Trios: Sleater-Kinney

Sleater-Kinney: Little Babies

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Sleater-Kinney started as Carrie Brownstein's and Corin Tucker's side project as they were both in other bands at the time (Excuse 17 and Heavens to Betsy). Slowly Sleater-Kinney became their main focus but they didn't have a consistent drummer until they introduced Janet Weiss into the equation. The three Pacific-Northwest natives were a good fit and went on to make the rest of their catalog together.

They were one of the bigger names to come out of the Riot Grrl scene and one that was able to stay popular and current with the changing music scene. Their last album The Woods, was critically acclaimed and left people shocked when they went on hiatus on such a high note.

They made seven full-length albums in total before going on indefinite hiatus in 2006, but there's talks of reunions and side project albums in the meantime. Carrie has dabbled in other artist endeavors like acting and producing video, Janet has focused on her other band, Quasi, and Corin has focused her attentions on being a mother, though she's also been in the studio.

Leftovers (Name-Droppers): I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone

Sleater-Kinney: I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone

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It was just a few weeks ago that we did a Name-Droppers theme. I had a few ideas that week, but only ended up finding time to post once. So now is my chance to make amends.

In particular, I wanted to include (what some would consider) Sleater-Kinney's major opus "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone". In the late 1990's, when the Pacific Northwest was having a huge influence over music, and the riot grrl scene was slowly dwindling away, Sleater-Kinney came on the scene with their all girl punk rock. They pushed the envelope of gender lines in rock music by making songs like this one. A song that's a play on The Ramone's song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", except now it's about wanting to be a punk rock icons like Ramone, of wanting fans to idolize them and use them as bathroom alone-time fodder and get fans back to their place after the show. For good measure, they also name-drop Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore.