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WHERE FEMINISM ROCKS: From riot grrrls to Rasta reggae, political music in the '90s is raw and real.
The LUNACHICKS WHERE PLAYING AT A NEW YORK CITY nightclub and I had to walk past a slew of bikers to get in. Given the bouncer's nod, I entered a huge dark room filled with people milling about the bar and seething on the dance floor. Some were dressed in black leather and chains and wore an array of hair color, everything from fuchsia and electric orange to ebony black and bleached white. Skin was pierced and tattooed, as decorated as the clothes.
I had on my usual inconspicuous black T-shirt, jeans, black boots, and baseball cap worn backward. Though I have been reporting on the music scene for several years, I wondered whether I was in the right place. It felt like a rite of passage.
Downstairs, in a split-level room, I could see the Lunachicks, four women bouncing and yelling onstage, their makeup purposely grotesque, screaming and screeching on guitars and drums in colorful baby-doll outfits that might have been designed by Betsey Johnson. People were dancing and yelling back at the stage. Suddenly one of the singers shouted into her mike: "Let the girls up front! Let the girls up front!"
I stood still at the back. A few "boys" groaned. A surge of "girls" moved forward, screaming and waving their fists. Rude, crude, and lewd, the Lunachicks sang, Take this! Take that/But no one is ever going to take my/
fuckin' rights back. /Don't touch us in the street/
`Cause we ain't your tits & meat/
Just because we're fuckin' women/That's right.
Momentum built to a crescendo. I got caught up in the fervor of the crowd of fans - both male and female - enraged, excited, outraged, and I found myself feeling more powerful than when I came in.
Where are the younger generation of feminists? people often ask me. Have we lost them? My answer is always the same: "You're looking in the wrong places."
There is a strong anti-sexist and anti-racist manifesto present in today's music. You don't have to be a teenager or a twentysomething to appreciate it, and you don't have to be a rock and roller to...