The Butchies, Amy Ray, Sarah Dougher
Mon April 23, Showbox, 628-3151.

Kaia Wilson of the Butchies is recalling the release of her former band's debut record: "I was only 19 when I joined Team Dresch," she tells me. "I had no idea at the time that Personal Best would be so well received. When it first happened, I was sort of in a haze. Looking back though, it was really amazing to be part of something that had such an impact." Wilson may be sleepy and slightly scattered, speaking to me at 2:00 a.m. from her Philadelphia hotel room, but she is certainly no longer in a haze. In the seven years since the political splash she made with Team Dresch, Wilson has released two solo records and three more with the Butchies. She also co-founded the Mr. Lady label with indie film rabble-rouser Tammy Rae Carland, and has released 17 records by other artists and more than a dozen independently produced videos by queer filmmakers.

Sweeter and more forthright than the stone-cold butch I was anticipating, Wilson is self-deprecating and almost childlike in her enthusiasm for creating hot-button art and pushing political envelopes. "When Personal Best came out, a lot of the press would ask us if we thought we were sacrificing our music for our politics. This always seemed ridiculous to me, because the experience of being queer is a huge part of who I am... it is a natural coexistence within the work," she states matter-of-factly.

That coexistence apparently took root at the age of nine, when Wilson recorded her crushed-out ode to a fictional heroine, "Julie of the Wolves" (a song she ended up later releasing). By age 15, she was making up Stevie Nicks-inspired songs with the three chords her mother taught her on an acoustic guitar. At 18 she started Adickdid, a sludgy, low-register howl-fest that piqued some underground interest, but it wasn't until she forged a collaboration with older, more experienced guitarist Donna Dresch that things really began to take off. Dresch and Wilson pulled in Jody Bleye (also in Hazel at the time), along with percussionist Melissa York, and began playing shows around Portland. Team Dresch's first show made it painfully clear how dangerous being in a lesbian punk rock band was: Dresch and Bleye were severely beaten outside a club after the performance. "They were queer-bashed. It's not something I like to talk about," she says. "It was our first show, and it was horrible."

Despite such ugly threats, Team Dresch kept playing out, earning itself a reputation for jaw-dropping live performances. In 1994 the band released its 24-minute onslaught of self-proclaimed "lesbionic punk rock," recorded in a mere five days at producer John Goodmanson's tiny Fremont studio. Between the title's cheeky homage to Mariel Hemingway's teen lesbo coming-of-age flick and song titles such as "Hate the Christian Right" and "Fagatarian and Dyke," it was clear which Team was stepping up to the Riot Grrrl plate. Such touches may have hinted broadly at Team Dresch's Sapphic sassiness, but they did nothing to prepare the listener for the strength of musicianship that lay inside. The members traded lyric writing and instrumental duties, delivering the potency of their political stances in a voice that was smart, shameless, and thoroughly unclichéd. It was Act Up-style aggression and Gore Vidal-caliber social commentary in one brief, stunning package. Jointly released on Chainsaw and Candy Ass Records (owned respectively by Dresch and Bleye), Personal Best sold a startling 20,000 copies and was critically regarded as one of the best independent releases of the year, garnering the band an opening slot on Fugazi's Red Medicine tour and knighthood as guardians of a burgeoning Northwest queer-core scene.

The kudos were refreshing, and in some instances, fervently frothy (CMJ eventually deemed Personal Best one of the "Best Albums of the Century"). But what was more satisfying for Team Dresch was the awareness the album brought to the hetero-saturated indie rock table (also set by liked-minded peers such as Excuse 17 and the Third Sex). Countless young queers feasted with new allies and a tangible support network began to flow efficiently, thanks to the existing currency of fanzines and websites.

Whether it was the restlessness of holding a backlog of solo material, or simply a desire to push for her own artistic growth, it was clear that Wilson was becoming distanced from her teammates on the band's sophomore effort, Captain My Captain. She left Team Dresch shortly after its release, moving to Durham, North Carolina to be with girlfriend Tammy Rae Carland, and developed a solo career.

Carland, a talented filmmaker and cinema professor, was already well known in feminist film circles for her shorts about queer life and her commitment to getting the work of other lesbian filmmakers distributed. In Carland, Wilson found a kindred affinity for politically virulent art with an unabashedly goofy sense of humor and highly disciplined crafting. Their Mr. Lady roster and catalog reflect these values implicitly, from Carland's own subversive work to the raw and flirtatious new wave of the Third Sex, and The New Women's Music Sampler--a very un-Lilith-like collection that includes tracks by the Need and Cadallaca's Sarah Dougher. The most noticeable contingent in the Lady stable is Le Tigre, the low-fi garage electronica project of Kathleen Hanna, whose post-Bikini Kill success has increased Mr. Lady's workload significantly. But Wilson seems undaunted by the growth. "We've known Kathleen since we were teenagers. We just like putting out our friends' records."

Wilson's creative reach widened further this year when the Butchies backed up Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls in the studio and took on this current tour in support of her new solo release, Stag. "I covered her songs when I was 15," Wilson gushes. "It was just so exciting for all of us that she liked our stuff." The Butchies are also on tour to support 3, their own aptly titled third work. Consistent with the band's previous classic rock rave-ups, 3 finds Wilson's Johnny Marr-flavored guitar work and sultry, soprano-toned abstractions on love and lust running directly into the familiar brick wall of original Team Dresch drummer Melissa York.

Next on her agenda is a third solo record of Wilson's own, as well as an aim to bring estrogen-powered hiphop to the Mr. Lady roster. "We want to put out something by Invincible, an amazing artist from New York that we met through Le Tigre. Everything is still such a boy's club, but DJ-ing and hiphop are, especially." She sounds tired, given the late hour, but excited nonetheless. I can't help but think that someone ought to make an action figure out of this woman.