Carrie Brownstein

"it’s even rainier and darker than Seattle or Portland, where I live now. And it turned a lot of us into indoor kids. That's how I would describe us. And when you’re stuck inside, by yourself or with your friends, the energy is more contained and you have to find your own fun."

Carrie Brownstein

Founding member of the bands Excuse 17 and Sleater-Kinney

Tobi Vail

Olympia musician, music journalist, and feminist punk. Organizer of Ladyfest. Interviewer for this project.

Listen Now:

Carrie Brownstein interviewed by Tobi Vail on January 23rd, 2023

Carrie discusses moving to Olympia, her bands Excuse 17 and Sleater-Kinney, Ladyfest

Open Full Interview Transcript +

Tobi Vail: My name is Tobi Vail, and I'm talking to Carrie Brownstein for the Olympia Indie Music History Project.  Hi, Carrie.  [laughs]

Carrie Brownstein: Hi, thanks for having me.

Tobi Vail: Okay.  So the first question, if you're ready-- 

Carrie Brownstein:   Okay, I'm ready now.

01:22

Tobi Vail: Okay.  So, I know you've done all kinds of work since you lived in Olympia, but I think of you primarily for this project as a guitar player and a writer, like a writer of songs and a music writer.  Can you reflect a little bit about your early childhood influences for me, and in particular, what led you to want to play the electric guitar? 

Carrie Brownstein: It was a slightly circuitous route. I was coming up in the '80s, living in the suburbs with parents who were conservative in their musical tastes.They had Joni Mitchell and Fleetwood Mac albums, and maybe even a Kinks record thrown in there.  But I wouldn't say I was necessarily exposed to things that people would consider cool, like Led Zeppelin or The Who, artists who crept into my musical DNA later on. A lot of what I listened to was pop music, because I tended to reject anything my parents listened to.  So, it was a lot of George Michael, Madonna and Prince, stuff that's amazing but that I couldn't necessarily emulate musically. I mean, Prince was a mastermind and a genius, and for a beginning  guitar player, that's really out of one's league. 

It wasn't until I was in high school, starting to feel more like an outsider, that I began letting go of anything that felt too mainstream. I was going through the typical teenage angst and saw myself very much outside of pop culture at the time. I met friends that introduced me to punk, indie and alternative music.  And I was fortunate in that they had good taste. The first album someone gifted me was The Jam, All Mod Cons.  And I remember listening to the songs, and they don't have a ton of chords but the music is very angular. Paul Weller is just singing about day-to-day life, but it's infused with politics and anger, also with humor.  I was really drawn to that. 

Then that led me to the Ramones and music out of New York.  So, simultaneously I was building knowledge of both the UK punk world and the US, mostly east coast, early 70’s punk. That’s what made me want to play guitar because those songs were accessible.  Those were songs I could play along to. I could learn a Ramones song like "Judy is a Punk.”  And then I learned a lot of songs from All Mod Cons. It  helped to have something that was accessible to me in terms of my skill level, but that was also speaking to me emotionally and creatively at the time.

And then, of course, I realized that there was a lot of music actually happening in Washington.  But I think sometimes you don't assume that at first, you always think music is happening in some far off place when you're young, because you don't know people who actually play music yet. Finally I met or heard of  people in the Seattle suburbs where I lived, and in Washington as a whole, who’d also been influenced by this music I loved, except they’d not only digested it but were putting it out into the world with their own take on it. And that music spoke even more directly to me. So, that was my path to guitar. And the instrument became a conduit for me to hang out with people because I was pretty shy at the time. It was just a way to connect with people without having to engage in awkward conversations.

05:49

Tobi Vail: That makes sense.  Do you remember what any of the bands from Washington were that inspired you?  And were any of them from Olympia?

Carrie Brownstein: There was a compilation that had come out, the Kill Rock Stars compilation, that had Bikini Kill, Heavens to Betsy, Bratmobile. I was listening to Beat Happening, The Go Team, Some Velvet Sidewalk, Unwound. I couldn't believe this plethora of music coming from a single location that was only an hour south of me. And there was this whole world I wanted to unlock and discover and be part of.  It was a beacon.  Of course, up in Seattle at the time, Nirvana was percolating in the background, but it was also The Fastbacks, Mudhoney, Hammerbox.

There was a lot of music that was bigger at the time but it didn't speak to me as much as the bands out of Olympia. Those bands sounded weirder to me, in a good way.  And there was this feminism and rage that was coursing through the music that I was really drawn to. I listened to that Heavens to Betsy cassette tape so many times, and also the Bikini Kill tape. There were a lot of cassette tapes back in the day.

07:54

Tobi Vail: Yeah, thank you.  Do you remember when you first moved to Olympia?  And can you tell us a little bit about what led you to make that decision and what it was like here when you first got here?

Carrie Brownstein: When I graduated from high school in Redmond, Washington, I first went to Western Washington University in Bellingham.  Bellingham is a town very far north, close to the border of British Columbia. I felt fairly disenchanted and like I'd been marooned up there.  One day I saw a flier for a show: Bikini Kill, Heavens to Betsy, Mecca Normal at The Show Off Gallery.  And I was like, I have to go to the show.  This is literally the best thing that's happened since I moved here.  When I went to the show, I found out Bikini Kill canceled, so it was just Heavens to Betsy and Mecca Normal. 

