There have been some exciting recent developments regarding the now-defunct Bikini Kill and Kathleen Hanna. Firstly, Kathleen has donated documents, zines, flyers, correspondence and other archived materials to NYU’s Fales Library as part of their new Riot Grrrrl Collection. This is exciting for a number of reasons, such as a) I would love to see them b) The public has access and many more people can see them c) Libraries and other archives are expanding their reach to include documents and parts of history that are outside the mainstream and what would typically be thought of as “important” or academically useful and d) They are an important asset to study involving feminist theory, pop culture, punk history, queer theory, music history, activism, the women’s movement, etc. e) I’d love to see more theses including Kathleen Hanna.

The other news is that Hanna has created an online Bikini Kill archive (aka blog) as a way for fans to post stories or videos about Bikini Kill: Bikini Kill archive. To see these, you have to click on posts on the right top. It’s fun to read people’s reactions/memories/experiences, and it’s clear that they were a hugely influential and meaningful band for a lot of people (including myself).

For those interested, Kathleen also has a blog: Kathleen’s blog.

And for fun, here is an awesome video of Bikini Kill performing live in Fargo, North Dakota and then a recent interview with Kathleen Hanna.

I’m going to use a word I don’t often use in this post: idol. The word has undoubtedly lost much of its grandeur and power, as our culture has tilted towards excess in many ways, including word usage. It’s not enough to like something, but instead you love it. Whereas dislike would’ve once worked or is pretty accurate, hate may be used. And the phenomenon American Idol doesn’t help at all either.

But I digress. I am writing because I was alerted to the fact that Tobi Vail’s tour diary from her early days in the band Go Team is online at Punk Rock Tour Blog. Tobi Vail was the reason I had to inject that bit about the idol because growing up she was definitely one of them for me. The drummer for Bikini Kill, she was also a writer of the zine Jigsaw Youth, and perhaps more well known to some as the onetime girlfriend and love of Kurt Cobain. She was the primary reason I bought a drumset with all of the money I had saved in the bank in (was it?) eighth grade.

I was alerted to this blog by Monitor Mix, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney’s (another in the idol range) blog for NPR, but I was so excited that I had to share it further.

Other blog posts include entries from Molly Neuman of Bratmobile and Corin Tucker of Heavens to Betsy (and later Sleater-Kinney). This is a very exciting find (what do you call a find that you don’t find yourself?) for a Tuesday morning.