Ari Up frontwoman of Bristish punk band The Slits passed away Wednesday, Oct. 20th.  John Lydon (Johnny Rotten formerly of the Sex Pistols), who is married to Ari’s mother delivered the news on his website:

“John and Nora have asked us to let everyone know that Nora’s daughter Arianna (aka Ari-Up) died today (Wednesday, October 20th) after a serious illness,” he wrote. “She will be sadly missed. Everyone at JohnLydon.com and PiLofficial.Com would like to pass on their heartfelt condolences to John, Nora and family. Rest in Peace.”

This blog [A]typical Girls is named and based off of The Slits song Typical Girls.

I’m reposting this video as well as a clip of Punk Rock Movie capturing their early live sound.  (The Slits toured with bands The Clash and The Buzzcocks.)

“Don’t create.  Don’t rebel.  Have intuition.  Can’t decide…Typical girls don’t rebel.”

Rest In Peace Ari and thank you creating and rebelling.

- Sarah

Warwick starts her introduction with anecdote about her first feminist awakening.  I attempted to paraphrase it but I believe it’s better inserted as an excerpt…

“When I was nine, I had an experience I have come to consider a feminist awakening.  It happened on a Sunday Morning; the Brownie troupe of which I was a member was preparing to take part in a special annual church service, awaiting the signal to march up the aisle and gather in front of the altar, singing “All Things Bright and Beautiful.”  A puny and dreamy child, I had not been entrusted with an important job such as carrying a cross of flag at the head of the procession, so instead I sulked resentfully in the narthex with the other undifferentiated Brownies, hideous in our mud-brown and orange uniforms.  I noticed the flag of the church’s Cubs troupe displayed prominently on the sanctuary wall (Cubs, if you don’t know, are a boys’ organization junior to Boy Scouts, in the same way that Brownies are to Girl Guides or Girl Scouts).  I was immediately offended that there was no equivalent emblem of Browniedom anywhere in sight, but closer inspection reveal a far greater injustice: the Cub motto, “Do Your Best,” emblazoned magnificently in dark green silk.  The Brownie motto, I knew only too well was, “Lend a Hand.”

As an adult, I have often told the story of the Brownie Incident in order to account for my evolution as a feminist as well as to demonstrate that children are indoctrinated from very early on into rigid gender positions.  As I perceived in a flash of clarity that morning, boys in Western society are urged to strive for excellence and independence, whereas girls are more likely to be directed toward helping, supporting roles.  Brownie dogma, I have warned, prepares us to conform to patriarchal institutions like traditional marriage, wherein wives are expected to be nurturing helpmeets to their ambitious and hardworking husbands.  Thus, organizations like Brownies and Girl Guides are no merely anodyne after-school clubs for girls, but rather they are training grounds for repressive womanhood.

In making this dramatic claim, I have sought to emphasize the importance of girls, a social group that is generally dismissed and overlooked in cultural analyses, where of woman or youth.  Girls have little social power, and their interests and concerns are often regarded with derision (if they are noticed at all).”

Jacqueline Warwick, Girl Groups, Girl Culture

The sixties specifically are taught in the following narratives: the British Invasion with heavy hitters The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and so forth, Monterey Pop and Woodstock.  There is a male bias in these accounts.

I recently withdrew from my Women’s Studies course (with hesitation) and what I took from the course are the following things….

In regards to history, as historians we must always question it; it’s validity and truth.

Why is there are there women’s studies courses?

Because women demanded it!  It is unfathomable to think that in stark contrast to the lack of women in modern history books that they did not make valiant contributions and efforts in the shaping of history.

Mary Weiss, former singer of the Shangri-Las affirms, “We never though of ourselves as a ‘girl group.’  We were rock and rollers. same as the guys.  True rock and roll has no sex–it’s rock and roll.”

But it is apparent that such is not the case and there are biases in how we characterize the quality or the level of ability between male and female rock and rollers.

On that note, I would like to introduce not a sixties girl group but instead an ALL-GIRL JAPANESE GRINDCORE BAND: Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation the reasoning being that they kill in a genre that is exceedingly male dominated.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler_embrace_your_inner_girl.html

(Sorry, I’m not sure how to insert videos from Ted)

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Now as promised Lesley Gore…

Last night I was at a birthday celebration for a beautiful young women I know and I’ve never had many girlfriends…  So, here I am at this large dinner table with rows of gorgeous women and I can’t help but giggle at the high levels of estrogen just floating in the air or in our bodies and I considered how different female to female bonds are. (AYO!)

