sounds delicious, doesn't it? Reserve your copy here.

Lady Gaga and teh gayz

Deciphering Gaga's hollow, fame-hungry marketing strategy v.s authentic feminist/queer icon has become something of a hobby of late. Pats on the back to Palmer for calling her out on what we were all thinking (for the record, I like my Amanda salt-free), and to add, here is a pertinent piece on Gaga's shady gay advocacy by the ever-ready Mr Everett True.

Glastonbury Emerging Talent competition

Wears The Trousers has been asked to join the initial judging panel for this year's Emerging Talent competition at Glastonbury! Full details here. Bands have a week to get their tunes in. Get movin'!

2011. Fresh diaries, healthy desires.

This week has involved major protest from my body, as early office hours resume after the festive break and the various toxins of holiday indulgences/ailments dissipate grudgingly. We finally have enough money to do some way overdue refurbishing, so we're sharing our space with some lovely builder types and the Council wallpaper is pealing away like old skin. Everything is covered in dust and I'm spending a lot of time brushing smears of it off my clothes.  I have high plans for this year. Gonna manifest good, solid things out of the flux.
Also, my first two reviews of MMXI, Anna Calvi's debut LP for Wears The Trousers, and Ciara's Basic Instinct for The Guardian.

Everything She Said zine

I curated my first ever zine! Everything She Said is a collection of pieces written by various folk, on their personal connections to female musicians/bands and the music they have made. It was a collaborative project to celebrate Wears The Trousers' 5th birthday and Ladyfest's 10th, and it debuted at London Ladyfest last month. Those who would like to purchase a hard copy to treasure and adore can now do so via the wonders of snail mail and PayPal. Pick a cover (Top - Sue Denim, middle - Daphne Avenue D, bottom - Jessica Grace) and holla at me here with yr pennies: charlotte@wearsthetrousers.com

UK - 60p
Europe - £1
Rest of world - £2

Grrrl talk

This Winter = rad coalescing of femalecentric community magic. Helping out at Ladyfest 10 (go get yr tix!), curating Wears The Trousers's first zine (not to be confused with our propa print editions, but cut-n-paste grrreat nonetheless. Links to follow!), working on proposals for 'women in hip hop' book chapter, helping to plan major cool, international  woman-celebrating events for next Spring - it all feels very fun and promising and important, and especially needed in this crazy Coalition era of economic doom and anxiety about the future.

So, here's my critique of Sara Marcus's book on riot grrrl (Be sure to peep the link to Alison Woolfe's piece of mind) and a review of The Dogbones debut for fans of growly grrrl vox and Queen Adreena-styled UK grunge revival.

Lisa Fancher interview

I run a pretty neat column at Wears The Trousers on women in the music industry, the ladies you won't necessarily find on stage. WTT is all about the music, and this means giving props to DJs, radio hosts, journalists, music historians, festival organisers, CEOs, authors, and all the other super roles that weave this many-layered industry together.

This month I chatted to Lisa Fancher, the all-round punk legend behind LA label Frontier Records, which celebrates a mammoth three decades in the business this year. With Frontier hitting 30, Ladyfest hitting 10, and Wears The Trousers marking out our cake with a mighty 5 candles, this years is one, big, birthday bonanza.

Wears The Trouser / Ladyfest 10 zine supreme!

So whilst we're waiting out the 57 years for the gender pay divide to maybe close, girls get busy with independent cultural production! 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of  Ladyfest the international, volunteer-run grrl-franchise that puts women firmly centre stage under a constantly evolving festival banner. To celebrate both this double-digit coming of age and Wears The Trousers own 5th birthday milestone, we think a reader-generated zine is in order.

Though our next official print edition is definitely sailing on the horizon, we’re getting our cut-’n'-paste on in the interim for this one-off project. As a non-profit, independent magazine Wears The Trousers has been blazing our own trail for five years now, and we’d like to extend that DIY spirit to our readers for this super-special zine project. What we’re looking for is anything from 50–200 words about your favourite female-centric band, singer, song or album and why they mean so much to you. Who makes yr heart thump? What were you listening to when you decided to come out to your parent? Which album brings back the rush of first love? Whose poster did you gaze up at during yr teen years? Maybe a particular artist inspired you to pick up your own guitar or microphone, maybe you've got a special anthem that never fails to set you on the right path when it blasts out yr stereo.