After Heavens to Betsy played, I went up to Corin Tucker, who's the singer, whose powerful voice I was really drawn to.  I said, “I'm thinking of switching schools.” And she said, “Yeah? Well you should just move to Olympia.” At the time I was barely 18, and I was very impressionable and susceptible to influence, so this was exactly the kind of push I needed.  And even though Corin didn’t know me and probably wasn’t invested in what I would do down there, I just really needed somebody to open the door for me and say, ‘you'll be fine.’

I arrived in Olympia in the summer of 1993 and found a room in a place called The Punk House.  It was a very derelict house on the east side.  I was subletting Justin Trosper's room, who’s the singer and guitarist from Unwound. That house had a sink full of dishes 24/7.  I feel like I arrived as a kind of tourist. Because school wasn’t starting for a few months, I spent most of my days walking around town trying to meet people, and going to any show that I could. 

It seemed like there were basement shows almost every night, like at The Lucky 7 House or Red House. These fairly well-known bands that were touring, whether it was Rancid or Jawbreaker, would play Olympia. They made the town a stop on their tour because of how influential the music scene was. Beck, Stereolab Elliott Smith, Mary Lou Lord, they all played that first summer I was there. The Olympia music scene  felt like a version of college for me. Even before my formal education began at Evergreen, I was under the tutelage of people my own age or a little older who were making  music. 

I know I’m looking back with rose-colored glasses, but it truly felt like there was a lot going on at the time. I'd walk into the vintage store, Time After Time, and the shop owners, Maggie Murphy or Margaret Doherty,  would tell you about some event or party that was going on. Then I’d go to The State Theater, where all these punk kids were working, and they’d tell you about something else happening that night.  It was very much word of mouth, like being handed these little clues.I felt like there were a lot of kids like myself there, people that had been drawn to the city and were looking for a place to fit in. That first summer was a very ambulatory experience, I spent most of my time on foot. The energy and the creativity was ambient. 

There was the saying about Olympia, "It's the water,” which I think was actually the slogan for Olympia beer, but it felt like music was the same way.  There was an atmospheric vibe you could dip in and out of. I probably didn't sleep much that summer, but it was definitely one of the best.

13:11

Tobi Vail: I'm curious, were the bigger shows that you remember, were those at the Capitol Theater Backstage or Front Stage or--?

Carrie Brownstein: I think that summer they were mostly Backstage.  The bigger Sub Pop bands would come down, like Codeine. The Stereolab and Beck show might have been that summer or soon after. 

Carrie Brownstein:I don't really remember a lot of shows on the main front stage, but  I think that's what was exciting to me. In Seattle the shows had a formal feel to them, there was a distinct differentiation between participant and performer.  But in Olympia, because of the condensed and diminutive venues, that line was blurred. If you're watching Elliott Smith or Mary Lou Lord play in a basement, you're literally inches or feet from them. It also demystifies the process of guitar playing or music making in general, you can see someone's amp settings or which guitar effects pedals they use.  Everything that had confounded me before now felt very accessible. 

So I don't exactly remember the bigger shows. You'd see KARP one night, then Some Velvet Sidewalk the next, then Calvin Johnson. It was constant. Huggy Bear was there that summer, which was a band from the UK that people were, at least in our neck of the woods, very obsessed with.  There was a real camaraderie between Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Huggy Bear, this total synergy. I saw Huggy Bear so many times that summer. 

Plus KARP, an amazing, heavy, ahead of their time, metal band. But they also had a sense of humor and wit. There were a lot of bands that felt very much ahead of their time that summer, including Unwound and KARP and Huggy Bear.  That's what I remember the most.

16:52

Tobi Vail:  Okay, before we move on to Excuse 17, which I'm curious about all of that because it hasn't been as well documented, I wanted to quickly ask do you remember when you first heard about riot grrrl and what you thought it was?  And then was that different to what you learned when you moved here?

Carrie Brownstein: The first time I heard about riot grrrl I was still in high school in Kirkland, Washington. I was hanging out with a group that people called  ‘batcavers.’  Before Nirvana came along and the umbrella term 'alternative' was created, there were all these niche terms for people who looked like outsiders. There were punks, goths, heshers, metalheads, or rockers. At our school, if you were in any of those categories, you fell under the umbrella 'batcavers'. 

One of these batcavers, who was a little more goth and way more cool than me, was named Natalie Cox. She had hung out in Olympia and seen all these bands.  At the time, I had an all-girl highschool punk band with the dubious, not-so-great name, Born Naked.  Anyway, Natalie said, "You should listen to these bands from Olympia. They're doing exactly what you guys are trying to do." She was the one who told me about riot grrrl, and she introduced me to Heavens to Betsy and Bikini Kill and Bratmobile. Before Natalie, I didn’t realize anything with that musical style was happening so close by.

