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Tin Can hearts Kathleen Hanna
Musician, zine writer and feminist activist Kathleen Hanna might not be instantly recognisable to the masses but she is responsible for the early 90s all girl band Bikini Kill and dated Dave Grohl during his Nirvana days. She sprayed ‘Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on a wall one night, which became the inspiration for the bands most famous track.
Bikini Kill were DIY to the core. Gutsy, politically aware and ferocious, they were the catalysts of the Riot Grrrl scene that inspired everyone from Courtney Love to Beth Ditto.
As Hanna explains “We wanted to start a magazine, and Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman from the band Bratmobile had started a fanzine called riot grrrl and we were writing little things for it. I'd always wanted to start a big magazine with really cool, smart writing in it, and I wanted to see if the other punk girls in D.C. that I was meeting were interested in that. So I called a meeting and found a space for it, and it just turned into this sort of consciousness-raising thing. I realized really quickly that a magazine wasn't the way to go. People wanted to be having shows, and teaching each other how to play music, and writing fanzines, so that started happening. It got some press attention, and girls in other places would be like "I wanna do that. I wanna start one of those."
Post-Bikini Kill Hanna released a solo album, Julie Ruin a lo-fi electronic project and then formed Le Tigre in 1998 with Johanna Fateman. The pair billed themselves as ‘underground electro-feminist performance artists’ releasing singles "Hot Topic" and 'Deceptacon' before parting ways in 2007.
In her own words
‘BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real’
‘I don't need to convince men that feminism is important, that just isn't a goal of mine. I can't even have that conversation, of whether or not it's important, because if someone asks me that they're my mortal enemy and I don't want to have a conversation with them until they grow-up’
‘Our second fanzine was called Girl Power and I was remembering, wondering: Did the Spice Girls get that from us or was that just a coincidence? On the first tour, I started seeing the same outfits I was wearing onstage turn up in clothing catalogues. I was thinking: Am I an egomaniac that I think this is happening? Have they been following us around, or was it just cultural osmosis? It does make you nuts. Antifeminism sold as feminism is so super-creepy!’
‘Thirteen-year-old girls don't write me letters that end up in the trashcan -- I fucking read 'em, you know what I mean?...That's when the music or the writing works: when they feel inspired by something I did, or my band did, or a friend of mine did, and then they do something and I feel totally inspired back. It's not just like I create this product and they consume it’
Listen to Bikini Kill
The CD Version of the First Two Records, a compilation released in 1993
Listen to Julie Ruin
Julie Ruin on Kill Rock Stars released 1997
Listen to Le Tigre
Le Tigre on Mr. Lady released 1999
Tags: kathleen hanna le tigre bikini kill nirvana dave grohl julie ruin the spice girls courtney love beth ditto feminism riot grrrl bratmobile diy
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