The band Bikini Kill is set to perform at the Fillmore in Silver Spring next April, and many l fans are getting excited for the concert. The original concert was supposed to be July 12, but due to a member catching COVID, it was rescheduled.
But who is Bikini Kill, and why are they so important?
In the state of Washington during the late 80s to early 90s, a new subculture was emerging. Bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains were some of the most notable to come out of this music scene. As of now, this scene is considered the “Seattle sound” or more popularly, “grunge”. There was one big underlying problem about the scene, though, was that women were nowhere to be seen.
Kathleen Hanna was born Nov. 12, 1968 in Portland, Ore. When she was three, her family moved to Calverton, Md. But due to Hanna’s father frequently changing occupations, they moved many times after that. Hanna first got interested in feminism at the age of nine when her mother took her to a rally in Washington, D.C. where Gloria Steinem, a feminist icon, spoke. In a 2000 interview with BUST magazine, Hanna recalled, “My mom was a housewife and wasn’t somebody that people would think of as a feminist, and when Ms. magazine came out we were incredibly inspired by it.”
In the late 1980s , Hanna moved to Olympia, Washington to attend Evergreen State College. During her time there, Hanna set up a photographer exhibit with fellow students and photographer Aaron Baush-Greene, which dealt with themes of sexism, violence against women, and AIDS; themes that heighted when Hanna volunteered for SafePlace, a domestic violence organization. However, the exhibit was taken down by the school administrators before it could be viewed, an act of censorship Hanna considers her “first foray into activism.” After this experience and more exhibitions made by Hanna, she started to do spoken word. However, she eventually abandoned it and went into music instead. She then formed a band called Amy Carter, which played before art exhibitions put on by Hanna and her friends.
Later, Hanna started another band, Viva Knievel, that toured the United States for two months before disbanding. Upon returning to Olympia in 1990, Hanna started collaborating with a fellow Evergreen student, drummer and punk zinester Tobi Vail, after seeing a performance by her band, Go Team. She also recognized Vail as the mastermind behind the fanzine Jigsaw, which Hanna loved greatly. In October of 1990, Hanna and Vail joined with Billy Karren, a former member of Go Team, and bassist Kathi Wilcox to form Bikini Kill, which quickly became a large part in the early 1990s Olympia, Washington music scene. One of their shared goals was to inspire more women to join the male-dominated punk scene that was quickly taking over the media at the time. Additionally, Hanna published a fanzine, [ magazine, usually produced by amateurs, for fans of a particular performer, group, or form of entertainment.] called Bikini Kill for their first tours in 1991.
The band wrote songs together and encouraged a female-centric environment at their shows, telling women to come to the front of the stage and the band would hand out lyric sheets to them. Hanna would also remove male hecklers by diving into the crowd. Those male concert-goers would often emotionally and physically assault Hanna while the tickets were still cheap and easily procured. Still, Bikini Kill gained a large following from men and women alike.
After the independent release of their demo album Revolution Girl Style Now in 1991, the band released the Bikini Kill EP on the indie label Kill Rock Stars. Produced by Ian MacKaye of punk bands Minor Threat and Fugazi, the album began to grow Bikini Kill’s audience. In Sep. 1993, the band released their debut album. The band then toured in London, England to begin working with the band Huggy Bear, releasing a split album called Our Troubled Youth/Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, and touring the UK. Upon their return to the states, they then worked on a single with Joan Jett, “New Radio/Rebel Girl.” By the following year, Riot Grrrl, the genre Bikini kill was associated with creating as well as other girl bands at the time, was receiving constant media attention, which led to Hanna urging Riot Grrrl bands to participate in a “media blackout,” due to her believing the media didn’t have an accurate portrayal of the subculture.
Due to this attention gained by the media and the disliking of the band shared by many, after the release of their second studio album, Bikini Kill disbanded in 1997. After the breakup, the band released a compilation of material from 1993 to1995 in 1998 called “The Singles.”
But even after their breakup, they continued to inspire many women and girls around the world, and in 2018, they delighted fans by coming back together to tour the globe.
Written by Morgan Butler of Albert Einstein High School