So, my first introduction to riot grrrl was much more about a musical style. Later I think, the idea of riot grrrl as a monolithic music style was vaguely contentious. Perhaps it was more connected by an overarching ethos. I thought of it more as a sonic representation and expression of feminism, this way of carving space for women within the punk scene, whether that was through the lyrics or just their sheer existence as a band.  Later, I learned about the riot grrrl meetings going on in Olympia, that there was a grassroots activist element to it. I got access to some of the fanzines, "Jigsaw", the Bikini Kill fanzine, "Girl Germs." 

I remember shyly writing in Sharpie, 'riot grrrl' on my knuckles and walking around the suburbs wondering if people would take notice of me. It was the first thing I’d done that felt even a little bit rebellious and I think I was drawn to that aspect of the movement, the irascibilty. That it wasn't afraid to use anger as a vernacular. I was very drawn to this idea and idealogy before I went to Olympia. It was intimidating, but I knew that I wanted to go.

21:15

Tobi Vail:  Would you say that riot grrrl was an influence on you musically then in any way?

Carrie Brownstein: I think riot grrrl was somewhat musically influential. With Bikini Kill, I listened to the first couple of singles and cassettes over and over, songs like 'Carnival' or 'Feels Blind'.  I remember thinking that 'Feels Blind' was a perfect song. It was a couple of chords that kept repeating until it was almost hypnotic, bringing you further and further into the song. I loved that.  

And I loved Heavens to Betsy. The minimalism, an eschewing of what instruments or amount of musicians constitutes a “real” band. It was a very deconstructed sound. And then other bands had more traditional instrumentation, but were singing about things I’d never heard people sing about before. That definitely influenced me because I think I needed to hear it and see it in order to give myself permission to try as well.  So, yeah, riot grrl was influential in attitude probably even more than sonically. 

There was also something about the DIY spirit of forming a band, not having to go through certain hoops before you played a show.  A lot of my classmates and friends in highschool, mostly male, had taken lessons or had played their instruments for a certain amount of time. It felt like you had to pass a rubicon and be good enough before you performed in front of people. But riot grrrl and the Olympia music scene bypassed that formalism and valued urgency. It’s almost like, Well, we can't wait until everyone knows how to play their instruments.  We have to say this now. That energy made up for whatever the band lacked in musicianship. Eventually, most of the bands caught up in terms of musicianship, but I love that idea of not waiting.  I love that kind of desperation,  that there was no hesitation. That was absolutely inspirational. 

24:31

Tobi Vail: Yeah, that's great to hear all these years later.  But anyways, moving on.  I wanted to get you to talk about Excuse 17.  You mentioned that Born Naked was your band up in Seattle, so was Excuse 17 the first band you started in Olympia?  And what was that experience like for you?  If you could give us a little history of who was in it and when that happened and what you guys did.

Carrie Brownstein: Excuse 17 was a band I formed with Becca Albee, a friend and artist in Olympia.  She was going to college for visual art.  She’d come from the East Coast and already had a fairly sophisticated sense of aesthetics, which coming from the unadorned Pacific Northwest, I found kind of exotic. She brought a different set of influences, whether it was Mission of Burma or Throwing Muses.

The thing that Becca and I had in common was the feeling that everyone already had their bands. Not only that, they had their side projects too, their dance cards were full music-wise.  Becca and I were the same age. Some of the people in the music scene were a little bit older than us, only by two years, but at that young age any difference felt significant.  Anyway, we both wanted to be in a band, and we wanted to be in a band with people who weren't super busy with other musical projects. 

So she and I started playing music together in her apartment.  She lived in the Martin Apartments, which kind of felt like a dormitory, like the punk Melrose Place or something, a hub of creativity. I would visit Becca, she would make us tea, and we would sit around and write songs together. 

We needed a drummer.  I think Maggie Vail was the first drummer in Excuse 17.  I don't know why that didn't last because Maggie's great, but we ended up with this guy CJ Phillips. CJ was from Federal Way, which is south of Seattle.  Like a handful of other bands, we rehearsed inside a storage space in a town adjacent to Olympia called Lacey. You would put up old carpet remnants and mattresses for soundproofing. 

Excuse 17 always felt a bit like the kid sister of the other bands. We tagged along and we would get the obligatory invitation to be the opening band at shows. Excuse 17 was definitely how I learned to play guitar with someone else. We didn’t have a bass player,  it was both Becca and I on guitar and she had a very unique style of playing. We’re both self-taught.  We were never approaching the guitar in a way people would consider traditional. It was a lot of half and inverted chords, both of us singing at the same time.  We weren't following a lot of the rules, not because we were trying to break them, but  because we didn't really know what the rules were or how to emulate them "properly." 

So we developed our own strange sound. And it was through Excuse 17 and through Becca that I really learned how to put a lead guitar melody over another guitar part.   It wasn't even a traditional lead, more of a riff.  It was my way of communicating ideas because I couldn't really sing or was afraid to sing. Guitar was my way of having my voice heard in the band.  We went on tour and put out two records. 

29:25

Tobi Vail: One was on Chainsaw and one was on Kill Rock Stars, the albums right?  Is that right? 

Carrie Brownstein: Yeah. And  we put out a 7".

Tobi Vail: What label was the 7" on? 

