“It’s not like anyone worth seeing ever comes here, so you won’t be missing much.” I meant for it to sound reassuring, as if the show we were missing right now wasn’t that amazing, but then I realized it might come across as too negative, and I was back to worrying a little.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “At least those bands tonight sounded pretty good. Or so I thought from the curb after the bouncer kicked me there.”
I laughed. The Cute Boy wasn’t just cute; he was smart and funny, too.
“I like Lydia’s Dream,” I said. “But I really wish I could see Bikini Kill. I can’t wait until their EP comes out next month. But they’ll never come here, you know?”
Music and politics. I could talk about both if he knew Bikini Kill, which he should, considering that button on his backpack.
“You like them?” he asked. “My sister goes to school at Evergreen. She’s, uh, friends with them. I, uh, don’t actually know their music, though. At all.” He looked at me sheepishly. “I hope you can forgive me?”
My heart didn’t know whether to leap with joy or stop beating. His sister was friends with Bikini Kill. I liked Bratmobile and Heavens to Betsy, the other two riot grrrl bands whose music I could actually track down, due to their split seven-inch vinyl record together on K Records. But Bikini Kill was something more. Their shows were supposed to be life changing. They took turns on different instruments, they had spoken-word events. They did benefits for feminist causes. And everybody in the band was so cool. Kathleen Hanna was brave enough to talk about sexual harassment and tried to get girls to come to the front at their shows, and her voice could be a howl of motivating rage. Tobi Vail pounded the drums like all the anger in the world was coming out of her arms. Underneath, Kathi Wilcox played simple, but super solid, bass lines. And Billy Karren’s guitar somehow unified everything.
All I had was a scratchy, watery-sounding copy of the band’s demo cassette, Revolution Girl Style Now, and the Kill Rock Stars compilation album with one of their songs, and a couple of zines written by or about the band. Kyle’s sister knew them. She. Knew. Them.
But Kyle didn’t even know the band’s music. That was a major comedown.
“Then why do you have a Bikini Kill button on your backpack?” I strained not to sound accusatory or disappointed, but cool-girl calm.
A flare of crimson rushed up Kyle’s face. He ran his hand through his hair, the same nervous gesture he did at lunch.
“Um, well, it’s embarrassing,” he said. “And I’ll probably lose scene points as soon as I say this, but my sister put the Kill Rock Stars and Bikini Kill badges on my backpack right before she left for school, and I didn’t notice. When I called her, she said—and I quote—‘it would help me get girls.’”
Now it was my turn to blush. I had noticed him for exactly that pin. Well, that and the fact that he was way better-looking than the other guys at St. Ann’s. But now I knew what kind of guy would have a Bikini Kill button—sorry, badge—on his backpack: one whose sister had put it there, or one who wanted to get girls. Or both.
“Oh.” I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice. “I like Bikini Kill. And Bratmobile. And Heavens to Betsy.”
It was so hard to find other people who were into riot grrrl. It wasn’t like the bands were on MTV, or their music was easily available at most record stores. It had taken me a month to track down Bikini Kill’s cassette, and I listened to it all the time. Even Melissa, the only other person with musical tastes close to mine, didn’t really like them. More than anything, I wanted someone to talk about their music with, but that person wasn’t going to be Kyle.
“Please don’t get mad at me!” Kyle held up his arms in defense. “I swear I didn’t notice it was there until like a week into school. I would never, you know, deliberately try to get girls with a badge. And if you like them, then I’d love to give their music a try—maybe you can bring their album over to my house so we can listen to it together?”
Something about his face—maybe it was the blushing, maybe it was the wrinkled-up pleading look—told me he was being honest. He didn’t need any help getting girls, but I tried to ignore that thought. And also, he’d just suggested I could go over to his house and listen to music. Inside, I was screaming, like that old black-and-white footage of girls watching the Beatles.
“Do you at least like the Clash?” I asked, trying to see if our musical tastes aligned at all, or if I was going to have to bring my entire cassette tape collection with me. To his house. Which he’d invited me to.
“Oh, man! They’re my favorite band.” If it was possible, the grin across his face got even bigger when he said it, so I knew he wasn’t faking it. Not that I thought he would, since he’d confessed pretty readily about the Bikini Kill thing.
I might have loved riot grrrl bands, but the Clash were classic. They were the whole reason I got into punk when I was twelve, when I saw the video for “Rock the Casbah” on late-night MTV. Back then, I didn’t realize that “Rock the Casbah” wasn’t real punk, or that Combat Rock was supposed to be a total sellout album. I liked it anyway, and always would, but I wasn’t going to lead our conversation with it.
“What’s your favorite Clash song?” I asked.
“I think it would have to be a tie between ‘London Calling,’ for the bass line, and ‘Hateful,’ because it’s catchy,” he said.
“London Calling” and “Hateful” were both great songs that passed the punk-points test. At least he knew the Clash for real.
“‘London Calling’ is the first song I learned to play on bass!” I blurted with way too much enthusiasm. I needed to dial it down from eleven to maybe six or seven.
“Wow!” he said, more impressed than I expected. “It’s kinda hard, though, right? Like, to learn as your first song. I play bass, too, and it definitely took me a while to learn that bass line.”
“It was a totally dumb idea,” I lied. I had played cello for years before I started playing bass, but it seemed easier to agree with Kyle. I inwardly kicked myself for playing dumb. I seemed to forget everything about being a feminist when I was around him.
“Are you in a band?” He was doing that deep-staring thing again. Suddenly I felt like I was the only girl in the world, and sitting across from Kyle was the only thing that mattered.
“Theoretically, Melissa and I are in a punk band where she plays electric violin and I play bass, kind of like the Raincoats, but neither of us have written any songs since last year, so it’s become more of a theoretical band than ever,” I said with a laugh. “I think we last practiced in May.”
“That’s better than me,” he said. “I was in a band in Brussels, but it was a disaster, since both my French and my Dutch suck. I’m learning guitar now, though. I think I’m going to switch to that.”