Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl

by Carrie Brownstein

  Now performing was no longer about trying to harness a cursory attention or to be a distraction. Sleater-Kinney allowed me to perform both away from and into myself, to leave and to return, forget and discover. Within the world of the band there was a me and a not me, a fluctuation of selves that I could reinvent along the flight between perches. I could, at last, let go. For so long I had seen the lacking I’d been handed as a deficit, my resulting anxiety and depression were ambient, a tedious lassoing of air. But with Sleater-Kinney I stopped attempting to contain or control the unknown. I could embrace the unnamed and the in-between. I could engage in an unapologetic obliteration of the sacred. Singularities had always been foreign to me, and where and who I came from was rife with dualities, a mesh of conflicted and diluted selves attempting to cohere, failing on account of an inarticulate denial. Fortunately, music granted me both an allowance of and a continual engagement with the ineffable. I also, for once, felt a part of something. The inexplicable is its own form of freedom. Belonging is not a form of restriction. We can’t name the feeling but we can sing along.

  —

  After we walked offstage at that final Sleater-Kinney show in 2006, we went to the dressing room, we drank champagne, there were toasts and cheers and hugs. Then we danced.

  On the second floor of the Crystal Ballroom is a smaller venue and bar called Lola’s Room. While our friend DJed with ’60s and ’70s soul and funk, New Wave and post-punk, we moved around the floor as a form of relief, of revelation, of love. As is so often the case, the night turned out to be less about the music we had played, and more about who we experienced the music with. When around three a.m. the club staff shut off the sound system and turned on the lights, we stayed on the floor for nearly a full five minutes stomping our feet and clapping our hands, still dancing. We wanted more, to hear an echo, an encore of ourselves.

  EPILOGUE

  In 2011, Fred Armisen and I were at Corin and Lance’s house. We were sitting on a lumpy behemoth of a couch that the Tucker-Bangs family called “mocha chenille,” showing them an early cut of a Portlandia episode that featured their son, Marshall. Out of the blue, Corin asked if I thought Sleater-Kinney would ever play again. The answer was obvious.

  We kept it a secret. Like when we’d traveled to the other side of the world in order to form our band. This time we created a continent of whispers. We wanted to protect the reassembly, wanted to make sure what we created didn’t consist of anything broken, that it was three whole selves with the same hunger. Sleater-Kinney isn’t something you can do half-assed or halfheartedly. We had to really want it, to need it. With no settled version of Sleater-Kinney, we also required the strength and willingness to push—we knew the entity that is this band would push right back. It always had. The secret was both frightening to keep and empowering to hold. The outcome uncertain, the stakes reset, the expectations high. For now, however, it was just us three, exactly how we wanted it.

  The first time Janet and Corin and I played music together after six years apart was in Corin’s basement. It was 2012. Surrounded by Lance’s vertiginous and towering archives of magazines and records, we dusted off our own story. The goal on this day was to see if we could write together again, and in order to ease ourselves into the process, we had relearned old songs. In the first iteration of Sleater-Kinney it had always been a somewhat effortless process for me to recall how to play something when we’d reconvene for an album tour. Muscle memory kicked in and my fingers found the notes before my brain did. This was true six years later as well. What I didn’t remember was how it feels to stand in a room while Corin Tucker sings. How her voice is the answer to so many of my questions, a validation, as if she knows the map of my veins. And I had forgotten the beastly avalanche that is Janet Weiss behind the kit, when our guitars are propelled by the cascading force of her. We ran through “Jumpers,” and this time it was not about death, it was about being alive.

  We would spend the next two years writing, telling few people about our plan.

  In January 2015, Sleater-Kinney put out our first album in a decade. We called it No Cities to Love. Our first show of the tour was in the eastern Washington city of Spokane, where we’d never played before, a small, less-visited market. We wanted to begin on the fringes if we could, but that would not be the case. Journalists and photographers flew in. Fans came from as far away as Australia to be there.

  As we always do about thirty minutes before show time, we cleared the backstage of friends and crew. Corin and I did vocal warm-ups while Janet drummed on a practice pad. On the outside I felt confident and happy, but internally I felt something close to disassociation. Our tour manager came to retrieve us and we walked to the side of the stage. The house lights went off and I wished I could sit in that blackness, that I could make everything and everyone disappear with a slow-moving blink. I was panicked that I had thrown myself into something I no longer knew how to do, no longer deserved to even be a part of. I was frightened I’d made a horrible mistake.

  When I looked down, my feet were moving and I was headed stage right, to the place I’ve always stood in Sleater-Kinney. That was a start. I knew where to go and where to be. There was a thunderous greeting from the crowd; it was a “HELLO” so enormous I could climb inside. And I did. Tears stung my eyes. Corin started the first notes of “Price Tag,” the opening track on the new album. Two bars later, Janet and I came in. I was in my body, joyous and unafraid. I was home.

