the girl inside of me who want to see this crazy world in the rock and roll point of view

It is very rare for me to have a time spent on my acoustic guitar like today. My tobacco sunburst Yamaha seems very interesting to play today. I don’t know, maybe because my best friend, Rissa Egitia, has just bought a new Mitchell so I think a lot about guitar these days. Or maybe because our last acoustic performance was awesome. Or maybe just because I listen to The Muffs and Dresden Dolls a lot these days.

Recently I am really into female vocalists who also play instruments and create songs. Maybe it is just because I play bass and sing in the band and also contribute in making songs, although my biggest role is just to fix the grammar on the done lyrics, hahaha… I do love my latest song about Putro’s new bicycle. I can’t wait to record it, amid my fear in the sufferings, pain, and nervousness of recording songs in the studio. I also proud of my “Leave Me a Radio”, which draws local public attention.

Today, I listen to many The Muffs song. I really admire this band, especially Kim Shattuck, the awesome vocalist. I listen to the album “Really Really Happy” right now. This is one of my favorite albums of all time, besides Black Lips’ “Good Bad Not Evil”, Green Day’s “Dookie”, and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. (Dookie and Smells Like are so cliché, but I’m not embarrassed, I DO love these albums for my life).

Kim Shattuck wrote one of my favorite songs, “Everybody Loves You”, a not-mellow-tough-girl’s-crying song. I like listening to it when I feel sad of any reason. Usually the lyric would match my story, no matter what makes me sad at that time. And the conclusion sentence; “I could never say it but it’s true, everybody loves you” really into me in everyway. I can change the “I” as myself and “you” as the person who makes me sad (or in envy). Or I can change “I” as an anonym narrator and the “you” as me, to comfort myself that I have everybody loving me. It can be adjusted for sad any occasion. The tone she chose to sing is not sad, and the music is not gloomy. Though, her rough vocal still exposes bitterness and sadness. That makes me think about a girl who is drowning in terrible disappointment but refuse to cry in public, or a girl who is pretending to be okay in front of her friends. I like this character. The song is also great to be sung and makes me flow into the depth of her unexposed tragedy.

I am terrible in playing guitar and finding the right tone, so I googled for the chords of this song this afternoon. But unfortunately I can not find chords for The Muff’s “Everybody Loves You” in the internet. They only provide the lyrics which I have had. The Muffs is indeed a band which draw minor attention of public. They are indeed not as legendary as Sex Pistols. They have no dead players who are killed in stupid rock ‘n roll incidents or spend money on crashing and banging instruments in each show. Therefore some content writers for music website don’t want to waste time on writing chords for The Muffs who done minor sensational act and have a genius female on the microphone.

So I have to find the chords by myself and still, can not find the right scale. I have decided to start in D then move in C#, B, Em, and A. Then when it comes to the bridge, I become confused. Oh, I would very like to be genius in music! I can entertain myself better with songs! So today I spend more time with my tobacco sunburst Yamaha acoustic guitar (which I bought last Christmas as a Christmas present for myself), and sing the song in unadjusted scale.

I stop playing to write this, and to comment Kim Shattuck (and other girls) that I honor her as a very tough girl which still can be pretty in rock ‘n roll music. Girls like Nancy Spungen and many girls with tattooed-back have to be bitchy to have place in rock ‘n roll gigs. Nancy Spungen never wrote one single song, never sing one single tune, never play one single broken guitar. But she was Sid’s whore and she died rock ‘n rolly, so she becomes a character in the myth of punk. However, it is better to end up stupid and infamous like Nancy than to be adored and popular like Avril and Hayley! Girls like Avril Lavinge and Hayley Williams are music industry’s big mistake. Many spiteful comments are forwarded to them as their terrible make up and attitude become popular. Oh, how I hate local vocalists who think themselves cool if they wave their hands as they sing like Hayley do! Avril Lavinge was awarded as a punk princess in the 2000’s for her terrible tie, guitar playing, baggy trousers, and smoky eyes. See, she HAS to be terribly MASCULINE to be a contrasting character for Britney and Christina and gain popularity. While Hayley, well, I am not really into today’s popular music, but I can say that she is just a miserable My Chemical Romance’s vocalist who is trapped in a female body.

