Le Tigre
The lesbian-chic danceable riot grrrl band! I might be wrong here, but I think Kathleen Hanna created riot grrrl with Bikini Kill and broke open its borders with Le Tigre. From that point on, riot grrrl expanded beyond punk, and became an entity recognisable beyond the genre (For instance, if it weren’t for Le Tigre I don’t think the world would have been blessed with the goofy indiepop rant that is Kate Nash’s
Girl Talk, which I love sincerely and hope to discuss at some point).
Le Tigre was born in Kathleen’s bedroom, with a solo project called Julie Ruin (not to be confused with her latest band
the Julie Ruin) which was a DIY experiment with samples, hiphop beats, and keyboards (that album is a culty gem that I also hope to post about sometime). It’s influence on Kathleen’s future projects was twofold: it laid the foundation for le Tigre’s sound, and the band started as an attempt at creating a Julie Ruin liveshow.
Their eponymous album is the only really essential Le Tigre, a bouncy party of a record.
Deceptacon immediately throws everything this album is about at you with full force. Also I just want to take this moment to appreciate the perfection of Kathleen’s delivery. She has a fantastic sense of timing her vocals which can give schwung to static rhythms (I like the track in the previous post so much for the same reason). Then there’s the hilariously demented opening speech of
What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes, with the fun stuttering beat. And of course then we get
The The Empty (sic), the pinnacle of Kathleen’s screaming (the album version is great, but live versions and the BBC session are more unhinged and therefore superior). It goes so well with the relentless aggressive beat that this song should have spawned its own niche music genre (if such a genre exists unbeknownst to me I want recs). The adorable, quiet
Eau D’Bedroom Dancing sounds like something off the Julie Ruin record. And then there’s
Let’s Run. Audiotuned (?) Kathleen Hanna? Hell ****ing yes bitch (whoo hoo). It has another quality trash beat too. There’s more bouncy fun to be had (
My My Metrocard, which manages to pull off calling Rudy Giuliani ‘such a ****ing jerk’, and
Friendship Station) before we get to the delightfully cryptic
Dude, Yr So Crazy!, which features the lyrics ‘Hawaiian shirt/buddy buddy/just chillin’/crystal meth’.
The other noteworthy Le Tigre output is the
From the Desk of Mr. Lady EP, which includes
Get off the Internet. I’m not sure who does the ‘destroy the right wing’ line, but never has a call to destroy something sounded so hilariously apathetic and unthreatening.
Also, I can’t write about Le Tigre without mentioning their live shows (they deserve a post of their own really) which bring forth the raw punk energy of the band much better than the studio recordings, however great those are. Just the three of them with a few guitars, keyboards and drum machines (and video screens) making noise, doing synchronised dances, and going nuts. Like I’ve been spamming it before but look at this mayhem: (I want to point out that Johanna (the blonde woman) looks like a ****ing stewardess lol. It’s also notable that
Stay Monkey is part of their setlist, it’s one of the songs from
Julie Ruin.)
Fun fact: the brilliant music video for
Deceptacon (see below) was fan made, but the band liked it so much that they made it official
choice tracks: