Evelyn McDonnell | |
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| Born | Glendale, California |
| Occupation | Writer, academic |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | |
| Period | 1989–present |
| Genre | Memoir, non-fiction |
| Notable awards |
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| Website | |
| populismblog | |
Evelyn McDonnell is an American writer and academic. Writing primarily about popular culture, music, and society, she "helped to forge a new kind of feminism for her generation." [1] [2] She is associate professor of journalism and new media at Loyola Marymount University. [3]
McDonnell was born in Glendale, California and grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin. [4] She was "weaned on the Jackson 5 and the women's movement." [5] Her first concert experiences were with her family at the Milwaukee Summerfest, where she saw Dave Brubeck, Journey and Squeeze. As a teenager, she listened to Iggy Pop and Patti Smith, and would drive to Chicago for shows by artists including New Order and the Dead Kennedys. [6] She attended Brown University and graduated with a BA in American History. In 2010, she earned a master's degree in Specialized Journalism, the Arts, from the University of Southern California, Annenberg School. [7]
In college, McDonnell began writing professionally, first for the Providence NewPaper and then for the Providence Journal. She was a contributing editor for the NewPaper from 1985 through 1989, and then the associate editor of the San Francisco Weekly. In 1996 she was named music editor for the Village Voice. [6] That same year, she founded a fanzine, Resister, "a scholarly arts and literary journal for the masses, a fanzine for the mainstream, a magazine that's raw and sticky, not slick and glassy, a nuts and bolts guide to thought and expression." [8] She was a pop culture writer and music critic for The Miami Herald from 2001 to 2007.
In the early 90s McDonnell freelanced for publications including Rolling Stone , Spin , Ms. , The New York Times , and Billboard . [6] She wrote frequently about bands and musicians associated with the underground feminist punk movement, Riot Grrrl, [9] and was a founding member of Strong Women in Music (SWIM), an activist group supporting women on all music-industry levels. [10] McDonnell wrote: "It was the early '90s, when direct activism, identity politics, hip-hop, and grunge were driving forces of the dawn of the Clinton era. We were a new breed of woman whom pundits, including some in our own ranks, struggled to name: postfeminists, womanists, Riot Grrrls, pro-sex feminists, do-me feminists (a name obviously thought up by a men's magazine), third-wave feminists, lipstick lesbians, bitches with attitudes." [1]
McDonnell and Ann Powers co-edited Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap, published in 1995. An anthology of women's writing on music from the 1960s to the time of the book's publication, it compiled "exciting evidence of women writers' inroads made over the past three decades into the still male-dominated field of popular music criticism." [11]
McDonnell worked with Jonathan Larson on Rent by Jonathan Larsen, an account of the creation of the rock opera Rent . She conducted interviews and wrote much of the text for the book, which was published in 1997. In a review, Entertainment Weekly wrote "It’s not at all surprising that a book on this show would be so sharp. What is surprising is that the book often seems more compelling and moving than the musical itself." [12] In 1998, she co-edited Stars Don't Stand Still in the Sky : Music and Myth. Her book about Bjork, Army of She: Icelandic, Iconoclastic, Irrepressible Bjork, was published in 2001. [13]
In 2009 McDonnell's "account of a life lived on the cultural and maternal cutting edge," Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids, & Rock 'n' Roll was published. It was followed by Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways in 2013. [14]
McDonnell served as the editor of Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyonce. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl, which profiles more than a hundred pioneering women musicians. Written by female writers, with illustrations by women, it was released in October 2018. In the introduction to the book McDonnell wrote: “All the people in this book are rhythm movers: the musicians, the writers, the illustrators. They have not merely tried to fit into the grooves of popular music … but have jumped the beat. They are musicians who inspire and compel us, the editors, writers, and illustrators of Women Who Rock." [15]
In 2009 McDonnell was awarded an Annenberg Fellowship to study Specialized Journalism, the Arts, at the University of Southern California. She received her master's in 2010. She is associate professor of journalism and new media at Loyola Marymount University. [4] [3]
McDonnell is the stepmother of her husband's two adult daughters, Karlie and Kenda. [16] She and her husband, Bud, live with their son Cole in San Pedro, California. [4]
Kathleen Hanna is an American singer, musician and pioneer of the feminist punk riot grrrl movement, and punk zine writer. In the early-to-mid-1990s she was the lead singer of feminist punk band Bikini Kill, and then fronted Le Tigre in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since 2010, she has recorded as the Julie Ruin.
Tobi Celeste Vail is an American independent musician, music critic and feminist activist from Olympia, Washington. She was a central figure in the riot grrl scene—she coined the spelling of "grrl"—and she started the zine Jigsaw. A drummer, guitarist and singer, she was a founding member of the band Bikini Kill. Vail has collaborated in several other bands figuring in the Olympia music scene. Vail writes for eMusic.
Heavens to Betsy was an American punk band formed in Olympia, Washington in 1991 with vocalist and guitarist Corin Tucker and drummer Tracy Sawyer. The duo were part of the DIY riot grrrl, punk rock underground, and were Tucker's first band before she co-formed Sleater-Kinney.
Ann K. Powers is an American writer and popular music critic. She is a music critic for NPR and a contributor at the Los Angeles Times, where she was previously chief pop critic. She has also written for other publications, such as The New York Times, Blender and The Village Voice. Powers is the author of Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America, a memoir; Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black & White, Body and Soul in American Music, on eroticism in American pop music; and Piece by Piece, co-authored with Tori Amos.
Corin Lisa Tucker is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist best known for her work with rock band Sleater-Kinney. Tucker is also a member of the alternative rock supergroup Filthy Friends, and previously recorded with the indie rock group Heavens to Betsy and The Corin Tucker Band.
Ellen Jane Willis was an American left-wing political essayist, journalist, activist, feminist, and pop music critic. A 2014 collection of her essays, The Essential Ellen Willis, received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.
Excuse 17 was a punk rock band from Olympia, Washington, US, that performed and recorded from 1993 to 1995. The band consisted of Becca Albee, Carrie Brownstein, and Curtis James (drums). The band recorded two full-length albums and a single, and contributed to several compilation albums.
Allison Wolfe is a Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, writer, and podcaster. As a founding member and lead singer of the punk rock band Bratmobile, she became one of the leading voices of the riot grrl movement.
Slant 6 was an American punk rock trio based in Washington, D.C. affiliated with early riot grrrl.
Donna Dresch is an American punk rock musician, perhaps best known as founder, guitarist and bass guitarist of Team Dresch.
And Now... The Runaways is the fourth and final studio album by American rock band The Runaways, released in Europe on 16 December 1978 and Japan in 1979.
Jen Smith is an artist, musician, zine editor, and activist from the United States. Smith is credited with being the inspiration behind the term riot grrrl and being one of the architects of the movement.
Feminism has affected culture in many ways, and has famously been theorized in relation to culture by Angela McRobbie, Laura Mulvey and others. Timothy Laurie and Jessica Kean have argued that "one of [feminism's] most important innovations has been to seriously examine the ways women receive popular culture, given that so much pop culture is made by and for men." This is reflected in a variety of forms, including literature, music, film and other screen cultures.
Skinned Teen was a riot grrrl band from London, England, active in the early 1990s. They have been cited as an inspiration by Beth Ditto, Kathleen Hanna, Gina Birch and Josephine Olausson of Love Is All.
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. Riot grrrl is a subcultural movement that combines feminism, punk music, and politics. It is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as having grown out of the riot grrrl movement and has recently been seen in fourth-wave feminist punk music that rose in the 2010s. The genre has also been described as coming out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a movement in which women could express anger, rage, and frustration, emotions considered socially acceptable for male songwriters but less common for women.
Linus was an indie band from London, England, formed in 1992. They were integral to the early UK riot grrrl scene and considered an essential early riot grrl band.
Women have made significant contributions to punk rock music and its subculture since its inception in the 1970s. In contrast to the rock music and heavy metal scenes of the 1970s, which were dominated by men, the anarchic, counter-cultural mindset of the punk scene in mid-and-late 1970s encouraged women to participate. This participation played a role in the historical development of punk music, especially in the US and UK at that time, and continues to influence and enable future generations. Women have participated in the punk scene as lead singers, instrumentalists, as all-female bands, zine contributors and fashion designers.
Jessica Hopper is an American writer. She published The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic, a compilation of her essays, reported pieces, zines, and reviews, in May 2015. In 2018, she published a memoir, Night Moves.
Sara Marcus is a writer and musician best known for her 2010 book Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution. She began her writing career as a participant in the riot grrrl movement, writing zines as a teenager in Washington, DC. She subsequently worked as a journalist, writing about music and politics. In 2018, she earned a PhD in English at Princeton University and is an assistant professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
Suture was an American punk rock and indie rock trio based in Washington, D.C., affiliated with early riot grrrl. Suture consisted of Kathleen Hanna, Sharon Cheslow, and Dug E. Bird aka Doug Birdzell.
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