The F-EMAIL Eunuch
“I fell in love with girls, stopped listening to clueless self-proclaimed musicologists who wanted to get in my pants and literally stopped caring.”
I used to hate female musicians. I found the lyrical themes to be sappy, watching them play was perfunctory and their lack of balls was infuriating. It was, for most of my teenage years, much like watching lesbian porn when you’re straight as an arrow, whenever somebody turned up the sound on the girls. I couldn’t help it. Guys spoke about music more than girls did and they weren’t listening to chicks. It was hard rock, thrusting hips and phallic guitars all the way. My femininity never stood a chance.
Falling into the trap of wanting to be a dude and listening to cock-rock was an easy hole for me and many other girls in history to fall into.
Turn up to a gig wearing anything other than ripped jeans and bovver boots and get comfortable in the knowledge that you’re viewed as a wannabe groupie or a slitsy-writsy Goth. Either way, don’t expect anyone to take you seriously if you open your mouth about music.
Shut up little girl and write this down…
When I started writing about music, it wasn’t about what I really thought. I was writing about guys, for a guy so that other guys could read it. I thought giving readers what they wanted, was me doing my job. Copy and paste then commit to memory all those conversations where you’re being preached pearlescent tripe about the latest in mediocre music according to the pretentious, middle-class white-boy.
What was I thinking? Nothing at all.
It was only in my twenties that I realised a lot of what some of these guys were saying was some severely stupid shit. I fell in love with girls, stopped listening to clueless self-proclaimed musicologists who wanted to get in my pants and literally stopped caring. So what if they didn’t like what I had to say about their bands? “Freedom is to write the wrong words,” said Patti Smith. She may have been a pretentious wench but the chick had a point and she said it in the fucking 70’s, so what, man, is your excuse?
Social media allows everyone the chance to be a writer. This is all very democratic but doesn’t mean you should go impose your opinions on the public. Especially if you can barely get your head around which bint you’re zoning in on at a gig. All this spit and sleaze after you’ve whined to the global audience of Facebook that the very same girl should go pull out her tampon instead of write anything about your band ever again. After a gentle reminder who I was, I thought the poor guy was going to cry.
The point is, we’re all allowed to be online. Social platforms belong to us all and more than that, so does music. Gender is something that I nor any other female journalist should have to feel nervous about.
We’re allowed to hate each other’s art but why hate each other for being the opposite sex?
Discourse is in every single one of you and the reason you are who you are is because of what tainted and tinted your experiences of life. At fourteen, I was dumb enough to let society affect my brain to the extent that I was ashamed of what I really thought. Don’t be dumb enough to agree with the me back then. Music transcends sexism, elates us, relates us and makes us feel like having sex among many other metaphysically awesome things. Trying to bring those feelings down to the brass tax of written language is another bag of bollocks altogether and we all know it gets lost in translation.
Stop caring so much about what people think whether you are a critic or being criticised. Make whatever you want because you can and should. Confidence in your creativity is the bravest thing you’ll ever do, so screw ‘em.
