FALLOPIAN RHAPSODY

A brash, attitude-heavy history of the all-female 1990s pop-punk act.

Formed in New York City in the late 1980s, the Lunachicks were never a critical darling or commercial success. But they earned an adoring cult following thanks to a unique jokey persona steeped in John Waters–style trash culture and a determination to succeed at a time when women artists were marginalized. They recall (the memoir is written collectively) having pint glasses flung at them onstage and having their gigs canceled because another all-woman act had recently played a venue. That stoked a defiantly rude attitude—sample chapters: “Close Encounters of the Turd Kind,” “We Left Our Farts in San Francisco,” “Binge and Purgatory,” “Cumming Into Our Own”—that for better and for worse made them an island unto themselves. “We were horror movie creatures and we were cartoons and we were political and we were feminists and we were a punk band,” they write. “No box existed for us.” Readers will root for them, partly because they endured so much: perverted fans, drug addiction, sleazy male musicians, and manipulative producers. Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon took the band under their wing early but seemed determined to force them into a “foxcore” pigeonhole. Readers will also appreciate the candid storytelling: Drummer Becky Wreck describes her regular stint on the Howard Stern Show; bassist Squid goes scarifyingly deep on her heroin and cocaine addictions; and everybody has a story about a trashed hotel room or hairbreadth escape from some alcohol-soaked drama. Their fixation on burps and farts didn’t endear them to Riot grrrl intellectuals, but they were feminists all the same: “Those totally normal actions that happen to every single species on the planet are deemed foul and improper for women? Fuck you, we’re gonna weaponize them and come after you.”

Trashy rock ’n’ roll fun—a Thunderbird alternative to typical rock-memoir Chardonnay.