However, real girls like Kim Shattuck, Amanda Palmer, and you can say, Courtney Love, ARE real tough girls. They don’t have to be masculine to attract people’s attention. They don’t have to contrast any other popular character to be famous. They are themselves. They sing their stories. They play their instruments. They do well.

Let me start with Courtney Love, because she is a broken down tough girl who desperately marry a rock star. Courtney Love, a real rock n roll girl. She play guitar and sing in a pop-punk band, Hole. Her career was not huge until she married Kurt Cobain and delivered Frances Bean. However, she do write great poems and songs. She inspired Kurt for Heart Shaped Box (which makes me feel good because my boy lollipop wrote me several songs). And she sings heavily and play guitar riot. However, I have ever watched a live video of Hole, a famous one I suppose, because she took off her tank top so the audience can see her nipple, and in that show she play a guitar riot, and then I realized that the guitar is not plugged to any sound system. Hhahaha… so she can still play guitar impressively without ruining the music, because the guitar is UNPLUGGED! Really Sid Vicious. But, I love her solo single, Mono. Her voice is SOOOOOOO awesome. Heavy, but still, beautiful. She is beautiful too in the music video. With white wedding dress and so forth. She looks beautifully dangerous, I think she can punch Hayley and Avril alone and knock them both down. See, she doesn’t have to be masculine or tawdry to be great.

Amanda Palmer from Dresden Dolls also grabs my intention. A muscular woman with tattooed eye brow, plays piano roughly in low tone and mime make ups. Oh, she is just AWESOME! Amanda Palmer is a real original punk cabaret vocalist and pianist. She is a musical genius, a real character of villainous heroine. You have to listen to her music and explore her appearance to know what I mean. She admits that she is a person who can be described as bisexual by sexologist and socialist. She says, “I have slept with guys, I have slept with girls. Maybe that is what the word (bisexual) means. I just don’t like to simplify my attitude with certain idioms.” HA! Great eh! I LOVE Amanda Palmer. I personally don’t consider bisexual as cool, but everything is cool if it is related to Amanda Palmer. She do great shows, make great music, compose poetic and girly lyrics, and in a great band. Dresden Dolls consist only of a piano player vocalist and a drummer. Their songs are full of piano banging and drum beating, also sometime ukulele. I love songs like Coin Operated Boy, Shores of California, Backstabber, and Dirty Business.

Other great rock ‘n roll girl is Kim Shattuck from The Muffs, obviously. I don’t know much about her, because I can not earn enough information of her from sources I often track in the internet. I just know that she forms The Muffs in 1991, and release albums like “Really Really Happy” and “Happy Birthday to Me”. She is, I suppose, a calm, girly, fun girl. Just like a red haired girl next door who likes to wear simple dress and sing songs while playing guitar. But she does have heavy voice and great punk scream which is required in rock ‘n roll world. Her songs are very everyday happenings, as if she doesn’t have to have extreme feeling to create a writing work, or as if she always feels extreme feelings in everyday life happenings and directly produce a song and lyric from it. I have mentioned “Everybody Loves You” which is very into me as my one favorite song from The Muffs. “Really Really Happy” and “A Little Luxury” are my favorite also.

Kim Shattuck, Amanda Palmer, and Courtney Love have great works that I adore and wish I can do. They have feminine touch in their works which can make superior male feel sissy. Amanda Palmer may hide behind her thick mime make up. Courtney Love may create scandals besides her work. Kim Shattuck may not popular. But I know that they can grab big attention in the rock ‘n roll world which is dominated with many Adam’s apples, without pretending to be masculine. I can not beat these women by playing my red bass and my tobacco sunburst guitar in my band, The Frankenstone. However, I always remember these girls while singing and playing guitar to release the girl inside of me who want to see this crazy world in the rock and roll point of view.

Gisa - Monday, 8 February 2010