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mysterygirlOver on lj, I talked a little bit about this blog post, and my own personal experiences with playing guitar and such. But there's a lot I didn't include in my own post, and I really, really wanted to participate in this 3 Weeks for Dreamwidth thing so I thought I would continue them here. Girls and rock n' roll: GO!
So in the lj post I talk a lot about how I started playing guitar, and about the whole "girls are kind of socialized to play acoustic guitar only" and so on. But the original Tiger Beat post talks about her crappy experience in an all dude band, and how those douchebags prayed to the altar of "dude music" as she calls it (cock rock, as I call it). In her blog, she talks less about being in a band, and sticking with music, and more about the dude music/cock rock culture and how it fucking sucks. I don't even think she mentioned what kind of instrument she played.
Don't get me wrong, I loved her total annihilation of cock rock. But personally, I wanted to know more about her playing and if she still played. I've known many girls that just stop playing when they've hit a wall like that and I wanted to know if she stopped playing, or if she wanted to start another band, if she is in another band, or if she just plays alone in her room, for fun. Did she ever meet any guys that actually respected her as a musician? Or was she always surrounded by dudes who only digested dude music?
I only had two guys give me any sort of problem:
Guy the first: A girl I knew in high school, K, had just transferred to my University. I remembered in high school that she played the bass in Jazz Band, so I asked her if she wanted to get together and jam sometime, with the idea of forming a band sometime in the future. She said yes. I also had an ulterior motive: her longtime boyfriend was a drummer and I thought that once he heard that his girlfriend was trying to start a band, he would fall into the group naturally. Yeah, not the case. He was already in a band with K's brother and they obviously thought they were GREATEST BAND IN ALL THE LAND. So when K invited drummer boyfriend to watch us jam he treated us like a total novelty. At first I thought it was because he was dating K (that had a really weird relationship) and while I do think that is still a part of it, he also did not want to play with a couple of girls. One time, me and K were goofing around, and she asked him to sit in with us. He flat out REFUSED. Nothing she said would get him behind that drum set, and it led to a fight/icy silence with me standing around awkwardly (always funtimes).
And that wasn't the only problem with this "band." After we got it rolling (sans boyfriend), K decided to invite her BFF, a boy with no musical abilities whatsoever, to "sing" for us. It was totally ridiculous because both me and her were TRAINED FUCKING SINGERS. Not surprisingly, the "band" dissolved after that (although we stayed friends). Looking back, I feel kind of sorry for K; I think she wanted a guy in our band to try and give us some cred to her boyfriend and brother, who totally thought she was less of a musician because she was a girl. But we totally didn't need that. Also, her BFF was making our music into some sort of screamo band, my worst fucking nightmare.
Guy the second: After the band with K fell through, I went back to playing in my room. My Dad bought some recording equipment and taught me how to use it; he said the knowledge would be a useful tool in the future. (Side note: it turned out to be one of the greatest things I ever learned.) From there, I began to record some of my songs onto a four track cassette recorder. I played the songs for my friends, who liked them. So I decided to put them up on MySpace and try the band thing again. This time I was only on the lookout for a drummer, someone to keep the beat for me.
I made bright pink flyers for girl drummers, and when those turned up nobody, I began trolling the local music message boards for potential drummers. I e-mailed lots of people, even met with a few, but nothing ever worked out.
Then one day, I saw an ad for a drummer pimping himself. I snatched the opportunity, e-mailing him immediately. He hit me back right away and we made arrangements to meet. But then I noticed that in the last e-mail he sent me, he said "Take care, man."
Did this guy know I was a girl? I mean, I signed my name and everything. Rhea is obviously a girls name, right? Right?
I panicked. I asked my friends what I should do. Was I overreacting? Was he just being colloquial? Should I e-mail and tell him that I'm a girl, or would that be rude? I finally decided to e-mail him and let him know I was a girl. He would either say he knew (awkward moment for me) or he would say he didn't know and apologize (awkward moment for him). Either way, I needed to do it, because if we agreed to meet and he was looking for a dude, he'd be really surprised. So I sent an e-mail, suggested a time to meet and said "By the way, you know I'm a girl, right?"
He never e-mailed me back. I tried twice touching base after that.
He ditched me cause I was a girl.
Boo-yah.
So those were my two douchey band dudes experiences. And they may not be as bad as that girl's experience, but they did kind of suck. Which is why I wanted to know if that girl continued on with playing after her crappy experience. Because what makes those incidents suck even more than they should is that for a lot of girls, it's just fucking ingrained into their heads that they can't be rockers, or can't be as good at guitar because they're girls. So when these sucky experiences happen, it's like reinforcing that notion.
I know I felt more than a few pangs of NOT GOOD ENOUGH when those dudes gave me the snub. But they did not deter my RAW DETERMINATION to get a band together, and to play a local show. I think the worst thing for a girl rocker is to stop playing. If you're having fun, you should never stop.
And eventually, I did play my local show(s), with a guy who's musical tastes dovetailed nicely with mine. And it was totally rad.
So in the lj post I talk a lot about how I started playing guitar, and about the whole "girls are kind of socialized to play acoustic guitar only" and so on. But the original Tiger Beat post talks about her crappy experience in an all dude band, and how those douchebags prayed to the altar of "dude music" as she calls it (cock rock, as I call it). In her blog, she talks less about being in a band, and sticking with music, and more about the dude music/cock rock culture and how it fucking sucks. I don't even think she mentioned what kind of instrument she played.
Don't get me wrong, I loved her total annihilation of cock rock. But personally, I wanted to know more about her playing and if she still played. I've known many girls that just stop playing when they've hit a wall like that and I wanted to know if she stopped playing, or if she wanted to start another band, if she is in another band, or if she just plays alone in her room, for fun. Did she ever meet any guys that actually respected her as a musician? Or was she always surrounded by dudes who only digested dude music?
I only had two guys give me any sort of problem:
Guy the first: A girl I knew in high school, K, had just transferred to my University. I remembered in high school that she played the bass in Jazz Band, so I asked her if she wanted to get together and jam sometime, with the idea of forming a band sometime in the future. She said yes. I also had an ulterior motive: her longtime boyfriend was a drummer and I thought that once he heard that his girlfriend was trying to start a band, he would fall into the group naturally. Yeah, not the case. He was already in a band with K's brother and they obviously thought they were GREATEST BAND IN ALL THE LAND. So when K invited drummer boyfriend to watch us jam he treated us like a total novelty. At first I thought it was because he was dating K (that had a really weird relationship) and while I do think that is still a part of it, he also did not want to play with a couple of girls. One time, me and K were goofing around, and she asked him to sit in with us. He flat out REFUSED. Nothing she said would get him behind that drum set, and it led to a fight/icy silence with me standing around awkwardly (always funtimes).
And that wasn't the only problem with this "band." After we got it rolling (sans boyfriend), K decided to invite her BFF, a boy with no musical abilities whatsoever, to "sing" for us. It was totally ridiculous because both me and her were TRAINED FUCKING SINGERS. Not surprisingly, the "band" dissolved after that (although we stayed friends). Looking back, I feel kind of sorry for K; I think she wanted a guy in our band to try and give us some cred to her boyfriend and brother, who totally thought she was less of a musician because she was a girl. But we totally didn't need that. Also, her BFF was making our music into some sort of screamo band, my worst fucking nightmare.
Guy the second: After the band with K fell through, I went back to playing in my room. My Dad bought some recording equipment and taught me how to use it; he said the knowledge would be a useful tool in the future. (Side note: it turned out to be one of the greatest things I ever learned.) From there, I began to record some of my songs onto a four track cassette recorder. I played the songs for my friends, who liked them. So I decided to put them up on MySpace and try the band thing again. This time I was only on the lookout for a drummer, someone to keep the beat for me.
I made bright pink flyers for girl drummers, and when those turned up nobody, I began trolling the local music message boards for potential drummers. I e-mailed lots of people, even met with a few, but nothing ever worked out.
Then one day, I saw an ad for a drummer pimping himself. I snatched the opportunity, e-mailing him immediately. He hit me back right away and we made arrangements to meet. But then I noticed that in the last e-mail he sent me, he said "Take care, man."
Did this guy know I was a girl? I mean, I signed my name and everything. Rhea is obviously a girls name, right? Right?
I panicked. I asked my friends what I should do. Was I overreacting? Was he just being colloquial? Should I e-mail and tell him that I'm a girl, or would that be rude? I finally decided to e-mail him and let him know I was a girl. He would either say he knew (awkward moment for me) or he would say he didn't know and apologize (awkward moment for him). Either way, I needed to do it, because if we agreed to meet and he was looking for a dude, he'd be really surprised. So I sent an e-mail, suggested a time to meet and said "By the way, you know I'm a girl, right?"
He never e-mailed me back. I tried twice touching base after that.
He ditched me cause I was a girl.
Boo-yah.
So those were my two douchey band dudes experiences. And they may not be as bad as that girl's experience, but they did kind of suck. Which is why I wanted to know if that girl continued on with playing after her crappy experience. Because what makes those incidents suck even more than they should is that for a lot of girls, it's just fucking ingrained into their heads that they can't be rockers, or can't be as good at guitar because they're girls. So when these sucky experiences happen, it's like reinforcing that notion.
I know I felt more than a few pangs of NOT GOOD ENOUGH when those dudes gave me the snub. But they did not deter my RAW DETERMINATION to get a band together, and to play a local show. I think the worst thing for a girl rocker is to stop playing. If you're having fun, you should never stop.
And eventually, I did play my local show(s), with a guy who's musical tastes dovetailed nicely with mine. And it was totally rad.
