By CityLife contributors and staff

Revolution Girl Style Now: Las Vegas' punk-rock grrrls have no doubts about their place in the scene

By Jarret Keene

"Punk was a new music, a new social critique, but most of all it was a new kind of free speech. It inaugurated a moment -- a long moment, which still persists -- when suddenly countless odd voices, voices no reasonable person could have expected to hear in public, were being heard all over the place: sometimes as monstrous shouts in the marketplace, sometimes as whispers from an alleyway."

Jhen Kobran, bassist for Big Lizard recording artists bronson.

--Greil Marcus

Ranters & Crowd Pleasers: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-92.

Examining Greil Marcus' statement through the lens of gender makes it clear which artists shouted (men) and which ones whispered (women). Joe Strummer's Clash clanged the alarm to the tune of thousands of articles and millions of record sales, while women punkers like X-ray Spex's Polly Styrene -- no less interesting than Strummer -- made only a hushed dent on the critical and commercial front. Indeed, the odd, lasting and definitive voices Marcus celebrates mostly originated from men, creating an alternative, but no less chauvinistic, boys club.

Punk began as a subversive movement within popular music, and like most subversive movements, it was co-opted and watered down for the masses. The hardcore stuff still flourished, of course. And for a while, women seemed to secure a place in the new wave movement, which included bands like Blondie and Human League -- that is, until Boy George eclipsed them all, his friendly female impersonation making women's contribution to popular music altogether unnecessary. (Interestingly, bands like Blondie succeeded at offering blank, emotionless caricatures of ice-cold bitches and at making Deborah Harry a mass sexual fantasy.) In punk's ebb and new wave's flow, nothing had really changed in terms of gender equity. The band was still comprised of men; groupies were still women.

Fifteen years after punk officially died, a teenager calling herself Jenn O. Cide began interning at a Las Vegas music venue called the Huntridge Theatre. Her ambition was to help run the soundboard, but for two years she mostly did promotional work, putting up fliers all over Maryland Parkway, getting the word out about upcoming shows. Finally in 1994, at age 15, the opportunity came for her to oversee the stage monitors. At the same time, she and two other women musicians formed what many believe to be the first and only all-girl punk band in Las Vegas at the time, Jenn's Cancer.

Because of Jenn's experience working in the scene, her band had no problems securing gigs. Ten years ago, Las Vegas was a smaller town; the scene was smaller and in many ways more supportive. Furthermore, expectations weren't as high.

"The yardstick for success," notes Jenn, "was how many tapes you could sell on consignment at [defunct music store] Benway Bop. If you sold 300, you were a rock star."

Jenn's Cancer sold plenty of tapes, but there were a couple of minuses involved in daring to break the local music gender line. First, though she never encountered the riot grrrl backlash, Jenn was in fact a little pressured to take herself more seriously and offer more of a feminist message. Second, being the only all-girl punkers in town meant the band had to endure the "novelty" tag. Like a true pioneer, Jenn continues to embrace it.

"Ten years ago," she says, "we were a novelty act. And by no means were we musically groundbreaking. But we had fun and we played our asses off and we really pushed to promote our shows, and people respected that. Now the novelty is gone, and there are more women in the scene than ever. As a result, I think the scene gives women more respect. I think it's awesome."
Amy Carrelli during her Pull-Outs days.

Most of Jenn's female compatriots agree with this assessment. Roxie, bassist for the Loud Pipes, has been rocking Las Vegas for nearly six years. She moved here from Death Valley to form what she characterizes as "a bad punk-rock band, the first band everyone goes through." Roxie doesn't believe gender to be an issue for her.

"I never have really thought about it," she says. "Or I've never paid attention to it. I guess it's come up a few times, but I don't worry about it. I worry more about the music, the songs. And I don't think my band cares about my gender. If I was the singer, it might be different. I'm a rhythm player, so I'm in the back with [Loud Pipes drummer] Gilbert. I stick with the kick drum."

Today those women who find themselves front and center don't seem overly concerned about gender either. Born in Las Vegas, Jenine Cali, 24, used to hang out at the Huntridge in middle school and rarely saw female-fronted bands come through town. She started out playing drums for an alt-rock band at the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1997, but she quickly grew dissatisfied and longed to write her own material. Picking up the bass was the next step. But after college she switched to guitar, took over the microphone and founded her current band, the Day After, an established post-punk act here in Las Vegas.

"I've always been one of the guys," Cali says. "So the worst thing I can say about fronting a band is that a lot of people don't like female singers; they just don't like them. And honestly, I find myself listening to more male-fronted bands, like Face to Face, Sunny Day Real Estate and Radiohead."

But can any band really expect a warm reception from the denizens of a place like the Cooler Lounge?

"People are friendly to me," says Cali, "but if they're guys, then sometimes they're drunk and trying to pick up on me. They don't take me seriously. They'll say something like, 'Hey, you're better than I thought you'd be.'"

