The Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band
was the self- described “agit-rock” arm of the Chicago Women’s
Liberation Union. Founded in 1969, the union was an umbrella
organization, rooted in principles that came to be identified as
socialist feminism, focusing on projects in education, service, and
direct-action, by and for women. Naomi Weisstein organized the band in March
of 1970. Though later in the decade punk rock would affirm that indeed
“anyone can play”, feminism spread that plain truth to women early on.
“Our early women’s movement said that any woman could do anything”.
Many lent their efforts during the initial
months, and the band debuted in Grant Park that summer with 12 singers
and 4 guitarists: by all accounts it was a musical disaster, proving the
open membership policy untenable. Soon after, the band’s core lineup
solidified: Susan Abod (bass, vocals), Sherry Jenkins (guitar, vocals),
Patricia Miller (guitar, vocals), Linda Mitchell (manager), Fania
Mantalvo (drums), Suzanne Prescott (drums). and Weisstein (keyboards). Like the union itself, the band was about
action, but steeped in ideology, born of it. The band theorized its
purpose, debated its role, and even documented the course of its
thoughts. In a “Work Group Analysis,” written late in 1972, the band saw
itself expanding the union’s scope in a vital way.
The band’s assault on male rock hegemony,
simultaneously straightforward and tricky, used both music and humor.
The latter came out primarily during the raps and theater. Abod recalls
one particular crowd-phasing routine. “We did the Kinks ‘ You Really Got
Me’ but with a whole new set of lyrics that started with ‘Man,’ instead
of ‘Girl,’ and we pranced holding our ‘cocks’ like Mick Jagger. Or
whatever rock star we found really annoying, and it would just look
ridiculous. And the audience was totally into the guerrilla theater of
it—they’d shriek and grab at our legs like groupies. It was so much fun,
laughing at a culture that had kept us down.”
All through 1971 and ‘72, the band racked
up more gigs, traveling to Colorado Springs, Indianapolis, Ithaca,
Lewisburg, Pittsburgh, Toronto and elsewhere, and playing locally at
universities (U of C, UIC) Wobbly Hall on Lincoln, and the People’s
Church on Lawrence. They got better as they played. And though
clearly making history all along, the band was eventually able to freeze
its moment in vinyl for posterity. In the spring of ‘72 they journeyed
to Massachusetts, where, along with their counterparts in the New Haven
Women’s Liberation Rack Band, they recorded on album for Rounder
Records. “Mountain Moving Day” was released that fall, with each band
contributing one side.
The band broke up in mid-1973, after
Weisstein moved to the East Coast. The union continued until 1977. The
others wrote to the union, upon dissolution, that “expanding a feminist
vision through titanic will continue by the formation of new bands,”
This, then, is the legacy of these women who played hard and thought
rigorously—the very idea, so very empowering, of women rocking, echoed
today in the riot grrl call for."all girls to be in bands."
