This is something I wrote for International Girl Gang Underground a few months back:

July 14th, 2005. London explosions. Hurricane Emily. I was sixteen
and 6 months prior (when I was 15) I played my first all-ages punk gig
in my very own self-perpetuating punk band. I had been making music
with my sister for a really long time before this irrevocably
life-altering exposure but now I was sort of soaked in this
alternative self-importance. It had everything to do with the grimly
short-lived all ages showspace in Birmingham called Cave9. That’s
where I was on July 14th and almost every night until it’s demise.
       Preceding this one night, my experience at Cave9 had been (prepare to
be shocked) almost entirely male-dominated and honestly I can’t really
remember feeling like that was weird. I was so wide-eyed and excited
that people were not only hearing, but enjoying the music I was making
that I hadn’t noticed that my music-making peers were predominantly
male. In retrospect I credit this to my naiveté. When present me
thinks about past me all I want to do is relay the message a little
sooner. “Hey Katie you’re about to enter a world of shit! Look out!
That guy doesn’t really care about your band! You probably shouldn’t
be so nice to those boys considering what they were talking about in
the van on the way to the show! (etc etc)” This was at a time when
hyper-masculine, gym shorts-wearing, ex-girlfriend-cursing, sexist,
homophobic, protein-shake hardcore was still, like, a thing? It was
really popular among all the kids in Birmingham that were my age and
attending shows. (Once again present day me would attest that to my
own forgiving inexperience. That shit still exists and permeates our
community to this day.) Pretty much any and every show I attended at
Cave9 post-December 04’, pre-July 05’ was straight-up jock hardcore.
At the time I didn’t feel terribly alienated because I had luckily
escaped any reason to.
       When I got to the show at Cave9 I immediately noticed that there were
no gym shorts in sight. In fact it seemed like there was really no one
my age there at all, with the exception of Katherine, my show-going
ally. At the time she was a Cave9 intern (I use that term very
loosely) and she had asked me to help her run the door at the show. We
arrived there pretty early, sat down on the long brown folding table
that ran perpendicular to the front doors and watched local bands and
touring bands and regular show-goers alike disperse. I remember when I
first saw a Soviette. I don’t remember which one it was. She walked in
the front doors wearing a denim vest with bluish flower tattoos
embellishing her bare arm. She smelled like pheromones. She was so
subtle and confident and cool taking in the strange and foreign
surroundings. Her mere presence there in that doorway completely
rocked my sheltered, 16 year old world. I knew immediately that she
was on tour and I know that the concept of that hadn’t really set in
with me yet. Like, that these people who play shows here that don’t
live here just hop in a van for weeks and months at a time. They load
in and out their heavy gear. They make their own merch. They play
their songs for basements full (so to speak) of strangers. They brave
the cold or the heat or the rain or the snow. They get lost trying to
follow bad directions and they get screwed out of shows and money.
They sacrifice their jobs and love-lives. They leave behind family and
cats and dogs and creative endeavors and new developing crushes and
their favorite bars and places to trespass and best friends. They get
in a van and come to Birmingham, Alabama so they can play their music
for 35 people they don’t know.  This idea, like many ideas, sounds
one-dimensional to someone who’s never done it.
The Soviettes, for those of you who are unfamiliar, are a punk band
from Minneapolis, Minnesota. To my knowledge, they only did 2 big
tours, put out 3 LPs and a few 7 inches here and there. I saw them at
Cave9 twice. The first time saved my life and I think I only
comprehended that in the last few days. I think they may have been the
first band with women I saw after I started playing shows and they
were so magnetic to me that night, the 3 women in the band that I
watched their every move. They loaded in their gear and tuned their
guitars and drank cheap beer and were outspoken and clever. Their
on-stage (or on-floor) banter was witty and their set was rugged and
strenuous. Everything they did was significant to me. I wanted to be
just like them. I wanted to walk the line they walked. Delicate
masculinity and bold femininity. It was like the first taste of a
koolaid I still drink to this day. If I can make a girl across the
country feel even a tiny percentage of this dizzying empowerment that
the Soviettes made me feel that night, then everything I’ve endured as
a female in this tiny punk rock world is well worth it.
Years passed, my outlook on community transformed from idealistic into
exhausted with the occasional dip into jaded. (of course) Having too
much faith in people comes with the territory when you’re young and
inspired and energized and looking back I’m glad I learned that the
way that I did. I sort of drenched myself in my own productive
ventures, which is the only thing about me that hasn’t changed in the
last 6 years. I play my life as a punk kid in my head all the time. I
watch the subtle transformation. I am a doughy-eyed highschooler. I
become a (somewhat) seasoned trooper. The time in between is really
just a impaling of sexist pricks and animated feminists and
over-stimulated introspect that molded me into what I am today. The
punk community is made up of all kinds of blanketed bigots and lazy,
indifferent beardos and Pabst-guzzling empty talkers. Luckily it is
also full of some pretty unyielding crusaders. The reality of it is
disappointing but it’s an incentive to make it better. It’s an
invitation to stand up for something and feel proud later on.
When I was 18 I started a new band with the brimming intention of
traveling as much as we could. We have traveled up and down the East
Coast, out to Seattle and down to Texas and met more people than I
could probably even remember. We’ve had our fair share of positive and
negative experiences as women musicians and I go back to that night in
July a lot. Though nothing questionable happened I remember those 3
women and how indirectly dauntless they were. Confident.
Well-articulated. It was like teargas, I know if something fucked-up
had happened that they would’ve handled it with quite a wrath. I keep
it in mind.
On July 14th, 2009 I was on tour in New Jersey. It was hot and we were
probably listening to the Soviettes.