Lucy Thane (born 1967) is a British documentary filmmaker, event producer and performer, living in Folkestone. [1] [2] Her films include It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill in the UK (1993) and She's Real (Worse than Queer) (1997).
Thane was born in north London. [3] She studied history at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, then studied for a master's degree in film at the Northern Media School in Sheffield. [2]
From 1994 to 1998 she lived in San Francisco, where she worked as a curator and editor at Artists' Television Access and taught at the Academy of Art College. [2] [4] She returned to London in 1998. [2]
For It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill in the UK (1993) she followed the 1990s riot grrrl band Bikini Kill while they were on tour in the UK with Huggy Bear. [4] [1] [5] [6] The film includes contributions from other UK queer and feminist bands of the time: the Raincoats, Skinned Teen and Sister George. [1] [7] It premiered in 1993 at the Kitchen in New York City. [4] "Thane's complete footage has been digitized and is held at the Fales Library & Special Collections as part of the Fales Riot Grrrl Collection" at New York University. [8] Thane's footage was used in the documentary film The Punk Singer (2013) by Sini Anderson. [9] [10]
She's Real (Worse than Queer) (1997) [4] [5] [11] is a document of the riot grrrl and queercore scene in the 1990s. The film has been screened at film festivals, written about in academic books [12] and included in the curriculum of a number of university courses. [13] [14] The film includes interviews with musicians, film directors and zine makers such as Phranc, Lynn Breedlove, Leslie Mah, Radio Sloan, Rachel Carns, G.B. Jones, Donna Dresch and Jody Bleyle, who discusses her independent label Candy Ass Records and the release of the double album compilation Free To Fight . The film also includes excerpts from the films The Yo-Yo Gang by G.B. Jones and Lady Outlaws and Faggot Wannabes by Tammy Rae Carland as well as live performances by the bands CeeBee Barns Band, Cheesecake, Cypher In The Snow, Fifth Column, Sister George, Sta-Prest, Team Dresch, Third Sex, and Tribe 8.
Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group originally consisted of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail. The band pioneered the riot grrrl movement, with feminist lyrics and fiery performances. Their music is characteristically abrasive and hardcore-influenced. After two full-length albums, several EPs and two compilations, they disbanded in 1997. The band reunited for tours in 2019 and 2022, with Erica Dawn Lyle on guitar in place of Karren.
Queercore is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifically society's disapproval of the LGBT community. Queercore expresses itself in a DIY style through magazines, music, writing and film.
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 the electronic rock band 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.
The port city of Olympia, Washington, has been a center of post-hardcore, anti-folk, and other youth-oriented musical genres since the late 1970s. Before this period, Olympia's The Fleetwoods had several Billboard chart successes between 1959 and 1963. Olympia saw a rise in feminism in the music industry, where artists commonly addressed rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism, patriarchy, classism, anarchism, and female empowerment in their songs. It was a center for the riot grrrl movement of the early 1990s, which featured Bikini Kill and Bratmobile.
Julie Ruin is the debut solo album by Kathleen Hanna, released on September 29, 1998, through Kill Rock Stars. She recorded the album in 1997 whilst taking a break from Bikini Kill. Hanna recalled:
[It] was made as Bikini Kill was in breaking up, a guy who worked across the street from my apartment building was stalking me and I was being treated, in my own community, like a historical oddity. The solo record helped me remember that I was just a fucking person who liked being creative.
Team Dresch is an American punk rock band originally formed in 1993 in Olympia, Washington.
Sister George were an English band from London, recognised as being significant in the 1990s queercore scene, who formed in 1993.
Sta-Prest was a multi-racial queercore and riot grrrl band from San Francisco that was active in the 1990s. The group members included Aloofah and D.M. Feelings.
Tammy Rae Carland, is a photographer, video artist, zine editor, current provost at California College of the Arts (CCA), and former co-owner of the independent lesbian music label Mr. Lady Records and Videos. Her work has been published, screened, and exhibited around the world in galleries and museums in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin, and Sydney.
Donna Dresch is an American punk rock musician, perhaps best known as founder, guitarist and bass guitarist of Team Dresch.
Rachel Carns is an American musician, composer, artist and performer living in Olympia, Washington, U.S. Raised in small-town Wisconsin, she went on to study painting and drawing at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City, where she completed her B.F.A. in 1991. Carns began her career as drummer for Kicking Giant, later collaborating with several bands, including The Need. She is a celebrated graphic designer, working under the name System Lux, and plays drums and percussion with experimental performance art group Cloud Eye Control.
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.
Sini Anderson is an American film director, producer, performance artist, choreographer, dancer and poet, from Chicago, Illinois. Anderson is widely known for directing The Punk Singer (2013), a documentary about riot grrrl musician Kathleen Hanna's legacy and experience with late-stage Lyme disease.
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. 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 commonly for women.
The Punk Singer is a 2013 documentary film about feminist singer Kathleen Hanna who fronted the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, and who was a central figure in the riot grrrl movement. Directed by filmmaker Sini Anderson and produced by Anderson and Tamra Davis, the film's title is taken from the Julie Ruin song "The Punk Singer", from Hanna's 1998 solo effort.
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.
Ramdasha Bikceem is an American writer, singer, and musician. She published the pioneering riot grrrl zine GUNK in the early 1990s, which explored intersections of race and gender in punk and skateboarding.