Reflections on Rock (part 2)
Reader, last Friday I went to see The Rakes and I met Les out of Carter USM. Already documented below is my respect for the man, if not his music. Also documented is the fearsomeness of his female company, on which I shall now elaborate.
Reader, she was dressed in a big jumper with dreadlocks in her hair, Doctor Marten boots, and (no doubt) stripey leggings. A flouncy skirt, a handful of piercings - I'm sure you're getting the (dykey) picture. Les had skipped off to empty his stately bladder, and being the well-bred young gadabout that I am, I moved on my conversation to his lass. I don't recall what question I opened with, but it was met with an abrupt (nay, rude) rejoinder and a demand for me to go and smoke elsewhere. Reader, I was floored.
I don't expect rapture from everyone I meet, but I'm afraid I have a mandate on good manners. If she didn't like smoke, then a polite request would have sufficed. If she didn't like me, then some subtle social tactic would have given me the nod to move along. But to treat me with such offhand petulance offended me and insulted me - and it really took me back.
You see, back when in the days when Les was successful, this was how indie girls used to be. They were stroppy, angry, bolshy, and dykey. They wore damp and dirty old clothes and had ugly, unwashed hair. They were often overweight and they didn't wear any make up. They listened to The Levellers, they drank cider and black and they didn't like anyone telling them what to do. They expressed their femininity by exercising their right to be unattractive. They were emancipated from the controlling shackles of the male myth of beauty, and showed it by all dressing in the same vile army surplus uniform.
They had an agenda. They were angry. They had vague but strongly-held beliefs. And by crikey, they were annoying. Indulgent, self-righteous, and outraged, they challenged our assumptions about their status as females by menas of a strange sort of social aversion therapy. Their core beliefs were not easy to ascertain, because this particular breed of female was not capable of arguing without shouting down the less righteous. To them, there was no greater crime than being caught in possession of an unreconstructed belief, and the merest accusation could undermine even the most well thought-out argument. Reason held no sway against the threat of being labelled a 'racist', or a 'sexist', or a 'homophobe', or (gasp!) a 'townie'.
In those days, the battle of the sexes was a bit like Scottish seperatism: one side is conducting a secret cultural war against an aggressive oppressor; the other isn't really bothered either way. Forget reasoned notions of how gender difference is a subtle play of myriad differences between to social-defined poles of identity - all men were cunts, and they were going to fucking pay. As I'm sure you remember, it was unbelievably tiresome.
And yet I was taken crashingly back to such impolite times by Les's angry companion, and it showed me how far we've come. Girls today can go to the gym without being called traitors. They dress better, they smell better and some of them even have better conversational skills.
But not all were willing to change, as we have seen. What happened to history's refugees when the supply of Levellers records and clompy boots dried up? Most were shipped to bypass protest sites around the country, were they can be found to this day, living in caravans, claiming benefits and agitating against the local parish council. Others escaped to academia, where they still draw frightened stares from the fresh-faced first year students. And one or two of the luckiest bagged themselves a genuine indie rock star as a guaranteed protection against the inevitable march of fashion, and as waining but comforting kudos for the dark and lonely years ahead.
Let the lesson for today be this: Never become shackled to a fashion or a harridan.
Now go in peace.
Reader, she was dressed in a big jumper with dreadlocks in her hair, Doctor Marten boots, and (no doubt) stripey leggings. A flouncy skirt, a handful of piercings - I'm sure you're getting the (dykey) picture. Les had skipped off to empty his stately bladder, and being the well-bred young gadabout that I am, I moved on my conversation to his lass. I don't recall what question I opened with, but it was met with an abrupt (nay, rude) rejoinder and a demand for me to go and smoke elsewhere. Reader, I was floored.
I don't expect rapture from everyone I meet, but I'm afraid I have a mandate on good manners. If she didn't like smoke, then a polite request would have sufficed. If she didn't like me, then some subtle social tactic would have given me the nod to move along. But to treat me with such offhand petulance offended me and insulted me - and it really took me back.
You see, back when in the days when Les was successful, this was how indie girls used to be. They were stroppy, angry, bolshy, and dykey. They wore damp and dirty old clothes and had ugly, unwashed hair. They were often overweight and they didn't wear any make up. They listened to The Levellers, they drank cider and black and they didn't like anyone telling them what to do. They expressed their femininity by exercising their right to be unattractive. They were emancipated from the controlling shackles of the male myth of beauty, and showed it by all dressing in the same vile army surplus uniform.
They had an agenda. They were angry. They had vague but strongly-held beliefs. And by crikey, they were annoying. Indulgent, self-righteous, and outraged, they challenged our assumptions about their status as females by menas of a strange sort of social aversion therapy. Their core beliefs were not easy to ascertain, because this particular breed of female was not capable of arguing without shouting down the less righteous. To them, there was no greater crime than being caught in possession of an unreconstructed belief, and the merest accusation could undermine even the most well thought-out argument. Reason held no sway against the threat of being labelled a 'racist', or a 'sexist', or a 'homophobe', or (gasp!) a 'townie'.
In those days, the battle of the sexes was a bit like Scottish seperatism: one side is conducting a secret cultural war against an aggressive oppressor; the other isn't really bothered either way. Forget reasoned notions of how gender difference is a subtle play of myriad differences between to social-defined poles of identity - all men were cunts, and they were going to fucking pay. As I'm sure you remember, it was unbelievably tiresome.
And yet I was taken crashingly back to such impolite times by Les's angry companion, and it showed me how far we've come. Girls today can go to the gym without being called traitors. They dress better, they smell better and some of them even have better conversational skills.
But not all were willing to change, as we have seen. What happened to history's refugees when the supply of Levellers records and clompy boots dried up? Most were shipped to bypass protest sites around the country, were they can be found to this day, living in caravans, claiming benefits and agitating against the local parish council. Others escaped to academia, where they still draw frightened stares from the fresh-faced first year students. And one or two of the luckiest bagged themselves a genuine indie rock star as a guaranteed protection against the inevitable march of fashion, and as waining but comforting kudos for the dark and lonely years ahead.
Let the lesson for today be this: Never become shackled to a fashion or a harridan.
Now go in peace.
posted by Stephen Beckett at 6:19 AM
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