sheesh

Well, the thing is, it’s like that add-on clause seemingly attached to every writers’ keyboard that’s pressed when writing about a band with a prominent female in it: “despite working in a male-dominated field…”

That is, it only stays male-dominated as long as you keep framing it that way.

Or rather, and I don’t mean this angrily or disrespectfully, but as long as female-dominated bands are under-covered or covered in relation to their tits and ass appeal, these bands will stay safely in a ghetto of the press’s partial invention while females increasingly go ‘Fuck this shit’ and move on to indie band mags and bands or other genres where they’re treated less insultingly.

Meanwhile, it’s not like there’s a mass suicide impulse on the part of labels worldwide who keep signing every Nightwishy band that’s half-decent: obviously, there’s a market, and why would they be any less valid than the billion Cannibal Corpse or Meshuggah clones that are duly celebrated?

Meanwhile, where’s the constant support and celebration of your Vanesa Noceras (Scarmaker, Wooden Stake) or Grace Perrys (Landslide Marathon)? Or Agnete M. Kirkevaag’s supernatural pipes (Madder Mortem) or the kickass guitar wranglers in Nashville Pussy or Kylesa and every women doing the astonishing almost everything in Subrosa or…we could be here all day. All these chicks have as much balls as 80% of any dude band and what support do they get? Zip.

So, like, WTF? Do Nashville Pussy and Kylesa get covered simply because there are more swinging dicks in them?

Because ain’t nobody gonna say they’re more inventive than Subrosa, or have more crazy-ass balls than Grace Perry.

In short, when did super-powered fan appeal split according to gender-line? And this isn’t aimed at you, my TOTD brothers, this is aimed at every metal fan who likes the genres these bands are in and isn’t out there supporting the fuck out of them. because you certainly would be if they were dudes.

In my super humble opinion. :)

hugs,
Ian

PS: Here in New York City, Epic will play a bigass theater on Broadway and sell that motherfucker out and there will still be a line of males and females up and down the boulevard.

And don’t even talk about Arch Enemy. You just figure you’re not getting a cab for three hours when they play what with girls coming in from Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, New jersey, Long Island and fuck, Mars for all I know. So yeah–you could say there’s a market.