[transmission from... Tyler Sonnichsen]

Hey, people. I've got a few rapid-fire entries building up inside of me, but today I just wanted to talk about two things. Okay, one thing with another thing to follow later this week. See? I'm a mess! Am I right, people? Am I right?

The project has been pending for a week or so now, but this June will see the release of the first official TDC DVD release:
"[INSERT CONTEXT HERE]".

I have been working with local musician, designer of things, and all-around dude Wes Mann on the layout and package, which should include The Great American Trashure Hunt and The Best in Town with bonus material that includes highlights from both episodes from All About Everything and Episode 3 of The Drawer Connection. I'm not sure how much this will cost the wonderful TDC patrons, but it won't be much. The typical recup'ed expenses, couple bucks more, the whole world is happy and rainbows shoot out of the sky and directly into your soul.

Alright, that's the announcement. I'll write some coherent thoughts about some band or issue sometime soon. For now, enjoy an unmatched classic from The State.

[transmission from... Tyler Sonnichsen]

Ah, women. Can't live with 'em, they can't pee standing up. I don't know who first said that phrase, but its message still resonates today, just as sexist and un-P.C. funny as it was back in ought-six or whenever. The memetics that made me laugh at that in eighth grade are the same ones that made my friend Jason and I see how angry we could get our friend Amanda by bouncing back and forth jokes like "Why don't women wear watches? 'Cause there's a clock on the stove" when we were freshmen in college.


Sorry to be kicking off my post this week on such an abrasive note. (Sidetrack: I'm sorry if this one-post-per-week tear I've been on has come off as any indication of my patent laziness. I do have the excuse that I've been incredibly busy, though I should still push myself and write a little more. It's on my mind, don't worry). Back to my apologizing for the borderline-abrasive first paragraph to this post. I should probably bring this all into context.

3...2...1...

Diana Saez, a friend and a great new comic on the DC standup scene, has a joke about how occasionally men will come up to her after her set and say things along the lines of "You know, I'm normally not a big fan of women doing standup comedy..or, you know, talking..but you're pretty funny!" Undeniably, a vast majority of standup comedians (and comedians in general) are male. There are tons of great females in the world of comedy, including a solid base in DC (more than I can namecheck here, but you all know who you are). Unfortunately, for every Lily Tomlin or Lisa Lampanelli, there are about twenty male comedians who can match them. The music world, despite occasional appearances to the contrary, is very similar. I'm definitely not saying that women in entertainment should be judged by any of these standards. Granted, I'm not alone, or even in a minority, in saying that I'd prefer to watch or listen to a male musician almost any day over a female.

What brought all of this back into my subconcious, you may ask? What could have brought me to spew forth a diatribe about sociopolitical gender issues when I could be writing about how great the Laughing Lizard show in Alexandria was on Saturday night? (Sorry, but it was, and all the comedians and people who came out were awesome for it). What was I talking about again? Oh right, music and what inspired this essay. The smooth, sincere croon of Harriet Wheeler.

I had bought the Sundays' 1997 swan song "Static and Silence" about five months ago since I had read/heard good things about them. I had listened to bits and pieces of their two early-90's albums and generally liked what I heard. "Static and Silence" turned out to be surprisingly good. Really, really good. Harriet Wheeler's voice was an undeniable powerhouse, and the production was beautiful (if a little overdone). I picked up their 1990 debut "Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic" yesterday and have been just about as amazed by it as I was by "Static." The songs here aren't QUITE as great on the whole as on former and Harriet Wheeler's voice and songwriting were still relatively new to the game at this point.

Despite my latent prejudices, I'll never forget arguing with this one moron in my Music & Politics class last year who raised his hand and proclaimed, "You know, I don't want to sound mean or anything, but the problem with women musicians is..they just don't rock." Of course, a million hands shot up, including my own, to namecheck the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Joan Jett, Annie Lennox, Kim Deal, Ani DiFranco, Kathleen Hanna, even Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs (a band I'm not too crazy about but respect what they do). Of course women can rock. A lot just don't choose to because the culture industry rarely lets them succeed on their own terms. Even Jewel, who earned her salt as a yodeling folk singer, couldn't get on MTV without showboating her massive rack and eventually making an FYE-ready dance album. Remember those idyllic mid-90's days when No Doubt were a ska band? Not if MTV would let Gwen Stefani get away with that. Additionally, most people forget about how before "Our Lips are Sealed" and "Vacation," the Go-Gos were a typical trashy all-girl punk band. Belinda Carlisle was busy yelling about the scum of the earth years before she was extrapolating that Heaven was a place on it.

I think that my own general prejudice against female vocalists and musicians stems from the fact that women are way too often (ab)used as figureheads for crappy artists and producers, if they aren't the crappy artists themselves (e.g. Celine Goddamn Dion, Alanis Morrissette, and, sorry Mom, but Cher). There are plenty of all-male bands I could name here who hired a female lead singer because they had to face certain facts: What they were doing wasn't interesting, they had no onstage personality or attractive dynamic, and if this girl was hot and photogenic (which she almost always was) it'd bring out the crowds and multi-million dollar record contracts so they could water down their music further and eventually fade into the world of discount bins. (And I knows them discount bins).

Granted, some of the greatest pop music ever made came from the Brill Building and the contracted Girl Groups (The Ronette's "By My Baby" remains my choice for top pop song ever recorded), who sang many of the songs were essentially puppets and not allowed to be anything but. The 60's really were a decade of change wherein women shifted the dominant paradigm and in large part became empowering figures in rock n' roll. Aretha Franklin and the inimitable Dusty Springfield spring to mind instantly. Even singers who ostensibly rose to fame on the coattails of male counterparts (Joan Baez, Marianne Faithful, etc.) are worthy of the same respect. And, I have to add since seeing Baez perform on the Mall last September, no one has ever aged as gracefully. I know it may make me a borderline hypocrite to mention it, but...damn! That is one good- looking older woman!

So what, end by end, separates great female-centric music like The Sundays from horseshit like Sixpence None the Richer? The vocals and production are just as polished and unabashedly radio-friendly. What it boils down to is the fact that The Sundays generated simply sincere, amazing songs: "Here's Where the Story Ends," "Hideous Towns," "Summertime," "Cry," and above all, "She." Harriet Wheeler is just as much to credit as guitarist David Gavurin or their producers, if not more.

Does anything I've written taken in or out of context make me a hypocrite? I'd like to think not, but we've all got our preferences and prejudices. Of course the percentage of male musicians who are shit is just about the same as that of females. It's kind of like that "there are a lot more shitty American bands than shitty British bands because there are a lot more Americans" theory, which I'm still not certain that I buy. Nobody's above a grilling from people who take music (or comedy, for that matter) seriously. It seems that in all great art gender is one factor that fades from the equation of why it's so great.