Ruth PO!

When I started PO! I had some thoughts that could have been principles but I never stuck to them. 1. It's important that females play instruments in bands and girls shouldn't just be the singer. 2. Girl guitarists are particularly cool when they can play interestingly well. 3. Don't form a band with someone you're in a relationship with. 4. Don't have a relationship with anyone in the band. 5. Don't get in a more competent male player to cover up any female lack of ability. These ideas came from punk, from bands like The Raincoats and The Au Pairs which I liked when I was younger. It has proven hard to stick with them and I'm not even sure that they're right. The original version of PO! (Ruth, Julian Marc) and the second version of PO! (Ruth, Jan, Mary) hit my targets, only to be disrupted by the much more tuneful, jangly and downright competent sound when Terri Lowe joined the band, countering principles 4 and 5. From Ducks and Dr

This is a ridiculous question. How could there be a female guitar style? People are people. There's no female way of eating, or sleeping, or going to the toilet.... hang on a minute. The proportion of female to male guitarists is tiny; there are very few females whose playing is considered noteworthy. I think there's two issues going on. 1. Confidence 2. Lack of ownership I'll start with lack of ownership. Modern guitarring is usually about churning out lightning-speed blues runs. It needs a lot of practice and a strong wrist. Boys are often more dedicated to putting in the time with this kind of activity. The hobby/collector/trainspotter mentality runs through guitarring, too. The memorising of names that could be lorries or amplifiers ACs and JCs, the discussions about the merits of digital, analogue, diesel. I find that my memory doesn't tend to hold these numbers and letters easily. BUT I DO KNOW WHAT I LIKE. I won't even mention the guitar as penis