12 DAYS TIL BIKINI KILL IN L.A.: Kim Gordon

Kim Althea Gordon was born in Rochester, New York, in 1953. She was raised in Los Angeles, where her father was a professor of sociology at UCLA. She studied visual art at Otis College of Art and Design, and then moved to NYC to begin her artistic career. Sonic Youth (1981 – 2011) In […]

13 DAYS TIL BIKINI KILL IN L.A.: Anne Clark

Anne Clark was born in London in 1960. She has described her childhood as “troubled, but loving.” She left school at sixteen, taking various jobs, including as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, and then eventually at a record store and label called Bonaparte Records. Punk rock was exploding in London, and it resonated with […]

14 DAYS TIL BIKINI KILL IN L.A.: Jessie Mae Hemphill

Jessie Mae Hemphill was born in 1923, somewhere near Como and Senatobia, Mississippi, in the northern hill country, just east of the Mississippi Delta. (This is also one of the regions of the U.S. where poverty is the most extreme and deeply entrenched, which might explain both why no one knows where exactly Jessie was […]

15 DAYS TIL BIKINI KILL IN L.A.: Laurie Anderson

Born Laura Phillips Anderson in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, Laurie was initially trained in violin and sculpting. She worked on various performance art projects in NYC in the seventies, with language, technology, and visual imagery being an ongoing focus of her work. She has invented multiple sound devices that she uses in recordings and performances, including […]

16 DAYS TIL BIKINI KILL IN L.A.: Tracey Thorn

Tracey Thorn began her career in The Stern Bops, which were a punk-pop group in which she played guitar and sang some back-up vocals while she was in high school. She then founded Marine Girls with Gina Hartmann, and was the primary songwriter and guitar player until she overcame her shyness and began to sing […]

17 DAYS TIL BIKINI KILL IN L.A.: Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar was born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski in Brooklyn, New York, in 1953. Her mother was a beautician and her father was a sheet metal worker. She was interested in musical theater and began taking voice lessons at a young age, giving her first solo at age eight. She was training as an operatic ‘coloratura’ […]

18 DAYS TIL BIKINI KILL IN L.A.: Pauline Black

Pauline Black was born “Belinda Magnus” in London; the year was 1953. She was born to a teenage mother of Anglo-Jewish heritage and her father was a Yoruba (Nigerian) omoba (prince) who had been in London studying engineering. She was adopted by white parents who renamed her “Pauline Vickers,” and she eventually renamed herself […]

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19 DAYS TIL BIKINI KILL IN L.A.: Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi Lauper was born in N.Y.C. in 1953. She began writing songs and playing the guitar when she was twelve. Her strange hair colors and eccentric style resulted in her being bullied in school, and she was also abused by her stepfather at home, so she ran away at sixteen. Cyndi spent two weeks in […]

20 DAYS TIL BIKINI KILL IN L.A.: Debora Iyall

Debora Iyall was born in Soap Lake, Washington, in 1954. She is a member of the Cowlitz tribe, and her last name is a shortening of one of her ancestor’s first names: Iyallwahawa. She grew up in Fresno, California. When she was just fourteen, she joined the Occupation of Alcatraz, which was a political action […]