While I am a punk girl at heart I have soft spot for all things italo disco, especially when there’s a bit of outer space in the mix…
I happened upon The Ann Steel album recently and was delighted by its futuristic pseudo-robotic sound and aesthetic. Masterminded by Italian electronic composer, Roberto Cacciapaglia, the persona Ann Steel was created when Robert met an American model-to-be shortly after her arrival in Italy, dressed her in a red jumpsuit, wrote her some fantastically nonsensical songs and produced an album with her in the late 70s. Unfortunately, Ann’s career never took off and she soon faded into obscurity. The album itself however, initially only available in a limited run, was reissued on vinyl in late October 2011 by Half Machine Records. Buy your copy here or download a digital copy below.
Also, for your listening pleasure is a mix of some of my favorite outer spacey disco dance tunes. Enjoy!
SPACER WOMAN MIX TRACKLIST
Boney M. - Nightflight To Venus
Venus Gang - Love To Fly
Herman’s Rocket - Space Woman
Sheila B. Devotion - Spacer
Space - Magic Fly
Charlie - Spacer Woman
Ann Steel - My Time
La Bionda - I Wanna Be Your Lover
Dee D. Jackson - Automatic Lover
Video Kids - Woodpeckers From Space
Andreas Dorau und die Marinas - Fred vom Jupiter
Spizz Energi - Where’s Captain Kirk
The Space Lady - Major Tom
ESG - UFO
I am pleased to have been a small part of the Making Waves fanzine, contributing my recent interview with Marlene, Klaudia and Astrid of LiLiPUT. This first issue also features interviews with Jeri Cain Rossi, Debsey Wykes from Dolly Mixture, James Hoare, All Girl Summer Fun Band, Verónica Ortuño, Stef Petticoat, Chalk Circle, Alice Bag and more.
The fanzine is the result of a year long transatlantic collaboration initiated by Camille Lan in Paris and Mary Regalado in Los Angeles. The aim of the project is to explore the intersections of punk, feminism and womanhood by getting a group of contributors together that share a common enthusiasm for music and featuring women that make the songs we love.
You can download a PDF of the issue below, but of course the only way to truly experience this zine is in print form, so order your copy via Lulu here! Follow the progress of the project on tumblr as it continues: http://mwzine.tumblr.com.
tracklist:
01. Jeri Rossi - I Left My Heart But I Don’t Know Where
02. Dolly Mixture - Shonay Shonay
03. All Girl Summer Fun Band - Charm Bracelet
04. Finally Punk - Environmentality
05. Ludus - Too Hot To Handle
06. The Petticoats - I’m Free
07. Chalk Circle - Easy Escapes
08. LiLiPUT - In A Mess
09. The Bags - Violent Girl
10. Devil’s Dykes - Fruitless
The third and final dot of the Mother Festival ephemeral triangle will now be drawn… The traveling wowmen’s music spectacle takes over Berlin on the 22 and 23 September 2011 with a stellar line-up of female bands and DJs.
Here’s all you need to know, plus an exclusive Mother Mixtape below to get your heart and ears ready…
Thursday, 22 September HBC / Karl-Liebknecht-Str 9 / 10178 Berlin Agathe Max(Lyon) Sonja Cvitkovic with Michaela Meise and Kritkrom (Berlin) Penelope Edmund (London) Roxymore (Paris/Berlin) La Chatte (Paris) DJ S/HE (Milan)
DOWNLOAD: Mother Berlin Mix.mp3 Tracklist:
Kool Thing - The Sign (Chance in the Dark Mix)
Molly Nilsson - Never O’Clock
La Chatte - Apache
Penelope Edmund - This is Romance
Cassexxe Vibrato - Dark Seduction
Maria & The Mirrors - Travel Sex
Kool Thing - Line Drive
La Chatte - Jacques (Hypo Extended remix)
Molly Nilsson - Europa
Agatha Max - Black Needle
Sonja Cvitkovic & Kritzkom - German Playback
Anna Otto - Forest
Summer has sprung! So here are some brilliant and delightful girlpunk sounds for all your holiday and party needs - featuring two of my all time favorite blogs and a lovingly done compendium of early punk tracks.
