Rock Goes Coed

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

The basic model for a rock-'n'-roll band has always been four buddies playing guitars and drums. That all-male unit has been fundamental -- rock's version of the nuclear family. And where have women fit in? Often as the girlfriends about whom misogynistic lyrics could be written. Women have sung in girl groups (usually packaged by a male Svengali); they have served as the comely, tambourine-rapping vocalists in otherwise all-male bands; or, like Madonna, they have achieved success as sexy solo divas. But for most of rock's history, women have never been full, chord-crunching, songwriting partners with men in real rock groups. The guys form the Rolling Stones or Guns N' Roses and sing Under My Thumb and Back Off Bitch; the women become the Marvelettes or the Go- Go's and record perky pop ditties.

More and more, however, in rock -- and also in rap and R. and B. -- men and women are forming bands in which the latter not only sing but play instruments and write songs too. Some tough all-female bands have formed that give a womanist twist to the raucous sound usually associated with all-buddy bands, but the more remarkable and successful phenomenon has been bands with men and women playing together. Very fine albums by the Cranberries and Smashing Pumpkins have sold more than a million copies each. Coed bands are also on the cutting edge: of the 10 groups named in Rolling Stone magazine as the hot bands to watch this summer, three are mixed gender. And these groups are coming to a stage near you: the Australian band Frente! will be playing U.S. cities this August; Afrocentric rappers Arrested Development will be at Woodstock '94; and the alternative-rock bands Smashing Pumpkins and the Breeders are headlining this summer's touring Lollapalooza music festival.

Coed bands are creating some of the most interesting music around. Frente!'s debut, Marvin the Album, offers up incongruously ear-caressing melodies on harsh subjects ranging from El Salvador to manic depression. Hole's Live Through This features primal guitar riffs and high-IQ lyrics by Courtney Love (rocker Kurt Cobain's widow). Arrested Development's brand-new CD, Zingalamaduni, is smart, political hip-hop (one song deals with abortion). Says lead rapper Speech: "It's important to get men and women expressing themselves about issues together." Steve Yegelwel of Atlantic/Seed Records, a label with several coed bands, says the phenomenon is the start of a new era: "It's kind of like the beginning of punk."

The typical all-male rock band is a roiling bouillabaisse of sexual competition and desire, and that is reflected in the music. "There is a different atmosphere in a coed band," says drummer Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, a pioneering male-and-female group. Coed bands usually avoid cartoonish, bombastic sexuality except to ridicule it. Their songs often seek to understand the differences between the genders, and they are often painfully self-critical. Lyrics to Frente!'s Labour of Love go, "I don't know how I bent/ What you said to what I believe you meant." Says N'Dea Davenport, singer-songwriter with the R.-and-B. band Brand New Heavies: "Especially when a song is dealing with relationships, it turns out much better when both sexes are involved in creating it."

It is true that in the 1970s there were two very important unisex bands: Fleetwood Mac and the Partridge Family. But those were about the only coed bands around; now they are common. Even the house band on Late Show with David Letterman has added a female guitarist. The foundation of the recent trend was laid in the late '70s and early '80s by such rock heroines as Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders and Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads -- songwriters and instrumentalists all. Until they came along, a girl with an electric guitar seemed as incongruous as a horse with an accordion. Says Madder Rose guitarist-singer Mary Lorson: "I didn't really start playing guitar until I was 22 because it just didn't occur to me that this was something I could do with my life."

The rise of alternative rock has also fueled the boom in coed bands. Wearing their sensitivity on their sleeves, alternative rockers are probably the least testosterone-driven rock generation ever. Rachel Felder, author of a book about the alternative scene called Manic Pop Thrill, says these musicians tend to ignore gender. "Whether they are male or female doesn't really come into it. It's more like, 'Is she a good musician?"'

But some men are actually seeking out women to play with. Simon Austin, the guitarist for Frente!, says, "My other bands had been just basically a bunch of guys playing guitars. I had a real desire to have a woman in Frente! to move the music in a new direction." Austin and Angie Hart hit it off as a writing team and now compose most of Frente!'s music. Hart believes that supermasculine high-volume rock has become boring. "We want to create songs that are as strong as something a loud rock band would do," she says, "but played quietly."

More coed bands are poised to break out. Veruca Salt, a terrifically promising rock group from Chicago, will release its first album next month. "Hopefully, we're helping dispel the myth that all 'girl bands' sound alike," singer-guitarist Louise Post said at a recent concert. The Fugees, an appealing reggae-rap trio, have a single that's climbing the Billboard charts. Madder Rose is touring to support its ravishing new CD, Panic On. Even vocalist Jenny Berggren of the cuddly Swedish pop band Ace of Base says she is "definitely going to do more" on her band's next CD. Berggren says she is writing some songs and won't sing just the ones written by her male bandmates.

Women serve on aircraft carriers and on the Supreme Court, so it's striking, given rock's putative social progressiveness, that it is only now becoming routine for women and men to play together in rock groups as partners. All- male bands still dominate (and even as the Rolling Stones and the Beastie Boys remind you how tired the formula is, groups like Pearl Jam and Green Day prove the guys can still make great music), but someday coed bands could become the rule. One can only imagine what the history of rock would have been if women had played guitar in the Who or Nirvana, but a future for rock with women in the next Great Rock Band is no longer fanciful.

With reporting by Lisa Mclaughlin/New York