While thousands gathered outside Avalon on Lansdowne Street to cheer on the Red Sox in Game 1 of the World Series, a smaller group of dance rock fans clustered inside the club walls to hear a lesser-known band named Le Tigre, who could be attracting a broader audience in the next few months.
“What’s this, like the Super Bowl or something?” Le Tigre frontwoman Kathleen Hanna asked the crowd that packed the dance floor Saturday night.
The release of the self-described “electronic punk feminist dance rock” group’s latest LP, “This Island” (Universal), last Tuesday marked its first major label debut since the group formed in 1998.
“We almost felt like we were making a poppier record so we actually felt like we might be making something that a major label would want,” said Le Tigre co-founder Johanna Fateman. “At the same time we were making something that we felt would be really important to get out in our kind of political climate.”
However, Fateman said Le Tigre’s experience transitioning to a major label was not as restricting as some people assume. “Because we’ve been doing everything ourselves for such a long time, it’s been really great to be like ‘Oh, this is the person who’s gonna take over this job I’ve been doing,'” Fateman said. “And there’s more of an infrastructure to support us with doing what we want to do.”
The label supported the release of the song “New Kicks,” a remix of speeches from anti-war protests, as the first single off the album.
“We felt that was really awesome that they were supportive of taking the most explicitly political song; it’s a song that’s totally not pop, there’s not even our vocals on it. So the fact that we got support for that idea made us feel really good like we could use the machine for our purposes,” Fateman said. The concept of “New Kicks” is not new to Le Tigre, who used a similar tactic on the song “Dyke March 2001” on their 2001 LP “Feminist Sweepstakes” (Mr. Lady).
“Part of what we’re interested in as a band is documenting things and not letting things be lost or forgotten,” Fateman said. “Part of what we’re about in these songs is to let people know that there is a real culture of resistance out there.”
Hanna, Fateman and fellow bandmate JD Samson are no strangers to the culture of resistance. The trio has been making politically-charged music since they recorded the song “What’s Yr Take on Cassavettes,” which criticized the independent film maker John Cassavettes, and the track “My My Metrocard,” that took several jabs at former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, on their 1999 self-titled release on Mr. Lady.
“This Island” is no different. Besides “New Kicks,” the album also includes “Viz,” a song about butch lesbian visibility and “Seconds,” a slam on President George W. Bush.
“When George Bush won, I just wanted to pull the blanket up over my head,” Hanna said before performing “Seconds” Saturday. “But then I realized, ‘Oh shit, I have to do something.'” Performing in front of a large screen that projected images of Bush’s face being erased and a toy cowboy rocking back and forth on a world map, Hanna sang “Where’d you get all the attention/Your daddy’s money’s too base to mention/His coattails are looking worn/You’ve had a nice ride that’s for sure.”
Not all of the new LP is political, however. Le Tigre offers their version of the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited” and the dance-track “After Dark” as well as the sultry and deeply personal Ric Ocasek, former frontman of The Cars, produced track “Tell You Now.”
“That was an interesting experience, working with [Ocasek], but we never worked with anyone that early in the process who listened to our demo of the song and had structuring ideas and had someone who’s really a master of the pop formula,” Fateman said. “Having someone like that in the process was really rewarding and totally different but really interesting.” Despite the praise “Tell You Now” has been receiving in reviews, after six years and three albums, the members of Le Tigre remain unaffected by criticism.
“I think actually the way we deal with politics on this record shows that we’re more confident with our subject matter and more confident with who we are; we don’t have to set out to write a political song, the songs are political because of who we are,” Fateman said, in response to a recent review in Spin Magazine that accused the band of “tip-toeing” around issues. “I guess if you work for Spin magazine, you’re only looking for a few catch phrases or something.”
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