Bikini Kill

"We're Bikini Kill and we want revolution, girl-style, noooooowwww!" When Bikini Kill burst onto the scene I loved them. They seemed couple pissed off punk rock, feminism and catchy music and they did it with humor. One of the things I think that was loss in the Riot Grrrl movement that followed was the sense of humor, people became far to serious, judgmental and mean when it got taken to the extreme. This photo is by Amy Halligan and taken when the band played at St. Joseph's, a Catholic Church on the backside of Capitol Hill that hosted a bunch of shows in it's lower gym. There was an incident where a bunch of riot grrrls got pissed at a guy for standing up front at this show and started hitting on him and eventually kicked him out of the show. He was dumbfounded on what had happened and why they hadn't just talked to him--the incident kinda highlighted the bad side of the riot grrrl movement to me. But I thought riot grrrl was great for the most part, it brought a bunch of new energy into the punk scene and got a ton of women involved producing zines, in bands, promoting shows and running labels. It was a good kick in the pants of the punk scene which at the time was growing a little boring and too male oriented. And Bikini Kill was pretty damn kick ass.