Tobi Vail

Tobi Vail is a feminist punk and an active participant in the Olympia underground music scene for over 40 years. No one knows how many bands she has been in, but they include Doris, Go Team, Bikini Kill, Frenchie and the German Girls, and The Frumpies. She did a bi-weekly radio show on KAOS FM from 1985 to 1991. In 1989, she created the first issue of her fanzine Jigsaw, which is widely recognized as one of the starting points of an international punk feminist movement that came to be known as riot grrrl. She continued to publish Jigsaw and other fanzines (The Bumpidee Times, After Midnight, Kathi Wilcox’s Legs) through the 1990s. Tobi worked at Kill Rock Stars for 19 years starting in 1992, where she was a core member of a small staff who ran the label as an artist-centered independent business that implemented a 50/50 profit split model to create an economically viable alternative for musicians resisting corporate control of their work. In 2000, Tobi cofounded Ladyfest with Allison Wolfe, Carrie Brownstein, and Sarah Dougher. Ladyfest was an inclusive, anti-sexist, decentralized music festival that began in Olympia as a response to Woodstock 99 and quickly spread around the world. She lives in Olympia, Washington, where she is still recovering from touring internationally with Bikini Kill from 2022 to 2024, who reformed to play some all-ages reunion shows in 2019. Bikini Kill was given the Key to the City of Olympia in 2024.