Electronic musicians prove women are technologically capable

Anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman once said, "If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution."

Well Ms. Goldman, tomorrow night's your revolution.

Le Tigre, lead by former Bikini Kill front-woman Kathleen Hanna, makes its second Tucson appearance at Club Congress tomorrow at 9 p.m. The show is for all ages and will take place outside in the club's parking lot.

Steve Eye, who organized the show, said he chose to have Le Tigre play at Congress instead of Solar Culture to accommodate a large audience.

"We moved the show over to the parking lot of Hotel Congress because they are not doing a show in Phoenix, and we wanted everyone to get a chance to see them," Eye said.

And what the audience will get to see should be nothing short of a revolution - a breakthrough of women in electronic music.

The difficulties girls sometimes face in breaking into the realm of electronic music are part of a bigger problem, that of girls and women being discouraged from using and learning about technology.

Bands like Le Tigre, Cibo Matto and Peaches are helping to break this misconception, but the gap between male and female DJs and electronic musicians is still huge, said Brooklyn-based DJ and musician Tara Rodgers.

"I think it's too early to tell the degree of success Le Tigre and others will have in mobilizing women and girls to make electronic music," she said in an e-mail interview. "There's such a long history of girls being socialized away from engaging with computers and technology, as well as a substantial cultural expectation for women musicians to be singers rather than instrumentalists. These things aren't going to change overnight."

Le Tigre supports making technology less intimidating to women by providing details of the equipment used on their albums.

On the band's official Web site, band member Johanna Fateman says, "I can't stand the fetishistic insider talk about 'gear,' but in the interest of disrupting the fraternal mystique that surrounds the production of electronic, I have put together a list of equipment Le Tigre has used."

Rodgers believes resources like these "will hopefully make it progressively easier for women who want to get started making electronic music."

"I'd say that both bands (Le Tigre and Cibo Matto) combine elements of electronic music with feminist lyrical content, with Le Tigre being more overtly educational about feminist issues. But these bands are coming out of a punk-rock tradition as much as from an electronic music/DJing tradition," said Rodgers, who performs under the name Analog Tara. She also runs pinknoises.com, a Web resource about women and electronic music.

"I think it's equally important to recognize women who are electronic music producers first and foremost - like K. Hand (techno producer in Detroit), Neotropic (UK experimental/downtempo producer), and Arthur Loves Plastic (Washington, D.C. house producer). Given the marginal status of women instrumentalists and producers over the course of music history, it's as powerful a feminist statement for a women to make electronic music with no lyrical content, as it is to use feminist lyrical content like Le Tigre does," Rogers continued.

Analog Tara's remix of Le Tigre's "Tres Bien" is available on the band's new, 12-inch record, "Remixes."

Le Tigre performs at 9 p.m. tomorrow in the Club Congress parking lot at 311 E. Congress St. Las Sinfronteras opens the show. Admission is $10. Call 884-0874 for information.