Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna has released dates for a U.S. book tour in support of the release of her upcoming memoir Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk. It is set to be a busy period for the musician – the news comes hot on the heels of an announcement by Bikini Kill that they will be hosting a January 27 benefit show in aid of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a non-profit organization addressing the medical and humanitarian crisis facing children in the Middle East.
In November Bikini Kill were among signatories of an open letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Other musicians to put their name to the petition included Brian Eno, Fontaines D.C., Pulp and Sleater-Kinney.
The book tour will take in 10 venues across America in May, starting in Brooklyn, New York, and finishing in Philadelphia. The Seattle event on May 22 will also be streamed live, with a portion of ticket sales donated to the charity Peace Sisters.
Bikini Kill was formed by Hanna in Olympia, Washington in 1990 with guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox and drummer Tobi Vail, and were leading lights of the ‘90s Riot Grrrl movement, along with bands including Sleater-Kinney, L7, Bratmobile and Babes in Toyland. After the band broke up in 1997, Hanna went on to front Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin, before reforming Bikini Kill (without Karren) in 2019. Their comeback gig at London’s Brixton Academy was described as “a gloriously urgent call to arms from a band that have lost none of their visceral power” and that “twenty years on, their outpourings of frustration, pain and challenge have not mellowed”.
Rebel Girl will be released in May 2024 and, following other memoirs by feminist punk icons Viv Albertine of the Slits and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, promises to detail Hanna’s life and relationships in the context of her music.
“As Hanna makes blindingly clear, being in a ‘girl band’, especially a punk girl band, was not a simple or a safe prospect,” says the publisher. “Male violence and antagonism threatened at every turn, and surviving as a singer who was a lightning rod for controversy took limitless amounts of determination.”
Kathleen Hanna was a leading light of the '90s Riot Grrrl movement.
The book also promises to detail the singer's friendships with Kurt Cobain and Joan Jett, who produced and played guitar on Bikini Kill's anthemic single "Rebel Girl", picked as "the best song of 1993" in a 2006 Rolling Stone list.
“She also writes candidly about the Riot Grrrl movement and its decline, documenting with love its grassroots origins but critiquing its later exclusivity,” continues the publisher. “In an uncut voice all her own, Hanna reveals the darkest, hardest times along with the most joyful – and how it all fueled her revolutionary art, from the 1980s to today.”
Bikini Kill’s benefit gig will take place at the Capitol Theatre in Olympia, Washington, on January 27, 2024. Support will come from Portland, Oregon rockers the Ghost Ease and guest speaker Selma Al-Aswad from the Palestinian Feminist Collective. Tickets can be purchased here from 10am PT on December 14.
