Who could resist the opportunity to color in our favorite rock ’n’ roll gals while supporting a great cause? The non-profit Girls Rock! Rhode Island recently published a killer coloring book loaded with pictures of women musicians who kick butt. Illustrated by a slew of local artists — including Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females — who donated their work, the coloring book is loaded with 22 ready-to-color drawings featuring the lady pioneers of rock present and past like Nico, Patti Smith, Kim Gordon, Bethany Cosentino, and Sharon Jones. Every copy sold supports programs Girls Rock! Rhode Island provides, including empowerment workshops and camps where young girls and women to learn to play instruments, form bands, and perform original songs for a live audience. Have a peak at thecoloring book below, and purchase it on Etsy.
We admit, we don’t usually follow the ins and outs of celebrity romance, but this, unfortunately, is a special occasion. Alternative rock’s royal couple Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore have split up after 27 years of marriage, throwing Sonic Youth’s future into uncertainty and the romantic ideals of a generation into disarray. Their famously solid marriage has inspired many an alternative-rock romance, but it seems that flannel-wearing bandmates must now court each other without the shining light at the end of the tunnel.
The news was confirmed in a statement from their rep at Matador records, which reads, ”Musicians Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, married in 1984, are announcing they have separated. Sonic Youth, with both Kim and Thurston involved, will proceed with its South American tour dates in November. Plans beyond that tour are uncertain. The couple has requested respect for their personal privacy and does not wish to issue further comment.”
First R.E.M. and now this? Our teenage years are begging for mercy.
A few days ago we shared adorable pictures from the early years of some of our favorite writers with you, including an amazing photo of Ernest Hemingway in a dress. Today, we thought it might be fun to revisit the concept, but this time turning our focus on the music world. We don’t know about you, but we never really picture rock ‘n’ roll stars as having childhoods; wearing clothes that your parents have picked out for you and going through an awkward stage is the opposite of bad-ass. So, if you’re curious as to what Courtney Love looked like decades before she ever met Kurt — or you’d like to see how freaking cute he was as a little kid — click through to check out our roundup now.
Here’s something that probably won’t surprise you about Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon’s 16-year-old daughter, Coco Gordon Moore: She’s a tall, gorgeous blonde who knows how to front a freaking rock ‘n’ roll band. We had the pleasure of seeing her perform back in the fall, as part of a combo called She Murders at a tribute concert for Kathleen Hanna; Coco sang a reverent and energetic version of Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl.”
Now, Pitchfork points us to Coco’s other band, Big Nils, whose debut album, Sibling, is streaming on their Bandcamp site. For $5, you can download it. The eight-song recording is pure, skronky, adolescent punk, featuring one song about STDs (“You got the herpes/ What you gonna do about it?”) and an eyebrow-raising number about a mother-daughter relationship (“Deep Dark Death”). Speaking of moms, what’s sure to make the biggest impression on Sonic Youth fans is just how much frontwoman Coco sounds like Kim — although she evidently prefers a tortured scream to Gordon’s signature ice-cold whisper.
Pitchfork reported recently that Drew Barrymore is apparently going to direct the next Best Coast video. When you think about it, the collaboration actually makes perfect sense. Barrymore has spent time on the other side of the camera in the past — she directed 2009 roller derby feature Whip It, along with a TV documentary back in 2004. And she’s also by all accounts well into her indie music (you can read Jens Lekman’s hilarious account of meeting with her about the Whip It soundtrack about a third of the way down this page). Anyway, the news got us thinking about other videos that have been made by people known for other things apart from making music videos. Here’s a selection of the most notable.
On November 5, the fifth annual NY Art Book Fair opens at P.S.1 in New York. Presented by Printed Matter, the weekend-long fair brings together 200 international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists, and publishers, and offers special project rooms, exhibitions, screenings, book signings, and performances.
Of the many presses that will be involved in the fair, we’ve compiled a list of ten exciting publishers that you have most likely not heard of, but should know about. They produce art books, limited artist editions, zines, comics, posters, chapbooks, original web books, freely accessible online archives, and exhibitions. Some focus on emerging artists and street art, while others reprint the long-lost work of established artists. And if you have the opportunity to come to the fair, you can take in some of the special projects such as the Zine-Trade-Meet-Up or Goteblüd’s exhibition of more than six hundred Riot Grrrl zines, with a working photocopy station.
While the Sleater-Kinney-shaped hole in our hearts remains gaping, some serious consolation can be found in Corin Tucker’s debut solo album, 1,000 Years. The riot grrrl-turned-righteous mama blends her fierce wail and earth-shattering guitar licks with softer touches of strings and acoustic guitar on her “middle-aged mom record,” an album that she admits is “not a record that a young person would write.” In fact, Tucker’s nine-year-old son and two-year-old daughter come first, traveling with their mom on short tours in support of the record.
As 1,000 Years proves — in tracks like the hard, fast “Doubt” — being a mom doesn’t stop the rock. In fact, lots of ladies have mastered the art of rocking and rearing. After the jump, we celebrate Tucker’s return to music with our list of the toughest rock ‘n roll moms, who balance the two roles without missing a beat.
Sonic Youth star Kim Gordon earned fame as a musician, but she’s been steadily gaining ground in the art world, where she began.
A graduate of LA’s Otis Art Institute, Gordon has already established herself as an influential player in music, media, fashion, and film. Experimental in nature and raw in production, her visual art dynamically reflects and embraces not only the noise that surrounds her life, but also the chaos that encompasses all of us.
1. Owen Wilson is Woody Allen‘s new muse for his next project, but the jury’s still out on whether he will be starring opposite Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. [via THR]
2. From Thurston Moore‘s new blog: “kim [Gordon] and i will be recording a trio LP w/ yoko [Ono] this year with blindfolds.” [via TwentyFourBit]
3. Is Dave Eggers is the best candidate for editorship of The Paris Review? [via The Millions]
4. Andrew Lloyd Webber wants to save Abbey Road studios. (Is it just us, or does this make Paul McCartney look bad?) [via Guardian]
5. A musical theater adaptation of Pedro Almodovar‘s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which director Bartlett Sher and the filmmaker have been developing in workshops for over a year, will debut in Lincoln Center Theater‘s 2010-11 season. [via NYT]
Bonus Giveaway: We use Yahoo! Search to help find the top culture stories of the day. Now we’re giving you the chance to play editor, and you just might win a trip to Coachella.
In her new book Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music, Marisa Meltzer takes readers on a journey from the moment when Tobi Vail first transfigured the word “girl” to “grrrl” all the way to the current cultural supremacy of all things Miley. As she explains in the preface: “The story of girl power kicks off with riot grrrl, but this isn’t a book just about riot grrrl, or even the nineties. It’s also a book about how everything that happened afterward was just as, if not more, important: how an underground movement trickled up from punk-rock utopias to teen girls’ bedrooms around the world.”
To celebrate its release, we asked Meltzer to provide a list of the most essential female artists from the ’90s — the decade that birthed the girl power revolution. Chime in with your own music heroes in the comments.
, and more importantly, be entered to win a VIP trip for two to Coachella. Topics will be changing throughout the week, so get your search on and keep playing to increase your chances of winning!
, Marisa Meltzer takes readers on a journey from the moment when Tobi Vail first transfigured the word “girl” to “grrrl” all the way to the current cultural supremacy of all things Miley. As she explains in the preface: “The story of girl power kicks off with riot grrrl, but this isn’t a book just about riot grrrl, or even the nineties. It’s also a book about how everything that happened afterward was just as, if not more, important: how an underground movement trickled up from punk-rock utopias to teen girls’ bedrooms around the world.”
