The Nashville Feed

Middle Tennessee State University will be overrun by girls and guitars again this summer. From July 16-21, Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp (SGRRC) will be enjoying its fifth summer on the Blue Raider campus. For the first time, the SGRRC is also stomping on my current turf. The would be riot grrls will be at the Gibson Guitar Factory in downtown Memphis from June 18-23.

The camp introduces teenage girls to everything they might need to become rock icons. Well, perhaps not everything. SGRRC does not provide the tattoos, drugs, and questionable hookups. The girls are left to explore those areas on their own.

But the music is covered from writing a song to recording the song, and all notes in between. The camp goes a step further with training in T-shirt printing, zine making, and running sound. Everything an aspiring rocker could use to get her band a successful gig. If she wants the gig and then some, there are courses in music journalism, women’s music history, arts and crafts, and photography.

Spectacular chick rockers have graduated from the camp. Check out Jemina Pearl (formerly known as Jemina Abegg) and Be Your Own Pet at their next live show.

But SGRRC might be setting the girls up for a big disappointment.

While Pearl does put on an amazing punk show, her career potential may be limited by rich old men who have never seen a live rock performance.

These men own the radio stations. And they typically own lots of them. And they have decided that women will not be heard on their stations.

Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a few owners have divvied up each radio market in a predictable pattern. There is no room for individual snowflakes in America anymore.

Each metropolitan area typically has room for just two rock stations: one classic rock, the other “alternative” or new rock station. Classic rock, by its very nature, is not the genre that breaks new acts. That leaves one station in each market that will even consider a fresh sound. In most cities, that one station is owned by a soulless corporation. Soulless radio corporations do not work with souled artists.

Soulless radio corporations do work with soulless record labels.

Record labels sign artists who will sell lots of iTunes or CDs, thereby making the record label lots of money. Record executives know that for a band to sell enough to make said executives lots of money, the band’s song needs radio play. So they sign artists who will get a lot of radio play.

The rock radio station determines who will get radio play, thus who will sell, thus who will make money, thus who will get signed.

The rock radio station does not give rocker chicks radio play, thus they do not sell, thus they do not make money, thus they do not get signed.

Props to the girls who do get major label deals in spite of this. Most, however, stick with indie labels.

Let’s begin with a look at the Nashville (some call it “Music City”) market. A station called “The Buzz” claims it plays “everything that rocks.” The station does not have a playlist posted on its website, but it does have a list of some the artists whom they say rock. It’s typical the Audioslave, Disturbed, Metallica, Nickelback stuff. There is a graphic of a woman screaming out these band names, but apparently she can only scream praise for the men. She cannot scream out her own anthem.

The Buzz is owned by the Cromwell Group, which owns 21 other stations around the country.

There is a playlist posted on Memphis’ 93X. Of the 24 artists listed, only two contain a female presence. One is Skillet, a band of two women and two men, with shared vocals between the genders. The other is a song by Korn featuring Amy Lee. The message appears to be that if women want some airplay, they need to work a Y chromosome somewhere into the mix.

93X is owned by Entercom Communications. They own a bunch of shit. Even the only “alternative” rock station in Seattle.

107.7 The End’s last five artists as of this writing consisted of Jane’s Addiction, Jet, My Chemical Romance, Nirvana, and Angels and Airwaves. These are all respectable groups, but is The End a radio station or a locker room? This geographic area is the home to such greats as Sleater-Kinney (also see: No More Sleater, No More Kinney), Bikini Kill, and Hole. Please, show some respect for that history.

This pattern is repeated in almost every market, regardless of station ownership. Clear Channel’s Rock 105.3 in San Diego has a playlist almost identical to that of 93X, minus any female influence at all.
Even the independently owned rock stations in Austin, TX and Boston, MA are dripping with testosterone. Austin’s 101X played one female artist (Amy Winehouse) at 1:35 a.m. this (Mar. 10, 2007) morning and has gone 21 hours (thus far) without another woman’s voice. Boston’s FNX radio also did the Amy Winehouse song, but added a tune by Regina Spektor. But don’t give them a cookie. These are just two songs on a playlist of 37. It hardly seems balanced.

Perhaps there is a belief that women can’t rock. That’s just fuckin’ stupid.

The Distillers. Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. The Dollyrots. Bangs. The Kills. Go Like Hell. The Donnas. Sahara Hotnights. P.J. Harvey. The Breeders. The Detroit Cobras . Forget Cassettes.

These women rock.

This abbreviated list should also dispel any belief that there aren’t enough women who want to play real rock.

There is also the misconception that guys buy rock music, and guys don’t want to listen to women. A few men may hold these prejudices, but most are buying music for howling guitars and pounding drumbeats. The content of the singer’s crotch is irrelevant. With a little exposure, rocking girl groups can easily build a male following.

Female artists are a majority of my CD collection and my iPod. I’m definitely a rock kind of guy (in the spirit of The Ramones and The Sex Pistols), and I dig the riot grrls.
Guys who don’t like girls seem kind of gay to me.

I believe it comes down, once again, to corporations telling us what we should like. They keep feeding us the same shit until they know that, tomorrow, we will ask for the same shit. Unpredictability is bad for business. Change can mess up a profit margin. If we reach for something new, something they are not selling, they lose.

Rock & roll has always been about challenging established power structures and messing with the status quo. In that spirit, girls are the only ones producing true rock & roll today.

A man cannot fight the man when he is, well, a man. If he wins, he just becomes “the other man.”

Keep screaming, girls. I hear you, even if no one else does. Long live the Southern Girls’ Rock & Roll Camp. We need you now more than ever.
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Technorati Tags: girl rock, sgrrc, clearchannel, media consolidation, radio

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