Dis Summer Stylz

In case you haven't noticed, Dis Magazine is on the frontier of everything you need to know. They recently blew Artforum's mind so why not let them blow yours?
Check out the hottest summer trends here.

The Hills Are Alive

Sorry for the major decrease in posts. I'm in Austria for a while making art and won't be posting quite as much.

All The Fashion News You Really Were Not Dying to Know

So here are a few random things you really needed to know....

Like what does Courtney Love wear everyday. Now you can know.http://whatcourtneyworetoday.com/
She actually posted a clip from one of my favorite movies of all time .....Fellini's Casanova staring Donald Sutherland. Classy pick Courtney!



And in case you were ever wondering what fashion tips Roseanne of the television show Roseanne had to offer. Here ya go.
http://www.thirdanddelaware.com/
Seriously, that show was really good.

Also BFF Kathleen had a beautiful realization this week.
Ursula from the little mermaid was based on Divine of John Water Movies Fame! Watch it till the end!
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And also on a totally different but visually kind of related note. Have you watched the trailer for The SkinNY. The season finale of The Hills might have been way meta but The SkinNY has taken over my brain!

"the skinNY" is the story of Rachel and Joanna, two wildly self-confident girls from Orlando who move to New York to work in PR and "run this town." They dress like it's 2004, believe they can have any guy they want, and listen almost exclusively to Fergie. Starring Jonny Sollis and Fabrizio Goldstein. Produced by Nick Gallo from The Onion, a news satire organization.

The Leather Baby Wild One: Suzi Quatro

When doing my previous post on gals who rocked in the 70s it became incredibly obvious that Suzi Quatro was going to need her own post. Is there a vast music world conspiracy keeping all her amazing music hidden from the world? Teenagers, self possessed gals, and anyone who enjoys a serious and fun rocking out session are being done a great dis-service by the absence of Suzi Quatro in our lives.



In The Runaways movie that came out this year (if you didn't see it you are a loser, get your crap together) they did, in my opinion, give well deserved mention to Suzi. In an early scene Joan Jett is seen huffing fumes, making out with her friend, and playing Suzi Quatro's The Wild One on her quitar. Later in the movie when Cherie Currie is given an audition for The Runaways, manager Kim Fowley insists that she learn a Suzi Quatro song in preparation.

So I'm embarrassed by this but I really didn't know much about Suzi Quatro and now from thoroughly surfing the world wide web I'm pissed at the world for not exposing me earlier.

Okay example one: When Suzi was 15 she was in a band with her sisters and some other gals and they were called The Pleasure Seekers. They had an amazing song in 1964 called "What A Way To Die". The lyrics are as follows:

Well I love you baby
I’m telling you right here
But please don’t make me decide baby
Between you and a bottle of beer.
chorus:
Baby come on over,
come on over to my side
well I may not live past twenty-one
but WOO!
what a way to die!

Your lovin' fluctuates baby
and everybody knows
but the temperature always stays the same
on an ice cold bottle of Stroh's

When I start my drinking
my baby throws a fit
So I just blitz him outta my mind
with seventeen bottles of Schlitz

You’ve got the kind of body
that makes me come alive
But I’d rather have my hands around
A bottle of Colt 45

There isn't a video for that song but her is a video of them covering I'll Be There. Suzi's dancing makes me want to go out and party.

Pleasure Seekers 1967-Northwest tour

Patti, Nancy, Suzi, Arlene Quatro | MySpace Music Videos


Okay so now on to the solo career. This is Suzi Quatro doing 48 Crash in 1973. Keep in mind thats 2 years before The Runaways even formed.

I'm frustrated because in this next video the vocals and video don't line up very well. But Wild One is a great example of what an influence Suzi was on girl rockers who came after her. Also the lyrics are pretty epic.

"All my life I've wanted to be somebody, and here I am.
I know what I've got, and there ain't nobody gonna take it away from me.
So let me tell ya what I am!"

