Jezebel: carrie brownstein

Feminist Bookstores

Maria — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:40:00 EST

ThunderAnt is a comedy duo that is a double dose of awesome: it consists of Carrie Brownstein, formerly of Sleater Kinney, and Fred Armisen from SNL. The two get together, don wigs and make hilarious videos about one man shows, chefs and awkward dates. One of their more popular videos centered around two women who work in a feminist bookstore. Following desperate pleas for more of these two characters, ThunderAnt has released a second video from the sage-scented counters of Women and Women First. In this video, the ladies select CDs to sell in the store. Watch the video by clicking on the image above left. [Videogum]

Guitarist Carrie Brownstein of the late,...

Jessica — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:15:00 EST

Guitarist Carrie Brownstein of the late, great Sleater-Kinney tried out Wii music for Slate and found it kind of…wussy. But not in a bad way! Brownstein says, "For one thing, your Mii (the avatar you create to represent yourself in the game) has mallets instead of hands, a pair of harmless, fingerless spheres...Not surprisingly for a game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto—the creator of Super Mario Bros.—the figures are diminutive and huggable and about as threatening as a cotton ball." Aw. Cotton balls don't sound very rockin' to us, but we're pretty sure Mario and Luigi can get down pretty hard. [Slate]

Who Is The Liz Phair Of The New Generation?

Jessica — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:30:00 EDT

Moe is not the only Phair-lover on staff; I, too, listened to Exile In Guyville at least once a week for the entirety of my college career, not to mention the time spent on whitechocolatespaceegg and Whip Smart. I was shaped by Phair, but not just by her alone — I also spent many, many ponderous hours with Sleater-Kinney and Kim Deal and Belly and lots of other disaffected, apathetic, introspective white ladies. Carrie Brownstein, former Sleater-Kinney guitarist was on NPR yesterday, talking about the "sound of a generation" — i.e., how music can define a specific era. Much of the talk focused on the difference between Generation X's musical preferences and Generation Y's. Although I am technically part of Generation Y, as its often defined as those born between 1982 and 2002, my musical tastes are very staunchly X, and hearing Brownstein talk made me wonder: what happened to all those sad young indie rock girls?

I realize that the music industry has changed so drastically since 1993, when Exile in Guyville came out, that indie rock has ceased to mean anything whatsoever, but I wonder what the girls like me and Moe are listening to today; not the girls who worship Rihanna and that fucking Katy Perry we get 10,000 press releases about (apparently Perry's single "I Kissed A Girl," is number 2 on iTunes. Sample lyric: "I kissed a girl just to try it, hope my boyfriend don't mind it."). I mean the girls who read Sylvia Plath and write bad poetry and secretly hate everyone and themselves. Who are they listening to?

I asked some friends who write about music, and they seem to think the days of apathy are over. "Indie rock" girls are either like M.I.A and Santogold, awesome, multicultural and political but also optimistic; or they're folk-y twee beauties like Regina Spektor and Joanna Newsom. I want to draw ties between music and the Clintons and Obama (the Clintons = apathetic 90s = Liz Phair; Obama = activist-y, optimistic aughts = M.I.A.) but blogging doesn't give me the time to flesh that out so I don't sound idiotic.

But you know, the music industry is a huge and sprawling thing these days since no one pays for music anymore anyway. There has to be some room for lonely ladies who will tell you that we're all going to die. Can anyone tell me where they are?

Sound Of A Generation [NPR]
Earlier: Did Liz Phair Predict Your Life Or Did She Actually Dictate It?