Hanna movie gets UK distribution

The Punk Singer, the movie about Kathleen Hanna, is getting a proper UK distribution.

Dogwoof have picked up UK rights:

"We’re very much looking forward to releasing The Punk Singer alongside Kathleen Hanna’s return to the U.K. with the Julie Ruin tour in late May – the film’s documenting of this remarkable woman and the Riot Grrrl scene will no doubt go on to inspire a whole new audience in addition to the existing fanbase,” said [head of distribution Oli] Harbottle.

I suspect that unless there's also a 3D version you might still have to travel a little further than the nearest multiplex to see it, but good news for people who have the sort of cinemas which would show this sort of film.

Bookmarks: Kathleen Hanna

You might have enjoyed Everett True's interview with Kathleen Hanna in the Guardian last week; today he's posted the original transcript to Collapse Board:

When I was 13 me and my best friend Angela Cheever were out on a Friday night, hanging out at video arcades, playing Ms. Pac Man, flirting with boys from our school etc…While walking from this place called ‘Pins and Cues’ to ‘Jerry’s Sub Shop’ I noticed a man was following us. We were near the road but there were no cars and when I told Angie about the man we both started walking really fast and so did he, and then we ran and he started chasing us. Nothing was open but we saw a light on at a funeral home so we ran up the stairs and started pounding on the doors screaming. No one came, but the guy freaked out and backed off. I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened if we didn’t run and he would’ve caught up with us.

From puberty on, I felt like me and my friends were always running. From abusive Dads, men on the streets, or even running away from mean things people would say to us that got stuck in our heads. But running meant we thought we were worth saving. That’s why the record is called Run Fast.

Bikini Kill: New thrill

This year, it's twenty-five years since Bikini Kill started.

How do you mark an occasion like that? Turns out by launching a record label of the same name:

As our 25th anniversary approaches, Bikini Kill has decided to start our own record label called Bikini Kill Records. The Bikini Kill back catalog is currently available digitally via bikinikill.com, eMusic & iTunes. The Frumpies and Casual Dots are also up for sale now. We are working towards reissuing the physical Bikini Kill records one at a time. There are brand new Bikini Kill T Shirts available from bikinikill.com at this time with more merch to come in the near future.

Bikini Kill's Self-Titled EP will come out in the fall of 2012 to commemorate the 20 year anniversary of its original release. We also plan to re-release our original demo tape, which contains songs that were previously unavailable and/or hard to find on vinyl & CD. We are currently going through our archive, which include photographs, practice tapes, live recordings, unreleased songs, films, video, writing, interviews, zines and flyers that we intend to feature on future releases and document on our website. Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive news about our progress.

Best. Jubilee. Ever.

Beth Ditto: Useful

Beth Ditto is charming. It might explain why she seldom gets asked any difficult questions and can say quite surprising things without interviewers going "what was that?"

So, chatting with Tim Jonze in yesterday's Guardian, she said this:

"I feel like I've made a difference for certain people and that's what matters. Growing up with riot grrrl, I feel like I owe it to the me of tomorrow – without sounding too ridiculous – to do this. The people who listened to Gossip when they were 14, they're 20 now and it's no longer cool, but when they're 30 they can look back and think, 'I listened to the Gossip and it was really helpful', and that will be how Bikini Kill or Nirvana were for me."

Jonze is interested more in how Ditto feels in the world of celebrity and so doesn't pick up on the curiously bloodless claim.

Sure, some people grow to be embarrassed by the music they listen to during their teenage years, and, yes, perhaps some look back later on and think "actually, that was quite an important thing that I did for the time". But is that really the way Bikini Kill resonate through people's lives? Riot Grrl was, for those there at the time, a life-changing thing; it wasn't just a phase.

It was a mission, and people on a mission might leave the path, but not because it ceased to be cool. It wasn't dressing up and trying out, it changed the way people fundamentally lived and thought and did. The Bikini Kill Archive is stuffed with evidence of that.

Ditto's description might fit the Gossip. And The Osmonds. And perhaps you might get Le Tigre in to do a remix when you're in need of the attention, then drop them when it's not going to help get the prime-time TV slots, looking back on it later as useful. But it's a total misjudgement of what riot grrl was.

(By the way, isn't it normal when a newspaper writes about a former columnist to normally acknowledge that they wrote a regular piece for that paper? Even if it was a slightly cringey one like What Would Beth Ditto Do?)

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Bikini Kill

Highly recommended: Andy Folk's piece for the Bikini Kill blog on being white, a boy, and loving BK:

My invasion of privacy is somewhat disgusting to me now. Instead of acknowledging Jackie as a real, albeit absent, person, I though of her as 90s archetype like Jane Lane or Angela Chase, retired along with the decade. Still, I would not tell Kat that I was reading her sister’s diary, or that I had turned her into a folk hero in my mind. She had done what hundreds of misfit teens like me constantly dreamed, but such a thing was unthinkable now. We were post-Columbine, post-9/11, it was an age of zero tolerance where being sad or angry meant being accused of plotting a school-shooting. So instead of replicating her actions I replicated her style. I bought the Huggybear split at Generation records, and wore the shirt to the local hardcore and emocore shows. But the shirt was huge on me, and the kids at the show that actually knew Bikini Kill seemed confused, even startled, that a chubby 15 year-old would be wearing a Bikini Kill shirt. At one show an older girl from a lower-Westchester band even asked me why I was wearing it. “I just like Bikini Kill, I guess.” I didn’t understand the question.

Gathering in the Kill

This is what the internet does incredibly well: Kathleen Hanna has set up a Bikini Kill archive blog. She's requesting people to whom the Kill meant something share their thoughts and memories of the band and the times.

[via @KRSstaff]

Ditto: Spears' mental illness "empowering"

We're not sure we quite follow Beth Ditto's delight at Britney's illness, but see if you can:

Beth also says she is proud of troubled pop pin-up BRITNEY SPEARS for shaving off all her hair.

She said: “I’m loving it. If you think what her hair meant to her and what it did to a generation of little girls — she did really turn out a generation of little Britneys.

“And for this to happen is one of the most radical things ever.

“It’s sad and she is sick, but it can also be amazing and empowering. I am going to post her a copy of Rebel Girl lyrics by US punk band BIKINI KILL.”

We suspect, to be fair to Ditto, that the "US punk band" was slipped in by Sun subs, anxious that casual readers might have seen the words Bikini Kill and thought there was a swimwear illness spreading through the nation.

Even, though, if you leave aside the worrying notion that Ditto says, in effect, "yeah, it's a shame you've got a serious mental problem which may result in you losing your family and have, apparently, tried to take your own life, but you're so rad, girlfriend" does she really believe that Britney shaving her own hair off is "one of the most radical things ever"? If only Trotsky had invested in a Remington Home Barber kit, eh? Martin Luther shouldn't have bothered with nailing his demands to the church door - he ought to have just cut out a picture from HairStyles Today and asked his salon to do it "a bit like that." Black Panthers? Chartists? Luddites? Stonewall? Knocked into a cocked hat by ten minutes with the clippers set to number one.

For an act to be radical, doesn't the revolutionary need to be aware of what they're doing? If the Luddites had stood next to a mashed-up Spinning Jenny muttering "well... I thought it was full of lice", wouldn't that somewhat undercut their radicalism?