kathi wilcox – Spinning Platters

Show Review: Bikini Kill, The Linda Lindas at The Hollywood Palladium, 4/26/19

All Photos by Steve Rose unless otherwise noted.

When I was 16, I was heavily invested in the world of punk rock. But it was the commercial version of it that was found on the local alternative radio station Live 105, 120 Minutes on MTV, and PBS documentaries of a bygone era.

Then I got a job at a telemarketing company, and a coworker began introducing me to the lovely world of riot grrrl. I was given tapes of music by Team Dresch, Sleater-Kinney, and Bikini Kill. The pure ferocity of it all spoke to me. It opened so many sonic doors for me, and helped me realize that I preferred listening to female voices—and found that women writers were easier for me to relate to than men.
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Show Review: The Julie Ruin with La Sera at Slim’s, 9/18/13

All photos by Kara Murphy. Check out the full gallery here!

The last time Kathleen Hanna performed music in San Francisco was over 8 years ago, opening for Beck at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. It was the first time I had gotten a chance to see her, after being consistently sold out of gigs for most of my life. Their 45 minute set was excellent, but I kept wanting more. I wanted a crowd that cared. Alas, I had to wait nearly a decade to see the woman that coined the phrases “Riot Grrl,” “Girl Power,” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” play a full set of music. Sure, I really wanted a Bikini Kill reunion, but getting her to dig up her old Julie Ruin moniker with fellow Bikini Killer Kathi Wilcox on board was a suitable replacement.

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Album Review: The Julie Ruin – Run Fast

The Julie Ruin will make existing Julie Ruin fans happy, as well as the younger siblings, nieces, and nephews of said fans. “Run Fast” is occasionally brilliant and rarely annoying. I had really high expectations, and they were almost met, with the tracks at the end of the album sounding about 20x better than the pre-release singles.

This paragraph is dedicated for some information fans may already know. Kathleen Hanna was a one-woman show using a pseudonym when she released the self-titled “Julie Ruin” in 1997. It was tremendous, but it was also the only release under that name. Fast forward 16 years, and Hanna leads a group called “the Julie Ruin,” who have released an album called “Run Fast.” Whether this has anything to do with Le Tigre’s “Let’s Run” is beyond me.

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