Cali's biggest frustration? The comparisons drawn between her band and any female singer -- Gwen Stefani, being the worst example. "That's the one thing I don't like," she says. It's an odd comparison, especially since: 1) the Day After absolutely forsakes ska; and 2) you're more likely to find Cali sporting a pair of jeans than a midriff-exposing shirt and mini-skirt.

Of course, Vegas being Vegas, dressing up or looking sexy is something women in the local scene have never shied away from -- though they have different rationales for why they look so, well, attractive.

"I wear whatever I happen to be wearing that day," explains Roxie. "My wardrobe is based on the weather. I'm fully clothed during the winter and half-naked in the summer."

When asked if there's a noticeable spike in male attendees during the Loud Pipes' summer shows, Roxie laughs and replies: "There are a lot of little girls with little boys at our shows."
Beer belles make better rockers: Cute in the Face.

Amy Carrelli, now the bassist for Jupiter Shifter, had a different experience when she formed what was arguably Las Vegas' most high-profile woman-fronted punk band, the Pull-Outs, who broke up in May. A fixture for many years in the arts and music scene, Carrelli found it difficult to negotiate the image of guttersnipe glitz with an emphasis on good songwriting, especially when it came to dealing with the media.

"At the time, I didn't know why CityLife was interested in writing an article last year," Carrelli says, alluding to our September article on the Pull-Outs. "But now I see that the band members had a different agenda from the start. There's a difference between being contrived and inspired, and I felt I had a different focus than what was written about us. I wanted to jam out, leave the stage and let the music speak for itself.

"I love the Cramps and the way they look, but they're musicians -- first and foremost they rock. We were sick of talking about the outfits instead of the songs. I'm an intellectual, and I like to think I'm subversive. But there was nothing written about the music in that CityLife article or the articles that followed. Write that we suck, but at least write about the music."

Carrelli feels that sex appeal is a two-edged sword. She admits that the Pull-Outs' signature style attracted an audience early on. However, style soon overshadowed substance.

"Whenever I read about us in the papers, fishnets were always mentioned. I mean, fishnets? Who cares? What about the music? And then there were the nasty comments -- that we were only able to play gigs because our boyfriends played in bands. What's sad is that our boyfriends supported us and were there for us when we needed them, and for people to look at it as a negative thing is awful."

But Carrelli isn't completely jaded by her experience with the Pull-Outs. She's joined a new punk-edged trio Jupiter Shifter, and still finds inspiration in her fellow grrrls.

"Roxie is a prime example," says Carrelli. "She's a total badass. She goes out in jeans, a tank top, pigtails and a trucker's hat, and she's sexy as hell. She's proof that women don't need to sell out. If you want to look sexy, fine, but you better be able to back it up."

Of course, it's a lot easier to talk about what makes Roxie ideal than it is to actually adhere to her principles. "It's confusing," acknowledges Carrelli. "You want to look good, but you also want to rock. It's hard to focus on both."

Cute in the Face is a new and upcoming all-women group struggling to make a name for itself. In the wake of the Pull-Outs' demise, CITF will have to navigate the tricky minefield of the scene's gender issues alone.

"We don't dress up," asserts guitarist Misty Romine. "We'll never dress up."

"If guys show up to see slutty girls," chimes in bassist Heather Sjolie, "fuck 'em."

"A lot of people come to our shows because we're girls," Romine continues. "If they enjoy our music, then that's great."

Romine goes on to say that despite the fact that the scene is indeed a boys club, most boys have been welcoming and respectful.

"It's easy to get in [the scene], but it's hard to survive," she laments.

Drummer/vocalist Rachel Weiss, who's moving to Chicago in July, says the larger problem with Vegas is that there's a limited audience for alternative music, making it difficult for bands -- regardless of gender makeup -- to grow and prosper. However, while the scene may be small, it's also intense.

"Almost everyone I know is in a band," says Romine. Incoming drummer Katheryne Kupisch counters: "But every woman I know is married and/or pregnant."

Currently, the only pressures affecting CITF are who to play shows with. Typically, similar sounding bands are put together on bills, a difficult task when there are so few women involved in the scene.

"It's worse on the technical side of things," says Jenn O. Cide, who has worked for years as a sound engineer. "It's still a rarity for women to do sound for a show. Guys walk in and think you're a groupie or selling snacks. In 12 years behind the soundboard, I've seen five bands that had women engineers. Things are getting better, but they're still bad."

Overly compensating is another factor that affects women in the scene. According to Jenn, women end up having to act tougher, meaner and dirtier in order to avoid being treated like a "chick."

"We have to overdo it a bit," she confesses. "The music industry is really the last bastion of chauvinism."

Until things get better, Las Vegas' punk-rock grrrls will soldier on, forming bands, playing gigs, breaking up and then doing it all over again. They may not be ready for a sold-out show at the House of Blues, but they're getting there.

"At the rehearsal studio the other day, I saw some girls carrying in drums," says Carrelli. "We heard them practice Blondie covers -- which I'm not into at all -- but I was so happy to see some girls carrying in some actual drums that belonged to them and not their boyfriends."