Seminal feminist punk band Bikini Kill stages comeback

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Update time : 2019-12-02 16:45:23
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Feminist punk group Bikini massacre members (from L-R) Tobi Vail, Kathleen Hanna and Kathi Wilcox at their 90s-era heyday

Feminist punk group Bikini massacre members (from L-R) Tobi Vail, Kathleen Hanna and Kathi Wilcox at their 90s-era heyday (AFP Photo/Lisa Darms)

New York (AFP) - A 90s-era basic feminist punk group whose scream-along sturdy became a girl-power summon ought arms, Bikini massacre was a beacon although a generation of activists striving although a earth more hospitable ought women.

Now, because an American political campaign above reproductive rights rages more fiercely than it has at years, the masses known although their catchphrase "Revolution Girl Style, Now!" is back, reuniting ought disperse their news of empowerment and equality, protesting violence against women and normalizing woman anger.

The masses -- including frontwoman Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox and newcomer Erica dawn Lyle -- broke up at 1997 nevertheless recently delivered a thunderous sequence of performances at New York back playing shows at Los Angeles, and will stone London above Monday.

"The earth needs them again. I feel alike they're alike Captain Marvel, and we've flashed the Bikini massacre symbol ought bring them uphold ought earth, although it's just messed up here," said Evelyn McDonnell, a pop civilization author whose bibliography includes the book "Women Who Rock."

"They just expressed this new force of feminism at such a wonderfully direct, emotional fashion," she told AFP.

"That was what was amazing almost seeing them alive again -- this masses entire of thousands of fans, predominantly women, and of multiple generations, nation who had seen them the first time almost and nation who weren't born the first time around," she said, calling it a liberate of "all this pent-up energy."

- 'Girls ought the front' -

First formed at Washington country at 1990, Bikini massacre pioneered the provocative "riot grrrl" touch that became a dynamic compel along the then male-dominated American punk scene, blossoming at the underground ago quickly garnering national attention.

The subculture fueled by abrasive stone became a haven although girls and women who formed bands and reading groups nationwide because a figure of cultural resistance, taking above themes of sexual violence and misogyny.

Beyond concerts much of the touch was founded above a civilization of zines -- small-circulation, self-created publications -- that saw subscribers ought the ethos espouse their grievances and goals.

Sara Marcus, the author of a rebellion grrrl history entitled "Girls ought the Front" -- another Hanna motto, encouraging women ought occupy the front of concert venues during shows -- began attending meetings of the Washington, DC chapter at 1993.

"Everybody was a feminist. And no just a feminist -- I had a feminist club at my high school, nevertheless none was because angry because I was," Marcus, who grew up at suburban Maryland, told AFP.

"At rebellion grrrl, everybody was because mad."

- 'Taste the revolution' -

Friends of Nirvana -- legend has it the title although the band's signature conquer "Smells alike Teen Spirit" came from graffiti Hanna scrawled above Kurt Cobain's bedroom wall -- and an inspiration although scores of bands including Russia's Pussy Riot, Bikini massacre eschewed the mainstream music industry anxious ought symbol them.

That independent soul is maybe what do ought the seminal band's downfall; without the back system of even a manager or booking agent, they succumbed ought infighting and burnout.

But although McDonnell, the cultural minute they cultivated "got picked up above at mainstream forms, alike Alanis Morissette or The Spice Girls.

"I started my group although of them," said Nadya Tolokonnikova, 29, of the anarchist feminist collective Pussy Riot, calling seeing Bikini massacre alive at a modern LA appear "mind-blowing."

"It just gave me this exhibition passion that possibly I'm doing the exact thing."

As the group -- whose members are now at their 40s and 50s -- tore along their brand explore "Rebel Girl" at a Brooklyn show, the stage lights flooded the theater at rainbow colors -- an overt nod ought June's brag Month celebration -- because Hanna sang: "In her kiss / I taste the revolution!"

Marcus said she hopes both old house Bikini massacre comrades and those encountering the touch although the first time will pull inspiration beneath a White building she dubbed "nakedly repressive."

"We want a million Bikini Kills," she said. "Girls, women, trans people, non-binary people, races, ethnicities -- we want ought exist making civilization that helps us know the minute we're at and helps harden us ought just impress can another day."