Fieldnotes #1

I decided to take my first official fieldnotes at the English Cellar Alehouse since I was in the area and Spats was pretty dead. I stepped in on a quiet Monday night and saw a few fellow Brown University students at the pub. Many of these students I have seen at other venues around the area and are constant members of the bar scene, if you will. Another reason I chose the Alehouse was that, from my experience, it has a bigger early weekday scene than the rest of the bars around the hill.

There was music playing in the background – not too loud, but definitely enough to set a relaxed, but lively atmosphere. There were framed quotations about libations peppered throughout the pub, mostly along the main wall though. There was a baseball game on TV, which seemed to negate the “English Accent” that the English Cellar Alehouse was trying to give off. I felt like I was in more of a dive bar in America than a pub in England, but, as I mentioned, it was a very inviting place, mildly reminiscent of some of the places I’ve been to when I’ve visited Yale. It was dimly lit and there were inviting red booths where I bumped into one of my friends and joined her table.

My friend asks our waitress for her “beer list” – a list with all of the beers that the Alehouse has, along with checkmarks on the ones that she’s already had. This list seems to create a loyalty amongst the customers, as the customer wants to keep coming back and get more checks on their list. Before the English Cellar Alehouse was at this location, there was the Liquid Lounge. Being the newest bar on Thayer Street, the beer list is a great way to jumpstart the customer loyalty necessary for a bar to succeed. It seems to have succeed, as the general consensus is that Liquid was fun, but it wasn’t a place where you could just relax with a beer after school or work, as it was more sleazy than anything else.

The location is very convenient for everyone that I talk to, everyone seems to walk past it during the day and it inspires them to pop in for a quick beer after school or work. Right off of Thayer Street, it is in the middle of the bustling street and very convenient to students both on campus and off.

The waiters/waitresses are very friendly and knowledgeable about their beer. Sadly, they didn’t have the pumpkin ale in stock that I had in mind, but my waitress did offer two suggestions, both pumpkin, which I chose between. It’s not as bustling as it would be on a weekend, but the fact that can be both a relaxing place to have one beer, or a busy weekend place to have multiple shows how versatile it is. I left after 45 minutes as I had another engagement to get to, but it was a very nice place to pop into for a drink or two. Perfect for a calm Monday night.

Lines To Be Crossed

Something I thought was very interesting in the study of the “Riot Grrrl Is…” chapter by Schilt was the politics of navigating different boundaries. On one hand, the movement encouraged girls “to move outside the ‘bedroom culture’…and into the realm of subcultural producer” (115,) illustrating how they wanted to redefine what it means to be a female in a subculture by embracing the aspects of the DIY music scene. By taking themselves away from the corporate, the women in this scene were allowed to express their feelings on “the treatment of women in the punk scene” (117,) clearly illustrating a divide between the male and the female identities.

However, on the other hand, I found it extremely interesting when Schilt shed light on the fact that, once the females come together, all other borders are no longer recognized when she delves into the scenes of punk-white girl privilege and alienation of the non-white other. By “denying the race issue…[the scene] led many nonwhite girls to feel that their experiences were devalued” (121.) Sexism isn’t the only thing to create a dialogue about, as there are many other boundaries to be explored even if the “white feminists often…identified with their sisters of color” (121) due to their own feelings of being second-class citizens.

One issue that this debate brings up though, is how political can you get before the Riot Grrrl scene becomes more “about music…[than] about politics”? (122.)

Gender Cement

This was a very interesting post to read, partially because I am very interested in the evolution of indie music, but also because I can see how dated this piece is. Nowadays, females are prevalent in indie rock music, especially in relation to some of the stuff currently coming out of Britain. I think it’s very important to study the history and to note these changes, and I hope that these issues will be brought up in class tomorrow.

I think that the fact that family life was such a huge limitation for women, as there was a large amount of “focus on the domestic and kinship networks of…musicians” (21.) This fact, coupled with the locational difficulties that held women back from going to, let alone participating in, the indie rock scene.

That being said, this brings up a very interesting contradiction as Cohen points out. While there were defined domestic relationships based on the biological sex roles, the actual gender roles were slightly blurred as the men often played a role of “masculinity that is rather soft, vulnerable and less macho…than that promoted by” (29) the more traditionally masculine types of music such as heavy metal. If a woman were included in this image as a member of the band, she would radically alter this illusion of sensitive male. If she was sensitive as well, the audience would not believe he has been harmed by her, but if she is an “outspoken and sharp-tongued” (21) Liverpudlian woman, as most were portrayed as at the time, the man would be at risk of looking like a “‘cissy’[, a familiarly harsh nickname given to them] by their male peers” (31) when they were younger.

These very defined gender boundaries changed what roles men and women had in this era; however, I am left wondering how/when/why did the shift begin toward the roles of today?