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I almost played in to that
whole game
But the boy's club hung a sign
that said:
No girls allowed
“xml:namespace
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Northampton’s Iron Horse Music Hall was crammed
full…Cassidy, with her Robert Plant curls and convulsive elbows, leaned toward the microphone in rhythm with Cathy Henderson’s
wah-wah guitar.
“Did it hit where she aimed…or where it hurt?” Cassidy snarled. “Did it wipe off that smile…”
Then she cooed the magic words: “…with dollar bills, dollar bills?”
Audience members, having been rocked and rolled onto their asses all night long, crumpled up green singles and launched
them toward the stage. A few legal tender projectiles reached Dena Tauriello as she generated more noise from a single-bass-drum
set than should be humanly possible…some bounced off Anne-Marie Stehn, standing stoically, her bass guitar holding the
line. Cassidy giggled and covered her eyes: she knows the routine…she knows the score.
To her left, Kristen Henderson (Cathy’s little sister) strums her guitar and smiles, but her eyes are closed…lost
in the moment, immersed in the music…gripped by the raw power of rock and roll the way it’s meant to be played.
AR’s website describes their sound as such: “A blend of 70's harmonies and rock guitar mixed with an unmatched
musicianship and pop ethic.” This isn’t even half of it. Anthemic choruses, on-stage hijinks, power chords, spontaneous
jam sessions, choice cover songs like “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “Fat Bottomed Girls,” and
an authenticity that others cannot even imagine pulling off…that’s about half of it.
*
*
*
Mickey Z.: What other career paths did you consider and why?
Kristen H.: I never considered any other career path.
*
*
*
When it comes to music, I’m not easy to please and I’m not big on high-tech gadgetry. I’m with Ani
DiFranco when she says: “People used to make records/as in the record of an event/the event of people/playing music
in a room.”
That’s one of the various reasons I’m partial to Antigone Rising (AR). This five-piece band of dynamos
is the event of people playing music in a room. No cross-marketing…no image
makeovers…at an AR gig, you get extended jams, drum solos, bass solos, and fans that rival the Deadheads for allegiance…all
with the occasional prom dress thrown in for good measure. These gals play rock and roll as if their lives depend on it.
“We’re full-time,” explains Kristen. “Anne-Marie sells the ticket, Cassidy rips it, Dena scoops
your popcorn into the bucket, Cathy rolls the projector, and I clean the bathroom. We play approximately 20 shows a month…give
or take.” With AR, it’s more give: no-frills music that soothes your soul and rocks your roll.
“If we wore shorter skirts and slinky tops,” Kristen continues caustically, “they might let us sit
on their laps and have a record deal.”
I strongly suggest you don’t count on that happening any time soon.
*
*
*
Note: Read the following out loud…as quickly as you can.
MZ: Joni Mitchell
KH: Blue
MZ: Patti Smith
KH: Poet
MZ: Chrissie Hynde
KH: Rebel
MZ: Courtney Love
KH: Smelly
MZ: Madonna
KH: Yes
MZ: Ani DiFranco
KH: Rad
MZ: Joan Jett
KH: Joan Jett
MZ: Freddie Mercury
KH: Powerful
*
*
*
AR crisscrosses the country in a white van named, well, Vanna White. “There is so much to say about Vanna White,”
declares Kristen. “She’s our home on the road. She’s the only consistent thing we’re got when we’re
‘out there.’ She ended up with a name because we’re a little off.
But she’s pretty and good to us. We all just love her.”
Forget what you think you know about “girl rock.” AR defies—check that—sneers at gender categorization. If you can’t get past the fact that the band kicking your ass is made up
of five charismatic and stunning women, well, you don’t know shit about rock music. You also probably don’t know
how to pronounce the band’s name.
“I got a D on my college paper about Antigone, so I'm not the best member to ask,” Kristen admits. “But
if I check the liner notes on our CD, she's the first female rebel to defy a king. We think that's pretty rad. We added ‘Rising’
because it's better to rise than fall. We almost re-named the band after we re-formed in late 1999 to the Angora Debs. If
you know what that means, then you know how opposite it lies on the literary spectrum from Antigone Rising. The Angora Debs
were a ‘girl gang’ from Laverne and Shirley. We got talked out of the
change and have since been teaching much of the East Coast how to pronounce ‘an-TIG-uh-nee’.”
*
*
*
MZ: What's your favorite venue?
KH: After 240 shows in a year, my favorite venue is home.
*
*
*
It’s less than a month after Northampton and Vanna is parked somewhere outside the Village Underground (home
of the most unorganized coat check in the world)…while AR does their thang on stage. The place is sold-out: a combination
of longtime loyalists and a new wave of converts. I’m soaking in the NYC vibe as Cassidy releases the angst of “She
Lived Here,” crooning:
“Did
it wipe off that smile with dollar bills, dollar bills?”
The currency takes wing. I asked Kristen how George Washington started his flying career.
“A very smart girl wafted a dollar bill from the balcony of a club in Princeton, NJ. It caught on…and it
pays our gas bills when we tour. It’s an amazing thing.”
“AR inspires loyalty and devotion because they are the real thing,” says super-fan Karen Wagner of “Where’s
Karen?” fame. “They take the time to talk. They care what their fans think or say.”
*
*
*
MZ: What have you learned during your time in AR?
KH: Interviews never come out the way you think they will.
MZ: What didn't happen that you expected to happen?
KH: Do you have all day? I expected everything and got nothing. It’s when I stopped
expecting and started being that I got what I expected.
*
*
*
You gotta appreciate a band that inspires such loyal fans (they load Ms. White after each show, for chrissake). Like
The Boss in his Stone Pony days or back when U2 used to close their shows with a sing-along version of “40,” an
AR gig is highly interactive…in a Rocky Horror kind of way: giant rubber
thumbs, fans photographing the band, the band photographing the fans, and those airborne dollar bills. Sure, these girls can
rock and they take their music seriously but that doesn’t mean they’re not having some goofy fun up there as they
work and re-work songs.
“When you tour full-time,” Kristen explains, “playing the same songs every night can get stale so
we stretch some songs out, rearrange other songs here and there if it makes sense…whatever we can do to keep it interesting
for us without depriving the audience the songs they want to hear. Hey, bass and drum solos are why you go to rock concerts,
aren’t they?”
*
*
*
MZ: Where do you see the band next year at this time?
KH: In a hotel somewhere, watching TV.
MZ: Five years from now?
KH: Same.
*
*
*
Like it or not, AR is often labeled a “girl band” and this brings with it the inevitable baggage of sexism,
feminism, and chauvinism.
“Naturally, female ‘issues’ come into play when you're an all-female band in a male dominated industry,”
concedes Kristen. “It creeps into lyrics here and there, but I wouldn't say it's a central theme of our music. I'd say
we sing songs about whatever our truths are at the moment. The intention is to play songs that everyone can relate to…sorta
like, ‘Insert song here, mend wound.’ We try to set an example by doing rather than saying. We're a full-time,
5-piece, all-female independent rock band. We just do it and let it speak for itself. We don't focus on being too political
because we want people to come to our shows and get their minds off things for a minute. But if there's an issue of the week
that needs addressing, you can pretty much bet that Cassidy will sneak a statement in during the last pause of ‘Push
It’.”