Feel free to be as personal as you like!

Whatever your anecdote or story (photographic submissions are also welcome) we wanna hear about it.  We’ll collate everything into a one-off, free-for-all zine that will be distributed at this year’s Ladyfest Ten events in London in November. We’ll also make it available to download. 

Deadline is October 15, so prime yr biro! Email the results to charlotte@wearsthetrousers.com.

Its so clear and I know just what I want to do

Wears The Trousers HQ - myself and editor Alan Pedder - were interviewed a little while back for Issue 2 of The Worlds A Mess And Yr My Only Cure, a rather rad zine by Em Ledger. Its available here and you should totes order a copy. DIY fo life!

This is happening

Kapow! Today Wears The Trousers launched an alternative Mercury Prize list today - the Venus/No-Penis
Music Prize.  Props to some of my personal faves Wet Dog, Ikonika, Invasion and Peggy Sue. Click through and exert your influence, grrrrrrrl style ♥

http://www.wearsthetrousers.com/2010/08/introducing-the-venusno-penis-music-prize/

 

Best Coast - Crazy For You

"If you’re after some popsicle-sweet, beach-blanket anthems, you couldn’t do better than this"

Here kitty kitty to check out my review of Best Coast's Crazy For You:

"If anyone can make cunnilingus unappealing, its Aguilera"

Click on the pic for my epic and unforgiving review. Thank FUCK I will never have to listen to this album again.

Crystal Castles round 2

A little late, but still. Read it nuh.

http://www.wearsthetrousers.com/2010/06/crystal-castles-crystal-castles/

The internet, music journalism and How Stuff Works.

I was gonna be all tongue-in-cheek and say "I'm really behind with posting this because Everett True has been praising it for hot minutes" but the sarcasm would be too much even by my standards within the context of Weingarten's so very accurate argument.



Pretty sure a lot of this will go over the heads of non-music-journo types or people who aren't familiar with terms like SEO, but its relevant if you care about hegemony, the awesome sprawling dragon monster of the WWW, what it is doing to music journalism and by extension the wider repercussions (let yr imagination roam).

I agree with Weingarten almost 100%. The problem is that this has been happening for some time, and has the irreversible trend angle of mountain rock landslides. Trying to make a tiny, little independent ship of honest music criticism stay sailing in the gargantuan, click-counting, meta critic ocean is real hard. Possible, but real hard.

This week's Free Music Friday @ Wears The Trousers

...is basically dope and you need to get on it, quick style. Nina Persson, Romy, Scream Club AND a special FMF guest spot hosted by the awesome Peggy Sue. RAD RAD RAD.


http://www.wearsthetrousers.com/sect/free-music-friday/

Internation Women's Day

Today, I'm sparkly eyed aware of all the great, great feminists - in both my own extended circle of family, and the wider global homespace, boy, girl, past, present, still to come - who plant those little seeds of revolution in the turf each day, who cry out proudly or quietly destabilize the patriarchal dynamic with small, covert acts of notebook/sticker action. My heart beat quickens when I see/hear/listen/read/watch/take part in these small&enormous acts of fucking CHANGE and yeah, i do have my Much Finer moments, but mostly I believe we can get this thing Done.

Pertinent UK events for yr body n spirit:

http://www.wrc.org.uk/news/iwd_page.aspx#myLink

I think I feel the flush of super list coming on. Until then, link yourself silly.

www.internationalwomensday.com

http://www.feministing.com/

http://www.thefword.org.uk/

http://www.pinkstinks.co.uk/

http://www.subtextmagazine.co.uk/

http://www.reclaimthenight.org/

http://www.millionwomenrise.com/

http://refuge.org.uk/

http://remember-who-u-are.blogspot.com/

If the feminist revolution had a soundtrack, you'd be reading about it here: www.wearsthetrousers.com

Kathleen Hanna being her usual rad self.

Also, get scribing.

Recent sounds, recent words

http://wearsthetrousers.com/2010/02/08/u-s-girls-go-grey-2010/