What do Girls, Little Girls and Women have in common? Well, apart from being impossible to google, they are all bands with no female members. Mountain Men is a 4 piece female band that makes sweet Appalachian tunes. With this gender bending going down, its difficult to reliably put together a mix of female bands. Of course a mix focusing on bands with female members suggests that such bands have a sound that stands apart from bands with a gender mix. But what sound?

Weeeeeeeeeeeell that’s a difficult question that I can’t begin to answer. I can say that having a female singer is probably a good start, but then so do many bands. I also believe that I can generally tell that a band has a woman drummer , but that doesn’t always work, i.e. Comanechi whose Akiko Matsuura (more) moonlights as the drummer for Big Pink. I doubt that an all male band would sing about their pussy (as Comanechi did) or a song entitled Nestle in my Boobies (a great song from the Coathangers).

Without delving any deeper I present this mix of bands that seem to fit the bill.  The Screaming Females headline of course, Marissa Paternoster (more) is a force of nature, a 21st century Iggy Pop and a bloody brilliant guitarist. There is a Thunder Power track, I particularly like Kacynna Tompsett‘s voice, and tracks from Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast and Kristen Gundred aka Dee Dee of  Dum Dum Girls

First up, Chin Chin with a bangles-esque stomper.