Geriatric Punks

"I tried to find some cleverly worded way to express my
disgust with your "Women in Rock" issue, but what i
have to say is really quite simple: You guys are
completely retarded.

By RS standards, Rock is no longer a style of music
but a trendy costume to be whipped up by expensive
stylists and slapped onto the latest pop tart barbie
doll. Give a girl some tight pants and a spiky
bracelet and POOF! She ROCKS!

Your poor choice of cover girls and featured artists
brings to mind the Sports Illustrated swimsuit
editions. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the
breast-baring models inside..but we all understand
that they have NOTHING TO DO WITH SPORTS--Which just
might be offensive to women who are interested in
sports or who might even be (gasp) real athletes.

Yes, Britney has a talented stylist and yes, somebody
gave Shakira a Guns & Roses t-shirt to wear..but they
ARE NOT NOW NOR WILL THEY EVER BE ROCK.

Maybe it's naive of me to expect any glimmer of
rock'n'roll credibility OR respect for women from a
magazine whose cover shot is regularly a naked
underweight actress. The thing is , I AM a
woman musician with a rock band, and as we all are I
am STARVED for any little crumb of recognition that
real women rockers might be thrown.

So like a sucker I find myself short another five
bucks ..and pissed enough to write my first letter to
an editor. Avril Lavigne gets some studded accessories
from Hot Topic so now she's "upholding the brazen
tradition of teenage outrage"???!! Are you SERIOUS?
And could someone please explain to me why people keep
insisting on referring to PINK as rock? Wasn't she
doing the white girl hip hop thing a minute ago? Yeah,
she performed on the Aerosmith tribute show --big
deal..she was on the Janet Jackson tribute show just
before that--Whatever's trendy. WHO CARES. She's a
Spice Girl reject...but I digress.

Jewel and Mandy friggin' Moore have full page features
as Rock Icons...Meanwhile Joan Jett gets one line. ONE
LINE. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, who have never
stopped touring, recently did 10 days in the Middle
East playing for the troops stationed in Afghanistan.
In AFGHANISTAN, Joan would come onstage wearing a
birkha, which she ripped off and stomped on before
blazing through the purest and nastiest rock show
ANYWHERE. But even in the RS WOMEN IN ROCK issue,
a story like that gets ONE SENTENCE on the bottom of
the last page of Random Notes.

Britney's Rock credentials? Well, she butchers the
song "I Love Rock'n'Roll" on her latest record, and
when asked about it the genius replies "Well, I've
always loved Pat Benatar." And SHE is your Rock issue
cover girl?? You should be REALLY embarrassed.

Sleater Kinney was the only rock group listed on the
cover..and they got only half a page. Ashanti, the r&b
back up singer who can't seem to do anything without
"featuring Jah Rule," has two pages.

What about the Donnas? The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? The
Distillers? A mag like RS has the power to shine
important light on groups like these-- instead they
are afterthoughts, and that valuable spotlight is
wasted on the same overexposed pop princesses WHO HAVE
NOTHING TO DO WITH ROCK.

In your own letter from the editor you have the
hypocritical balls to say "rock radio won't touch
female artists, while the pop factory keeps churning
out soundalike clones, and ambitious musicians
with something to say find themselves left out in the
cold."

The pages that follow those words are a blatant
display that Rolling Stone magazine is happily working
for the factory now too.

If the issue had been called "Women in Music"..or
maybe "Some Cute Girls with Top 10 Records out Right
Now"..I would have no beef with it. Corny as it may
sound, ROCK is something which is still meaningful and
even sacred to some of us. Use the word "rock" in
bold letters next to a picture of Britney Fucking
Spears, and you're turning your whole publication into
a joke...and an offensive joke at that."