Riot Grrrl - International Pop Underground Convention

International Pop Underground Convention

From August 20-August 25, 1991, K Records held an indie music festival called the International Pop Underground Convention. A promotional poster reads:

As the corporate ogre expands its creeping influence on the minds of industrialized youth, the time has come for the International Rockers of the World to convene in celebration of our grand independence. Hangman hipsters, new mod rockers, sidestreet walkers, scooter-mounted dream girls, punks, teds, the instigators of the Love Rock Explosion, the editors of every angry grrrl zine, the plotters of youth rebellion in every form, the midwestern librarians and Scottish ski instructors who live by night, all are setting aside August 20–25, 1991 as the time.

An all-female bill on the first night called "Love Rock Revolution Girl Style Now" signalled a major step in the movement, featuring artists like Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Jack Off Jill, Nikki McClure, Lois Maffeo, Jean Smith of Mecca Normal, 7 Year Bitch, and 2 side projects of Kathleen Hanna: the first was Suture with Sharon Cheslow of Chalk Circle (DC's first all-women punk band) and Dug E. Bird of Beefeater, the second was the Wondertwins with Tim Green of Nation of Ulysses. It was here that so many zinester people who'd only known each other from networking, mail, or talking on the phone, finally met and were brought together by an entire night of music dedicated to, for, and by women.

The following days would also feature bands like Unwound, Jack Off Jill, L7, The Fastbacks, The Spinanes, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Girl Trouble, The Pastels, Kicking Giant, Rose Melberg, Seaweed, Kreviss, I Scream Truck, Scrawl, Nation of Ulysses, Jad Fair, Thee Headcoats, and Steve Fisk, and spoken-word artist Juliana Luecking.

Influenced heavily by DIY culture, most bands' presentation subverted traditional or classically trained 'musicianship' in favor of raw, primitive, avant-lo-fi passion and fiercely deliberate amateurism: an idea growing rapidly in popularity, especially in the Olympia music scene, with bands like Beat Happening coining the slogans: "Learn how to NOT play your instrument" and "hey, you don't have to sound like the flavor of the month, all you have to do is sound like yourselves", arguing that traditional musical skill doesn't ultimately matter and should always be subservient to the passion, the fun and ideas in their music. This argument is similar to the ideological origins of punk rock itself, which started partially as an attempt to dissolve the growing division between audience and performer. These indie-punk bands (and riot grrrl bands in particular) were often ridiculed for "not being able to play their instruments", but fans are quick to counter that identical criticisms were often faced by the first-wave of punk rock bands in the 70s, and that this DIY garage amateurism "play just 'cause you wanna, no matter what" attitude was one of the most appealing and liberating aspects of both movements.

Quickly amassing a devoted cult audience, the riot grrrl bands worked to ensure their shows were safe spaces in which women could find solidarity and create their own subculture, thus setting the tone for much of the movement. However, this only applied to cis women- trans women have been excluded from events such as The Michigan's Woman's Music Festival, which have a woman-born-woman policy, which has included Le Tigre in its line up. Consciousness-raising activist-punk group meetings began taking place in international chapters, held in any available space from dorm rooms to community centres to studio apartments, soon becoming much bigger things like conventions and conferences, one of the first of which took place from July 31-August 2, 1992 in Washington, DC.

Other bands and artists associated with the riot grrrl movement in one way or another include Mecca Normal, Scrawl, Calamity Jane, Slant 6, Sta-Prest, Sue P. Fox, Jenny Toomey, Autoclave, Jack Off Jill, Nomy Lamm, Excuse 17, Third Sex, Canopy, Cheesecake, Tattle Tale, Growing Up Skipper, The Need, Team Dresch, Fifth Column, Bangs, Free Kitten, Emily's Sassy Lime, The Quails; in the UK, bands like Huggy Bear, Blood Sausage, Mambo Taxi, Skinned Teen, Pussycat Trash, Golden Starlet, Phantom Pregnancies, Linus, Sister George, Coping Saw (who featured Leeds fanzine writer Karren Ablaze!), and Voodoo Queens; and in Brazil, bands like Dominatrix, Kaos Klitoriano and Menstruação Anarquika.

However, it is also worth noting that there were quite a few girl-centric or all-women punk bands of this era like 7 Year Bitch, Red Aunts, Thee Headcoatees, or Spitboy, who were plenty independent and political themselves, but did not necessarily self-identify with the 'riot grrrl' label, despite sharing similar DIY tactics and feminist ideologies.