I'm a red-hot fox. I can take the knocks
I'm a hammer from hell. Honey, can't you tell?
I'm the wild one. Yes, I'm the wild one
I'm a touched-up freak on a winning streak
I'm gonna own this town. You can't hold me down
I'm the wild one. Yes, I'm the wild one

Well it ain't no use. Turn me loose
More...more...I can't keep score

I've got my head screwed on, and the days are gone
When you kept me down, and you pushed me 'round
I'm the wild one. Yes, I'm the wild one

I'm a blue-eyed bitch and I wanna get rich
Get out of my way 'cause I'm here to stay
I'm the wild one. Yes, I'm the wild one
Well it ain't no use. Turn me loose
More...more...I can't keep score...YEAH!
Well it ain't no use. Turn me loose
More...more...I can't keep score

I'm a red-hot fox. I can take the knocks
I'm a hammer from hell. Honey, can't you tell?
I'm the wild one. Yes, I'm the wild one
I'm a touched-up freak on a winning streak
I'm gonna own this town. You can't hold me down
I'm the wild one. Yes, I'm the wild one

Here are a few more videos

This next song I May Be Too Young is pretty epic also. Its so rock and roll with talk of her keeping company with "those long haired blue eyed southern gents". And such an epic teenagery line "I may be too young to fall in love, but I'm still hangin round".


Suzi was in her early to mid twenties when these videos were shot. She toured and did interviews and all around busted her ass for a few years but mostly did well in Europe and Australia without hitting too high in the US charts. Then she had another resurgence in the late 70s and charted pretty well in the US. My favorite from that later time, which actually didn't do that well here in the states was If You Can't Give Me Love, which actually is more soft rock but pretty awesome.


These days Suzi Quatro, originally from Detroit, is living in Germany according to imdb and England according to wikipedia. Either way she continues to rock hard, look good in leather, and inspire generations of even more rockers. You can read more about her here.

Valley Girl

When I was a kid I sort of thought of the song Valley Girl as the overlap between me and my dad's music taste. I'm not really sure how much the actual song defined either of our taste but I still think the father/daughter collaboration of Frank Zappa and Moon Zappa is pretty awesome. These days Moon Unit Zappa writes, acts, and does the occasional stand up comedy. She married Matchbox Twenty drummer and guitarist Paul Doucette and they have one daughter, Matilda, who shares a birthday with the now deceased Frank Zappa.

Diana Nyad

Jezebel posted this as well. I hope I'm like Diana Nyad when I'm 60. She's re-attempting to swim from Cuba to Florida. Why am I not swimming right now?

Dream A Big Dream

I've posted about The Dream Act before but I believe its worth posting about again. The great American dream is based on the fact that you can come from nothing and rise up to be a respected and succesful member of your community.
However, every year 65,000 students graduate from high school and are faced with the reality that they can not work legally, drive legally, or legally attain higher education. This is due to the fact that they were brought into the country at a young age and their parents either didn't follow the rigid legal protocol of immigration, or the paperwork fell to the wayside as time went by.
There is no pathway at this time to help all the young people who would like to become citizens. Because of some error that happened in childhood they will never be able to become citizens because there is no legal protocol to achieve it. However, The Dream Act, which is a bipartisan bill, will create a set of guidelines that if followed will lead to citizenship for young people. The rules are as follows:
--if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16, are below the age of 35,
--attend college or enlist in the military.
--have lived here continuously for five years,
--graduated from a U.S. high school or obtained a GED
--have good moral character with no criminal record

There are tons of amazing young people standing up for this bill. Tons of kids put themselves through college without student aide or the flexibility of work study jobs - only to find that they can't enter their dream profession. Many who you see on the frontlines fighting have studied to become doctors, scientists, teachers, lawyers, and yet can't work in those fields legally. In the latest manifestation of The Dream Act there would be no state or federal financial aide for these students - just the opportunity to try. Some of these kids also fear talking about their status because they could be sent back to the country they were brought from as a small child - a country that is sometimes dangerous to return to.
I've been hoping this could pass for a few years now, but sometimes change happens slowly. Racism and classism are oftentimes legally built into our American system and it takes directed change to reform the beliefs of the past and build a fair system. Just a few months ago New York became the first state to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. This bill will protect nannies, housekeepers, and caregivers for the sick and elderly - providing them with paid overtime, days off, and legal protection from sexual and physical abuse. Governor Patterson said himself that these workers would have been included in the original workers rights bill had they not been so predominantly black and latino. The Dream Act works toward equality in the same way, providing those who are working hard with a framework to function in legal boundaries that the rest of us have taken for granted.
Here is David Cho, winner of the Campus Progress and Huffington Post College's Student Keynote Contest, talking about why we should pass The Dream Act.


