I only wanted one thing on tour: to slam my hand in a door and break my fingers. Then I would go home.” The opening line of Sleater-Kinney guitarist and singer Carrie Brownstein’s autobiography smashes you into the tedium and discomfort involved in touring in a cramped car with a band, outside of the glory of the 40 minutes you get to be on stage each night, adored by a crowd of fans.
Sleater-Kinney are very famous in the alternative music scene, but not so huge in mainstream music. The band didn’t have enough money for tour buses, roadies, or fancy hotels. They loaded their own gear and drove themselves around in a car. The autobiography is different to many by famous musicians, whose lives often become so pampered and decadent that they seem completely separate from ordinary people. They start out with a struggle for recognition but quickly proceed to “And then this wonderful thing happened, and then I met this famous person, and this famous person, and then this wonderful thing happened and I am soooo rich . . .”
The narrative starts with Carrie’s childhood, where she portrays herself as a natural performer and show-off, always dancing and singing in front of her parents’ home video camera. Her parents are loving but troubled, with her father in denial of his homosexuality and her mother struggling with a terrible eating disorder. Carrie learns early to rely on friends for her emotional needs rather than burdening her distracted parents with them. She finds solace in music.
Feminism is not often explicitly referenced in the book, but is always present as a way of life. Though she makes no big deal about her band having all-female members, Brownstein includes excerpts of music reviews on her band to demonstrate the sexism in the music industry that persists to this day. Journalists often approach female musicians differently to males, focusing on their appearance and lifestyle more than their music and the music-making process. Their music is also often described differently to music by men, and “female musician” can be treated as a genre or niche category rather than what it actually is – music by musicians. For example, Brownstein has given the excerpt “Never does Sleater-Kinney sound forced, angry or sweet – the three words one most associates with all-women rock bands, and the three words that tend to hold women’s music back from the kind of raw believability that characterizes more macho rock.” That was from Metroactive in 1999.
As a female musician I related to Carrie Brownstein so much it felt like I was reading the memoirs of a friend. Her experience with song writing, how her music makes her feel, and her relationship with her band mates made me feel understood and validated in my love and frustrations within the music industry. The only difference, of course, is that she is rich and famous.