Show me your riffs

This morning went through my daily ritual of reading blogs and got a little excited when I saw the words "Math Rock" and "Girls" in the same title at the Stranger's Line-Out. The fusion of the two subjects is very near and dear to me. Here's the post:

Do Girls Play (or even like) Math Rock? Posted by Jeff Kirby on February 6 at 17:31 PM


A couple weeks ago I posted a link to the website Stage6 which hosts a bunch of great live videos. Most of the good ones I found were from Philly, but I was recently directed to a video of the amazing set San Diego’s Sleeping People played at Chop Suey last November. The sound quality is not great, but the band’s talent shines through just fine. Watching guitarist Joileah Maddock got me to thinking about girl math rock guitarists, and if perhaps she was the only one. Are there any more? Do any other female musicians care about this genre? I am stumped to think of any other similar band that has a girl in it, particularly one who can shred a guitar like Maddock can. Come to think of it, I don’t even know any girls who like listening to math rock. All of a sudden my loneliness is starting to have new context…


I don't know Jeff and I'm sure intended no offense with his post, and there's a chance I'm just in the mood to get fired up about something, but it's frustrating to think that sooooooo long after the whole riot grrrl era, chicks still are partitioned off into a separate category of musician. The undertone of "for a girl" is still really present when I'm paid complements on my song-writing or guitar-playing (admittedly, mostly by older people and frat boys). Don't get me wrong - I'm happy that people enjoy watching me play guitar and if it's a new experience for them to see a girl tearing it up, hooray for them. If I were a dude playing what I play, nobody would think twice about it, and that's why I will remain adamant that I am an average guitarist. The only reason I seem good is because of something, speaking of math, called The Numbers Game. Just for simplicity's sake let's say for every 100 male guitarists there are 10 female guitarists and that 10% of all guitarists are legendary. That means when you think of legendary performers you're only going think of 10 dudes and 1 chick. So, it's not that girls are any more or less capable, there's just a smaller pool to choose from. Additionally, when people come across that one chick they become convinced that she's the only good one.


I wish the pool of ladies who love math/prog/stuff-that's-stereotypically-male-dominated was as large as the gentle indie-pop pool. Obviously, it's not, but it seems really short-sighted to pose the question asking if there is more than one girl in the former category. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with technical proficiency, it has to do with taste and preference (I'm sure The Numbers Game could be applied here, too) and there are a fare number of us chicks who are into more aggressive and angular music. Remember Sleater-Kinney? (I feel like I just asked, "Remember the Alamo?" Yikes.)

**stage-diving off of soap-box**

If you care, our recording is going really well. David and Ben are shredding because they're dudes while Marie and I play along and sometimes go on coffee runs and talk about shoes.