Carrie Brownstein: Candy Ass. 

Tobi Vail: Okay. 

Carrie Brownstein: Yeah. 

Tobi Vail: It's like, orange or something?

Carrie Brownstein: Yeah, it was an image of a fire. 

And Becca is still someone I am very fond of and we try to keep in touch. I credit her with opening  up my world.  And she was very patient.  I think we were both waiting for someone like the other person to show up in Olympia.  And we allowed each other to fumble through those early days of songwriting and the vulnerability of lyric writing and the terror of recording when you've never been into a studio.  We learned a lot together.  There's a lot of things that you just don't know if it's never been broken down for you, whether it's playing live and understanding what a monitor mix is versus what people are hearing over the PA in the audience. There's all these things you take for granted now, but we didn't have handlers or the traditional managers or publicists or even labels to guide us. None of us had those things.  So we relied on one another for explanation.   I'm grateful to have had Becca be that person for me, we were kind to each other in all of our naivete.

31:14

Tobi Vail: Yeah, and then did Sleater Kinney start in Olympia?  I thought you and Corin went to Australia.  I can't really remember.  Can you tell us that story a little bit?

Carrie Brownstein: Excuse 17 and Heavens to Betsy went on a big tour together and Corin Tucker was the singer/guitarist in Heavens to Betsy. They had put out their record Calculated on Kill Rock Stars and we had our self-titled album out on Chainsaw. Corin and I knew right away we wanted to play together. So while we were still in our respective bands, we wrote a couple songs together that came out as a 7" single on Villa Villakula, which was a label out of Boston, Massachusetts. The founder of that label, Tinúviel, had worked with Slim Moon from Kill Rock Stars, so it was all related. It was still definitely part of that Olympia world. 

Then Corin graduated from the Evregreen State College where I was still a student. She wanted to travel, so I decided to pursue a quarter of independent study and proposed that I write about the Australian music scene. Looking back, it was a crazy idea but the school signed off on it. In the fall of 1994, Corin and I flew to Sydney.  We were in the country for three months, and we wrote and recorded our first EP while we were there. When we returned home to Olympia, we had Tim Green mix the album in the basement of The Red House, which was a venue, communal living space, and recording studio.  

Tobi Vail: So the first Sleater Kinney EP came out on Chainsaw Records, Donna Dresch’s label? 

Carrie Brownstein: Yeah, and our next album too, Call the Doctor,.

Tobi Vail: So at that point (just for the purpose of this project), was Sleater Kinney an Olympia band?  Or a Portland band?  Or kind of just both?  Or neither? 

Carrie Brownstein: I feel like we were considered an Olympia band at first. People still associated Corin with Heavens to Betsy, which had definitely been Olympia based.  When Sleater-Kinney formed, both Corin and I still lived in Olympia. Then Corin moved to Portland after Call the Doctor was released.  And when we finally settled on a drummer, Janet Weiss, she lived in Portland. So then it was a little bit slanted towards Portland as the band’s homebase. I was still flying the Olympia flag pretty hardcore back then, so I probably would have considered us an Olympia band longer than anyone.

36:11

Tobi Vail: Yeah, I was kind of just-- You know, at some point, you became a Portland band.

Carrie Brownstein: I know.

Tobi Vail: But I think of it as an Olympia band at first.  

I wanted to ask you also so now we're up to Sleater Kinney, if you had any particular memories of playing or attending Yoyo A Go Go? IPU you said you weren't here for. Yoyo A Go Go or Ladyfest or any of the any of the big festivals?  I know you played some of them.  Do you remember anything?  Or would you like to describe what any of those festivals were to someone who doesn't know? 

Carrie Brownstein: Yoyo A Go Go felt like the next big iteration of an Olympia festival after IPU, International Pop Underground, which was this legendary festival that I didn't attend. IPU loomed large in my imagination because a lot of important bands had played it. So, when Yoyo A Go Go came around, I think for the next generation, it seemed like our chance to experience whatever we’d missed at IPU. Musicians and bands and artists from all over the country and the world. It felt like a welcomed invasion of our little town, but also that our town somewhat relished being the center of the universe. We wanted to show it off.

For a beautiful moment it felt like everyone was descending on Olympia and that we were the biggest thing going on. I remember that sense of pride in being there and in the fact that Sleater Kinney were playing the festival. 

I recall this gaze upon Olympia, seeing what it must have looked like from the outside. There were throngs of people and an energy coursing through town. There was a tireless stream of creativity,  just boundless. I remember people sitting outside on the sidewalk and they would be sketching or writing in their notepads. And you had musicians like Jason Traeger, just walking around like a troubadour, singing songs. 

There were so many versions of being performative, which I also really loved.  It wasn't codified.  It wasn't like, indoors or inside this space is where the music is. It was like, No, the art is everywhere. The distinction between performer and participant was very blurred, and that is something really special about Olympia, the lines could be permeated, the barriers to entry seemed a little easier.  There was an inclusiveness that I really liked. 

