Hello dearies -- I have an important question for all sinisterines. It involves "the scene." I am curious how other people feel about the appearance roles men play versus the appearance roles women play. In my experience, which is pretty much limited to the US west coast, it seems that in indie rock it is indeed fair and dandy for maletypes to be huge ol' nerds, including poorly chosen clothing, sporadically-tended hair, and the like. Of course I don't mean the hair that is carefully sculpted to look disheveled, but the more or less "authentic" thing. Some of this is postured, but some of it isn't. this seems to me incredibly liberating, at least from my girl vantage point, the cultural revenge of the uncool child, and not the hungry capitalist retribution of the computer geeks, but something much more sweet and giving. A few weeks ago at a show of all-female bands, there was this bio boy with a bright yellow t-shirt featuring a school bus (not the b & s one), a huge band-aid connecting the bridge of his nose to his cheekbone, and most admirably, he totally circumvented the whole "earplugs? or no earplugs?" question by sporting a large maroon-colored pair of construction worker earmuffs. plus, he danced as one imagines he would. now, he stuck out all the more to me in a room full of riot grrls and riot grrl bands, and I could find no equivalent nerdy female, not even a remotely close nerdy female, even (especially?) in riot grrl, it is not acceptable to be an unintentional nerd, or heaven forbid, a girl who detests to shop for clothes, one must be either a carefully chosen truck stop caf� patron, or a hard punk rocker, or a retro-perfect femme, or an 80s glam queen, or a deliberately dressed "dork" (my favorites are the girls who sculpt huge cowlicks to stick out the back of their heads!). .. . you get my point. Which seems to me quite sad. Where is the space for the nerdy girl? So I ask all you lovely sinisterines, especially those of you lucky enough to go to the ongoing shows -- are there nerdy indie girls there? How many of us are nerdy girls? My hope is that a band like b & s, who feature so many female characters/heroes in their songs, would attract some less-posed girls, or maybe create a space for girls who don't comb the thriftstores every weekend. My na�ve, rather formalist, hope is that b & s is a sort of refuge. Of course, males who want to slam my outsider glamorization of male freedom in indie rock would also be of interest. Anyone who wants to share these fashion details of the crowds at the b & s shows with us will receive my never-dying love! so this is plenty for a first post. thank you. kyla __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+