User:Bataromatic/sandbox

International Pop Underground Convention
From August 20 – 25, 1991, K Records held an indie music festival called the International Pop Underground Convention. A promotional poster reads:"As the corporate ogre expands its creeping influence on the minds of industrialized youth, the time has come for the International Rockers of the World to convene in celebration of our grand independence. Hangman hipsters, new mod rockers, sidestreet walkers, scooter-mounted dream girls, punks, teds, the instigators of the Love Rock Explosion, the editors of every angry grrrl zine, the plotters of youth rebellion in every form, the midwestern librarians and Scottish ski instructors who live by night, all are setting aside August 20–25, 1991 as the time."An all-female bill on the first night, called "Love Rock Revolution Girl Style Now!" signalled a major step in the movement. The lineup featured Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Nikki McClure, Lois Maffeo, Jean Smith, 7 Year Bitch, and two side projects of Kathleen Hanna: Suture, with Sharon Cheslow of Chalk Circle (DC's first all-women punk band) and Dug E. Bird of Beefeater, and the Wondertwins with Tim Green of Nation of Ulysses. It was here that so many zinester people who'd only known each other from networking, mail, or talking on the phone, finally met and were brought together by an entire night of music dedicated to, for, and by women.

The convention also featured bands such as Unwound, L7, the Fastbacks, the Spinanes, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Girl Trouble, the Pastels, Kicking Giant, Rose Melberg, Seaweed, Kreviss, I Scream Truck, Scrawl, Nation of Ulysses, Jad Fair, Thee Headcoats, Steve Fisk, and spoken-word artist Juliana Luecking. This convention demonstrated a new relationship between audience and performers, dismantling the power dynamic of the past, for instance voicing anger at people harassing the female performers.

In 1991, young women coalesced in an unorganized collective response to several women's issues, such as the Christian Coalition of America's Right to Life campaign against legal abortion and the Senate Judiciary Hearings into Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Young feminist voices were heard through multiple protests, actions, and events such as the formative opening night of the International Pop Underground Convention and later L7's Rock for Choice.

To Include

These performers include the Raincoats, Suzi Quatro , Grace Slick , Stevie Nicks , Frightwig , Exene Cervenka 
 * K records
 * Team Dresch

Criticism
Not all women in music were interested in infusing feminism into their art, though. Some female musicians did try to distance themselves from feminism before the riot grrrl movement unfolded. According to biographer Nick Johnstone, Patti Smith is "revered" as a "feminist icon" and a precursor to riot grrrl. Smith, herself, rejected this label early in her career: (...)

In late September 1977, a studio recording of was released as a single. Today, while X-Ray Spex's song, "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" is often interpreted as a feminist catchphrase, Poly Styrene insisted it was more intended to be anti-consumerist/anti-capitalist statement and was not exclusively feminist in nature.

Though more adjacent to the genre than straight-forward riot grrrl, L7 now embraces the term as a description of their music: "In the age of hashtags, we'll take anything we can get. (...) Anything that keeps us on the map is cool."

(Courtney Love)

Regardless of their reactions to the label, these musicians are often cited in relation to the history of the riot grrrl movement due to themes covered by their music, or by their pioneering nature in music as women artists.