In the past year, Ladyfest, a female-run music festival that originated in Olympia, Wash., has become kind of a hippie-mom version of the riot-grrrl aesthetic, fashioning that “you ain’t it, la la la” feeling into a self-reliant community, complete with radical-feminist workshops, spoken-word slams and good old-fashioned boy bashing. This week, Ladyfest will host its first benefit in Washington, D.C. at the Black Cat.
It all started with an idea from D.C.’s own Allison Wolfe of Bratmobile at a party two years ago in Olympia. The word spread, and women all over town started having meetings. The first Ladyfest, held in August 2000, drew a larger crowd than anyone had expected. Thousands of women from all across the country made the pilgrimage to Olympia to check out the birthplace of riot-grrrl. Word of mouth tagged the Olympia Ladyfest the “Anti-Lilith.” Suddenly there were Ladyfests being planned in Chicago, New York and across the Atlantic in Scotland as well.
The festival is extremely dependent on grassroots fundraising through benefit shows. A lot of the real planning takes place online and at community meetings. It is a real group effort, like a small town coming together for the annual pageant, straight out of that faux-documentary Drop Dead Gorgeous. Except at Ladyfest, ladies empower and encourage each other instead of tearing each other down.
The D.C. festival is not going to be like Olympia, where people camped out in backyards and crashed on any available couch. While Olympia bands are supported by small record companies, only a handful of D.C. girl bands, who will undoubtedly make up a large part of the Ladyfest D.C. roster, have been signed by a label. Not one of them gets the gigs that way less-clever local boy bands get.
The D.C. punk community has always been ?ber-political, but that does not mean they have been immune to sexism. There have been few girls in music in the District and in the history of the D.C. punk scene. The D.C. scene is a little bit too male-oriented, too testosterone-driven. There are a lot of rad women in music here doing a lot of rad things, but sadly some women have felt compelled to leave the D.C. scene to pursue what is important to them and to be free of the limitations they felt were put on them?socially or career-wise.
In this way, the D.C. festival has the potential to be even more effective than the Olympia version?it could mean the revival of a once-flourishing community. That’s why attending the benefit show is essential to the culivation of a D.C. music scene the includes women.
One of the bands you might catch at the benefit show is From Quagmire. Fronted by singer and guitarist Dorothy Geller, the “avant-folk” trio also includes a violinist and a second guitarist. Last year they released the LP The Tropic Of Barren. The record’s title track mixes a guitar with strange electronic sounds, creating a weird acoustic space-rock sound. It is as if the strange scorching noises lift the listener off to a different planet, reminiscent of a Pink Floyd record. To see From Quagmire along with pro-Ladyfest bands and spoken word artists, hit the Ladyfest D.C. benefit show at the Black Cat Thursday night.
The Black Cat is located at 1811 14th St. N.W.
