Video: Gina Birch – “I Play My Bass Loud”
Directed by Vice Cooler. From I Play My Bass Loud, out February 24 on Third Man.
Kurt Cobain and Thurston Moore loved the Raincoats, which signaled to the world that they were real feminists. Nineties feminism was cool because it was less about power dynamics and more about personal agency. Like, if a precocious sophomore wanted to bang her English professor, we just trusted her judgment…even while acknowledging that the prof was creepy.
Way before the nineties, inspired by the Slits, Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the Raincoats in London in 1977 and released their debut album in 1979. Their sound was weirder and freakier than their British boy band contemporaries like the Damned and the Clash. John Lydon has said, “The Raincoats offered a completely different way of doing things, as did X-Ray Spex and all the books about punk have failed to realise that these women were involved for no other reason than that they were good and original.” It’s not surprising that “girl bands” have been overlooked, but it is a bummer that needs to be corrected.
And now Raincoats bassist Gina Birch is putting out an album on Third Man Records. “I Play My Bass Loud” is the second single.