This is the first ethnographic study of women's popular music-making. It is based on over 100 in-depth interviews as well as participant observation by the author, a sociologist, who has herself played in various bands since punk. Bayton covers the period from the late 1970s until the mid 1990s, focusing mainly on women instrumentalists in female and mixed bands. Amongst others, interviewees include Skin from Skunk Anansie, Debbie Smith from Echobelly, Candida Doyle from Pulp, Gail Greenwood from Belly and L7, Natasha Atlas from Transglobal Underground, and Vie Subversa from Poison Girls. Although female vocalists have always been common, women playing instruments in bands are still proportionally rare. Frock Rock explores the social factors that keep women from playing and those routes that have enabled women's involvement. The book then examines the everyday worlds of women's music-making from bands just starting up to the professional stage: songwriting, rehearsing, the first gig, getting a manager, record companies, recording, and touring. Easy to read and packed with fascinating quotes, Frock Rock makes an invaluable contribution to the field of popular music studies and will become a key text in cultural studies, media studies, women's studies, and sociology of culture courses.

About the Author
Mavis Bayton is Tutor in Sociology, Ruskin College, Oxford

Reviews
an interesting overview of the involvement of women in popular music from technician to talent scout.../ The book is free from obscure jargon and unneccessary terminology, a rare quality in an academic study of this subject./ ... I admire this book for being systematic, leaving no aspect of the industry unprobed./ There is no other serious up-to-date study of women in popular music to rival 'Frock Rock'. Ronita Dutta, THES, 05/02/99
This is the best study I know of the everyday life of the popular musician, packed with insights about the sheer hard work of music making, and salutary reading for anyone who's ever thought that rock stars are just lucky. * Simon Frith *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198166153
Author Mavis Bayton
Format Hardback
Page Count 260
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 162mm * 20mm