You can go here to sign The Dream Act petition. And here to ask your congressperson to support it.

Gang Girls

Katrina Del Mar seems like the perfect gal to sum up Brooklyn in the summer. The radio has been filled with Katy Perry going on and on about Daisy Dukes with Bikinis on Top. But Katrina Del Mar is more like Leather Pants with Bikinis on Top. Grabbing your bike, your horse, your surf board, your skateboard, throwing on some shredding tunes and dominating the city.






Here is Gang Girls 2000 which among other stars Runaways founder Kari Krome and artist Kembra Pfahler.


This is the trailer for Hell On Wheels. Girls tearing shit up! With music by Raging Slab which may be the best band name ever.



Surf Gang: Ruffnecks vs. Ungratefuls
Two sisters are orphaned by drunks and are left to fend for themselves. One of them disappears into the sea, and the other forms a gang, The Rockaway Ruffnecks, New York City surfers. They run afoul of a local mob boss, and go on a violent odyssey intermittently giving way to fantasy surf sessions.

Surf Gang Trailer

Katrina del Mar | MySpace Video

Easy A

I gotta say, I'm excited for this one.

The Sneering Seventies

As a continuation of my earlier girl groups/ girl rockers post I'm going to be bringing you a selection from each decade. Here we have the 70s,,,,when everything changed.

First we start off with a fictional band The Carrie Nations originally called The Kelly Affair. They were created by Russ Meyer for his movie Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls in 1970.



One band that is rarely remembered is the all girl rock band Fanny, fronted by Phillippines born June and Jean Millington. The Millington girls moved to California in the mid sixties, heard The Beach Boys and never turned back.
David Bowie said of Fanny "One of the most important female bands in American rock has been buried without a trace. And that is Fanny. They were one of the finest rock bands of their time, in about 1973. They were extraordinary... they're as important as anybody else who's ever been, ever; it just wasn't their time."


There was also this awesome band called SHE from the Bay Area. They were sometimes called The Hairem. Not much video stuff for this band but I like their sound.


Russ Meyer liked to try to take credit for all the girl bands that came after Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, but I think it might have had more to do with the emergence of glam rock that was brewing in the early 70s, allowing both guys and girls to approach rock from a more androgynous angle.

So obviously there is a ton that is owed to The Runaways. But I'm going to have to do a whole separate post on their forerunner Suzi Quatro because really she deserves her own post.
Here you can see the obvious glam rock influence with Joan Jett and The Runaways covering Slade's Mama Weer All Crazy Now.

And Cherie Currie's spin off from The Runaways when she teamed up with her twin sister Marie is also very obviously Glam inspired though in a lighter more feminine way.


Punk was also an environment that allowed girls to get more involved, maybe because it was new and the rules weren't already so formed.




The Slits didn't really cut their first album till 1979 so here's a clip of them screwing around earlier in the 70s in the movie Jubilee.


The late 70s are when bands like The Slits, The Raincoats, Souxsie and The Banshees, Mo-Dettes, and others started finally flourishing in the post punk funk/reggea inspired rock started coming out. It was still rough and tumble but you could dance to it and girls started really dominating.

Biker Babe

Marianne Faithful is a pro at being awesome.
From Girl On A Motorcycle.

Set and Reset

Set and Reset choreographed by Trisha Brown
with costumes by Robert Rauschenberg and music by Laurie Anderson

Gone Fishin'

Sorry for the lack of posts.....I was having the birthday party that never ends thanks to the 4th of July weekend. But I'm back now!!!