Grrrrl Power

A quick morning post as I was a slacker yesterday...

In reading through my papers this weekend I flipped to Playlist - a weekly column in the arts section of CD reviews - and got a special treat: Carrie Brownstein, lead singer/guitarist for indie rock band Sleater-Kinney, had written this week's column.

Sleater-Kinney, a three person all-chick group from Oregon, has been on the scene since the late 90's. Their sound has evolved a lot over the past 10 years but miraculously has not succumbed to the pressure of making more mainstream music (they are funded by indie label Sub Pop, which it seems has a pretty good record of not having a slew of freakish Tommy Mottola-esque "I will make you into a huuuuuuuge star" agents/producers).

Their last album, The Woods, came out last May to great reviews, and now the girls are becoming major stars (they were one of the headliners of last month's Coachella festival).

Brownstein writes in hilariously disjointed prose, but the eye into her personal life and CD choices is worth the read. My favorite review:

Paul Butterfield
I am kind of a hypochondriac, and therefore the Merck Manual is the book I have read more times than any other. Because of this, friends call with symptoms, and I tell them what they have: bursitis, rat bite fever, phantom limb pain. There is a strange feeling that I get when I think something might be really wrong, but then it turns out to be nothing, like maybe it's really just sinusitis. That feeling is harmony and anxiety melting into one, a mellifluous chainsaw. Paul Butterfield gives me this feeling too. "Put It in Your Ear" (Bearsville) is supposedly his attempt at creating a new sound. It's hard to hear albums when you know the reaction was conflicted, but it's more the listener's duty to go back and think about why he did this or why it would be difficult for people to comprehend. I didn't hear any of those problems with it.

Sleater-Kinney is performing at Webster Hall on August 2nd, they'll also be in DC, Chicago and Philly this summer.

Check out their official website here.
Myspace page here.
Full article in the Times here.