In the spirit of today’s Bikini Kill nostalgia, I remembered the awesome lyric diss war between Kathleen Hanna and Fat Mike, the lead singer from that shitty pop punk band NOFX.
So basically, Kathleen Hanna at some point at some point called NoFX misogynists, and Fat Mike responded with a song called Kill Rock Stars (the title, a reference to the record label of Olympia Riot Grrl bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, etc).
NoFX-Kill Rock Stars
“Kill the rockstars” how ironic, Kathleen
You’ve been crowned the newest queen
Kinda like the punk rock Gloria Steinham
You can’t change the world by blaming men
Can’t change the world by hating men
Just cause I don’t know the reason You’re so pissed
Don’t dare tag me misogynist
I thought the goal here was mutual respect
Not constructing a separate sect
I wish I could have seen Courtney
Demonstrate some real misogyny
Can’t change the world by hating menThe Courtney bit is about an instance where Courtney Love assaulted Kathleen Hanna. Nice one buddy. Brilliantly, Kathleen responded with “Deceptacon,” a fucking epic brat pop anthem that, if you don’t know it by name, you would surely recognize it immediately if I played it.
Le Tigre-Deceptacon
You bought a new van the first year of yr band
Yr cool and I hardly wanna say “not”
Because I’m so bored that I’d be entertained
Even by a stupid fuckin linoleum floor, linoleum floor
Yr lyrics are dumb like a linoleum floor
I’ll walk on it
I’ll walk all over you
Walk on it, walk on it, walking one, two
Who? Who? Who? Who?
Who took the Bomp from the Bompalompalomp?
Who took the Ram from the Ramalamading dong?
Who took the Bomp from the Bompalompalomp?
Who took the Ram from the Ramalamading dong?The linoleum floor mention is making fun of a NoFX song called “Linoleum,” and the chorus is basically a comment on how meaningless and boring NoFX’s lyrics are. When it comes to critics, I tend to prefer a “don’t stoop to their level” attitude, but this retort is kinda awesome. (In fact, I really wish I could write badass pop anthems as “fuck yous” to my enemies. Much more effective than a bitchy email!) So fuck you Fat Mike, Kathleen Hanna+Bikini Kill+Le Tigre rock.
I didn’t know about this until now. Well, there goes my respect for NOFX.
NOFX was never good.
wait a minute, raine… who was it that made me listen to NOFX, and talk about how thats all she wanted to listen to in the car!?!?!?! ;) HMMMMM?????? NOFX SUX
I hate to be a shithead but I love NOFX and they were my gateway into “real” punk or whatever you wanna call it. I understand that what they did was shitty and Fat Mike can be an asshole but in case you didn’t know Mike and Kathleen are on good terms now again, from what I’ve read, soooo yeah. And yes, like I said, Mike can be an asshole. The biggest of assholes. Also their band started out as a shitty punk band with meaningless lyrics and kinda stood for nothing, yeah yeah I know. But they’ve done their share of cleaning up. Could they be better? Of course they could. Could Mike be less shitty? Of course he could. In trying to demonstrate that his band is not sexist, Mike made a stupid mistake and said some shit he shouldn’t have about someone. But come on everyone has. I say shit about people that I shouldn’t say all the time. Like Shamus. I fucking hate Shamus. I shouldn’t say shit like this but I do. Basically people make mistakes and blahblahblah
Also, not to be a shithead again, but the only reason you’re saying that Deceptacon does not fit under your rule of not steeping to “their” level is because you love Kathleen Hanna and Bikini Kill/Le Tigre. If it was some other band that wrote the same song but the band was not such a staple of the riot grrrl movement/your life you probably would say that they shouldn’t steep to NOFX’s level. Kind of like if it was a band I didn’t care about as much as I do NOFX I wouldn’t even be writing this shitty response.
And although Deceptacon lyrics > Kill Rock Star lyrics by a long shot they’re not gold or some shit. Kathleen was just pissed. Every other set of lyrics she’s ever written have been better than that song. I mean this was just her being pissed off at Mike being pissed off at her for calling him out for being misogynistic. Everything else she’s written has had meaning relating to a grander thing than just this one incident.
Okay done throwing my bitchfit and being a shithead. Also not sure if that last paragraph makes any sense.
