Grrrrr...

Angry men and angrier women.

By Margit Detweiler

It was about 11 p.m. On one side of South Street, hundreds of young kids were spilling out of last Monday's free Trip 66 show at the T.L.A.

On the other side of the street, another band, Rudy and Blitz, was picketing the show, waving placards that read, "Release Rudy and Blitz,""We want Rudy and Blitz... Columbia's Death."

Both Trip 66 and Rudy and Blitz are signed to the same label, Ruffhouse/ Columbia. One is being pushed and packaged as the next big thing; the other is feeling like the label abandoned them and stopped caring.

That night, Trip 66, a very young band out of Bucks County, packed in about 1,000 people, according to Ruffhouse publicity. After the show, fans lined up around the block outside Tower Records to snag autographs and buy 130 copies of the group's new self-titled CD.

"It was probably the most successful event myself and Tamra Feldman [of Contract Records] have ever done," said Ruffhouse publicity man Glenn Manko.

All Rudy and Blitz could do was stand across the street and wonder why they didn't get the same kind of treatment from their label.

Welcome to the real life of rock and roll.

Looking more like a merry band of motley pranksters than rebels with a cause (might have been the barbecue sauce on one fan's face), the six or seven protesters (members and friends of the band Rudy and Blitz) sang songs and shouted through a megaphone, "Release Rudy and Blitz!"

Chad Ginsberg, leader of Rudy and Blitz, told me, "Our record has been held up for a really long time — we signed a deal with Ruffhouse but we've been locked in a closet. They won't return our phone calls. It's nothing against Trip 66. It's Columbia Records. Our record fuckin' rules and they won't release it. They owe us a lot of money, and a couple vacations. We're broke. Flat broke."

The band claims their album's been held hostage by the powers that be at Ruffhouse Records out in Conshohocken, that they're owed money from Columbia for recording the album, and that the label hasn't done anything to publicize the band.

"[Ruffhouse] hasn't done anything other than sign a contract and buy me and Dave [bandmate Dave Kloos] a lobster to eat."

Ruffhouse's Manko didn't seem fazed by the Rudy and Blitz protest, but said he understood and thought it was "kinda cute."

"They had every right to assemble," said Manko. "Chad feels that he hasn't been dealt a fair hand."

"There are lots of people who like Rudy and Blitz," he added. "They are a great band. [Ruffhouse co-owner] Joe Nicolo remixed and cut most of the record with Chad and Dave and loved it. But there were some people up in New York [Columbia] who did not share our enthusiasm."

Manko says that he didn't do much publicity for Rudy and Blitz because their album never had a release date — it never made it that far.

Initially, Rudy and Blitz were signed to Contract Recording Company, an indie label affiliated with the Ruffhouse/ Columbia mothership, by A? rep Evan Gusz. The band released a self-produced, 8-track-recorded seven-inch on Contract, but when Gusz left for California for "personal reasons," according to Ruffhouse, much of the promotion for the band stopped.

Rudy and Blitz claim they eventually signed to Ruffhouse and that's when the problems started. The band recorded an album, produced and mixed by Nicolo, but those 20 songs are still locked up in Conshohocken because of Columbia's lack of interest.

Nicolo says he spent months working on the record because he believes in the music.

"I still believe in it. But we work in conjunction with Columbia Records, and you have to get their support if you want to get anything done. As far as us owing them money, I know how much time and effort I put into the album and how much money I'm owed on that record. It's kind of relative — well, who owes who? I can sign a band and put a record out, it can do nothing and it puts their career on hold for two years. But I don't want to do that to the band. It's too good a record..."

So why wasn't Columbia interested? Ginsburg says he believes Columbia's not looking to take any risks on challenging musical material.

"They don't want to hear anybody doing anything different. They could care less about rock and roll, basically."

Contract Records CEO Kevon Glickman has almost the opposite response. He says that Columbia's disinterest was related to the fact that they already had a group that was very similar — The Presidents of the United States of America.

Usually when a major label has success with one band, they start looking for carbon copies — but according to Glickman's rationale, this theory doesn't hold for Rudy and Blitz.

For their part, Columbia had no comment.

Nicolo says Ruffhouse is willing to release the album independently on Contract. Ginsburg claims he won't get paid at all if that happens.

"I guess that's one man's opinion," says Nicolo. "But it's not as if Ruffhouse has a reputation of not paying their artists. If you want to talk to someone who's on Contract who got paid, talk to Schooly D. If I didn't [believe in the project] I'd have given them their tapes, said thank you very much, given them a pat on the ass and sent them on their way."

