Veteran Music Journalist Katherine Yeske Taylor Releases She's A Bad Ass

Published: Jan. 18, 2024, 1 a.m.

b'In She\\u2019s a Badass, music journalist Katherine Yeske Taylor interviews twenty significant and compelling women in rock, devoting an entire chapter to each one, taking an in-depth look at the incredible talent, determination\\u2014and, often, humor\\u2014they needed to succeed in their careers (and life). Interviewees range from legendary artists through notable up-and-comers: Suzi Quatro, Ann Wilson (Heart), Exene Cervenka (X), Gina Schock (The Go-Go\'s), Lydia Lunch, Suzanne Vega, Cherie Currie (The Runaways), Joan Osborne, Donita Sparks (L7), Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses/The Breeders/Belly), Paula Cole, Tobi Vail (Bikini Kill), Laura Veirs, Catherine Popper, Amanda Palmer, Bonnie Bloomgarden (Death Valley Girls), Orianthi, Fefe Dobson, and Sade Sanchez (L.A. Witch). Their experiences reveal the varied and unique challenges these women have faced, how they overcame them, and what they think still needs to be done to continue making progress on the equality front. Their stories prove that promoting feminism\\u2014either through activism or by living example\\u2014is undeniably badass. A very special Afterword is included from Susan Rogers, the longtime in-house recording engineer for Prince. Feminism has always been a complex and controversial topic, as female rock musicians know especially well. Over the course of the twenty conversations artists such as Ann Wilson share their experience and views on how women are still treated differently than their male counterparts and that it still happens "...constantly. All the time,\\u201d Wilson tells Yeske Taylor, adding, "By standing up and being bold and not being submissive, do females go against the very basis of their gender, as it applies to culture? If they do, then that\\u2019s called being rebellious.\\u201d And, as Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill notes in her chapter, that element of rebellion remains necessary to this day: \\u201cIf you look at history, you can see that progress is not linear; it goes back and forth, You never know when [progress] is going to go backwards, so you always have to be fighting. You have to be aware that rights we do have were achieved through political struggle. You can\\u2019t take them for granted.\\u201d'