Bratmobile

By the time Murphy was making this newsletter, pop culture had made big strides in gender equity.

The 90s was known as the decade of girl power, of punk bands like Bikini Kill and Slater Kenny and Bratmobile encouraging radical feminism through DIY music and zines.

1992 was dubbed the year of the woman after four congresswomen were elected in the wake of Anita Hill's testimony accusing Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.

If there was so much progress happening in the macro culture, why weren't things getting better for women in bluegrass?

Hell yeah.

Um, alongside, like, Bratmobile, um, and Bikini Kill, and, uh, yeah, these are all tracks that haven't been released before.

There's a couple on here that I think were released alongside, uh, like, Bratmobile singles on, like, uh, double 7 inches.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh... or split 7 inches.

You do.

Starting in the early '90s, you were in a feminist punk band, uh, called Bratmobile, which is still going on today.

Right.

Um, and through that I'm sure you learned a lot of stuff about being a DIY artist.

...

but, uh, they, you know, I think that seemed to be, I mean, if you read a lot of the interviews or the coverage of that time, I'm sure that was a big issue that they were trying to navigate.

You know, Dave is from DC, so that is fr- you know, he was in a, a punk band, Scream, that was, um, you know, from that scene entirely and, and, uh, Kurt and Krist being from, you know, that Aberdeen, Olympia, Seattle connection.

I think, yeah, there are a lot of people who valued being precious about it.

A considerable force within the legendary Riot Grrrl movement at the time, the duo came to an end in 1994 with both Tucker and Sawyer pursuing other musical projects.

They reunited earlier this year for a live performance and are now preparing for a tour to support Babies Gone, a 16-track collection including a never-before-heard demo tape recorded by Bratmobile's Molly Newman.

plus the 1993 These Monsters Are Real and the 1994 Direction 7-inch recordings.

Sawyer and Tucker recently spoke with me about their decision to perform live, the powerful emotional and lyrical elements of the songs heard on Baby's Gone, and their hopes that music performed in communal spaces can still be an instrument of change.

And this week, we're coming at you from Beyond the Music in Media City, Salford, where we're joined by a trailblazing rockstar who's also a game-changing music industry exec.

She started off in riot-girl band Bratmobile before moving into labels and management, followed by stints everywhere from Rhapsody to Kickstarter.

She joined Downtown in 2017 has climbed the ranks, so she is now president of CD Baby, the music distributor dedicated to empowering independent and self-releasing artists.

Please welcome the one and only Molly Neuman.

I mean, you did an interesting post a while back about being back on the road with, uh-

Mm-hmm

... with Bratmobile and how expensive it is to tour-

Yeah

They're not just coming at you quite as intensely.

And I think as much as there were things on the first two albums I like, and I like punk music, I like fast music, I like Riot Grrrl in general, whether it was Bratmobile or Bikini Kill and stuff, there's a lot of stuff I liked on those.

But it is like four or five straight albums of that can become You know, we kind of know what it is at that point.

So I like the fact that they're progressing every single album and adding texture and layers to it.

Yeah.

So, but I mean, L7, you know, Bratmobile, Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Lunachicks, all these bands in the '90s, you know, that-

I remember all those bands

... yeah, you know?

Um, and it's just from the, like, feminist punk movem- movement from the '90s, the, the riot grrrl movement.

I love Bikini Kill and, um, I love Bratmobile, uh, Hole.

Like, and I think that just kind of embodies, like, what I wanna be as a wrestler and kind of who I am as a person.

[laughs]

Douglas Park is really big.

And the first band I caught was this girl led punk band called Bratmobile.

Um, Your sister, Sarah, recommended them to me.

They were super fun.

She thought that was cool.

And so the fest itself is so much more than music.

So after watching Bratmobile, I just kind of went exploring and there was this NWA wrestling ring.

There were carnival rides, food vendors, 30 or more like remote shops that were selling like t-shirts and stickers and patches and other clothing and posters and uh edible goods as it were um but a lot of these were like small business owners which is awesome i love that part of it so rather than like going to some corporate tent and and buying like 40 t-shirts you can just go and you know hit up some mom and pop shop yeah and just pick up a cool shirt or whatever

So the concept is like, how do we create a level of demand through us, right? Telling our friends who all have these incredible platforms through music, through TV, through comedy, right? Like combining forces is how we do it.

I just proved it by putting our teaser out and getting half a million views in less than a month by having Margaret Cho, Peaches, Bratmobile, Alice Bag collaborate on this, right? I was like, could this be the new Golden Girls, basically? Yes.

That's the show.

It's