30 Days, 30 Artists
Against Me! is putting gender politics and impassioned punk front and center at SXSW
Name: Against Me!
Featured tracks: “Black Me Out” from Transgender Dysphoria Blues
City of origin: Gainesville, Florida
Genre: Punk
In one sentence: “Punk has always been about disruption of order, and this new revolution that Laura Jane Grace leads doesn’t surrender her identity, it reclaims it.” –Pitchfork.com
Why we chose them: In January, Against Me! released the most powerful record of the 2010s — and not just because it rattles and pounds with hard-hitting blue-collar punk rock. Lead singer Laura Jane Grace (formerly Tom Gabel) came out as a transgender woman to Rolling Stone in 2012, and Transgender Dysphoria Blues represents the brutally honest account of that transition. Nobody with Grace’s mainstream cache has sung about such provocative experiences in such an unabashedly public way — or made them sound so damn anthemic and fist-pumpable.
SXSW official showcase: 12:50 am on Wednesday, March 12th at Red 7