Yo-Yo was when I saw Elliott Smith play. He was on the mainstage. Those backstage Capitol Theatre Shows shows were cool, and more intimate, but they always sounded terrible because behind the band was just this big cavernous theater. At the festival, bands played the main stage. That was a very peak Elliott Smith show, he was really at the top of his game. As much as I'm talking about this feeling of participation and inclusivity, there was also this sense there were people among us who were just shinier and more luminous, and that we were getting to see them in a very rarefied space. That was another beautiful thing about Olympia, access to artists.  I can't imagine seeing Elliott in New York or LA, but I got to see him in a kind of ragtag festival where he shone very brightly.

41:43

Tobi Vail: Yeah, that's a standout memory for me too.  I'm not sure if we're thinking of the same show.

Carrie Brownstein:It was definitely the best time I ever saw him play. He was masterful at that time, in a way very few people were. Most of us were protected by volume and big amps, which was a choice on our parts. We wanted loudness and bombast, and there was something very powerful about that. But seeing Elliott  was one of the first times that I saw the soft power of a person using only a guitar and a voice, silencing a room in a way most of us can't.  We've all seen people get on stage with a guitar and sing, but it's not always something that makes your knees buckle. Elliott was special. He was in the height of his powers back then.

42:47

Tobi Vail: Yeah, for sure.  So I have a couple questions that are pretty different, but maybe I'll just give both of them and you might find a connection.  One of them was can you remember the political climate of living here in the '90s?  Like, what was going on nationally, locally?  That's one of them.  And then the next question was just to go into talking a little bit more about Ladyfest.  Maybe those things are tied together somewhat for you.  I'm not sure.  You can start with either one.

Carrie Brownstein: I arrived in Olympia in 1993 and my first permanent housing situation was just a few blocks from the State Capitol. That had an interesting effect of bringing politics up close.  I mean I could basically see the governor's mansion from my little duplex.  The weird thing about that time for me is that while my politics were being channeled into my music, and were being discussed in my college courses, I was the most cut off from media that I’ve ever been. I didn't have a TV.  

I sort of carved out a bubble for myself, but I was certainly not the only one.   It wasn't divorced from politics, there were progressive ideas and ideology, sometimes radical ones, that infused the art and choices people made, but in terms of engagement with the world at large, I think part of what made Olympia special was the insularity. For better or worse, being cut off can create very powerful music and art scenes. So, to be honest, I knew what the headlines were, but I felt like my role was to do and to make.  What I exposed myself to, and made myself open to, was mostly art and music, and whatever politics those were infused with. 

48:01

Tobi Vail: For sure, yeah.  I'm curious, do you remember thinking of like, being on an independent label versus a major label as a political decision?  Or was that just kind of how it was back then, that was the option? 

Carrie Brownstein: One way that politics permeated and infiltrated music and art scenes in the late '80s/early '90s was in this very dichotomous dynamic between major and indie labels, selling out versus staying true to yourself. Those were the kinds of political discussions we were having for sure.  Which are, of course, part of a broader conversation about the commodification of art, about things being overly corporate or capitalistic.  They were legitimate conversations that, in some ways, I think we've lost sight of a little bit today as people have become their own brands. But, back then, it was very anathema to one's art to want something that was commercial, to want something that was mainstream. 

There was also a huge delineation between mainstream and underground.  The  conflation of the two had not yet happened. If something was underground, it could truly stay underground.  Not that that was necessarily good, but some things or people or ideas might just never see the light of day.  And now, of course, you can seek almost anything out and that line between margin and center is so thin, if not completely disappeared. 

It's hard to stress how real those polemics were, how dire it was and how it felt like the wrong move—like admitting you wanted more exposure for your band—could be ruinous to relationships or to your reputation. There was a real mistrust of the mainstream in Olympia. There was a precedent of press boycotts during the height of riot grrrl. And certainly labels like K and Kill Rock Stars—even the moniker Kill Rock Stars implies a cynicism towards fame—rejected commercialism. There was an adherence to artistic purity, even though that purity was ill-defined and sometimes devoid of broader conversations about privilege, and there were consequences for anything perceived as an almost moral infraction. Those were stressful conversations for sure.  

In the end, Sleater-Kinney never went to a major label. There were so many cautionary tales. . 

51:31

Tobi Vail: Well, yeah.  And you're kind of a different generation than me in the sense that you were starting, Sleater Kinney was starting right at the time that Kurt Cobain died, and all of that, you know, after signing to a major label and all of that.  You know, him having lived here and friends with everyone.  It was kind of just like, a very intense, intense time.

Carrie Brownstein: I think in the aftermath of Kurt’s death, for people who—like Corin and myself—had not been friends with him, there was the sense that his journey wasn’t a viable road to take. The stakes are too high. But it was tricky because it often wasn’t allowed to be a nuanced conversation, at least publicly. There were definitely ambitious people in Olympia, but it was hard to admit you might want something more.  There was a little bit of that tall poppy syndrome, which I think happens in any small community. You’re aware of the ways the community has helped you, and you know you’re part of a fragile ecosystem. It’s basically individualism at odds with communalism, and it can feel like a betrayal.

