Music

Heroic 31-year-old man admits he likes bands with girls

by Nicole Villeneuve

Imagen in 2015 a man like a band even if they all girl.

This week, a week that does indeed exist in the year 2015, Durham, North Carolina altweekly IndyWeek published an essay from a local record/book shop owner called What it’s like to be a grown man whose favorite band is three women .

IMAGEN.

In a heroic account that will be referenced for decades and decades to come, Brian Shaw repeatedly stresses that he loves Sleater-Kinney simply because they rock, man. “Gender was never a motivating factor in my discovery or embrace of Sleater-Kinney,” he says, before spilling another thousand or so words on all the ways in which their gender has fucked this up for him. How complicated he feels over being the “31-year-old balding male” crying and losing his composure among “sold-out crowds of gleaming-eyed women aged 14 to 50.” How he came to love the band because of a three-piece all-male rock band cover set he saw when he was young. How he still gets told “it’s strange for me, a straight white male, to be so enamored with a ‘girl band,’ a pair of words that say very little.” How he knows at least one other man—Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus, no less—who is inspired by Sleater-Kinney. Imagen.

Maybe we’re being a bit hard on this guy—the second half of his essay is a lovely fan account of his excitement over the reunion and travelling to see his favourite band. He has some detailed insight into what he loves about the band musically (BITING TONGUE ON IT BEING BECAUSE CARRIE PLAYS GUITAR LIKE THE BOYS HE LIKES THO.) And dude, we’d love to see that SK shoulder tattoo. But don’t expect congratulations. I’m not sorry this has been hard on you. And won’t you please consider the women?!?! MY STRUGGLE:

~*~*~There’s another complication for Radiohead and me, as the band consists of five men who have had an incalculable impact on inspiring and enabling other males to make music, art or most anything during the last quarter-century. Among sold-out crowds of gleaming-eyed men aged 14 to 50, all shouting lyrics from the depths of their hearts, I too lost my composure night after night.

But I am a 31-year-old female with hair.~*~*~