There is undeniable energy within a group of ladies and it made me consider and reflect upon Lesley Gore’s recordings.

Lesley Gore (produced by Quincy Jones) is probably most notable or recognized by her song, It’s My Party and a few other bubblegum pop joints but she also had bangers the likes of You Don’t Own Me which I interpret as an anthem against patriarchy and an expression of freedom in youth.  Gore’s career is also concurrent with 60s feminist activism in the form of 2nd wave radical feminists.   At the height of her celebrity rather than accept movie and television offers, Gore instead attended Sarah Lawrence College which she later attributes as where she discovered her sexual orientation and in 2005 announced publicly that she is a lesbian.  It was also in 2005 that she released “Ever Since,” her first new release since 1982, and original work since 1976′s “Love Me By Name.”  Apart from her recording success, Leslie also wrote for the film Fame, and the song Maybe I Know for the 1967 Batman television series.  Lesley also guest hosted PBS’s In the Life, a show documenting the gay experience and dealing with LGBT issues.  Here is just a small glimpse into the vast works of Lesley Gore…

Powerful live performance of You Don’t Own Me

Don’t Call Me I’ll Call You

That’s the Way Boy’s Are

Best Coast cover of That’s the Way Boy’s Are (Best Coast, a band definitely worth checking out!)

Interview with Lesley, she discusses how she got started and gives advice to those trying to make it in the music business today

But in the meantime some works by Helen Chadwick!  There will be a re edit on this later with more detail.

x sarah

From Wendy O Williams Official Website :

So radical, so unique, innovative and ahead of her time was the now legendary Wendy O. Williams (WOW), that today, nearly 30 years after she first exploded onto the New York underground scene and nearly 20 years after she stopped performing, and nearly 10 years after her death, she still remains a threat to the poseurs, phonies, and hypocrites of the male-dominated cultural (and music) establishment and their service (hidden or not) to the hegemony of the power elite. Known during her day as first the “Queen of Punk”, “Queen of Shock Rock”, and “Dominatrix of the Decibels,” and later the “High Priestess of Metal”. “Wendy O.” (or “WOW”) as she was typically called, first grabbed the public’s attention as front person for the culture-shattering concept band Plasmatics, the counter-culture band of changing musicians created and put together around her by Yale MFA holding “anti-artist” Rod Swenson in 1977. Both Williams and Swenson shared a revulsion for the banality, conformity of contemporary cultural consumerism and its consequences and were determined to launch a head on assault. Williams’ fearless attitude and uncompromising tough agressive vocals, claiming territory previously reserved for males, even while giving the stiff middle finger to the establishment saw her get a Grammy Nomination as Best Female Rock Vocalist of the Year, while her jaw-dropping stage shows and political stance saw her banned in London, arrested multiple times and severely beaten by the police in Milwaukee, WI. During her 10 year recording career she produced 8 studio albums, multiple EPs, each which still stands as a landmark in musical history. Her death-defying accompanying videos still stand unmatched today, as do her stage shows which saw her destroying icons of mass consumerism such as the sledgehammering of TVs and the blowing up of full size cars on stage as well as the chainsawing of guitars.

I don’t know what more to say about WOW but WOW!  Icon, authoritative performer and the definition of bad ass.

Wendy O Williams & the Plasmatics – “Damned” (1982)

Here Wendy is featured driving a school bus into a wall of televisions…

Wendy O Williams in the Rocky Horror Picture Show as Magenta (1984)

“Give me money or give me adventure; I’ll take the adventure anytime”

WOW in Tom DiSimone’s indie film Reform School Girls. According to Wendy’s wiki, neither she nor her long time partner and manager Rod Swenson were fans of the film when it premiered but I’m still into it.

Anyone interested in getting a taste of some Plasmatics tunes can download the Dream Lover 7″ via Punk Not Profit.

X Ray Spex – Oh Bondage Up Yours!

One of my all time favorite songs.  The cutting delivery of submission themes in the verses, Poly Styrene’s high note, the sax all do it for me.

Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex (From “The Punk Years”)

a·typ·i·cal–adjective not typical; not conforming to the type; irregular; abnormal

This is a vehicle to represent radical females, mostly musical, largely girl groups, but it may venture into the depths of art, literature, politics, fashion and so forth.

An assembly of iconoclastic females, forward thinkers, muses and all around bad ass bitches.

Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge.  -Author Unknown

This is for the ones who fell off the edge.

- Sarah Lee

The Slits – Typical Girls

The Runaways – Cherry Bomb