But these fraught and complex dynamics are some of the reasons these rarefied music scenes were so prosperous, so fruitful and incendiary. When you’re inside of that cauldron you don't even realize you're basically fighting against yourself in there. Those implicit rules also provide parameters. And I think you realize as you get older that free artistic rein is not necessarily the best thing. Limitations help you as an artist, they force you to push back against something. I think you can hear it in the music, the tension, the conflict. So even if I’m looking back and thinking, That was so frustrating, or that was so limiting, what a limited mindset. I have to acknowledge, No, that mindset made us. We would not have sounded how we did if we were in LA or Chicago or anywhere else. It took all of that discourse to make this happen.

54:49

Tobi Vail: For sure.  So I wanted to talk about Ladyfest, maybe I'll bring that up now.  I'm gonna just gonna show you a little bit of my opinion here.  When I got involved as one of the organizers of Ladyfest one of the reasons I wanted to do it was because I was working at Kill Rock Stars and a lot of women were working there, but we didn't own the label.  And International Pop Underground and K Records was also pretty much owned by Calvin Johnson and a lot of women worked there.  Candace was a big part of founding it, just like Tinuviel was a big part of founding Kill Rock Stars.  And Yoyo a Go Go was a collective but Pat Maley from Yoyo was kind of seen as the head of it.  I don't know what his official role was. 

So I think for me, it was like Ladyfest was a way that we could as women put together something that was totally run by women.  And I don't know if that was why you got involved, but that's kind of where I was coming from on that.  So for me it was political.  And it was a really hard thing to do but we did it.  So anyway, do you have any insights on that?  Like, what was your role in the festival?  And how do you feel about the project?  And also just like, what was Ladyfest?

Carrie Brownstein: I don't know what Ladyfest was in the end. I feel like there's not a single definition.  I can’t recall whether there was a sole or collective progenitor.

Tobi Vail: Allison Wolfe was in town because her mother, Pat Shively, had cancer.  And you know, she was dying basically.  And Allison, who grew up here, from Bratmobile was having to spend time here a lot so she needed a project to work on. 

Carrie Brownstein: Right.

Tobi Vail: So that was kind of how it was introduced to me and how I got involved in it.

57:07

Carrie Brownstein: With Ladyfest, I think like what you're saying, a lot of us had been adjacent to or participated in these wonderful festivals. But we never had any control over the planning, curation, or aesthetics.  I think that was the spirit of it, to get away from this hierarchical, top-down infrastructure where there’s  one or two people in charge dictating what everyone's going to listen to. The hope was to make things more diverse, more accessible, and ultimately more inspiring. 

But all I remember is the meetings. There were so many. We aimed for consensus in our decision making. These ideas always start off very well-intentioned, and then you get into the actual bureaucracy of planning something, which is always harder than you think it's going to be. All of the high-minded egalitarianism that you hope for eventually collides with practicalities and logistics. Anyway, I ended up on the Budget Committee.  I'm terrible at math, so I'm not sure how I ended up in that position. 

I also helped set up a phone number for Ladyfest.  It was pre-Internet, so we set up a number people could call where they could listen to an informational message. It was a very rudimentary system. 

I thought Ladyfest was a very interesting experiment that was mostly successful.  It was also something that when it actually happened, when we pulled it off, you forget all the parts that were hard. I think it was a real learning experience for a lot of us because we were very young and very idealistic. We had never really had to put some of those ideas into practice.  It was always theoretical.  And then our theories were put to the test. 

I think, for better or worse, we put on a festival that was really fun and was fairly different than anything else at the time. It was not Lilith fair, something that was very monetized. Ladyfest was more in the spirit of showcasing artists and giving people a platform where before it may not have existed. The whole idea ended up sparking other Ladyfests. People put on these festivals in their own cities, or just did one-off shows under the moniker Ladyfest. They happened all over the country, for all I know, all over the world.

Despite the bumpy start, in the end, it was amazing to see that there had been a real need for Ladyfest. People just want to feel seen and they need an opportunity for that to happen.

1:02:20

Tobi Vail: Yeah, I was just thinking as you were talking, that it was right after Woodstock '99.  So in the larger culture there was this real sexism and male domination happening within pop music and centered around music festivals.  And you did bring up Lilith fair.  I would just like to hear you talk a little bit about that, if you don't mind, since you've played rock festivals all over the world as a musician since then. 

Carrie Brownstein: Sleater-Kinnney were actually asked to play Lilith Fair.  And it's very apropos of what we were talking about earlier, as we declined partly because we tried not to align ourselves with anything too commercial. We were very avoidant of certain associations and wary of how the festival would be marketed. Now I see how amazing Lilith Fair must have been for some people, but we were too aligned with that anti-corporate and non-mainsteam mentality that permeated indie rock. Maybe it felt too sanitized for us or for our music. 

But Lilith Fair was absolutely necessary for a number of reasons, especially because of festivals like Woodstock '99, at which there were multiple sexual assaults. The reports from there were disgusting and violent. And even before Woodstock ‘99, music festivals were not necessarily a safe place if you weren’t a cis straight white male. There’s that contradiction of attending an event that’s supposed to be about freedom, about getting out of your head, being in your body, experiencing music, and to have that be a site of pain, violence or discrimination, that's horrific. For those of us who play music and who are on stages, that potential disconnect is disheartening.That you could be singing about overcoming a painful experience and then have your audience be potentially experiencing something that's violating or harmful or frightening, that is not a cognitive dissonance I want. 