Gunilla Mixtapes is a regularly updated blog featuring 30 minute mixes of (mostly) 80s female fronted punk. Here’s a sample of what awaits…visit the blog to download all the current episodes.
DOWNLOAD: Gunilla 1 mixtape
01. Deutscher Kaiser - Halli Galli Tanzt Für Sie
02. A-Gen-53 – Stalingrad
03. Die Egozentrischen 2 – Parallelverschiebung
04. Househunters – Dorsal Fin
05. Silver Abuse – Plastic Rows
06. Plastix – Konsumier Mich
07. The Liggers – Pretty Girl
08. NON baNd – Duncan Dancin’
09. I.U.D. – Charm
10. Jungle Nausea – Uniform
11. Silver Abuse – Cuban Homo Farm
12. Good Samaritans – Dotted Line
The TV Dinner Mixtapesare another series of well selected girlpunk mixes incorporating bands from the last four decades. Download the first episode here and then visit the website to access the other 20+ mixes!
DOWNLOAD: TV Dinner 1: Consuming New Frontiers
01. As Mercenarias- Trashland
02. Bags- TV Dinner
03. Clothilde- La Queue Du Chat
04. DNA- Taking Kid To School
05. Thee Headcoatees- Wildman
06. Neo Boys- Time Keeps Time
07. Chantal Goya- C’est Bien Bernard
08 Mika Miko- Blues Not Speed
09. JFA- Baja
10. Suburban Lawns- Pioneers
11. Grass Widow- Uncertain Memory
12. Clothilde- Je T’ai Voulu Et Je T’ai Bien Eu
If that doesn’t satisfy your yearning for prime punk sounds, download the digitized version of the 12 CD-R set A Reference of Female Fronted Punk 1977 - 1989. The compilation was personally put together by a guy named Vince in a limited run and digitized for the benefit of us all by Kängnäve blog.
Earlier this month saw the launch of the Women’s Liberation Music Archive, a small corner of webspace focusing on “feminist music-making in the UK and Ireland from 1970 - 1990.” The project, an initiative of Deborah Withers and Frankie Green, is actively and openly seeking contributions, corrections and all forms of support to make the website a fun and useful tool.
The bands featured in the archive represent the ideals of second wave feminism with a “sisterhood is powerful” attitude and leanings towards jazzy/folk/rock sounds. After a bit of digging I’ve come up with a few of my personal highlights from the collection, have a listen here and then visit the site and have a trawl yourself!
“Didn’t Affect Me” by The Fabulous Dirt Sisters
“Self Defense” by Ova
As an added bonus I offer you here a digitized version of the “Making Waves” compilation put out by Girlfriend Records in 1981, featuring twelve women’s bands from the UK. Here’s to you, sisters in song!
symposium crowd, photo by Ute Schendel
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The symposium Wissenschaft, Künste + Alles Andere (Science, Arts + Everything Else) took place over three days from Friday, 9 November 1990 – Sunday, 11 November 1990 at the Museum für Gestaltung in Basel, Switzerland. The event brought together over 100 women, from across German speaking countries and around the world, to discuss current affairs in the areas of art, politics, literature, activism, philosophy and more.
The symposium manifesto offered “contradiction, commonality, different working and communication methods, concentration, information, opinions, arguments and enjoyment: talking, seeing, listening, moving thorough spaces, thinking – an experiment from which new insights can develop.”
Kathy Acker, photo by Ute Schendel
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In the lead up to the 20th anniversary of the symposium, Monika Dillier and Dagmar Reichert, themselves participants in the event, began digitising over 40 hours of video filmed during the three days. With the exhibition Chambres d’Echo in November 2010, Les Complices* Gallery in Zurich, Switzerland exhibited outtakes from the footage and hosted a series of events around the themes of the archive. Journal d’Echo, a publication of new written works inspired by the symposium and produced during the exhibition, was published in March 2011 by edition fink.
There are plans to make the videos openly available over time, but until then have a look at the programme and imagine what arguments and enjoyments might well have taken place… Here also is an early work from Pipilotti Rist, courtesy of the amazing UbuWeb.
