Prog Rock's Not Just For Boys Anymore
June 06, 2005 We'll confess -- every now and then, we listen to 107.7 The Bone, (usually when Live 105 goes through one of its fifteen minutes of Sublime programming jaunts) -- where, save for Heart, one need not be a feminist scholar to note that the playlist is notably devoid of double-X chromosomes. Where are all the female guitar gods? Well, the Warfield on Saturday night for the Sleater-Kinney/Mary Timony show was a good place to start looking. The indie rockers in attendance were matching their ironic sneakers with stained Joe Satriani and Peter Frampton tees for a change, and we definitely saw some joyful lady air-guitaring for the two leading prog-rockers in post-riotgrrl rock. Mary Timony used to helm one of the first 90s female bands, Autoclave, who played heavy, heavy DC indie punk, and then went on to lead Helium, who played intense rock. Intense like people who grab your arm in the middle of conversations and stare deeply at you with slightly widened eyes, and say things like, "I mean, you know what I MEAN, right?" After that, Timony took some time off, and then launched a solo career that seemed primarily aimed at the 20-sided-die crowd, replete with phantastic lyrics about golden maidens and unicorns and orcs and stuff. Well, Timony is back with a new album, Ex Hex, that everyone hastens to say, "It's not about unicorns and rainbows anymore!" Ascend a Stairway to Heaven along with us at the show as you hit the Expand-o-tron! The new Mary Timony record features just Mary along with a drummer (Devin Ocampo from DC's The Meditations), but it sounded like she had a full band up there with her on stage as she noodled her way up and down the guitar neck with the crazy chords and solos. We have this thing where we can't ever make out the lyrics to songs, so we can't say for sure, but it did seem a lot less like Fellowship of the Rings than the previous stuff. Like Rush songs without the allegories about Ayn Rand, though, you can still viscerally feel the power of the geek rock, even without the words about princesses and faeries and goblins -- is it something unique to goth prog rock? It's like, everyone knows Yes is favored by geeks and engineers, even though there's nothing in the lyrics that would hint to that otherwise. Well, Mary Timony is welcome in cubicles up and down 101, and we look forward to hearing her in the Classic Rock That Rocks! no-repeat Mondays workforce play lists in the future. Sleater-Kinney was fine, and has also embraced prog rock in their latest album, The Woods, but honestly, we spent most of the show watching a fan, obviously overly intoxicated on something, get in an extensive provocation with the Warfield security. Like Carrie Brownstein's 11 minute guitar-wank, the confrontation built and built and built, from a relatively minor stepping over the invisible aisle line marked on the floor to taunting the guard, some kind of shoving and yelling match with a humiliated-looking girlfriend, an attempt to rush the stage, an offended stomping off the floor when the guard told her to cut it out, then illicit sneaking back onto the floor, a full-on confrontation, and finally, some kind of fistfight and hair-pulling of the guard that led to five guards dragging her out and throwing her onto the street. We heard a "That's what you get when you don't put up the security barricades, guys" as she left. (And hello to SFist Isaac! Sorry to be so freaked out when we saw you at the end of the show -- the angry lady fan really kinda wigged us out. Prog rock should be about love and not hate!) Posted by rita from SFist |