  Around age three, with a Kool-Aid hat and matching jacket. Luther Burbank Park, Washington.

  My first professional photo shoot, ostensibly for that year’s holiday card.

  On account of my father’s job, we had a lot of Peterbilt Trucks paraphernalia. Also, this is the first documentation of a lifelong love of mine: plaid and checkered shirts.

  The Brownstein family: my mother, father, and sister. Outside our home in Bellevue, Washington.

  A high school camping trip to the Washington coast. 1992.

  With Corin on the California coast during a day off from the Call the Doctor tour.

  Sleater-Kinney doing a group vocal take in 2000 during the recording of All Hands on the Bad One.

  Driving back to Olympia from the SeaTac airport with a copy of the first magazine in which Sleater-Kinney was featured.

  Our first ever Sleater-Kinney show. Sydney, Australia. With Stephen O’Neil from the Cannanes on drums.

  At John and Stu’s during the recording of Dig Me Out.

  Ballarat, Australia. Playing our drummer Laura MacFarlane’s guitar.

  Soundcheck at Madison Square Garden on our tour with Pearl Jam.

  Polaroid outtake from the front cover shoot for Dig Me Out.

  Photo by John Clark

  Polaroid outtake from a Magnet magazine cover shoot.

  A classic example of my “business casual” stage attire.

  A concert for Food Not Bombs at Dolores Park in San Francisco. Opening for Fugazi.

  A picture of every single person who watched our set at a festival in Dour, Belgium.

  With Corin Tucker, Tracy Sawyer, and Becca Albee on the joint Heavens to Betsy and Excuse 17 tour. Affixed to the back of the passenger seat is a sign Excuse 17 had to put up explaining and apologizing for the fact that we had a boy drummer at a “Girls Only” show.

  Showing off my first tattoo in Janet’s backyard on SE Market Street in Portland. From the One Beat cover shoot.

  Photo by John Clark

  So serious. Touring for The Hot Rock in Japan.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could not have written this book without the wisdom, patience, and encouragement of my dear friend Chelsey Johnson. She read and oversaw this book through all of its stages, and I am immeasurably grateful for her guidance, friendship, and her continued faith in me. I would also like to thank my agent, Jud Laghi, who sought me out many years ago and whose confidence in me helped me
find my way to this book’s completion. Thanks to Geoffrey Kloske, my editor at Riverhead, for his assiduous feedback, supervision, and advice. Thank you to Caty Gordon for the diligence and fastidiousness. Thanks Megan Lynch for the early edits. Thank you to Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss, without whose friendship and loyalty I wouldn’t have the strength to hold a pen, let alone a guitar. Thank you to my family: my father, sister, mother, Kurtis, Mike, Josh, Denise, Nat, and Gael. Thank you to my other family: Ben, Kathy, Max, Sophia, Moses, and Osa. Thank you to Fred Armisen, my friend and collaborator. Thank you to Liz Lambert for giving me a new room and city in which to write. Thanks to Bob Boilen, Robin Hilton, Stephen Thompson, and everyone at NPR Music for allowing me to find my voice and wherein a handful of the ideas for this book percolated.

  Thanks to my mentor and professor in sociolinguistics, Susan Fiksdal.

  Thank you: Julie Butterfield; Bob Lawton; Chad Quierolo; Stephen O’Neil; Frances Gibson; Toni Gogin; Laura MacFarlane; Lance Bangs; Becca Albee; John Goodmanson; Dave Fridmann; Roger Moutenot; Donna Dresch; Mark Luecke; Kill Rock Stars; Matador Records; Sub Pop; Lever and Beam; the various crews, engineers, and technicians I’ve worked with in Sleater-Kinney; the musicians and bands I’ve been lucky enough to play shows with over the years; and the tremendous and inspiring S-K fans.

  For their love and support I’d like to thank: Miranda July, Katie Harkin, Erin Smith, Patrick Stanton, Ryan Baldoz, Shannon Woodward, Tim Sarkes, Taylor Schilling, Ellen Page, Kim Gordon, Aimee Mann, Amy Poehler, Gaby Hoffmann, Jill Soloway, Wendy Donohue, Annie Clark, Lorne Michaels, Jonathan Krisel, Alice Mathias, Andrew Singer, Ashley Streicher, Jenn Streicher, Lena Dunham, Karey Dornetto, and Graham Wagner. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few people, so I thank all of you now, anyone who inspired me to keep writing or keep thriving or keep trying. Lastly, thanks to the staff and volunteers at the Oregon Humane Society and to everyone at Riverhead/Penguin Random House.

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