I think Ladyfest was probably trying to create something that would be, to use a modern term, a safe space for people who wanted to feel free and be their authentic selves at a festival.  To experience music.  To perform.  To let go and to not be afraid.  

1:06:09

Tobi Vail: For sure.  I was also thinking that, I don't know if you remember or if you were a part of this or if you saw it as an audience member, but The Transfused happened that same year.  Even at the time, I remember thinking, Is Ladyfest reinforcing a gender binary by having one gender identity at the center of a feminist festival?  Those conversations were happening, like Michigan's Womyn's Fair and Festival and trans inclusion and all of that kind of stuff.  I remember thinking about it like, Are we a part of that?  And then sort of thinking, Well, if The Transfused wasn't happening right now, probably, there would be more conversations about queer identity and trans inclusion.  But it was cool that they both happened in the same year kind of side by side.  It was okay that all of that stuff was happening but they weren't like at war with each other.  Can you reflect on that a little bit?

Carrie Brownstein: Yeah, I mean looking back on Ladyfest, the title does seem to embrace a binary that now seems outdated and retrograde and very limiting in terms of how we think about gender.  But obviously it was a reactionary term and it needs to be viewed in a historical context. It was a reaction against a very patriarchal force in music and the name was embracing an idea and identity most festivals ignored, maligned, or feared. I think it was well intentioned.  

With hindsight, you realize that if you want to build a strong foundation, community, or movement, you have to get away from dualistic, simplistic thinking.  I think in the same way riot grrrl had its flaws or blind spots, lacking intersectionality and pluralism, Ladyfest did as well. 

I’m glad something like Transfused—which seemed so ahead of its time-—existed. Transfused and Ladyfest almost existed in conversation with one another.  I feel like Transfused was in some ways an answer to Ladyfest, like, this is what you left out and this is a much more radical, more artistically sophisticated idea.

I mean, it was a trans rock opera!l So I think in terms of Ladyfest’s limitations, those were answered and refuted in a very powerful way by Transfused. Almost like, that's cool what you're doing.  But don't forget this, don't forget us. Next time, start here

I appreciated that Olympia was a scene in conversation with itself.  Whether it was through writing and fanzines, through spoken word, through songs that answered one another, or through a festival’s curatorial lens.

1:11:16

Tobi Vail: For sure.  Also wanted to touch on Homo a Go Go.  I'm not sure if Sleater Kinney played Homo a Go Go or if you attended any of those shows, but do you have any memories to share about that?  If it was personally meaningful to you at all or you know?

Carrie Brownstein: I don't remember if we played Homo a Go Go.  I know we played Ladyfest because I remember we did a cover of "Dude Looks Like a Lady" by Aerosmith.  But I don't think we played Homo a Go Go, so I don't have a lot of specific memories about that.

Tobi Vail: Do you remember going to any of the shows? 

Carrie Brownstein: What year was that? 

Tobi Vail: There was a couple different ones.  I remember seeing Team Dresch Frontstage at Homo a Go Go and that being very, just really cool.  But like, a totally different feeling than seeing them play to a straight audience.  But you might have been on tour too.

Carrie Brownstein:  I think there were moments like that, where people saw themselves for the first time in spaces where they could express the full potential of their being. But you have to be with people you trust and in a place that’s giving you license to do that exploration. 

It was really inspiring to see people explore identity, sexuality, and gender.  Seeing people navigating that through music, art and festivals that were designed to be inclusive. You’d see people come out the other side of those moments or events changed, like a guy wearing eyeliner or make up for the first time, or someone conveying fluidity in their gender, or people expressing themselves in a way that was unabashedly queer.  We’d witnessed them on stage and then I felt like afterwards, they just were able to move through the world differently.  I loved watching that transformation. 

It wasn't just Homo a Go Go, sometimes it happened at other concerts or events. People crossing over a threshold and showing us who they were. I think that's another crucial element to scenes like that, people get to practice who they want to be in a safe context. People think of small towns as claustrophobic, but they can also be liberating in that they’re a rehearsal for whatever comes next. 

1:15:38

Tobi Vail: For sure.  We have about 10 minutes left, so I don't want to take up too much of your time but I did have a couple more questions.  One of them was looking back at the history that you are part of creating through music and community, do you have any insights to share about Olympia the place specifically?  Was there something about the town itself that inspired or limited you in some way?  Even just like the physical natural environment, like the water, the woods or the rain?  So just yeah, just if you want to touch on that? 

Carrie Brownstein: I think Olympia in and of itself was an interesting place.  I grew up in Washington, so I was very used to the gray skies.  I was very used to it getting dark well before 5 P.M. in the winter and my mood ebbing and flowing, being very dependent on the amount of light or the amount of rain. 

But nothing could have prepared me for Olympia because it’s even rainier and darker than Seattle or Portland, where I live now.  And it turned a lot of us into indoor kids.  That's how I would describe us. And when you’re stuck inside, by yourself or with your friends, the energy is more contained and you have to find your own fun.  There was a lot of intentional listening to music.  And there was intentionality around the discussion of music. 

