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Four ways to work it (clockwise, l-r): Daphne of Forcing Bloom, Mistress Vega Lee, Meg Castellanos of Totimoshi, the Shevel Knievel ladies. Modes of Operandi Bay Area sisters in rock are doing it for themselves By Erica Pedersen The Unlimited Sunshine Tour that passed through Berkeley's Greek Theatre a month ago billed itself as the messiah of alternative rock festivals. Even with De La Soul next to the Flaming Lips, the varied line up was still missing something to make it rock's true alternate -- a girl. With eight bands, not a single player was female, except for one voyeuristic fan with blinking green lights for nipples who snuck on stage and came close enough to count coup on Cake's lead singer. Copy that for Moby's Area2 Fest; many genres, one lady (Ash's rhythm guitarist Charlotte Hatherly). Not a lot of chicks playing Ozzfest, either. In rock, or in big money rock like the above tours, women are the audience, the groupies, and the marginalized participants with limited access to the spoils of rock stardom. Looking around the Bay, who are the women in rock, how do they see their place in it, and do we really take them seriously? Like Ms. Blinking Green Lights, a woman can be the sex object, the go-get-a-rock-star girl. She can internalize, and abjectly gain association with the common tongue of rock by literally doing the rock star in the tour bus bunks. In one sense, she's required if the whole ceremony is to function properly. Yes, women have risen rock's ranks, and done so well, like Janis, Joan, Pat, and Kim Gordan, to just name a scant few, but looking through the lenses of our Bay Area ladies, women rockers are exceptions to the rule of a (shall we say white?) patriarchy that still reigns. If she wants to be taken seriously for her art, be a hero, she has to pave her own way. Otherwise, it's all B(rittany).S(pears). Enter now a bass-playing dominatrix (Shera Storm), an all-girl rock metal band (Shevel Knievel), a hard-rockin' singer fronting an all male band (Daphne of Forcing Bloom), and a metal bass player gigging with her husband (Meg Castellanos of Totimoshi). The ways in which these women infiltrate rock in the Bay are as varied as rock itself. But a similar stance as women artists in a niche staked by men runs through them all. The Flaming Lips put it out there, and the bubble bursts in 3,2,1. Art vs. Sex What is it about rock that draws players, of any gender? Rock isn't about being a good girl, or a good boy, for sure. It's about abandon, recklessness, and searching. Its rewards are recog-nition, fame, sex, free reign to a psychic expanse of drugs, freedom, travel, cash, and a creative life warping the fringes of normalcy. But giants guard the golden egg. Castellanos says, "losing money on tours, sleeping on piss floors, dealing with ass-hole bookers," are just some of the unladylike holes in success's way. That's precisely what makes it an adventure, something to esteem players for, that the players are doing what they must, however uncertain. Asked about the difference for women in folk rock, you know, the crooners with a social con-scious, versus hard rock, Daphne says, "Women have already con-quered folk rock, that's all." It's the hard rock scene where sex and art are still at odds. For her, the key to success in hard rock is to "stop using sex as a tool." Only then "will women be more of a threat to the male-dominated hard rock scene." One of the biggest common-alities among these women is that, first off, they aren't objects of someone else's desire. They are their own subjects. As part of her hard rock performance group, Apocalypstick, San Francisco's bass-playing dominatrix, Shera Storm (aka Mistress Vega Lee), does things her way by turning men into pink pig boys (officers of her Law) onstage to objectify them -- "they're much sexier that way." Extreme, yes, but it does shift the poles, and even helps men "learn how to bark" and explore their own objectivity. Crazy Beautiful All of these women possess a compulsion for the form. Shera sees herself as addicted to rock, "the organic feel of something that is raw, natural, that says what it means and means what it says." At nine years old, Isabel from Shevel Knievel knew where she "belonged" the first time she heard Metallica ("For Whom the Bell Tolls"). With a fake ID Meg saw "Bad Brains just totally rip it up" and knew she "wanted to be a part of that." And for Daphne, "this [rock] chose me, and I'm not going to turn my back on that and mess it up." These women are doing what they love, and that motiva-tion isn't gendered, it's human. Compulsion is different to each of our ladies, but for each it has nothing to do with la femme. Shera created her group from scratch as a way to "create a physical form of what goes on in [her] head 24 hours a day." For Shevel's guitar player Evel T, rock isn't about anger, "it's about a release that brings joy." For Castellanos, it's not about rebellion, but about the "power" of heavy punk and metal. Daphne says she's "out here with my sword and my shield and it's crazy and beautiful." As for playing with men, all of these ladies do, except for Shevel Knievel's drummer, Evel I. She says, "Very few of my guy friends take me seriously, not that I necessarily want them to. Nonetheless, I think men love women in rock." Drums, a most male set, might be a final frontier for women rock instrumentalists, but girls have oddity on their side. And that stagnancy, that predictability of rock lineups, is most likely what engendered the boredom that made us all resurrect Elvis, dead and buried for 25 years. As for the next 25 years, the business savvy of women musicians, learning how to record, finance, and distribute, will help bring balance to the rock force. Like Evel T says, "Guys get more radio play and more money. I guess they get more history, too." What makes Meg, Daphne, Shera, and the Evels frontrunners, gender aside, is their ability to put themselves out there. Either that or wait for Ozzie to call. Daphne, www.forcingbloom.com; Meg Castellanos, www.totimoshi.com; Mistress Vega Lee, www.sherastorm.com; Shevel Knievel, www.shevelknievel.net. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]