Tegan & Sara - October 2, 2008 - Baltimore

This show was pretty fantastic. I'm not very eloquent when it comes to talking about live music as I'm usually seeing a band I love. I persuaded Laura to join me at the last minute so I'm sure her review will be less gushy.

Opening Acts: The opening acts were Girl in a Coma and City and Colour. I've heard of and heard Girl in a Coma before but I've never been too into them. I know that being an opening band is a bit of a weird place to be in, especially if the crowd is unresponsive. I don't know how the crowd took to them, to be honest. But I know I felt they put on a good show, tons of energy. City and Colour, which is just Dallas Green, he was good. But! I felt he was a bit out of place. He was an acoustic act with a bit of harmonica and it just did not fit in between the energy of GiaC and the louder songs T&S kickoff with. But that's just my take, as I said he was good and they crowd loved him and obviously as OC about mood and theme as I am.


Songs: The setlist was ace. They kicked off the show with "You Wouldn't Like Me" which is from their album "So Jealous" and ended with the ever popular "Back In Your Head." Sandwiched in between was a good mix of popular songs, old fan favorites, a cover, and even two "new" songs. The biggest "surprises" of the night (surprises in quotes as I'm a sneak and I tend to look at what artists have been playing at shows before the one I'm attending. I also read movie synopsis' before I actually view the movie, figures.) were "Superstar" and "The First."


These were both surprises as Tegan (who wrote and performed both) is pretty vocal about her dislike of these songs. Which makes sense, she wrote them before she could legally drink in the US and she has just turned 28... just like I don't connect with the person who wrote my 7th grade diaries. But, they are fan favorites and have been shouted out at shows for quite awhile. I guess the only way she could play these songs was to retool them, and that she did. She only played the "chorus" and a verse of "Superstar" with "Hop A Plane" as a lead-in (they share the same chord, one minored) which was a pretty good segue. With "The First" she totally changed the feel of the song. I say she but it was in fact Dallas Green who opened as City and Colour and used to be in the band Alexisonfire. He joined her onstage for a mellowed out "boy-girl vocals" version of the song. It was good, technically, but I think it was put in a weird place in the show as it felt a bit too mellow at the time.
The two "new" songs were "One Second" and "Give Chase" which were, again, Tegan songs. The songs are not technically new as "Give Chase" was written quite awhile ago and Tegan apparently soundchecks it at most shows. Serious fans have been wanting to hear it since someone recorded Tegan soundchecking it earlier this year. As far as I know there are no plans to make a studio release. As far as "One Second" goes, it's on their E.P "I'll Take the Blame," which was released digitally last year. I really wish they would play Sara's song from that E.P as well but we can't always get what we want! Anyway, "One Second" is an excellent song, it's a bit synthy which is always good for me as someone who is perpetually stuck in the 80's.



Looking back at what I've written this seems like it was The Tegan Show. Sara did perform less songs but she did great ones. Her shining moment was probably the cover of "Umbrella," both girls sing on this song but I always get the feeling that it's more of a Sara thing. Aside from that (which is a fan favorite, by the way) Sara did some songs of hers that I love. Aside from the obvious hits like "Walking With A Ghost" and "Back in your Head," Sara also did "Burn Your Life Down," "Floorplan," "Like O, Like H," and "Love Type Thing." The latter was Sara's surprise of the show as it's not really a usualy in their setlist. My favorite Sara song of the night was definitely "So Jealous," guess what album that's from.



Banter: If you know the slightest thing about Tegan & Sara you know a big part of their live show is the banter. People ask me how I can see them live a few times in a row* and a big part of it is the banter! It's like a comedy show AND a music show. Of course I love the music but the banter is what really sets each show apart, you know you'll get different and amusing banter at each show. As I expected, tonight was pretty political (all in attendance were missing the VPs debate in favor of seeing TnS). Lots of jokes about what's going on in our country right now. The best probably being when some girl threw her bra at Tegan (which, btw, she brought an extra bra just for tossing) and Tegan insisted she take it back as "bras are expensive" and "you're in a recession right now." Sara also made a few amusing remarks there. I'm not going to try to quote them as I'm bad at retelling stories/jokes in person, I imagine it would be a trainwreck typed. It'll be on Youtube by the morning, I'm sure.


