"We're Not Sexual Blobs!"

"I mean, we aren't sexless blobs," says Amanda Brown, one of the two lead singers of local psychedelic band Pocahaunted. She plops down at an outside table at Eagle Rock coffee shop Swork and immediately launches into a tirade about media sexism and everyone else's obsession with her band's boobs. All six of them. (It should be noted that Pocahaunted also contains two dicks and four balls.)

Her hair is bed-head-tousled and she's wearing a pink-silk kimono over tight black pants. Purple toenails peek from black, vintage platforms and tiny red lines bleed out around her mouth when she flashes a toothy grin. She's wearing Jackie O glasses but the creases of her eyes escape to the outer reaches of her face.

"Anyway, so I got asked recently in an interview if I thought I was ghettoizing women by only playing with women. Which first of all is so stupid, I mean, to begin with, what about [bandmates] Ged and Britt? It's like every time we do a photo shoot they want Diva and I to stand up front and I'm standing there looking at Britt, going, 'Doesn't this bother you? Are you mad?' And he just looks at me like, 'No, man, go ahead, you two be in the picture.' And then it's like, well, 'Who do you think we are? What is this supposed to be about? Are you selling us as your chicks? Your hot chicks?' The truth is, Diva is very sensitive to how we are portrayed and so if we're all taking pictures and the two of us are in the front and the boys are standing in the back, she will immediately go, 'Everybody stop, stand up and scramble. I don't want there to be a picture where the men are standing behind us.'"

PHOTO BY CAITLIN C. MITCHELL

“We like to call our music ‘body music’”: Pocahaunted

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Echo Curio

1519 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Category: Art Galleries

Region: Echo Park

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More About

• Toulouse
• Amanda Brown
• Bethany
• Vampire Weekend
• Abe Vigoda (Band)

L.A. WEEKLY: It's interesting that you would start our conversation this way because that's actually something I wanted to address.
BROWN: It's so infuriating. I mean, I bet that reporter wouldn't go up to Paul McCartney and say, "Hey, do you think you're ghettoizing men by playing in the Beatles?" I mean, am I ghettoizing musicians by playing in bands? You know, when it was just Bethany [Cosentino] and I, just two women, before Bethany started playing in Best Coast, we actually got fewer questions about our gender. There wasn't this "us versus the guys" thing going on.

So you feel like this "the girls versus the guys" agenda is being pushed onto your band?
Absolutely. You know, I've heard some amazing, amazing women say some amazing things about being women, you know, I'm a feminist, I love paintings of flowers that look like vaginas. If someone interviews Judy Chicago, she's putting that out there, but I just play in a band. It's rock & roll. But every view is valid. If you're trying to push feminism and you're into riot grrrl, that's incredible, but if you're also a musician in a band and you're like, "Look, I don't want to be confined by my gender," that's totally valid. But like I said, we're not sexual blobs and I like to feel sexual and I'm a sexual person and I like to move my body and I like to be seen as a woman. I mean I'm not wearing lingerie when I perform, but I still wear things that make me feel my body. So clearly we like being women. If I wanted to be sort of sexless, I would just stand there and cover up. But I don't want to be sexless. I mean, I think part of the reason people like Lady Gaga is not because of her music. Her music isn't very good.

It's terrible.
Yes, it's terrible, but because she not only does sexy, but in a way does antisexy. She does gross stuff with our ideas of what it means to be attractive. She's playing with people's ideas of what's acceptable in terms of how we look. That's what's exciting about her, not her music. She's playing with her sexuality and it's intriguing to people. But really, I love being a woman. I've never wanted to be a man. In fact, I'm glad I'm not one.

Tell me about the craziest, most unexpected show Pocahaunted has played.
Oh, man, the first one that comes to mind was in Toulouse, France. I mean, this turned into Adventures in Babysitting. We get to this place and it's the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen. Just beautiful flowers and tables and chairs, and we're thinking, Ohmigod, we're going to play outside in this beautiful place, French people are going to be smoking rolled cigarettes, people are going to be eating baguettes, just lovely. But then we do an about-face and realize that that's the property. We are going to be playing in the property's dungeon. Like, the dankest, moldiest, oldest dungeon. Literally a dungeon, you go down a staircase that's no wider than your body and when you get down there, obviously people have been playing shows there for years so it's disgusting, no windows, no ventilation, like if there's a fire, you're dead.