Nov 10, 2015 Notes from the Underground: Censorship Now!! by Ian Svenonius and Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
Is it because no one pays for music anymore that so many members of my favorite bands are writing books? Or maybe they’re simply Renaissance people who can’t stop creating art or sharing ideas with supporters like me. I’d like to think the latter.
Last Sunday, I wasn’t able to attend Ian Svenonius’s reading at my friend Wendy Yao’s Ooga Twooga shop/art space but arrived just in time to purchase the last copy of Censorship Now!!, say hi, and have him sign it. I saw his militant/art/gospel yeh-yeh bands Nation of Ulysses, The Cupid Car Club, and The Make-Up back in the Jabberjaw era, and the latter group even stayed at my house a couple of times. Since then, Svenonius has kept busy hosting the Soft Focus interview show, starting a new collective called Chain & The Gang (which started as deconstructed doo-wop and has mutated into garage rock) and writing books.
Svenonious’s essays are as muckraking as his music, attacking capitalism and the status quo with style and humor and no mercy, continuing the boomerang- or perhaps smile-shaped trajectory from the Nation of Ulysses’s 13 Point Program to Destroy America through Chain & The Gang’s Down with Liberty… Up With Chains Imagine Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (in which the satirist suggests 18th Century England solve its poverty problem by having the rich eat the poor children) but with the counterculture touchstones of John Waters (leveling high and low art and culture with a knowledgeable and loving appreciation of both).
“War on ‘Hoarders'” is a perfect example of Svenonius assaulting trends that are on the surface forward-thinking and of the times. Millennials love Ikea and Apple and their minimal aesthetics and notions of eliminating clutter. Yet they ruin relationships and romance with nonsensical instructions and seek to monopolize the acquisition of media and ideas–ultimately threatening the accumulation, growth, and value of culture. Meanwhile, people who “hoard” tangible media are demonized and shamed on cable TV. “‘Hoarders’ are the only thing standing between these incomprehensibly rich, all-controlling, degenerate, digital despots and the absolute destruction of any deviant or alternative consciousness,” concludes the writer. “ALL POWER TO THE PACK RATS!!”
Other topics include censorship vs. standards, the gentrification of punk rock, comparing rock stars to vampires, and a shocking reinterpretation of Heathers. “Read on word at a time,” suggests the instructions on the back cover. Indeed. Glossing over will result in missing the point. It will also be less pleasurable.
Last Tuesday, I attended a Vroman’s Bookstore event featuring Carrie Brownstein in which she read from her new memoir and chatted about it with her friend, filmmaker and comedian Amy Poehler. The humorous conversation tackled serious subjects such as women being treated outsiders by mainstream culture (i.e. “women in rock” or “women in comedy”) as well as their transformation from being fans to being participants (and their current relationship with fans). We in the audience laughed and cried and then became a ball of mush when two attendees who had heard that Brownstein was an ordained minister used the Q&A session to ask her to marry them on the fly. She said yes, the young elopers said “I do,” and Poehler provided limited-but-effective piano accompaniment.
You’ve probably heard Brownstein talking about Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl on NPR and other outlets like that. Her band, Sleater-Kinney, grew out of the Riot Grrrl scene and was eventually crowned the number-one rock band in the world by Time magazine before taking a sudden hiatus in 2008. Since then, she played in Wild Flag and co-created the much-loved Portlandia comedy series. But the book’s intent is to describe Brownstein’s evolution as a musician, artist, and individual, and the rise, fall, and return of Sleater-Kinney.
Like a lot of people, I bought and loved all of Sleater-Kinney’s records when they came out and have seen the ass-kicking indie trio a number of times. But I never actually got to know them beyond brief conversations with drummer Janet Weiss or dug into the lyrics to figure out their story. So it was enlightening to read about Brownstein overcoming dysfunction, discovering punk rock, and finding her place as well as empowerment in Sleater-Kinney only to be crushed by success. Fans who want to know more about Portlandia will have to wait for another book, because it is mentioned only in passing at the point when the trio reunites with renewed energy and appreciation for one another.
How the book fares in a vacuum, I can’t say, but I plowed through the pages in two sittings and imagine that most other readers will also already be very familiar with Brownstein’s band and want to know every detail that she cares to share. I got extra kicks out of the passages that mention mutual friends and can’t wait to revisit the middle albums with new insight. Sleater-Kinney is known for giving its all onstage–politically, personally, emotionally, artistically–and it makes sense that Brownstein does that on the printed page as well.
All pics by me: Books (personal stash); Ian Svenonius, Wendy Yao, Eloise, and me (Ooga Twooga November 1, 2015); Chain & The Gang at the Satellite (January 15, 2015), Records (personal stash); Carrie Brownstein and Amy Poeher at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church (November 3, 2015); Sleater-Kinney at the Hollywood Palladium (May 1, 2015); Records (personal stash). Videos not by me or mine.
Check out the new books by Ian Svenonius and Carrie Brownstein at akashicbooks.com and penguinrandomhouse.com, respectively, and follow Imprint on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, too!