Margaret Thrasher

I was in Vancouver/Canada last year and the day I arrived was filled with crazy reunions, indian vegetarian all-you-can-eat restaurants, sleep deprivation aaaaand a house-show at the Library House by Trout Lake where I saw my dear friends Scum System Kill (from Sydney) and Margaret Thrasher. I'd heard a lot about Margaret Thrasher from reliable sources so was stoked on the coincedence of seeing them on my very first night in town. Good times.

So then my zine-pal Alex of Ratcharge Zine (from France) was staying with me here in Brisbane and mentioned he'd done an interview with Margaret Thrasher and wanted to spread the good word a little further. Here it is. Oh just re-reading it makes me more than a little nostalgic for criss-crossing the hemisphere and Vancouver and summer and friends and awesome shows! hells yeah.

Oh yeah, Alex also reliably informs me that Margaret Thrasher (not to be confused with the OTHER Margaret Thrasher from the UK) have two 7"s out on Clarence Thomas Records (get them at bistrodistro.com), and they've also just finished recording a new 12" that will be out very soon. They're heading out on a euro-tour in September/October 2008.

Alex Ratcharge: Hey Margaret Thrasher! First the basics, how and when did the band start, did you have any goals back then, and how did you find that stupid name?

Juls Margaret Thrasher: I wanted to be in kind of a yelly band with other girls. The name was thought of by a friend and former roommate Sylvie le Sylvie when we planned on starting a band in spring 2003 that never panned out. I kept it in the back of my head and especially wanted to use it when I started a band with Gabriela which I knew would eventually happen. I'm completely aware the band name is really stupid, but every band name is stupid, really. To make it stupider for myself, I have issues with how bands with women in them or female singers at least often have like "feminine" names. I've been in Ireland and the UK lately and everyone here thinks the name is deadly, so I feel a little more alright about it now.

Alex: How and when did you first discover punk-rock?

Juls: Green Day's Dookie came out when I was 11 and changed my life. I pretty much knew I'd be a punk from then on. When I discovered there were local bands that were punk and I could go see them for five bucks, I was blown away.

Alex: What are you doing beside the band? Any punk-related activities? Do you work and if so, why don't you quit?

Juls: In Vancouver, I until recently put on all-ages shows in the basement of my house, the Alf House, where I don't live anymore. I write a lot and put out a zine, although I haven't put one out in over a year. I work part-time doing bike deliveries for a small business and sometimes teach middle and high school kids how to make zines. I also work as a copy-editor and indexer, although I very, very rarely get paid for that.

I don't quit my jobs because I like them and they're really easy and somewhat fufilling. They're things I would sort of do for free (riding my bike? showing a kid how to put a zine together?). Plus, it's really hard to be on welfare there and not worth it because you're forced to attend resume-making classes 40 hours a week and one can make twice as much money working part-time at a more tolerable job.

Alex: Who writes the lyrics in the band? Do you have discussions about it? Do all the band members have to agree and like the lyrics for it to be integrated to a song, or is it only the singer's role?

Juls: I write the lyrics. Sometimes Brant (our hypeman) gives me advice.

Alex: What is the song "The Next Best Thing" about? I get the lyrics but not sure about the general meaning...

Juls: "The Next Best Thing" is about trying not to have periodic mental breakdowns over fucked up situations in your life or past that you feel powerless about. I wrote it when I was facing the possibility of seeing a childhood sexual assaulter who is closely related to me at a funeral that I didn't wanted to be bullied out of attending. The reality is that no matter how angry I am, I'll never be able to make that perpetrator feel how I did and I don't even neccessarily believe in that sort of revenge mentality, but ending the cycle of emotional control is probably a good first step.

Alex: Can you explain in details what you mean when you say (in the song "dead to me") "I know second-wave feminism had its faults / that binary view of partiarchy is racist and classist and weak"?

