Do people really accuse women who have male backup bands of gender treachery? This seems kind of extreme. While having done a feminist music radio show for 7 years has made me acutely aware of the difficulties women have in getting heard, if I'm going to get pissed at anyone it's probably going to be the music industry, annoying rock critics, lame record execs, etc, before I start chewing out frontwomen whose backup bands are all xy.

Though an acquaintance of mine (who also happens to be in the band Lesbians On Ecstasy) once commented that whenever she hears about one of those big jam bands like !!! or Beirut that are made up of about twenty dudes all bro-ing down together, she's like "Don't you know any women?!" But that's a slightly different phenom than the horn-playing male harem.

Posted by Anna
September 20, 2007, 6:01 PM

Ooh, we have two Nicoles!

Posted by Nicole
September 21, 2007, 3:11 PM

That's a tricky question that I've asked myself and my friends before, especially female friends I know who are in all-male or predominantly male groups. They always express interest in wanting more females to work with but those experiences don't present themselves as often as it does to jam with the boys.

I've also found, in my own personal experience or through said friends, that when a group is forming and practicing, a boy who is learning a new instrument or who is a novice amongst intermediates, is generally treated better with less attention to his faults than a female who seems to 'hold people back' or 'needs to practice more' which may be true, but the attitude has been different. For a female to intervene, she needs to not only be as experienced, but almost even more.

It's a challenging learning curve, thats for sure.

Posted by Danielle
September 21, 2007, 10:18 PM

I have a friend who was studying music in university, and was looking at pop music from a feminist perspective. The teacher had wanted the class to talk about why in so many bands, the female bass player had been placed in a subordinate role on stage, playing near the back. Eventually my friend (a pragmatic professional bass player and conductor) couldn't take the theories of power, gender, and equality anymore, and had to point out that technically the bass player should always play with the clearest view of the percussionists kick-drum foot, in order to aid synchronicity, in particular over weak monitor mixes. And the drums are the naturally loudest instrument, often making the back of the stage the most intelligent acoustic place for them, and hence, the bass player. (the only relevant question then should have been why do so many women gravitate towards the bass guitar?)

I repeat this story as a reminder that the symbols we attach things are in fact fictions that may or may not have a correlation to the reality of the circumstances that created them. Who knows why Feist's band is all men with no women, but seeing as how all of them sing back-up for her, it could very well be that with the tone of her voice she particularly feels that male voices singing lower harmonies complements her best.

"Talent" is SO far from the most important thing in choosing musicians. Personality, appropriateness for the job, dedication to their craft, perseverance through difficult times and harsh living circumstances are all way more important than talent.

There are plenty of opportunities for women in music, but the entire culture of the music industry is extremely male dominated, and that's only changing very slowly right now. One of the major problems, is that women are often valued in music so much more for their sexualized appearance then men, often putting their marketable prime in their early twenties, far before they've reached their musical prime. Men on the otherhand are often given WAY longer to be considered in their marketable prime, allowing them much more time to mature musically (and as human beings) while female counterparts, unless torrentially successful at a young age, will most likely be discarded and forgotten about by the time they reach those ages.

Most importantly, I say, bravo for Feist for "making it" amongst all this, and creating strong mature music that so many of us can enjoy and aspire to, male and female alike.

Posted by Adam
September 24, 2007, 3:04 PM

Oh, I believe the prof had no idea about the logistics of actually playing bass on a big stage, or that a proportionally more women play bass than other "rock band" instruments. He was analyzing this phenomena of putting women behind the men as if they were being marginalized, not realizing that this was really just a bunch of coincidental reasons that put them there that had nothing to do with the politics of power. This was someone with probably way more theoretical experience than actual real experience.

I don't know about how the system is "set-up". I only know what I've observed anecdotally in the music industry. My $0.02...

I know in the past when I've looked for female musicians, I've had a terribly difficult time finding any who were interested in playing in a backing band scenario. I've only ever ended up playing with female lead vocalists, backing them up myself. I've never found any decent female backup musicians who didn't already have a full slate of playing, only lead female vocalists looking for work. I'd have to surmise in this regard, it may even be easier for female backing musicians to find gigs. It certainly seems like proportionally, there are way more out of work male musicians than female musicians. There just seems to be WAY more male musicians in the industry. Heck, I've even been to the recording arts program of Canada, and can tell you there was barely any females enrolled there whatsoever. Perhaps it's the culture of the music industry and subsequent means necessary to make a name for oneself that repulses many females from playing as back-up musicians, or taking other similar roles. It is, after-all, a fairly scuzzy repugnant industry, and very male dominated. Despite absolutely loving playing music, working through this industry doesn't appeal to me, and I can only imagine it appealing even less to the average female. I doubt it's actually harder for women, but less appealing, most definitely.

I strongly believe most of the time you see a female songstress with all male backing musicians, it's most likely not a political statement whatsoever, but a product of simply trying to make the best music they can, with the most appropriate musicians they can find. The attention should be on finding out this: are there a disproportionate amount of females who would be interested in playing music professionally but gave up on the industry early, and if so why? That's most likely the culprit of what you're seeing.
cheers,

-Adam

Posted by Adam
September 25, 2007, 4:39 PM