Virginia Woolf called Middlemarch “one of the few English novels written for grown-ups.” Scrawl began when its members were in their early twenties, but from the get-go they were one of few American bands-maybe the first-who played punk-rock-inspired music about being, and becoming, and feeling like, grownups. It could be a bummer, but it was a glorious bummer, and its propulsive, melodic and serious sounds-as well as its no-nonsense lyrics-embodied the truths that most rock music tries to deny. Through the rise and fall of American indie rock, the years of hardcore and hair metal, college radio and Nirvana, Oasis and No Depression and Riot Grrrl, from the early 1980s to the Y2K bug, the Columbus, Ohio trio were making stripped-down rock music that performed-sadly, angrily, beautifully, roughly, then elegantly- just the opposite of what we usually expect rock music to do.
So what does it mean to make rock music that speaks for the responsible older sibling for the friend who cleans up after the party for the people who won’t leave work early for the party, because they need the extra hours for Mom? How would that sound? It might sound like Scrawl. It’s an art of the moment, of damn the consequences, of turning it up and not caring what happens next: it began as a guy thing, of course, but the history of women making rock music is a history of women finding ways to give those qualities feminist ends: “ Rebel Girl, you are the queen of my world.” It began as party music, as music to dance to, but even its most introverted, unhappiest actors-from Neil Young to PJ Harvey or Conor Oberst-embodied the impulse to be individual, telling the world to fuck off, saying “I’m on my own.” When rock becomes too predictable, we complain about routinized or commercial rebellion when it’s working, we identify its sounds (guitars first, live feel, 4/4 beat, and drums) with living in the moment, going for broke, smashing things (if not people), saying no to the Man, or no to the responsible older sibling, or no to Mom. Rock and roll is, always has been, an art of youth, of spontaneity, of simplicity as a protest against old rules, a protest born out of hedonism ( Chuck Berry, the Who), or lust (the Who, Chuck Berry), or moral outrage ( Minor Threat), or existential despair (“Paint It Black,” “ Smells Like Teen Spirit”). Original Scrawl Members: Carolyn O'Leary, Sue Harshe, and Marcy Mays
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