Michelle Cruz Gonzales Reading the Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band

Author, educator, and punk rocker Michelle Cruz Gonzales reads from her inspiring punk and political memoir, The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band, for the first time in New York!

Michelle played drums and wrote lyrics in the influential 1990s female hardcore band Spitboy. They blazed trails for women musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Misogyny, sexism, abusive fans, class and color blindness, and all-out racism were foes, especially for Gonzales, a Xicana and the only person of color in the band. Unlike touring rock bands before them, the unapologetically feminist Spitboy preferred Scrabble games between shows rather than sex and drugs, and they were not the angry manhaters that many expected them to be. Serious about women’s issues and being the band that they themselves wanted to hear, a band that rocked as hard as men but sounded like women, Spitboy released several records and toured internationally. The memoir details these travels while chronicling Spitboy’s successes and failures, and for Gonzales, discovering her own identity along the way.











When: Tue., Mar. 26, 2019 at 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Where: Bluestockings
172 Allen St.

Price: Free
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Author, educator, and punk rocker Michelle Cruz Gonzales reads from her inspiring punk and political memoir, The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band, for the first time in New York!

Michelle played drums and wrote lyrics in the influential 1990s female hardcore band Spitboy. They blazed trails for women musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Misogyny, sexism, abusive fans, class and color blindness, and all-out racism were foes, especially for Gonzales, a Xicana and the only person of color in the band. Unlike touring rock bands before them, the unapologetically feminist Spitboy preferred Scrabble games between shows rather than sex and drugs, and they were not the angry manhaters that many expected them to be. Serious about women’s issues and being the band that they themselves wanted to hear, a band that rocked as hard as men but sounded like women, Spitboy released several records and toured internationally. The memoir details these travels while chronicling Spitboy’s successes and failures, and for Gonzales, discovering her own identity along the way.

Buy tickets/get more info now