Ginsburg says he just wants his money and his music.

"We were in Conshohocken for four months. I got physically thrown out of there. I was going there to get some money to fucking live. Every time we went there they promised us money — for two and a half, three months they promised us money. We did our part, we finished the damn record."

Ginsburg adds that the band isn't done making a stink.

"I don't wanna kiss no more ass. I don't think that's rock."

Of course, rock is all about getting angry.

So is being a woman. In her follow-up to the REsearch book Angry Women, author Andrea Juno gives us Angry Women in Rock (on her newly formed book imprint Juno Books) — a look at 15 musicians and women in the music industry who aren't afraid to yell.

Juno offers a thought-provoking collection of lengthy, intense interviews. There's the pro-anger politics of dyke band Tribe 8, who prefer to go shirtless: "You get hot onstage and you take off your shirt. Men have been doing that onstage forever," says bassist Lynn Payne. There's the moving story of The Swans' Jarboe, who recovers from a sexual abuse-filled history and works her way into body-building, art, vegetarianism and the male-dominated band Swans.

Juno speaks with the female heads of record labels K Records and Thrill Jockey, and cultish artists like Phranc, Naomi Yang, Kendra Smith and the first all-woman rock band to be signed to a major label, Fanny. And Juno also interviews more mainstream artists like Chrissie Hynde and Joan Jett, whose stories are just as inspiring. "It never entered my mind that I couldn't play guitar," says Joan Jett. "There's no rule that says girls can't play guitar."

Angry Women in Rock ignites a set of complex conversations about anger as power, anger as rage, anger as rock and roll. Homocore gals Tribe 8 just about embody anger onstage, says Juno. "Yet they are also really cute."

"I love the complexity of Lynn Breedlove, who says, I meditate but yes, I carry a knife. Hell, angry? I'm conscious."

Juno said she had a tough time getting some of the more mainstream artists into the book.

"I would be rejected and I don't think it ever even got to the musician. That's why it was so cool when Chrissie Hynde, who is huge, lights up a joint and it's like this is great, she doesn't care, she's brave enough."

Unsurprisingly, many of these rough-edged artists were inspired by the power found in music by men rather than women — female role models simply aren't as prevalent. June Millington of Fanny was a big Beach Boys head; Candice Pederson of K Records says she's turned on by musicians who stand by their ideals. "I'd be inspired by Ian MacKaye [Fugazi] before I'd be inspired by Liz Phair, regardless of gender," says Pederson.

"Valerie Agnew of Seven Year Bitch has a musical form based on that hard-rockin' kickass male music," says Juno, "yet that band will write lyrics from a more feminist perspective. And she loves things like Blue Oyster Cult. It was really lovely to hear this multi-dimensional level."

A map at the beginning of the book geographically traces the history of women in rock from Joni Mitchell in Vancouver to Kim Deal in Ohio to Stereolab in France. You won't find artists like Madonna, Alanis Morrissette or Mariah Carey on this map. I asked Juno if that's because these artists have been detrimental to the progress of women in rock.

"Could you actually ask that question about men? Once you are the establishment, not the other, then that question doesn't even really apply. In a sense it becomes more complex. Now that women are becoming an established fact of rock and roll, we can have a huge array of really awful women. I happen to love Courtney Love's record, but at the same time, Love as a person? Great, now a woman can act as miserably as some of these males. I don't think what Courtney Love has to say is particularly positive and in my books I always have people that are going to espouse things that I want in a better world. Period. I love Hole. I jog to it. And she has the press as a mouthpiece. I want to give a voice that is not given by the mainstream media."

It's certainly not mainstream to put a picture of Lynn Mah of Tribe 8 flashing a strap-on dildo on the opening page.

"Here's this very outspoken, articulate dyke... I love that she's wearing a strap-on dildo, which makes a whole joke about women in the male bastion, the whole phallic rock, and here she's lifting up her skirt and smiling and laughing. There's humor, irony. "

"And the thing about being a woman in rock is still about being marginalized. But very soon this won't be a big deal."

Beep Beep: A few shows of note: You wanna be politically correct and culturally hip on Sunday, June 30? Go check out a little wild Prague-rock from Uz Jsme Doma (in English, "Now We're At Home"), straight from the Czech Republic to our own Silk City. You wanna be none of those things? On the same night 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell will make a stink at Del Ave.'s Gothum on June 30. Regardless of politics, catch the lovable band Tiny Lights. The fuzzy pop troupe from Hoboken plays John and Peter's in New Hope on July 3.