Applied Mechanic’s feminist phenoms THE BANDITS rocked out at the premier of “Local Girls”, a new play by Emma Goidel. Check out their cover of Outkast’s “Hey Ya”
By Mary Tuomanen
In 2014, Applied Mechanics created We Are Bandits, a show about a fictitious punk band of feminists in bandanas. We were inspired by Pussy Riot, and wanted to create an American parallel that would allow us to talk about what Riot Grrl feminism meant to us. Pussy Riot’s neon balaclavas became colorful bandanas.
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The Bandits were a fictitious [sic] band, based on real activists who were really arrested in Moscow, then sentenced to prison terms in Siberia.
The Russian activists were inspired by American activists like Kathleen Hanna.
The American Bandits are, in turn, inspired by the Russian activists.
Solidarity feedback loop.
The fictitious punk band called Bandits played a Girls Rock Philly event at L’Etage last spring, and started to feel less fictitious. Then the Bandits played the Women’s Way Gala dressed as Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, Sally Ride, Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace. We wrote a few more tunes and felt even less fictitious. When bassist Aimé Donna Kelley and guitarist Adam Kerbel were carried away by work in New York and Chicago, respectively, playwright Emma Goidel and performer/musician Emily Schuman took up the torch and kept us rocking. We played the Winter Warmup at Headlong Studios this January dressed in aerobics gear. Most recently, Bandits rocked the opening night of Emma Goidel’s Local Girls, joined by Philly legend Amanda Damron of the late, great GANG.
The Bandits were a fictitious band playing real music.
About real anti-capitalist, feminist, fun punk rage.
Local Girls is a play about Atlanta. As a shoutout Atlanta musicians OutKast, the Bandits covered “Hey Ya!”. We were unable to perform on the stage or in the lobby due to logistical/insurance complications, so in true adaptable activist fashion, we moved the chairs out of the audience and invaded under the houselights. Here is a video of that performance, fronted by the incomparable Izzy Sazak, who is moving to Philadelphia this spring to make more art and music with us. You’ll see us around more often, making mischief around this great town of ours.
The Bandits are a [real, fake] band.
The Bandits are a band.
Really.