Photos: GIRLSCHOOL 2017

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The Regrtts (Photo by Ashly Covington)
The Regrettes (Photo by Ashly Covington)

“If you don’t allow yourself to be diminished, you won’t be diminished.”

With those words, Garbage’s Shirley Manson set the tone for the weekend’s second annual GIRLSCHOOL LA,  which brought three days of musical performances, talks and panel discussions to the Bootleg Theater. The festival, the brainchild by Anna Bulbrook (the Airborne Toxic Event, the Bulls), was founded to connect female “artists, leaders and voices.”

Manson’s 45-minute conversation with journalist Eve Barlow covered a lot of ground — mostly about the manner in which the 50-year-old Scottish singer has navigated her career, but also about general empowerment themes. “I’m not a big believer in all-female enclaves,” she said, warning about artistic segregation along gender lines. “I don’t want an all-female stage at a festival. I want us on the main stage. … We have to push back, [and] I don’t think I’m being hysterical.”

Watch the whole interview here:

The performances, which flip-flopped between the Bootleg’s bar stage and theater, spanned genres (and demographics) and were consistently solid. Teenage phenoms the Regrettes, with Lydia Night foraying into the crowd, injected some youthful energy into Friday night, followed by the Bird and the Bee — Inara George fronting an all-female lineup with Alex Lilly, Wendy Wang and Samantha Sidley — who countered minutes later with a more mature but no less energetic sophistication.

Rock duo Deap Vally put an exclamation point on Saturday’s proceedings, which included the dizzying eclecticism of Liphemra, the cherub shoegaze of Winter, sublime harmonies from the Wild Reeds and theatrical strangeness (aka “rap cabaret”) of Boyfriend.

Sunday served up some more winning dream-pop, via Kid Wave and ExSage, along with a standout vocal turn from Caroline Smith. Then the rapturous Chelsea Wolfe brought the house down with a set that seemed to rise out of a dark mist. 

On Friday night, Natalie Angiuli — aka Luna Shadows — marveled at GIRLSCHOOL’s assemblage of talent and the energy of the crowd, and talked about chasing one’s dreams. “My dad told me that no matter how hard I practiced, I would never be able to play for the New York Yankees,” she joked. “So there’s some work to be done.”

Photos by Ashly Covington