\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTammy Rae Carland*<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tBut they\u2019re returning at a grim time for the state of the union, especially for queer fans. As\u00a0 Bleyle quips, \u201cShould we just thank religious extremists for the fact that we can just keep on doing what we do?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTeam Dresch blew up in a golden age for feminist punk rock, with all four members already established in their own bands. But they cheekily chose to name themselves after Dresch, a very Seventies-rock thing to do\u2014Dresch wasn\u2019t the singer, but she was older, and they all idolized her. \u201cThat is why the band is named after Donna,\u201d Wilson says. \u201cShe was an inspiration to me. At age 16, I got my hands on a zine called Homocore<\/em>, and in that Homocore<\/em> was an ad for Donna\u2019s Chainsaw<\/em> zine. I started writing her letters. I was in high school. I was so tormented, gay in high school, and I\u2019m just going to have to say that Donna saved my life.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\t\u201cBut we all have a different experience with finding each other in the music scene. I remember the first time seeing Jodi being like, \u2018Oh, my God. That\u2019s a real badass dyke, and I am a wuss.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t know that,\u201d Bleyle marvels with a hearty laugh.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI was so<\/em> scared to meet you!\u201d Wilson says. \u201cI was a poseur trying to be tough in the scene, but I was such a little baby. Very shy \u2014 I pretended I wasn\u2019t, but I definitely was.\u201d\u00a0 Bleyle, like Wilson, was totally starstruck by Dresch. \u201cMy bandmates in Hazel introduced us, because they used to work together at the Smithfield in Olympia. But the first time I met Donna, I didn\u2019t even say anything. I just sang the bassline from her seven-inch. It was like animals butt-sniffing.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt didn\u2019t take long for them to start playing music. \u201cThe three of us initially started the band together, me and Donna and Jodi,\u201d Wilson says. \u201cWe found Marceo [Martinez], and then we found Melissa later, and now we\u2019re a five-piece for life. But that experience of seeing the other dyke in the room who was really good at music\u2014that was, for me, just the most mind-blowing moment of my life as a teenager.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMargarita\/La Pussygata Inc.*<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThere\u2019s always been rage in Team Dresch\u2019s music, but the main emotion that comes across is communal joy \u2014 that\u2019s part of the kick of their excellent new album Furthermore<\/em>. \u201cI do it for you,\u201d they declare in the excellent new anthem \u201cOne Song.\u201d \u201cThe lonely young one that was me\/Who\u2019s in me\/And who may be in you.\u201d Countless lonely young ones over the years have heard themselves in Team Dresch\u2019s music, which is why their music has never faded away.<\/p>\n \n\tThe early Nineties was a turning point in rock history, where bands like Nirvana brought mass appeal to guitar rock, while the riot grrrl movement exploded as women punks started their own bands, zines, labels, scenes, on a level that had never happened before. Punk rockers began refusing to hide the queer sensibility that had always been in the music. \u201cWe wanted to meet other people like us,\u201d Bleyle says. \u201cWe all were \u2018music first, music first,\u2019 but then I think each of us got to a place where it was like, \u2018We\u2019ve got to fuse these two parts of ourselves or it\u2019s not enough.\u2019 The band was a way for us to expand that space and meet people, basically, and the way to do that was to be really explicit about saying what we needed to hear. So it was very just instinctual \u2014 like survival instincts.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJody Bleyle was already the drummer for Hazel, while Kaia Wilson played in Adickdid (and later the Butchies) and her label Mr. Lady Records. Martinez was the drummer in Calamity Jane. Bleyle did the legendary Candy Ass label, which put out the original Team Dresch records, along with Dresch\u2019s label Chainsaw. Candy Ass also put out the influential 1995 compilation Free to Fight<\/em>, featuring crucial artists like Heavens to Betsy, Excuse 17, the Spinanes\u2019 Rebecca Gates, and the Third Sex. It was dedicated to instruction in self-defense for women, in the face of misogynistic and homophobic violence. (\u201cTarget Practice\u201d had the memorable chorus, \u201cIf you choose to fight \/ Remember these are the places to hit \/ Eyes, knees, groin, throat.\u201d) These punks were not playing around.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Martinez left after the first album, York took over the kit, but on Martinez\u2019s return, the band just kept going with both drummers. (Martinez came out as transmasculine in 2019.) They\u2019ve continually played killer live shows over the years \u2014 for all their individual projects, something has always kept calling them back to this core mission. Kaia Wilson once summed it up perfectly with the wise words of Stevie Nicks. \u201cYou can never get away from the sound of a woman who loves you,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThat\u2019s our band. Our band is the woman who loves us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut in recent years, they felt the urge to write new material. \u201cWe had been talking about making a new record for so long and never did it,\u201d Wilson says. \u201cFast-forward to a couple years ago, at a Buddhist restaurant, having a nice lunch on a tour in Oakland, California. Jodi freaked out and said, \u2018I can\u2019t keep playing these same 22 songs over and over\u2014it\u2019s like Groundhog Day<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhen they started working on these new songs on Furthermore<\/em>, it was long-distance, via Zoom. But for them, that wasn\u2019t so far from the spirit of the early days, when kids in different towns connected via zines and became long-distance pen pals. \u201cWe figured it out,\u201d York says. \u201cBecause I was the only one who was on the totally other, opposite coast, I had to get scrappy with being involved in this process. I consider myself scrappy, and I\u2019m in a band with four other scrappy people. We\u2019ve always been scrappy.\u201d As if to illustrate the point, York\u2019s cat keeps forcefully clawing her way on camera. \u201cTalk about dykes in the pit,\u201d York says. \u201cThat\u2019s what we call her. She\u2019s very aggressive, but with a soft side.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s definitely rare for bands to return sounding this recharged. \u201cI just found out the other day from listening to our local radio station that Haircut 100 also just released their third record,\u201d Bleyle says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s their first in 42 years. I was like, \u2018We are soulmates! But I\u2019m an uber-fan. I would air drum to Haircut 100 when I was wee little because I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment with me and my mom. There was no room for drums. But it was all about the freaking Haircut 100 and Donna Summer, I might add.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOne of Team Dresch\u2019s most beloved songs is \u201cUncle Phranc,\u201d about their experience as young punks meeting the legendary L.A artist Phranc, who used to play in hardcore bands like Catholic Discipline before her makeover as the self-proclaimed \u201call American Jewish lesbian folksinger.\u201d She served as a mentor to Team Dresch\u2019s generation. (As they sing, \u201cShe told me not to fuck with straight girls \/ She told me not to take pills.\u201d) But by now, this band has hung in there long enough to become that same sort of mentor figure, communicating with younger listeners who weren\u2019t born the first time around.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYeah, it\u2019s the gender euphoria, the queer joy,\u201d Bleyle says. \u201cIt\u2019s just giving yourself permission to just be as happy as you can fucking be. When we ask, \u2018What do we want to experience for three minutes when we\u2019re at the show?,\u2019 it\u2019s \u2018I want this<\/em> \u2014 I want to see all the beautiful faces just jumping up and down and knowing that they\u2019re the fucking best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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