``If the national scene is in such an odd gender state, what about the local one? Last Wednesday night, we wandered over to central Phoenix to catch a show by female rock acts Bella, Secondhand Emotion and Dear Nora — the latter actually singer/songwriter Katy Davidson, 26, a Cave Creek native who now lives in San Francisco and has her own CDs out on indie labels. The goal: to hear some good tunes, and maybe suss out gender insight from some of the Valley’s few all-girl groups.
The show, at The Phix art gallery, was fairly dead, with the dozen or so audience members divvying up their time equally between listening to the bands and taking smoke breaks outside. Onstage, both Bella and Secondhand Emotion deal with tuneful trainwrecks and technical difficulties. Though the local bands are friends, they couldn’t be further apart stylistically.
Bella is one of the Valley’s more popular rock acts, playing short power-pop punk ditties that showcase 28-year-old guitarist/singer Natalie Espinosa’s fancy fretwork and androgynously deep, smoky voice. Espinosa used to jam with some of the guys who would become Jimmy Eat World, but she says playing with girls — her band includes drummer Jency Johnson, 28, and bassist Kristi Wimmer, 31 — is a more social experience.
“When you get a bunch of girls together, you get everyone in different moods and attitudes,” Espinosa says. “Everyone really does care, and everybody has an opinion. I’d hate for somebody to come by practice, because we spend 45 minutes playing songs and the rest of the time just catching up. They’d be like, ‘Do you guys actually practice?’ ”
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Espinosa says her band hasn’t suffered any discernible drought in attendance (that night’s show withstanding) since forming three years ago because of any perceived bias against female rockers. But that’s because Bella never aimed to draw any gender lines to begin with, she says. Her band wears slightly gender-disguising jeans and T-shirts, and the frontwoman’s shaggy hair droops down low enough to cover her entire face, except where a microphone would go.
“That’s what I want people to see,” she says. “That we can play with the boys.”
Contrast that with Secondhand Emotion frontwoman Jessica Jurgens, 23, of Scottsdale. Looking voluptuous in a red and black floral dress, cute pink shoes and big sparkled earrings, she straps on a guitar and bobs her head as her band — guitarist Jen Rahlf, 25, and drummer Krista Ruet, 24 — kicks off a jangly ’80s-inspired pop tune; when they flub the entrance, her eyes roll up in the back of her head, she flashes an angel grin and says her favorite catchphrase of the night, “Bru-tal.”
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As if the stereotype of Go-Go’s-era silly rocker girls needs further enforcing, Jurgens announces in between songs, “My dress just came undone. Whoo! That wasn’t planned.”
But even if a wardrobe malfunction wasn’t intentional, the bubblegum shtick sure is, Jurgens confides after the show.
“It’s a tongue-in-cheek response,” she says, “due to the lack of response. You have to tell people it’s gonna be the sexiest show of the galaxy, to get them to come.”
Adds Ruet, “You’re a token girl band, and you have to prove yourself more.”....( read the rest here. )
I thought I would share the article for everyone. ;]
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