"Actually I live the life of a housewife. People think it is an existence without meaning, but being a housewife is a job.
Have you ever done the dishes? Every day again! Boom! Bang! Children running around, little accidents, the noise of the vacuumcleaner, being there for others, your feelings go up and down like a jojo. It's a noisy and traumatic existence. Perfect to write about."
INTRODUCTION
First of all, I would like to give you a little introduction of who I am, what I do and what keeps me busy.
My name is Janneke, I am 19 years old and I live in Arnhem, The Netherlands. I work for a job center right now, to fill time before going to school again. I am currently busy with my entrance examination for a study called Music Technology in Hilversum. This is a study about composing and recording music. If everything works out allright, I will be starting the preliminary this April.
I also play guitar in a band called BarBitch, together with two other people. The music we play is kind of a mixture of different kinds of music. Our influences are mostly punk and metal, but also people like Lydia Lunch, PJ Harvey and many more.
I planned on doing this homepage, because I am always busy with music, either making music or listening to music, preferably girlbands.
The first all-female band I knew was L7.
Their music made me completely crazy. I still think they kick ass. In length of time I got more and more interested in female artists and started to notice that the percentage of women in music is still very small and a lot of bands that I like are even very hard to get here. I had to search for ages to get bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and Babes in Toyland. I don't know why, but it's either the lack of interest or the fact that women are still not fully accepted in music.
Anyway, while searching, I ran into recordlabels like Candy-Ass, KillRockStars and Chainsaw Records, where I ordered Free To Fight, which I think is a great album and a great project.
I think it's too bad that Holland only counts four or five female bands, but I think that will grow in lenght of time.
I think it is true that women are still not fully accepted in some kinds of music streams. For example, last weekend I went to a hardcore weekend not far away from here.
Most of the bands were male, but the second day a band showed up with two girls.
A soon as they entered the stage, I heard whispering allover:"Hey, it's a girl" and "Huh? Women?" and during the show people were actually staring at them and you could see the surprised look at their faces.
I am not saying right now that they are against women or something, but this shows to me that women are still a strange phenomenon in some streams of music. That is why I think it is great that there are girls that are actually playing music and doing something about it. There is a revolution going on and it is going to be better every day!!!
Background picture: The Slits (from The Return Of The Giant Slits)
Most of the bands were male, but the second day a band showed up with two girls.
A soon as they entered the stage, I heard whispering allover:"Hey, it's a girl" and "Huh? Women?" and during the show people were actually staring at them and you could see the surprised look at their faces.
I am not saying right now that they are against women or something, but this shows to me that women are still a strange phenomenon in some streams of music. That is why I think it is great that there are girls that are actually playing music and doing something about it. There is a revolution going on and it is going to be better every day!!!