The Commonspace > September 2002

To borrow from Harry on Third Rock From the Sun, "Women. You can't live with them...and yet there they are!" I myself was raised in a household with seven females. I could write a book on what I don't know about them — I could swim through them, drown in them. They never cease to amaze and inspire me.

When you consider history, the women's revolution is still in its infancy. I've watched their struggle from the sidelines, learned about my own oppression as a man (you can't really feel another's pain 'til you feel your own) and in the course of this journey I wound up here on the southside. Amazing.

The majority of rock clubs on the southside are booked by women — they lead their own bands, move through the scene on as many different levels as there are. Ask any guy why he started playing guitar and chances are he'll say, "Girls." I suspect there's more to it for women (though to be sure some might give that same answer); I don't know. How could I?

What I do know is that I never tire of watching them, hearing them and a fair amount of the time, smelling them. What we're talking about here is watching. These particular women are personal friends of mine, mostly well-known on the local scene. Captain Beefheart once sang, "Nowdays a woman's got to hit a man to let him know she's there." Well, he wrote that a while ago. We know — we know.