Overall, a fantastic show. Next stop: Philly @ The Electric Factory.

urgent! save BITCH!

This is big. Bitch is, quite simply, the best feminist publication out there today, and we can't afford to loose it. We can, however, afford to spare 10 or 15 bucks to do our part to keep it alive. Please please pleeaaasse donate!

The Republican National Conventions on you guys, don't adjust your screens, the crowd really IS all white people!

The Republican National Convention, I think, is enough to draw any blogger out of the wood work. A few geeky rants:

• Go to the RNC website. Do not click any ads, do not let them collect $200. Now, take a look at those icons being used in the sidebar. WTF?! Are they 80?? Well, yes. But are they running Windows 98 or something?? Ok, that seems pretty likely too. Their use of shitty clip art boggles the mind. Also, who decided that McCain was best represented by a nautical star? That seems a little out there to me.
• As a 4-H geek in West Virginia, as a feminist, an American, and human being, I was disgusted by Palin's speech. When I say as a 4-Her, it is because she used the term 'community organizer' as if it was a synonym for 'useless potsmoking hippy.' An irony, considering how many community organizers are conservative Christian church groups. As a West Virginian, I just found it painful to hear the name of my beautiful state in her mouth. Incidentally, both her and Obama say they support 'Clean Coal Technologies.' If you want to know more about the issue I can blog or you can wiki mountain top removal sometime. Moving on, as a feminist, I am disgusted at the use of chromosomes to try to bolster a campaign. Yes, thats right, us silly women will ignore the issues and vote for who looks most like us, because really, our tiny girl brains just can't handle all those politics. And math is hard. Every American and human being should be offended by her slanderous, misleading, and generally fucking ridiculous speech.
• I watched Obama's appearence on the O'Reilly factor on YouTube, naturally, and during the video you could hear the person recording this recieve a text message on AIM. Just figured I'd throw that in as a really annoying thing to a geek. Also, YouTube it, its awesome.
• My favourite vlogger has some excellent points to make about the RNC. Subscribe to illdoc1, he's hilarious and brilliant. Right up there with my Niel Cicierega and Feministing subscriptions as most exciting to see new posts from ever.
  

Ok, so I guess this is a bit of a stretch as a geek blog, but what's a member of the 'angry left' to do? If it helps any, I'm going to check out some podcasting software and then play The Sims 2, while thinking very longingly about Spore and The Sims 3. Also, let us not forget that I made a really lame Monopoly reference here, I'm pretty sure that gains me at least a few geek points back.

RiGID news/blog roundup

-First and foremost: Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. Feministing has a great in-depth piece about what this means for abortion rights, marriage equality, and other feminist issues. I'm disappointed, but it won't change the way I'm going to vote this fall. What do you think?

-It's old news at this point, but last weekend talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got married in a small private ceremony at their home in California. Best wishes to them. Can I haz Arrested Development Movie now?

-Australian feminist Germaine Greer (The Female Eunuch) recently made some waves in the feminist blogosphere with her essay, "On Rage", which suggests that domestic violence towards Aboriginal women is "understandable". Jezebel has more.

-Bjork sounds off on sexism in the music industry.....and Laura blares "Army of Me" on her laptop.

-Racialicious has a fabulous post on the portrayal of Muslim women in comic books.

-And Sarah Haskins continues to be awesome.

Local Baltimore Feminist-y Events:

-NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland and the Creative Alliance will be hosting Choice Avengers!: A Variety Show for Superheroines on Sept. 5 at 8pm. There will be music, comedy, a drag king, and lots of sexy feminists in spandex.

-Samantha Manchester recently established the "Anti Apathy Alliance" and will be hosting an I-VAWA letter writing campaign night on sept 13 at 6pm. Check out the Meetup page for more info.

