undGretel? promoting women in music and art

A French Invasion

Les Femmes S'en Melent FESTIVAL (a female indie music festival)

Three days/ two venues/ 10 ace female bands

“Female indie-music festival, « Les Femmes s’en melent » built up its celebrity over 10 years. in France and abroad, celebrating women in music. Born in 1997 as a single gig in Paris, the event is now spread over several nights in Paris, other cities of France, Belgium, Switzerland and England. Driven by passion and curiosity, renown for its ecclectism and quality, the festival is about feminity but far from feminism. Back in London for its 10th anniversary, the festival will once again enlightened today’s most vibrating international female artists. Beyond genres, if not genders, lines-up will range from folk to electro, gathering locals and internationals artists, renown or to be known.”

2 days at the Borderline with acts including

Emile Simon, Catriona Irving, Soko (may 1^st)

Hardis Huld, Bunny Rabbit, Kilma (may 2)

Luminaire (my fav London venue)

Rose Kemp, Pravda, Plastiscines

For more info check out their myspace

http://www.myspace.com/lfsmlondon

For All You Budding Sound Techs
I just found this site that trains women in the north (it's based in Manchester) as sound engineers ... For FREE
they:

Provide free training for women in sound engineering and music production
Develop a website of resources and advice
Initiate a formal network of women in the North West music industry
Improve career development and enhance employability for those women


If you are interested (and lets face it, why wouldn't you be!) then contact
Vicky Hipkiss
0161 276 2100
vicky.hipkiss@s-s-r.com
and check out their site at
http://www.s-s-r.com/wiseamp.asp

The course commences 28th of may with a taster evening on 10th may at 7pm
It is a 28 week evening course
application forms can be downloaded from the above site
applicants will be interviewed before selection.

“Uber-hausfrau” movement sweeps Germany?

An uber-hausfrau movement is sweeping Germany, according to a report in Spiegel International.

Das Eva Prinzip, sub-titled Towards a New Femininity, by Eva Herman, is apparently behind the “movement”, and Spiegel describes it as “full of anti-feminist anger”.

Based on Herman’s own experience, that motherhood and apple pies beat working as a newsreeder and talk-show host, the argument seems to be predictably confused and contradictory.

“Dragging myself from job to job, I used to feel so useless. I wanted to be special but didn’t know how — I was neither fish nor flesh.” For this angst-ridden career woman, salvation finally came in the full-bellied shape of motherhood. “With my husband and daughter at my side, I’m so happy and free now,” she proclaims.

Except, in common with a number of US authors who have spewed out similar books in recent years, Herman is not content to be a mother and wife. Here she is, after all, writing books and no doubt in the throws of a successful career as pundit.

Herman feels that nothing less than the survival of the country is at stake — Germans will “die out” if women don’t change their behavior, she says. She sees herself as courageously breaking a “taboo” by criticizing women’s liberation.

What really gets me is not that this individual woman didn’t like her career, and prefers to stay at home with the kids and get dinner on the table (although, as stated, this isn’t even the case). It’s the need to expand this into a philosophy and attempt to guilt trip others. And does this stuff about German’s dying out not seem a bit ridiculous and racist to anyone?

“Let’s just say it loud,” Herman writes. “We women have overburdened ourselves — we allowed ourselves to be too easily seduced by career opportunities.” She recommends women exchange the cold sphere of work for the “colorful world of children” and discover their “destiny of nurturing the home environment.”

But not everything is going so badly in Germany. Minister for family affairs Ursula von der Leyen is pushing to triple the number of childcare places available in the country, in a bid to provide more support for working mothers. Unfortunately, this proposal is facing tough opposition, Spiegel says, on grounds that are predictably illogical and misogynistic:

“Von der Leyen’s proposal is destructive for children and families”, Catholic bishop Walter Mixa said two weeks ago. Women, too should be worried, he feels: “Those who entice women to give their children into state care shortly after birth degrade them to baby machines.”

Because it’s feminists who want women to be able to work and have careers that see women as “baby machines”, not bishops who oppose providing childcare so mothers aren’t shackled to their children.

It appears that opposition to childcare is also wound up in Germany’s particular history.

