never the music, always the muse

I played a show in Seattle last night. Some old dudes were talking to us as we were setting up our stuff. "Who's the drummer?" I point at Claire. "No way!" (I don't know what he means by that.) Pronouncement: "We have to stay and watch these ladies play!" (maybe I am the only one who cringes at the word "ladies"). We go on stage, and on the song where I play drums, Claire sometimes bangs on Davy's chest with a tambourine while they sing the duet and Davy plays guitar. After the song, I went to pick up my bass again, and heard different old dudes in the front row telling each other, "Man, that was really sexy!"

So before we started our next song, I grabbed the mike and addressed the very sparsely-filled room (we were the opening band). "You know what the best part of being in an all-queer girl band is?" I asked. "When dudes try to hit on you and don't realize that they're dealing with A WHOLE TROOP OF LESBIANS. It's awesome. Totally the best part." A couple people cheered and clapped, and I could see Chris from Police Teeth laughing, because I had been complaining to him before the show about the old dudes situation.

But UGH. I have been at so many shows where stuff like this happened and I was just in the audience and couldn't do anything about it, or where the band on stage completely ignores any weird shit that is obviously happening in the audience- and this time, finally, I have a mike, and there's no way I'm not going to use it, even if it means burning bridges.

And then all the other three bands after us were old dude rock, and I just couldn't deal with it. I left.  This happened at our show last week, too- I just couldn't take it anymore, all the dudes on stage and no ladies, or ladies only in the crowd. (Taking pictures of the guys while they soloed.)  Hella visceral reaction. I had to go sit outside in the rain and fume.  Felt like crazy feminist, couldn't even enjoy my friend's band because of the overwhelming dude energy that was suffocating.

At the show last night, there were a bunch of women loading in equipment, and we got excited- like, maybe we were wrong about the other bands, maybe there are some ladies in them! But after they got done carrying in amps and guitars, they went up to the door guy and put all of their names on the guest list- just the girlfriends.

And at the show a week ago, while I was selling merch, the girls next to me- also selling merch- were talking to their friends, proudly pointing out their boyfriends-in-the-band and hocking t-shirts.

And I want to be like, "Hey, merch girlfriends of the world! Start your own fucking bands- you're already doing all of the hard work- 'cause shit, those amps are heavy." It makes me want to quit my jobs and just spend all my time being a cheerleader for ladies making music.