Against Memoir by Michelle Tea

Author:Michelle Tea
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781936932191
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Published: 2017-03-26T04:00:00+00:00

“Green mohawk, leather jacket, combat boots, spikes, piercings, rings, covered in tattoos, tiny, loud, in your face, laughing, crying, yelling, stoic, tough, pretty, kind, selfless, selfish, self-conscious, insecure, obsessed, girl crazy, loyal, chaotic, serene, supportive, judgmental, rude, accepting, but most of all wild—as in untamed, dangerous, mind-blowing.” That’s Tobi Vail, founding member of Bikini Kill, the person who literally put the grrrl in riot grrrl. She spent a season on the road with Quijas, who acted as the band’s roadie during a tour in 1992. They had all met a bit earlier, through the networks that bring bands cross country and into congress with other bands, crashing on floors, giving lifts to transient fans. The tour stopped at Jabberjaw, a coffee-shop-cum-music-venue that hosted all-ages shows for the likes of Nirvana and Elliott Smith. In attendance was a nineteen-year-old metalhead from Torrance, named Kelly. Now a man, back then Kelly was a dyke, into metal, sporting super-long, dyed black hair. Recently out of high school with no plan for college, not much going on, a loner, she’d come to the Bikini Kill show out of desperation for some sort of counterculture that got close to her queer punk self.

“Oh, your legs are on the record!” she said to the band’s roadie. “We were standing out front, and me and her started talking about music. I had a little Honda Civic, we went out to my car and I had all these cassette tapes. We were listening to songs, metal songs. Like, this old demo from Metallica. And Corrosion of Conformity. We were listening to this band Born Against, and Rorschach, and she was like, ‘Oh yeah, I like this music, I’m not into Bikini Kill! I’m just touring with them.’ She said that I’d like San Francisco.”

A few months later, Kelly packed up her Honda Civic and set off for San Francisco with three thousand dollars she’d gotten in a car-accident settlement. “That was like a million dollars back then,” she says. She arrived in town without knowing a single person, located a place to live by word of mouth, and found her way into the Mission’s growing queer subculture by showing up at the Bearded Lady and Junk.

“I remember walking in there and everyone was into SM. Everyone was, like, bald. And just, like, leather. And people were having sex out in the open, like, everything was a sex party. I was like, ‘Whoa, this is a total Judas Priest song! This is wild!’” Appreciative of the spectacle, the young queer did not swing in that particular direction, and was often clueless when being hit on by racy lesbians. “They were like, ‘What are you into?’ and I was like, ‘Well, I like Italian race bikes. Music, I’m really into metal.’ And they were like, ‘But really what are you into?’ And I liked Pepsi and espresso. I’d get an espresso over ice, and then pour a Pepsi in it. And they were like, ‘Whatever, this guy is useless.’”

The night wasn’t a total bust; Quijas was also at the club that night and the two reunited.

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