November, D.C.: Smash Records / Bikini Kill & The Linda Lindas

The first time I heard about Bikini Kill was from a friend in the punk scene in Chicago in 1993. He told me there was this girl band that didn't let any guys into their shows. I'm sure I said something like "That's lame" and went back to listening to Jawbreaker and whatnot.

For all of the misinformation and general shittiness of our digital age (and hence, hello, vinyl), one can at least make an earnest effort to go online to seek clarification. In 1993, in a scene that was still more or less "underground," a falsehood could remain firmly in place without any obvious means of fact-checking it. Sure, I could have somehow made an effort, but I had a glut of stuff I was already obsessed with, so it was easy enough to shrug and write off a band that possibly wouldn't want me at their shows.

However: Holy shit, was that wrong.

A few years later, I got word that Bikini Kill was, in fact, an excellent band, and the famed "girls to the front" thing in no way involved excluding anyone. I picked up a couple seven-inches from a record store in Portland, Oregon in or around 1998. 

The band was gone by then, and I was left kicking myself for not seeing them in their heyday. And I am kicking myself still.

Fast forward to 2022...

At some point earlier this year, I heard about The Linda Lindas. On NPR, I think. They were young--so young that one might be tempted to give them a pass...so young that they're beyond criticism, or that they get points for simply doing anything at their age.

But it turns out they rock.

I have a daughter who is a year or two younger than the youngest of them. I played a song for her and convinced her to come see them live at the Black Cat in Washington, DC.

The Linda Lindas' sound, to my ears, is squarely in the realm of 1990s riot grrl punk, which is not to say that this is a pastiche or cosplay. The songs are very much their own. To be a lame dad for a moment, I would say they are "age appropriate": while they get at youthful frustrations, anxieties, and outrage, they do not appear to be writing beyond their experience. We (daughter and I) saw them on the last show of their tour. They'd just played on Fallon (or maybe Kimmel) a few days before, and I tried to explain to my daughter that we were quite possibly seeing their last show in such a cozy and intimate venue. This was a masks-on event, which made it difficult to gauge whether she was into it. It's a tricky thing, trying to get your kid to love stuff that you love. My dad tried this with baseball, and for me, it just didn't take. I am delighted to report that she loved it.

Having now gabbed about two bands, I shall now segue to the two records I purchased on my November outing to a new (to me) record store. Destination: Smash Records.

Smash Records is in Adams Morgan, a neighborhood in Washington, DC where I pretty much never find myself. My vague and dismissive impression of it, based on a half dozen or so outings, is that it’s for a younger, louder, trying-to-get-laid crowd. While I’ve seen photos of Bad Brains and Minor Threat playing in clubs there, the vibe—I felt—had long since changed to something less arty and more, well, yuppieish. I might be wrong about that. Best of luck to everyone.

Smash, however, is pretty great. Small and cramped in a way that suggests abundance. A nice selection of books on the local legends (Discord stuff) and plenty of Glen Friedman photography collections.

I picked up a repressing of Bikini Kill's debut and the Linda Linda's debut as well.

 

Lots to read inside the Bikini Kill record...

The Linda Lindas I left unopened. My daughter will get it for Christmas.

Some vintage clothes are for sale at Smash, and other miscellanea, including some VHS tapes. Some were arranged on a small TV. An Adam Sandler movie was playing. 

I’ve got nothing against Adam Sandler, but I will admit that I find myself thinking about him whenever anyone (myself included) starts romanticizing the 90s. So much great stuff came out back then, and I would place the riot grrl movement right at the top of that list. But it’s worth remembering that this stuff wasn't the dominant thing in the culture. Case in point: the extreme popularity of Adam Sandler, particularly his stand-up albums, which seemed to be aimed at chortling frat boys. Stroll down a dormitory hallway in 1993 and you were about a million times more likely to hear Adam Sander singing about “whacking off” than you were to hear, say, Fugazi, Nirvana, Liz Phair, Pavement, Jawbox, and, yes, Bikini Kill.

So it goes. It's a rare thing for a culture to recognize its best stuff right as it's happening. And while it can be pleasant to romanticize the 90s, it wasn't all amazing. But it wasn't terrible either. Due respect to the Linda Lindas for reviving the best of it.