Ebbs and flows
Women as musicians in Perth popular music, 1980s–1990s
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.38592Keywords:
arts, gender, equality, women, Perth, The Triffids, popular musicAbstract
This article calls for a recognition of women’s roles in contributing to the Perth popular music scene during the 1980s and 1990s. The research thus functions as a balance to the already established literature which explores Perth popular music around this period more broadly. The research herein indicates a surge in women’s musicianship following on from the relatively low levels of women’s participation in the late 1960s to early 1970s. It has also been noted in popular music studies literature that women in music are generally written out of dominant narratives. Thus, this research functions to redress some of those gaps. Through a mixed-methods approach comprising semi-structured interviews and literature review, it is revealed that women faced unique challenges for inaugurating community and securing careers in the Perth industry during the 1980s and 1990s. The greatest surge in participation occurs the mid- to late 1990s.
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Stratton, Jon. 2005. ‘Pissed on Another Planet’. Perfect Beat: The Pacific Journal of Research into Contemporary Music and Popular Culture 7/2: 36–60.
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—2008. ‘The Difference of Perth Music: A Scene in Cultural and Historical Context’. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 22/5: 613–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304310802311634
—2009. ‘Suburban Stories: Dave McComb and the Perth Experience’. In Vagabond Holes: David McComb and The Triffids, ed. Niall Lucy and Chris Coughran, 35–48. North Fremantle, Perth: Fremantle Press.
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Strong, Catherine, and Ian Rogers. 2016. ‘She-Riffs: Gender and the Australian Experience of Alternative Rock and Riot Grrrl in the 1990s’. Journal of World Popular Music 3/1: 38–53. https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.v3i1.31132
Summers, Anne. 1975. Damned Whores and God’s Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin.
Bayton, Mavis. 1998. Frock Rock: Women Performing Popular Music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Bennett, Rebecca. 2005. ‘Home-Grown: Music from the Backyard’. In Liverpool of the South Seas, ed. Tara Brabazon, 88–96. Perth: University of Western Australia.
Brabazon, Tara, ed. 2005. Liverpool of the South Seas. Perth: University of Western Australia.
Dear, Felicity, and Jon Bannister. 2008. ‘Felicity Dear interviewed by John Bannister in the Perth Independent Music Project’. Sound recording. Online at https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/33973429?selectedversion=NBD43263913 (accessed 30 October 2018).
Gare, Anna, and Jon Bannister. 2008. ‘Anna Gare interviewed by John Bannister in the Perth Independent Music Project’. Sound recording. Online at https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4320263 (accessed 30 October 2018).
Glitsos, Laura. 2016. ‘Nice Girls Don’t Jive: The Rise and Fade of Women in Perth Music from the late 1950s to the early 1970s’. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 31/2: 200–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2016.1257695
Gregory, Jenny. 2003. City of Light: A History of Perth since the 1950s. Perth: City of Perth.
Homan, S. 2000. ‘Losing the Local: Sydney and the Oz Rock Tradition’. Popular Music 19/1: 31–49. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000000040
Houghton, D. S. 1990. ‘Perth’. Cities 7/2: 99–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/0264-2751(90)90064-E
Kimbo. 2015. ‘Lynda Nutter’. Women of Aussie Music (blog), 21 November 2015. Online at http://womenofaussiemusic.blogspot.com/2015/11/lynda-nutter.html (accessed 30 October 2018).
Leonard, Marion. 2007. Gender in the Music Industry: Rock, Discourse and Girl Power. Aldershot: Ashgate.
—2016. ‘Girls at Work: Gendered Identities, Sex Segregation, and Employment Experiences in the Music Industries’. In Voicing Girlhood in Popular Music: Performance, Authority, Authenticity, ed. Jacqueline Warwick and Allison Adrian, 36–55. New York: Routledge.
Lucy, Niall, and Chris Coughran, eds. 2009. Vagabond Holes: David McComb and The Triffids. North Fremantle, Perth: Fremantle Press.
