Radical feminist and anarchist Emma Goldman once said, “I don’t want to be part of your revolution if I can’t dance.” Like other musicians with good politics who came before them, Le Tigre provides anthems for its target demographic. This threesome will be visiting with their multimedia slide show Wednesday at the Black Cat. The band produces records that both grrrls and boys can listen to without abandoning their politics, and as a result, indoctrinate their audiences with a poppy spell of dance-beat hypnosis.
The band’s original three members?Kathleen Hanna, Johanna Fateman and video artist Sadie Benning (who has since left the band for the demands of her independent art career)?are long-time friends. Their paths crossed in the early ‘90s when Hanna was touring with Bikini Kill, Benning was screening her video work and Fateman was writing and distributing fanzines. In 1998, Hanna’s solo recording project Julie Ruin was released and, although living in different cities at the time, the three artists/activists welcomed the opportunity to collaborate, convening in Brooklyn to put together a live act to tour the record. The project rapidly mutated into an entirely different entity, ultimately known as Le Tigre, which released its self-titled debut in 1999 on Mr. Lady Records (the Durham, N.C.-based multimedia label run by Kaia Wilson of the Butchies and queer video artist/conceptual photographer Tammy Rae Carland). J.D. Samson, an integral part of Le Tigre’s live performances and accompanying slide-show from the beginning, formally joined the band for the recording of their second release From the Desk of Mr. Lady and subsequent tour.
Le Tigre takes basic garage rock song structures that make you want to sing along and updates them with some pop, punk and surf-guitar?think Slits, Raincoats and late Bikini Kill in a blender. The band layers the songs with lots of samples to create atmospheres that inevitably can only be described as “cinematic.” To finish off, Le Tigre’s songs are frosted with hip-hop-infused drum machines, old-school electronics and new wave keyboards. These songs are indeed catchy?the kind of record you put on at a party where no one knows each other and the only answer is to play something that will make everyone bob their heads in unison. They are also addictive?the first time I saw them perform, I went out to buy the album a few days later.
One evening last fall, Le Tigre brought its multimedia dance party to the old Black Cat. Against a background of political activism and social documentary (both spoken between songs and projected for our pleasure onto a screen behind the group), the audience was presented with short songs full of attitude, manic notation and effervescence. As a newcomer to the concept of Le Tigre, I was somewhat astonished at what I was witnessing?the band’s whole appearance and its music suggest that is simply a kitsch novelty, yet politics looms as large in their songs as well as its visual projector slides. Seeing Le Tigre play on stage is much more than just listening to its music?performances feature slideshows with abstract art images and funky props like telephones.
Lyrically, Le Tigre attacks art and class structure, while attempting to dispel the myths of the spectator and the spectacle. When Hanna sings, “I went to your concert and I didn’t feel anything,” she means it. Le Tigre knows that pop consciousness is interwoven in the banality and extraordinary events that make up everyday life. The trio attempts to smash preconceived notions of art and the boundaries that have been erected between the different media and tear down the pedestals that prop up the many mystical guitar heroes. Le Tigre seems less a Xeroxed manifesto than an invitation to a riot-grrrl slumber party where everyone would rather dance than sleep.
The Black Cat is located at 1811 14th St., N.W.