Am I missing any upcoming Baltimore events? How about Shepherd or Marshall?

-Laura

Intro Post

Hi!
I'm Nicole, latest addition to RiGID and resident Obsessor of Music. And music is what all of my posts around here will be about.
I'll be posting anything and everything related including book reviews, concert reviews, album reviews, tour dates, artist news... you get the idea.
Luckily this blog focuses on women so my posting won't get out of hand, hopefully. I'll also try to include more than just artists I like, everyone should be well-rounded musically.
So, that's that!

Rather than putting a real update in here, I'm going to toss in a couple of new music videos for your enjoyment. Or loathing, that's cool too!

This is Juliana Hatfield's video for "This Lonely Love" from her new album "How to Walk Away" (August 19th). If you know anything about the Boston music scene of the late 80s/early 90s you probably know of Juliana Hatfield due to her involvement in the indie scene there. She broke away from the band Blake Babies (they were given the name by Allen Ginsberg which is pretty awesome) and had mild success as a solo artist.
Her solo music has two main categories loud and kind of angsty vs. melodic sort of folky numbers. I love both. I can't make a judgement on her latest stuff as I don't have it yet (though, it's out there) but this song is okay.
Not my favorite but I can see it popping into my head.
I don't know about the video, I think it's a recording of a photoshoot as some bits look like her latest promo shots. But, I've never thought of Juliana as a video-centric artist so it's okay.
Even if you don't like this song I highly suggest you check out her other stuff. Every album has some really choice songs. I'll also be reviewing her book "When I Grow Up" (September 22nd) when it comes out.
(I don't know why the border is green. It makes me sad.)


Moving to a completely different sound.


This is Uh Huh Her's video for "Not A Love Song" from their album "Common Reaction (August 19th). The album was supposed to come out in May and I already have it but I'll do a proper review when it is officially released.
UHH is led by Leisha Hailey (Alice Pieszecki if you must) and Camila Grey.
Leisha fronted The Murmurs in the 90s so it's not really another case of "actor turned musician" and Camila was previously in the band Mellowdrone and has worked with artists in a range of genres.
But none of their previous work sounds like UHH which is pretty infectious electro-pop. I love this song, I saw the band back in May and this was definitely the song of the night. Enjoy!
ps. I don't know about the unicorn, either. Mythical creatures need love too.
pps. I hope the MTV embed works. I've never used it before but the video quality is so much better than on youtube.

Coming up (this does not mean SOON, just in general):
Tori Amos' "Comic Book Tattoo" review
Female bass player retrospective
Concert Reviews: Tegan & Sara, The Kills (October)

the tyra banks post.

I'm a tv addict and there is no way around it. In addition to the 5 or so shows I watch religiously (Weeds, The L Word, Jon Stewart, Colbert, The Office) I engorge myself on long marathons of the Simpsons, King of the Hill, Seinfeld, and Arrested Development. I consider these shows to be the cream of the crop, which normally makes me something of a functioning addict in society. The problem arises when these shows aren't on and I'm jonesin' for a tv fix. At this point I will watch nearly anything, and this is how I came upon the Tyra Banks show.
Now, it's not that Tyra Banks isn't qualified to host her own talk show, because all it really requires of a person is that they are already famous. Talk show host "greatness" comes later, obviously. And it's not that her show functions much like most women's magazines do, with show titles like "What men really want you to wear" and "Just how hot are you?", because fine, there's a place for that.
What sets Tyra apart from all the others is her willingness to address women's sexuality. Good for her, right? Not quite. It would be a good thing if she knew what the hell she was talking about, but she doesn't.

I don't know if it started with those girls gone wild videos or that infamous Britney -Madonna kiss.....but when it comes to bisexuality, it seems to be everywhere these days!

