Melody Kohn (guitar/vox) and Kendall Brinkley (drums) make up the Long Beach duo Lazy Mary creating double trouble at the Scripps College-sponsored AthenaFest, a punk rock music festival featuring an estrogen overdose (read: all-female lineups) on
Saturday.
AthenaFest is a benefit event with all proceeds going to Rock 'n Roll
Camp for Girls LA, a non-profit organization that “empowers young women
through music education.” And while the event is free All donations are
voluntary and not necessary for admittance to the festival, but aside from Lazy Mary five other bands (including someone from Bratmobile, the original riotgrrl band) will be there, so why wouldn't you give them money?
]
OC Weekly: How'd you meet and decide to play music together?
It
all began after high school graduation: Kendall acquired a free
drumset, and Melody could shred pretty well on her dad's princeton. We
both smoked weed and we were in heartbreak mode, and when we jammed for
the first time, it was pretty apparent that we had to start a band.
And what's with the band name?
Lazy
Mary Fun Fact # 562: We were born on the same day, same year. We had a
prenatal chemistry, and here we are. One night we went to the New
Beverly Cinema for a triple feature Evil Dead experience…and that's
why we are Lazy Mary.
Of course we're feminists, because we see it as straight-up
equality. Women have been the outlier in the art world, but this is
2011, and our generation is not about having just men in the spotlight,
it's about working on this together, celebrating youth, and coming
together as one. That's also why we are so excited to play AthenaFest,
to be apart of something that's bigger than just us, supporting the
future of girls rocking out.
Nina Simone, Nirvana, Crass, The Slits, Bikini Kill, Sonic Youth,
The Cramps, Bob Dylan, Drive (the movie) Soundtrack, John Williams, Liz
Phair, L7, The Raincoats, so so many. Anything with a poppin' beat and
jivin' soul.
What do you say about being a band that sounds, intrinsically, like you're from 1980s Seattle?
Grunge is dead.