Juls: There are a lot of really valid criticisms about second-wave feminism, which is what came about in the 60s and created a political analysis of the power structure that occurs kind of domestically between men and women. An important criticism is that it developed a really singular view of feminism that ignored the experience of women outside of being white and middle-class. It was a really binary view of the world that was kind of all about how all men were oppressive to all women and really had no analysis of the ways in which white middle-class women could be oppressive to different races and classes.

That being said, I'm a white, middle-class women and the old motto "the personal is political" is really applies to me and I'm a firm believer in the idea that the fucked up power structure that keeps men above women is really affirmed within families, relationships, and individual relationships. It's very much within the people immediately around me that I feel really affected by patriarchy. However, I try to not to be really ideologically rigid about anything and I know that I need to be aware of the privilege I have and how that plays out within the dynamics I have with people of other races and classes.

Alex: The song "Hell No" is about refusing to support pro-life/anti-choice bands, is there lots of punk bands of this kind in Vancouver? Are they often confronted about it?

Juls: Christianity kind of trickles into a certain genre of hardcore in North America although not neccessarily in Vancouver.

Alex: It seems that most bands with feminist lyrics are women bands, or bands with female members... Why do you think is that? I remember this discussion I had with a friend of mine who thought that men couldn't be feminist, that they could only "support feminism", because she said that men couldn't understand what it's like to be a woman and therefore couldn't be true feminist. What's your opinion about that?

Juls: I don't think that feminism lyrics are solely sung by women bands. Two local examples I can think of off the top of my head are "Go Eat Shit" by Skidge's other band, Chuck Norris, which I think is about their friends making assumptions about girls based on the way they dress, and Manner Farm's pro-choice song. I think that any song challenging any pressure one feels based on their gender is feminist.

I think tongue-in-cheek Black Flag songs about acting in stereotypical "manly" ways are, in a way, feminist. I'm right now all about early 80s American Hardcore which was all about young kids from the suburbs (which is such a weird self-delusional and empty existence) being like "what the fuck is this? disneyland sucks."

I also think Disneyland blows but I'm also really frustrated by things that we've all been ingrained with and raised with that hinder my participation in expressing how I feel about Disneyland with other kids who feel the same way and how gender roles play out within the "Disneyland sucks" community.

Alex: I read that in Vancouver people who do zines can get paid by the state to do so, even people doing punk zines, is that true?? Does it apply to foreign people who come to live in Vancouver as well? Don't you think there's a contradiction in doing, let's say, an anarcho-punk zine that is financed by the state?

Juls: There's a definitely a contradiction in doing an anarcho-punk zine financed by the state, but it's in the same way that some anarcho-kids are financing their lives being on the dole. There's absolutely no restriction on what your personal zine is about. The program entails doing a bunch of other shit, though, like making a magazine within the employed group and learning computer design skills. It's basically a welfare-to-work program that was organized by some local radical-types.

But yeah, state-sponsored anything is kind of fucked up. And spending eight months with boss-enforced deadlines and minimum wage doing your zine is kind of a hinderance. A really big irony of the program is that I barely know anyone since completing the program who has put out a zine since, even if they were avid zine-makers prior to the program. An exception is Nathan Maxfield, who puts out the zine SHOES, so props to him and his endurance. You definately have to be a Canadian to do the program, unless you rig up a scam in which you use a Canadian's Social Insurance Card and have them cash your cheques for you.

Alex: What are the songs on your upcoming records about?

Juls: One song is about childhood sexual assault affecting my current relationships, one is about the recurring theme of creeps within the scene being kind of weeded out of communities who blame their alienation on our "snobbery", and the other is about the irony of using male aggression to deal with rape.

Alex: What are the top 5 records and zines/ books you've been listening / reading lately?

Juls: 1. book: The Malcolm X autobiography 2. book: James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time" 3. movie: "I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed" 4. My new powerviolence band in Dublin called "Totally Stoked" 5. independent Dublin hip-hop shows (funny accents, not-contrived, blatant localism)