Riiiiiiight, Tyra, because bisexual women are magical creatures that spontaneously appear only when cameras are around.
For this episode, she had Tila Tequila on as a guest. You know Tila; the tiny, obnoxious myspace mogul-cum-reality starlet? As you may or may not know, she speaks for all bisexual women everywhere. She's an expert, because she can tell you that women kiss differently than men. And way to go for framing bisexuality as a fad or a phase, because all the bisexuals I know totally dig that.
Then there was the infamous Violet Blue fiasco.
Now, if anyone knows anything about women and porn, it's Violet Blue. As a former sex educator for Good Vibrations, sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and blogger for Fleshbot and her own Tiny Nibbles, Mizz Blue constantly has her finger on the pulse of the adult industry, and Tyra's staff couldn't have chosen a more eloquent or knowledgeable person as a guest for her show on pornography. If you saw the interview , though, it was incredibly disappointing. Appearing within the last 10 minutes of the program, Violet Blue appeared from the audience and was interviewed quickly and sloppily. But that's not even half of the story, for you see, Violet had been told that she was going to be the porn "expert" for the show when in fact she was to appear after longer and more in-depth discussions with performer Nina Hartley and filmmaker Candida Royalle, famous for her brand of romantic porn marketed towards women. The entire show for this day did nothing but re-affirm old ideas about pornography, ideas which would have been refuted if Violet Blue had been allowed to speak at any length. Violet was also treated horrendously backstage and it became pretty clear that Tyra herself was not interested in hearing that women's taste in porn is as varied as men's, as she was caught up in this idea of women responding more to romance than to sex.
(As a side note, why is everyone so mean to Violet Blue?)
Tyra continued her sketchy stance on pornography in another episode, in which she talked to teenage sex workers, specifically, a 14 year-old prostitute and porn performer Sasha Grey, who was 18 years old at the time. I didn't get to see the entire interview with the first young woman, but I could discern that the tone was of deep shame and judgment. This tone was carried over into her interview with Sasha Grey. The first thing that got under my skin about this segment was Tyra's constant reiterating that Sasha looked like a child. Sasha vlogged about her experience on the show as well, and reported that her "look" for the show was deliberate on the part of the wardrobe department. After showing up at the studio wearing her own clothes, she was told she looked to mature to be 18 years old and was promptly thrown in a pink t-shirt, making her look not unlike the little girl Tyra persistently insisted she was. The interview was edited to make it look like Tyra was just talking at Sasha. Tyra asked her questions and looked shocked and offended by her answers.
Do you do anal? (I found this one funny. Christ. Anal is not the most explicit thing people do in porn)
Yes....
Were you abused as a child?
No....
Are you mentally ill??
Do you have AIDS?
Has your family disowned you?
Why are you really in the adult entertainment industry?
Tyra ended the segment having decided for herself that Sasha needed to do some "soul searching", but it's pretty obvious that Miss Grey isn't the one who needs to expand her mind.
Now I come back to the idea of a person being qualified to be a talk show host. Her being a supermodel is not the reason she is bad at what she does. She is bad at what she does because she is close-minded, judgmental, and treats any guests that may have beliefs at odds with hers (like sex-positive feminists Blue and Grey) like shit.
You wanna be the next Oprah? Then shape up.


(and calm the fuck down....)

I'm gonna shit my pants!

Because posting a video totally counts as blogging.

Also because I'm getting pretty tired of all this Sex and the City/Lifetime/yogurt/faux-women's culture shit. Stay tuned for a long post on why Tyra Banks is the antichrist sometime this weekend.



PS, be sure to check out our youtube channel!

