Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir

by Carrie Brownstein

At the time, Riot Grrrl was a movement that the mainstream press was desperate to understand. News outlets continually attempted to infiltrate the underground, never to really get a handle on it, only serving to mischaracterize its impact. Heavens to Betsy was a wolf in sheep’s clothing: two small women who took up very little physical space on a stage. Typically when a two-person band performs live, they find ways of compensating for their diminutive population via aesthetic amplification and augmentation. They surround themselves with a cityscape of amplifiers; they use drum risers and lighting to create formidable shadows, a landscape of giants; they find ways to add a sense of largeness. But Corin had only her handmade guitar that her father had helped build. It was a crude piece of machinery painted matte black, and it looked like a home appliance that had been melted down in a fire. And she played with the tiniest of amps, an orange Roland cube with one speaker, the entire thing the size of a carry-on suitcase. No pedals, no tuner. She was accompanied by Tracy Sawyer, the drummer and occasional bass player Corin had dragged along with her to Olympia from their childhood hometown of Eugene, Oregon. Tracy backed up Corin tentatively but proudly, stubbornly, the way a younger sibling would, with a secret and shy courage. The noise they made in Heavens to Betsy was vicious and strange. It completely changed one’s notion of what it meant to be powerful onstage. It was not...

This is perfect.