Newspaper Page Text
October 23, 1991 FLAGPOLE MAGAZINE Page 7
•- ' • . . ■ ‘ ’ - v I -
being the Bangles or anything." I’m not
cutting them down it’s just not where our
interests lay. It was always the music we
listened to were not done by women.
Gretchen saw Fetchin' Bones and thought
it was great and we thought it is possible for
women to do this. A lot of the music I like
now is done by women.
FP: Rock 'n roll is dominated by men. ..
JR: Everything is pretty much dominated
by men except maids and secretaries —
those occupations belong to women, you
know? Housewives, which is an occupa
tion. It’s difficult, I’m sure you run up against
that, the whole thing with Anita Hill right
now...I think that so many people are taking
a hair trigger approach to this and I don’t
want it to turn out to be a negative point for
feminism because I think it’s important that
men realize that sexual harassment goes
on all the time. A man doesn’t know what it’s
like to have comments hurled at them or
checked out and whistled at constant,y. I’m
sure you know, you walk down the street
and you are immediately a subject of com
ment.
FP: And being in this
kind of “business’
you don 'tget the kind
of respect a male
would get.
JR: Exactly. Early on
we gained a lot of
respect, but only af
ter people realized
what we were doing
for some reason they
began to view it as
valid. In the begin
ning, when I used to
play guitar on stage, people used to walk up
to David and tell him he'd lose it in the mix.
Things like that. Now, it’s really weird be
cause it’s turned around in a way. A lot of
girls approach the guys in the band after
shows and not very often do they approach
Gretchen and me. It's weird because we
have done this strange role reversal where
we’re in this very powerful rock ’n roll posi
tion that men are traditionally in. It threatens
a lot of men. We’re approached and people
talk to us, but it’s really different than like girl
groupies go up to singers.
FP: Don't you have male groupies?
JR: Yeah, we do but it’s very.. .the way that
I am spoken to when I get off the stage by
a man in the audience is so different than
when I'm walking down the street or going
to the market or going to something else. I
have the upper hand after I've done this. It’s
a very weird thing. It’s like the difference
from...if you've ever walked down the street
in a mini-skirt and then walked down the
street in jeans and a big flannel t-shirt,
you're reacted to differently. It’s more of a
drastic reaction than that. Or when you're
walking down the street with a guy, nobody
says anything, but when you walk down the
street by yourself everybody says stuff It's
kind of like that, but it hasn’t always been
that way. I’ve earned this position.
FP: Plus the kind of music you play, it
seems before if women were in rock n roll
it was always in the dress-up role. Pirates of
Penzeance meets Frederick's of Hollywood
kind of look Now. it's a bit more common to
see women get up in jeans and t-shirts, not
having to put on the image of being femi
nine. you're just getting up as yourself.
JR: Right and that's the battle I go through
all the time. It’s like what is myself? If I get up
in the morning and I feel like wearing hot
pants, or whatever is that OK? I think, well,
it is because I would wear it anyway that day
and so for a long time we went through this
thing where should we dress down or wear
whatever? But, then you're going back to
that thing where women look adrogynous
and wear men’s suits in the office. We’re not
men. You should be a woman.
FP: It's a real confusing thing, too. espe
cially when you go on stage you probably
have to think what kind of image do I want
to present?
JR: That's the thing you feel like am I being
untrue even by thinking about it. I've gone
on stage wearing this thing that this girl
made for me it’s a handmade top, it was like
a bra top with beads all over it and I wore
that with really low corduroy striped hip-
huggers. It was a pretty revealing outfit and
I wore this one night. I normally don’t dress
this way and the response that I got from
people afterwards
was so different, I
thought ‘Tm going to
leave this town and
this is the impression
people have of me."
Meanwhile, we
played in Jackson
ville Beach, FL and I
was wearing army
boots that were two
sizes too big for me
and a flannel shirt and
I could be a com
pletely different per
son. It’s so funny how the clothes reveal so
much and really effect the way people see
you. You go through a whole inner thing, but
then you settle into the happy medium where
you feel “this is me." They could be judging
my music the same way they judge my ap
pearance and you just have to be true to
what you're doing.
FP: It goes without saying, it always seems
to be the case On the new album. Circa, tell
me about "Julie's Blanket. ’
JR: Gretchen wrote the lyrics to that. When
you were a child and you woke up in the
middle of the night, and you saw your coat
hanging on a chair didn’t it Icok like a figure
in your room?
FP: I still do that.
JR: So do I. Well that’s what it’s about. We
were on tour and Gretchen woke up in the
middle of the night and saw my blanket and
she said it looked exactly like a pig’s head
with a snake's face. She was having a very
difficult time, going through a lot of anxiety
about touring. She drew a picture the next
morning when she woke up and she said
“this is what I saw in your blanket last night."
So she ended up writing a song about it. In
the video we just tried to capture that whole
concept of a child’s nightmare that is real
ized in an adult life. It’s the first conceptual
video we’ve done.
FP: How’s new material coming 7
JR: For the new record I’ve been writing a
lot of stuff that’s very folk oriented.
FP: You're in between wanting to do more
rock ‘n roll, hardcore stuff and folk, like the
punk folk that's coming out now
JR: Birth ol a new genre H|||ary Me , ster
The way that I am
spoken to when
I get off the stage by
a man in the audience
is so different than
when I’m walking
down the street...
Keeps Rainin’
Mondays, sho’ does. That may well be because The Flying Buffalo piesents Stormy
Monday on Monday nights, and this Monday, October 28, is apt to be no exception. Expect
to hear some new bands you aren’t familiar with yet, along with some new-old favourites
I always spell things the British way: do you think I am a spectre or something? Well,as
close to Hallowe’en as ’t’is, there’s no telling what The Flying Buffalo will conjure up for
Stormy Monday this time, so you oughta take your expectant seat at 95. Hoyt Street and
wait for the action train to chug in. Be glad we tole’ya. (30 )
Globe
corner of clayton and lumpkin
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