Polyhedral Die and You

I've decided its time to get into some hard-core geekery here. That's right – D&D. This is a level of geek that I mocked and feared for years, and I certainly had to have some help sliding into it. That's why I think a little nudge in the RPG direction can only do some good. Let me start by begging anyone reading this to throw out every notion they have about RPGs. I do not dress in medieval garb. I do not have particularly greasy skin or hair. I do have a social life. Actually, I'm going to stop at that one and explain a little more. The idea of a bunch of geeks sitting around playing Dungeons and Dragons and never talking to anyone outside of their basement is as false as the idea that only these same anti-social geeks ever chat online or use a compter at all. People who love playing with other people and have a creative outlet, as a general rule, are pretty cool people. Most people who actually play person-to-person, rather than online, just happen to have started out a campaign with some close friends. My dungeon master is my Brother-in-Law. Also, if you have every played house as a kid, or barbies, or the high-tech version of barbies, The Sims, then its too late for you anyway. Welcome to our world, you are a Role Player. Also, the idea of girls not fitting in in this world is about the most ridiculous misconception of all. Every little girl I ever knew invented brilliant worlds and songs and stories with talking dogs and dancing trees... do you really think all of that creative power just dissappeared? We still have it, and utilizing it can be incredibly liberating, stimulating, and fun as hell. Alright, so hopefully I've defended D&D well enough. Now I'm going to share my story of coming into it and my character creation in hopes that it will maybe show a door into a place that's built up some high defenses to outsiders.

As I mentioned, there was a time when, despite my love for comic books, my playing through Baldur's Gate (and secretly pretending I really was a drow elf), I would never be caught dead with a D20. At least I wasn't that bad, I reasoned. But my brother-in-law had always been an RPGer. Hell, he'd been addicted to Magic: the Gathering, once. My sister had been part of a role playing campaign or two in her day, though never D&D. As it turns out, there's this crazy thing about marriage where people will start sharing ideas and hobbies. It's pretty trippy. Since I happened to be living at their apartment at the time, it was not long before a few 3rd edition Monster Manuals and Player Handbooks started showing up in the living room. Character sheets came next. I specifically remember my sister sitting there, designing her elf-ranger, and asking if I wanted to too. I remember this because it involves me turning around from whatever video game I was playing and responding with the classic, 'uh, no. At least I'm not that bad.' Beck, my sister, went on to discuss races and their advantages and personality traits with Chris, her husband. I become intrigued.

“So, if you can play a half-orc, whats the other half?”
“Human.”
“Oh...but does it half to be? I mean like, could you make a half Elf half Orc?”
“...theoretically, but they are really different races.”
“So...what would that be like?”
“...Conflicted. Remember that episode of Star Trek with Warf's girlfriend, the half human – half klingon? It would be like that.”
“...”
“...”
“Ok I'm playing.”


At the time, I felt that my decision was based largely what would give the most creative oppurtunity to explore a personality withing. Also, I wanted to play a bad-ass. Looking back on it now, I actually feel that the bad-ass is the more significant part of my who I decided to play. A lot, I'd be willing to bet most, gamers choose characters that are who are what they wish they could be. I had just started a new job where I felt out of place and uncomfortable most of the time. I had previously spent most of my time inside reading, so this is the most human interaction I'd had in ages. On its own I think I could have handled this, but at the time, I happened to be attracting a lot of unwelcome attention. To put it simply, I was getting hit on. A lot. I'm only 18 and I have had a boyfriend through all of this (a steel dragon mascarading as human who we saved from a giant spider web,) but none of this seemed to help out with the...attention. I used to go on walks by the river front, then some guy fishing started yelling at me. I don't go there anymore. I stopped walking city streets alone. I walk to the library from a specific direction, walking fast and watching the ground.

I couldn't not go to work. Elven half-orc Vola, however, would chop a motherfucker's arms off. She did once, actually, and let me tell you, ogre magic is no match for a good barbarian rage and my orc double axe. I really do think knowing that, in one world at least, I was--am--capable of this kind of power has helped me immensely. “Attention” died down at work after the first couple of months. Most of those guys having been 'let go' in one way or another since then. Still, it's nice knowing I've created an alter ego like that. I feel safer and stronger and certainly more confident. Vola's greatest traits are her bravery, her wisdom, and her compassion. Looks are not on this list. She has tusks. Violet eyes can only do so much for a gal's appearance. She takes a -2 to all charisma related rolls. We coined the word charistard when this character was being developed. Having a Vola under my skin certainly makes the everyday assholes count less. Plus, I haven't found a fun yet as good as staying up all night playing pretend with a group of equally imaginative and crazy friends.