McComb, David. 1995. ‘Biography by David McComb’. Online at http://thetriffids.com/biography/ (accessed 30 October 2018).
McComb, Robert. 2009. ‘Happy Wheels’. In Vagabond Holes: David McComb and The Triffids, ed. Niall Lucy and Chris Coughran, 231–38. North Fremantle, Perth: Fremantle Press.
McFarlane, Ian. 1999. ‘Encyclopedia entry for “The Triffids”’. Online at https://web.archive.org/web/20040417003225/http:/www.whammo.com.au/encyclopedia.asp?articleid=737 (accessed 30 October 2018).
Meltzer, Larry. 2011. ‘Born Sandy Devotional, The Triffids’. Great Australian Albums. Melbourne: SBS One/Informit. Online at http://link.lis.curtin.edu.au/gw?url=https://edutv.informit.com.au/watch-screen.php?videoID=110921 (accessed 2 November 2019).
Nichols, David. 2009. ‘Wow and Flutter’. In Vagabond Holes: David McComb and The Triffids, ed. Niall Lucy and Chris Coughran, 79–91. North Fremantle, Perth: Fremantle Press.
Nutter, Lynda, and Jon Bannister. 2008. ‘Lynda Nutter interviewed by John Bannister in the Perth Independent Music Project’. Sound recording. Online at https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/35649030?q&versionId=44377520 (accessed 30 October 2018).
Parri, Linda. 2016. ‘Perth Rock Guitarist Jaime Page Announces She’s Transgender’. PerthNow, 27 March 2016. Online at https://www.perthnow.com.au/entertainment/confidential/perth-rock-guitarist-jaime-page-announces-shes-transgender-ng-78c3beee192ae426a244b2dddb0d3774 (accessed 31 October 2019).
Perthpunk.com. 2013. ‘Billy Orphan’s Tears and the Perth Punk Era: A Brief History’. Online at http://www.perthpunk.com/personal-perspectives/sue-edmonds-nee-howard/ (accessed 30 October 2018).
Reddington, Helen. 2007. The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Rodgers, Tara. 2010. Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822394150
Rosemary Beads, The. 2015. ‘Then’. Online at https://www.therosemarybeads.com.au/news-reviews-90s-perth-band-past.htm (accessed 30 October 2018).
Sedgewick, Augustine. 2014. ‘Against Flows’. History of the Present 4/2: 143–70. https://doi.org/10.5406/historypresent.4.2.0143
Stratton, Jon. 2005. ‘Pissed on Another Planet’. Perfect Beat: The Pacific Journal of Research into Contemporary Music and Popular Culture 7/2: 36–60.
—2007. ‘The Triffids: The Sense of a Place’. Popular Music and Society 30/3: 377–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007760600835108
—2008. ‘The Difference of Perth Music: A Scene in Cultural and Historical Context’. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 22/5: 613–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304310802311634
—2009. ‘Suburban Stories: Dave McComb and the Perth Experience’. In Vagabond Holes: David McComb and The Triffids, ed. Niall Lucy and Chris Coughran, 35–48. North Fremantle, Perth: Fremantle Press.
Stratton, Jon, and Adam Trainer. 2016. ‘Nothing Happens Here: Songs about Perth’. Thesis Eleven 135/1: 34–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513616657884
Strong, Catherine. 2011. ‘Grunge, Riot Grrl and the Forgetting of Women in Popular Culture’. Journal of Popular Culture 44/2: 398–416. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00839.x
Strong, Catherine, and Ian Rogers. 2016. ‘She-Riffs: Gender and the Australian Experience of Alternative Rock and Riot Grrrl in the 1990s’. Journal of World Popular Music 3/1: 38–53. https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.v3i1.31132
Summers, Anne. 1975. Damned Whores and God’s Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin.
Published
2019-12-04
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Glitsos, L. (2019). Ebbs and flows: Women as musicians in Perth popular music, 1980s–1990s. Perfect Beat, 19(2), 142-160. https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.38592