There was a reliance on imagination for having fun, because we weren’t a big city.  We didn't have a premiere art museum. We had the Capitol Theater, which did its best with the Film Festival—and did a great job of bringing in interesting films—but for the most part we were fairly divorced from what people would consider high art or culture.  So we made our own. I attended many ad hoc art shows and dance parties and basically little hootenannies. There was a lot of creativity and ingenuity required.

We internalized the landscape. I think of how dark a lot of the music is. I think about all the expressions of sadness, and unfortunately, the mental illness and depression that existed. Those states of being were connected to the cloudy skies and the jaggedness, the ruggedness. There was a lot of pain expressed and reflected in the music. 

1:19:36

Tobi Vail: Yeah, for sure.  I was just curious, from your vantage point do you think Northwest music history has been over documented or under documented?  Or what do you think has been left out of the story?

Carrie Brownstein: That's a good question.  The tricky thing about Northwest music is that Seattle Grunge is such a juggernaut. It eclipses a lot of things. As a sidebar to grunge, people might talk about riot grrrl or Olympia. Some people obviously talk about the relationship between the two, which existed very organically.  But there was Ellensburg and Aberdeen, Tacoma, Bellingham and Boise.  It wasn't just Olympia and Seattle. That broader constellation is often left out, people were creating music in towns way weirder than Olympia, more dire and isolated and conservative than our town.  We were lucky, we had a liberal university nearby from which people gleaned a lot of academic prowess and language.  But that wasn’t necessarily the case in Ellensburg. That wasn’t the case in Aberdeen or Tacoma. 

And it’s some of those other bands, from outside Seattle, that influences the bands that became big. Like Girl Trouble out of Tacoma, The Wipers from Portland. Those bands get forgotten or left behind in the narratives. Sadly, it's not until someone from one of those bands passes away that the tributes pour in and people talk about how a certain guitarist influenced them or how a singer inspired someone to form a band. I think some of the DNA goes missing until someone departs this world, and it’s then we remember.  But I think it’s important to fill in those gaps between the cities.

Tobi Vail: Yeah, for sure.  Anacortes too.

Carrie Brownstein: Oh, yeah.  Anacortes, which still is thriving.  If you were mapping the PNW musical landscape, Anacortes would be this weird little amoeba that's doing its own thing. Or maybe it would be a starfish.  And then one of the little starfish arms would get cut off and come down to Olympia for a while, after which Anacortes would just grow a new arm.  Even more than Olympia, I feel like Anacortes closed its doors and decided to do its own bizarre outsider art thing. It’s a wonderful scene. 

1:22:52

Tobi Vail: For sure.  And Eugene too.  Do you have anything to add?  We've talked about so much. 

Carrie Brownstein: I guess another thing to acknowledge is that there was probably a huge underground hip hop scene that is rarely covered. I would be remiss to not at least point out my own ignorance there.  There's a lot of stuff that doesn't get covered when you've had Nirvana takeover the scene. 

And I've likely conflated things. Or misremembered. I’ll add that caveat. I’m merely speaking from memory, which is unreliable. 

Tobi Vail:  For sure.  So then, do you see that the City of Olympia could do anything to support musicians?  Like off the top of your head?  That's my last question.

Carrie Brownstein: As someone who doesn't live in Olympia anymore I don't know what kind of infrastructure exists.  And obviously it's not just physical structures that are important, it’s financial resources and a spirit of support, a valuing of music that has to exist. When I lived there, we created most of the actual infrastructures, there was an intentionality to making sure that performance spaces existed, that places to rehearse existed, that there were labels and places to record. 

It will be crucial for the city of Olympia to invest time, money, and resources towards supporting musicians. And a local government has to know that if rents and living expenses are too high, it makes it really difficult for people to actually make music or art.  Hopefully Olympia will find a way of remembering all the things that it can be. For a time, it was an incubator. There's no reason why it can't be again. I feel like people are leaving bigger cities because of the outlandish costs. This is a time for second and tertiary cities to make themselves a haven for artists, to be encouraging, to present reasons for people to choose a life there.  I think you see it happening in other cities and there's no reason why Olympia can't also be at the forefront of luring people in with resources and access.

1:26:27

Tobi Vail: For sure All right, well thank you for your time Carrie.  Your reflection has been really valuable and hopefully I'll be able to save this file.

Carrie Brownstein: Me too.  I appreciate it. 

Mentioned in this interview:

Carrie Brownstein

Founding member of the bands Excuse 17 and Sleater-Kinney

Tobi Vail

Olympia musician, music journalist, and feminist punk. Organizer of Ladyfest. Interviewer for this project.

Becca Albee

Olympia musician

CJ Phillips

Olympia musician

Tinúviel Sampson

Music promoter in Olympia, co-founder of Kill Rock Stars

Corin Tucker

Olympia musician in the 1990s

Maggie Vail

Olympia musician

Pat Shively

Mother, Alison Wolfe

Allison Wolfe

Olympia musician, early participant in the riot grrrl movement