How We Quit The Forest by Rasputina

     Nothing exists in a vacuum. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Say that again. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Say it over-and-over again until the words loose their meaning. Now repeat it until the meaning comes back, renewed. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

    I wish I could get away with just telling you what a great CD this is. I wish I could just list its merits than sit back and watch as email after email poured him from happy readers who'd taken my advice and purchased How We Quit The Forest and were now planning on naming all their children (even the girls) after me. But, because nothing exists in a vacuum, (and because Rasputina is an "all-girl" band) I must first speak to you about the state of women in Rock. And that state is Alabama.

    Patti Smith, Exene, Lisa Gerrard, Moe Tucker. Burn their names from your mind. Forget they ever existed. Why? Because, if you're not able to remember the glorious past, then the shit covered future will be easier to endure. Where once stood The Runaways now cower the likes of Fiona Apple and Lisa Loeb. Don't get me wrong, there are

Rodney, Once I removed the "W", everything became so clear. I now know what must be done. - Fongo

still a few pockets of resistance out there. Brave female guerrilla fighters who are attempting stem the rising tide of estro-stupidity. Shit, here in Philly, alone, we have the Minks, Ken, Tapping The Vein, The More Fiends, and Torrision - just to name a few (five, I think. Yeah, that was five). But these bold women are in the minority and many (myself and Noam Chomsky just to name a few [two]) fear that these female new-freedom fighters may be waging a losing battle. At the rate at which women's Rock is being watered down, I give it about two years before Gwen Steffini is thought of in the same way we used to think of Wendy O. Williams (I'm glad Wendy O. didn't live long enough to see the sorry-ass state of things. Sure her chief musical accomplishments were sawing a guitar in half with a chainsaw and masturbating with a sledge-hammer, but, after a few years of this Lilith Fair crap, she'll be remembered as the Beethoven of her generation. ).

    How did things go from great (Texarkana Jones, Dinah Cancer…) to good (Diamanda Galas, PJ. Harvey…) to shitty (The Indigo Girls, Aimee Mann - my arch-nemesis, Joan Osborne, Kelly Osborne…)? Well, I could spend a lot of time discussing the sociological changes (the rise of Feminism. The backlash to Feminism. Groupies. The Riot Grrrl phenomenon. Etc.) that have affected the role of women in popular culture over the last several decades or I could just blame it all on Courtney Love.

    Courtney Love is the embodiment of everything that is presently wrong with women in Rock. Courtney has drifted from musician to musician (Falling James, that greasy guy, Billy Corrigan) using each one to pen the sound track to her banal screeching. Nothing cracks me up more (OK, maybe blind children holding puppies while falling down an unusually long flight of stairs) than some woman droning on-and-on about the importance of strong female role models and then thanking her boyfriend/songwriter/producer. Sisters aren't doing for themselves anymore

    Hey, wasn't I s'pose to be reviewing a CD?

    For those of you who may be shut-ins or Creed fans, Rasputina are three women who do with cellos what the MC5 did with guitars. They gained a certain degree of fame/infamy opening foe Marilyn Manson. Mr. Manson also produced and played keyboards on Rasputina's first E.P. That E.P. featured the song Transylvania Concubine which not only landed the cello chicks on the Buffy The Vampire Slayer soundtrack, but also ensured that their the audience at their live performances would be populated with hot, leather bustier wearing, goth girls. Thank you, God.

     Meanwhile, outside of my filthy mind, Rasputina returned to the studio and recorded the full-length (18 songs) Thanks for the Ether. This CD, which contains one of my favorite Rsaputina songs of all time - My Little Shirtwaist Fire (Yes, a song about the famous Triangle factory fire), is a work of genius and would be worthy of a separate review if I weren't such a lazy cunt.

    Some things are inevitable. For example, since this is Saturday night, I can be 100% certain that - at exactly 3:38 AM - my crazy neighbor will fling open his window and start calling everybody in the neighborhood a "bunch o' gawddamn hermaphrodites who kept our country from winning the Korean War." (By the way, there are less than six hermaphrodites within a four block radius of this man). Inevitability is that, after a band releases a truly great CD, the next one sucks. We all feared for Rasputina's next release…

     How We Quit The Forest is a CD that not only stands as a high-water mark in women's Rock, but also in human achievement. Screw Stonehenge and the not-so-Great Pyramid - we need to make sure that this CD lands in the claw-like hands of our six-eyed, semi-aquatic, descendents.

     HWQTF opens with The Olde Headboard. I swear on Schumin's balls that these opening words: