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For The Love Of What?

By Jeanne Kalosieh

Rock.  That’s what it said on the flyers, in the papers, and on the Web.  Funny, because rock was significantly absent on January 14, at New York City’s Mercury Lounge.  Folk and softer sounds were definitely represented, but “rock” came from only one of the five acts on the bill. 

For The Love of Rock (www.loveofrock.com) is a documentary-in-the-works from the minds of producers Wendy Tumminello and Lynda Allen.  The featured artists are Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, Jane Siberry, Melissa Ferrick, Moxie, Michelle Lewis, and Toni Blackman.  Doria Roberts, Brenda Kahn, Lewis, and Ferrick played the evening, sporting acoustic guitars and soulful lyrics.  But teeth-grinding sounds came only from Moxie, a four-female band who is more New York than the Circle Line.  From the flyer, the goal of Tumminello and Allen’s documentary is to capture “the life and spirit of the top women musicians doing what they love to do—write and play music on their own terms.”  The night was certainly a good reflection.

Hailing from Atlanta, Doria Roberts got on stage wearing a beat-up cowgirl hat covering shiny black shiny ropes of hair, perfectly aligned on the side of her face.  She told a story of how “some punk” told her she should be playing reggae because she’s black.  The world is full of such insightful ass holes. Accompanied by a cellist, Roberts’ confidant voice was strengthened by cool, precise shifts in tone and pitch.  The soul-infused folk songs created a smooth ocean current of sound, hypnotizing the audience.  The applause for Roberts kept growing, even after she made us say the Pledge of Allegiance as an intro to her last song.

Brenda Kahn and Michelle Lewis were part of PlanetGirl that FEMMUSIC covered last month (see back issues).  Though Kahn admitted she needed to practice a bit after taking some time off from performing, the audience cheered her on like good little soldiers.  Lewis was up next with a perky attitude, ready to entertain to an audience that was now growing uncomfortably large.  “Someone on my record label said female singer/songwriters with an edge are so 1996,” she said in a brainless tone (purposely, duh), “so I’ll play this as sweetly as possible.”  The crowd voiced their disapproval, snarling like diseased swine.  Lewis also did her impression of Jewel, an artist not particularly adored by anyone present.  “I wanna rock!” shouted Lewis, as she talked about how she wants to get off the acoustic and onto the electric guitar.  And then she covered Tom Petty’s “The Waiting.”  Sounds pretty Jewel-ish on this front.  What happened to wanting to rock?  Come back with some Babes In Toyland, and then we’ll talk.

The crowd rose to their feet for Melissa Ferrick.  Girlie shrieks cut through the hot air, and people were now bunched together like mismatched socks.  Ferrick, the fast-talking, anxiety-riddled, folkie with a hint of ol’ Dixie ripped into her set, letting her fans do some singing.  Her spindly fingers criss crossed over each other, as Ferrick went through freaky epileptic-like musical seizures.  The good stuff will do that to you.  Her sound is part Ani Di Franco, part Melissa Etheridge, and part Dave Matthews.  Ferrick’s intensity and concentration shows a woman constantly calculating every atom of nervous energy.  Her song about having white-hot sex with her girlfriend brushed all modesty aside and left men and women alike craving their inner lesbian.  It was awesome.  Ferrick is a phenomenal creature.

Let’s talk creatures.  Let’s talk Moxie.  Looking at the trusty For the Love of Rock flyer, it says that “Moxie isn’t afraid to debunk the traditional girlie-girl image.”  To finish that sentence, let’s add three words at the end:  through their music.  Farrell Burk, Wendy Tremayne, Lindsey Weinstein, and Katy Cocozzello fuel kick-ass guitars, thumpy bass, and crashing percussion with layered vocals to complete one hell of a noise machine.  But they’re not messy;  they keep their timing very precise.  The distortion and feedback resulted in banging heads, a crowd that finally got rowdy, and eventually lead to a mini-moshing hoe-down.  Their final song, a cover of AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood” with Wendy screaming it all the way to the clubhouse and back, made you feel like you were sucking on a battery.  And you liked it.

But, while all these women, Moxie withstanding, are impressive and dedicated to doing it their own way, they do it via the stereotypical female way—folk songs and soft rock. For the Love of Rock puts the focus on this kind of sound, labeling it rock.  While the attitudes may coincide more with punk idealism (i.e. fuck the mainstream, we’ll do it the way we want to do it and if you don’t like it, we don’t care), the music itself doesn’t reflect it.  Lyrically, these women are honest and retell bitter stories.  Not everything is happy and cute over here.  It’s ugly, scary, and we haven’t showered in days.  So why can’t the music reflect more of that?  Is it because we still see rock as a “naughty” place for girls to play?  Hell, we’re the ones making rock appear that way.  There’s no denying that real “rock” groups like Tribe 8 and the Lunachicks get rid of sentimentality and flowery delicacy, but nevertheless, their music is uniquely poignant and, yes, beautiful.

The musical connection between the Love of artists is questionable.  What is the foundation that For the Love of Rock is going to be built on?  The producers claim, “We find, as they have, that to be a rock star is hard work but to be a female rock star is a whole other story, the story of For the Love of Rock.”  But is that the way it is for every female rock star?  The flyer continues to say, “as unobtrusive observers, we travel with them on their individual journeys but discover that their stories are very intertwined.”  Would the “rock stars” themselves agree?

Moxie’s Wendy Tremayne got in touch with us to voice her own opinion.  Pay attention:

“There’s no common ground between these artists. They're all individualists and don’t have a common thread, a common voice, common politics - nothing! After the show I told the film maker that that's what I thought. She wasn’t happy but was very intrigued. I asked if I could say this on film for the film.  It's an important point. Just because an outside person (the film maker) wants there to be a common something, doesn’t mean their is. And to think of it's title "For the Love of Rock" - huh, barely. This reads as pretentious on the part of the film maker and reduces the film maker to a non-artist walking around with technical skill (how to make a film) only. To me this undermines the entire thing. It's far more powerful to find a scene/a community and create a film out of it. Then you have all the magic that makes interesting media. You have history of the members including the fans, the bands, the club owners, the press, the promoters. You have a complicated web of stories and growth, politics and movement. I think that film lacks the integrity and sincerity that makes good media. The artists in that show are not interested in knowing each other, bonding together, or anything like that. I came to realize this the night of the show while sitting in the "green room." It made me appreciate the vibrant scene that Moxie's in, a scene that has all of these unifying things. Not one that some film maker made up so they can sell something to the mass media.”

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