Hi friends! Here’s a recording of a recent lecture I was invited to give for M.I.T. about my research work with Women in NY’s extreme metal music (EMM) subculture, Vigilante Feminism, and Motherhood studies.
On a personal note, this was a much-needed and beautiful opportunity that allowed me to re-center. You can go here for more MIT related lectures on Heavy Metal. Joe Diaz – the metalhead responsible for this wonderful endeavor has organized a really great slate of speakers for this year’s lectures. Enjoy!
A recent interview over at Jezebel was just published that validates the research my colleague Julie Turley and I have been studying in the last two years regarding Motherhood – and that is – the story of how women, particularly women who participate in the musical subcultures of rock and metal feel a multi-faceted sense of loss, grounded in the expectations of what motherhood looks like.
The interview is with musician Jasmine White-Gluz (those of you probably know her sister, Alissa White-Gluz, death metal vocalist of Arch Enemy) and discusses her solo project as No Joy. Her new album, entitled Motherhood is an exploration of shape-shifting, at times heavy (though heavy is relative), dream pop songs. While I usually post about women in the extreme metal music subculture, Jasmine’s album explores an area that mixes said dream pop elements with concept and layers of motherhood both through composition and lyrics that had me intrigued.
The album’s opening track “birthmark” has your standard poppy arrangements but with the second track “dream rats”, multilayered vocals catch my attention and preference for more complexity. Finding out that the additional vocals were provided by Alissa White-Gluz was a plus, as I’ve always been a fan of death vocals.
Another highlight of the album is the track entitled “four”, which starts off with a bit of a shoe-gaze feel that slowly implements dream pop rhythms and repetitive vocals mid-way. I kept wanting the song to go a little darker/heavier but was pleasantly surprised with how the interchanges between dream pop and guitar play kept my ear at just the right level of interest.
While other reviewers relate this album to a 90’s noise-rock feel, some songs felt like I was back in the NY club scene, circa 1988, dancing with goth rain dancers, especially their song, “ageless”. Overall, I loved White-Gluz’s focus on Motherhood; the album offers a trippy road trip through her experiences and vision in discussing a concept so overlooked in the music industry.
Lately I’ve been in a writing rut with regard to my thesis research on women in metal. All the things I usually try to do to get out of said rut are failing. I went to Yoga, started reading material not pertaining to my research, and I even thought about painting again; anything to get my mind off schoolwork.
Instead, while browsing an old sheet of notebook paper with ideas about possible thesis topics, I ended up revisiting this idea I had when I was pregnant with my daughter, Ella. It was on researching mothers and motherhood in heavy metal. I decided to give more time to researching this topic.
During the course of my research with women in NY’s extreme metal scene, the concept of motherhood came up a handful of times, both during the one-on-one interviews and in the online survey. In general, women said that future motherhood would be a challenge to them simply because of the lifestyle change. A few said that they look forward to figuring that lifestyle change out, while the majority of my interviewees said it wasn’t in the cards, mostly because they couldn’t see themselves as both musicians and moms. I found this bit intriguing, as I bet male musicians rarely think of this concern, or at least, not in the same way. It’s not like they would have to be drumming insane blast beats while being 7 months pregnant or anything.
Motherhood and metal also became a reoccurring theme in my daily WordPress musings because 1) I’m a newish mom myself and so I follow parenting blogs here and there (see beautiful pic of my daughter below) and 2) women in my age group are starting to settle down and have children.
It wasn’t surprising that when I read a review of Kim Gordon‘s forthcoming book, Girl in a Band, I was immediately fascinated with her memoir of life on the road as a musician, performer and new mom. As a rock icon, I definitely look forward to reading her book. To add, motherhood and balancing everything else is a challenge that Gordon seems to have successfully managed.
On top of women like Kim Gordon, there are others, specifically in metal that I was curious about. One example being women like Simone Simons from Epica (see video below):
It’s amazing to me that the topic hasn’t really been explored. Considering that all these musicians came out of somewhere, you’d think the topic of moms and motherhood would have been researched. There’s a dearth of information about home environments and adolescent studies with regard to reasons for listening to metal and it looks like there’s little on the way about mothers and their influences on these musicians. I would like think that in one way or another (whether it’s positive or negative) it would be highlighted.
On that note, I unfortunately found this video while I was researching that made me upset. It’s a recording of a conversation between a mother and her musician-son..well sorta. Understandably, we don’t have the entire context of why this mother felt so disgusted with her son. I’m sure anxiety and being afraid of something she didn’t understand played a big role in her reaction but it was disheartening to see the approach she took in addressing her son.
And yet, over at places like the Jarakarta Globe, psychology lecturer Gita Soerjoatmodjo writes on her experience of being a mom who doesn’t feel a need to reconcile being a metalhead with parenting. She references society’s perception of metal music and talks about, how for her, it’s an empowering and constructive force, not something to simply be rebellious or violent about.
In addition, I’ve noticed a wave of new parenting columns catering to the metal community. Both Decibel and Hellhound magazines offer new parenting columns in their issues. Just look at the cover of Decibel’s March 2015 issue: So it goes without saying, while I’m on break with my thesis work, you’ll probably see me writing something researchy about what it means to consider motherhood within the heavy metal community.
It’s a great read. I especially liked the part below as it’s definitely been a struggle for me in the past:
The experiences of the panel highlight that motherhood and maternity remain as complex an issue in the art world as in any other sector. Despite a perceived flexibility in working hours reducing one problematic element for artists with children, women continue to battle age-old ideological obstacles. If women artists are feeling the need to hide (as in one case related by Boyce) and downplay motherhood, or, as Sarah Maple admitted, muse about how best to fit childbirth into an exhibition schedule, it is clearly a tangible concern.
And the part:
Evidently, the extraordinary experience of having a child is unlikely to negatively impact the quality of an artist’s work. Therefore it is more likely that gallerists – as are huge swathes of other managerial professionals (of both genders) – feel some sort of socially-generated nervousness about investing their time and money into those who they fear will either fall victim to some sort of child-induced creative lobotomy, or prove incapable of juggling their careers and families.
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