Opponents compare Leyen’s proposal to the ideology of the former East Germany. The Communist state offered comprehensive childcare provision with the result that almost 92 percent of women worked. But, say critics, the intervention of the state into the sacred sphere of the family is harmful.

Karin Deckenbach, a political scientist, comes to the rescue with some sensible words:

“Only the Germans think that public care equals child abuse”, says Karin Deckenbach, a Washington-based political scientist and author of “What Happened, Eva?” which she wrote in response to “The Eva Principle.” Elsewhere in Europe or in the USA, women — and men — are used to leaving their young children in care so that the mothers can return to work, she argues.

“The Eva Principle is not the solution but the problem”, she says. “German women already have the choice to stay at home and look after their children if they want to.” They are not, however, given the choice of combining children with a career.

Hey and hello!

Here are a few female led labels from Berlin:

Aroma Music : www.aromamusic.com
>>electronic wildstyle

BPitch Control: www.bpitchcontrol.de
>>label of Ellen Allien

Gold und Liebe: www.gold-und-liebe.de
>>Miss Yeti

Louisville Records: www.louisville-records.de
>>Yvonne Franken and Patrick Wagner

With greetings from Birgit-Gretel.

We asked you: What's your favourite 'women-in-music' cliché?
And here are some answers:

• Boobs get in the way of guitars.
• Bruce Springsteen does'nt have women in his band as they don't have the physical strength to play 4 hour sets.
• Women sleep their way to the top e.g. Madonna.
• Traditionally women are really good at playing tamborine.
• Women have to be hot and sexually provocative.
  
• Women cannot play guitars because men won't listen to them.

Please send us more!

We would like to start a literature list regarding women and popular music.
Please send comments with more interesting reads!

Mavis Bayton: Frock Rock. Women Performing Popular Music, Oxford, New York, 1998.

Lucy O'Brien: She bop II. The definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul, London, New York, 2002.

Get Your Mix Tapes Here

Not only did we have live music and great art at UndGretel? but it was the first outing of the undGretel? store, if you missed out on the treats we had to offer you then take a look below and if youwant a second chance to get your hands on it drop us a message on undgretel@googlemail.com:
Produced by Clare and Ben (goodgriefcalypso@gmail.com/ myspace.com/_grief)
Tracks by
yo la tengo/ velvet underground/ the pastels/ shwervon/ papas fritas/ the go-betweens/ the ewoks/ trachtenburg family slideshow band/autolux etc.
*Produced on tape format only

This is a taster of the undgretel dj sets played at the bethnal green working mens club. A selection of tracks from Ro(end of the road) Clare&Ben (good grief) Atonal Twins(Steve&James) and Sarah&Dan




The ultimate UndGretel? megamix produced by the Gretels for your aural pleasure
Track listing

Leanne:

1. Sonic Youth – Teenage Riot - Kim Gordon bass player
2. Lucious Jackson - Lady Fingers - All women
3. The Gossip - Lily White Hands - All girl band

Sam:

4. Love of Diagrams – No way out - Two girls (one is the drummer) on passport label owned by Zoe White
5. Patti Smith - I Am The Warrior
6. The Slits - Typical Girls - All women
7. Forward Russia – Eleven – Female drummer Katie

Birgit:
8. Planning to Rock – Don’t want what you don’t want – Janine Rostron sings, makes the music and great videos!
9. Kevin Blechdom – Get on your Knees – Kevin Blechdom does everything
10. Stereo Total – Ich bin nackt – Françoise Cactus vocalist/guitarist/drummer
11. Miss Kittin – Professional Distortion –

Makes the music and sings

undgretel@gmail.com
If you like what you hear we can send you a copy of the mixtapes for a small donation (£2) or alternatively download the tracks you like from limewire.

Open call for mix cds
after much sorting of wheat from chaff we decided on two mix tapes these were sent in by Phil (tups) wellington and Miss Popstar from Germany.

Phils mix includes:
luscious jackson/ esg/electrelane/ sleater kinney/ the slits/ peaches/ beastie boys/ seafood and la tigre

Miss Popstars mix includes:
cobra killer/luscious jackson/z5 malibu kids/t.g.v./chicks on speed/die braut haut ins auge/angie reed/fünf freunde/britta/masaa qrella