PREVIEW: LADYFEST BOSTON

Women to the front

If you’ve ever been at a show, looked all around you (especially on the stage) and thought, “Where are all women?,” then Ladyfest Boston is for you. A three-day festival in support of feminism and women in the arts community, the weekend features performances by more than 25 bands, all of which have at least one female member, as well as art and political-oriented workshops, a potluck dinner and brunch.

While the name might imply that it’s just for the ladies, and its punk and DIY roots could be intimidating to somebody who doesn’t own a screenprinted denim vest, let’s clear up a few things first:

you don’t have to be a lady to attend Ladyfest, and you don’t have to be a frequent attendee of basement shows to enjoy it.

“We’ve all met so many cool people through this, we just want to extend that to everyone who’s going to be supportive of the event and just get this giant network of people of like minds, shove them all into a room and make them listen to music,” said Rachel Rizzo, who organized the festival with Chris Strunk, Christ Hartsock, Tali Stern and Terry Cuozzo.

Ladyfest is part of a feminist legacy—the first was held in Olympia, Wash. in 2000, with help from female musician rock stars like Sleater-Kinney and Bratmobile. From there, the festival has sprung up across the globe: Stockholm, Vienna, Tuscaloosa.

Strunk says they started thinking about holding a Ladyfest in Boston shortly after Ladyfest Northampton last April, and around the time that Planned Parenthood was losing its funding.

Support for reproductive rights is at the forefront of the festival.

All of the proceeds from the fest go directly to the bands and to the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund, a decision which Strunk says was about “throwing down the gauntlet” and making a more overt political statement.

The lineup’s diverse both in region—bands hail from New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, among other cities—and in genre, featuring “total straight-edge hardcore punk and brutal” D.C. band Sick Fix playing right before the indie-pop of Philadelphia’s Pet Milk.

“Those bands would probably never play a show together and they’re playing back-to-back,” said Hartsock.

Riot grrrls will be well-represented by Alice Bag, of late ‘70s L.A. punk group The Bags (and one of the stars of punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization). Bag has fought for decades—and continues to fight—stereotypes of women in music and for their representation in the punk scene. On Sunday of Ladyfest, she’ll be performing songs and reading from her book, Violence Girl, a memoir about her feminist punk experience in L.A. from a Chicana perspective.

“Back in 1977, our scene was very small and accepting of new things. We really felt like we were inventing punk, defining it in our own ways. As punk grew and branched out into the mainstream it picked up some of mainstream society’s attributes, including its sexism. Unfortunately that means that women are neither validated nor documented in the same numbers as their male counterparts,” she said.

Hence, Ladyfest. Organizing the festival, and holding events—like art exhibits, film screenings and concerts leading up to it—unearthed a supportive creative community for women and feminists in the arts, said Hartsock.

“It was like finding a community that revealed itself. I don’t feel like we’re in a male-dominated scene because of what we’ve created.”

LADYFEST BOSTON

FRI 2.3.12-SUN 2.5.12
CAMBRIDGE YMCA
820 MASS AVE.
CAMBRIDGE
$15, DAY; $35, 3-DAY PASS
ALL AGES
LADYFESTBOSTON.BLOGSPOT.COM