Yeastie Girlz

Emerging from the vibrant punk community clustered around Gilman Street in Berkeley, California, the feminist punk/rap outfit Yeastie Girlz—whose moniker plainly riffs on the Beastie Boys—originally counted Jane, Cammie, Kate, and Joyce among its ranks. In 1988 the group issued the ten-track 7-inch Ovary Action through the independent Lookout! imprint, with every cut except one clocking in under two minutes and bearing such titles as “Sperm Brain,” “Talkin’ Shit,” “Orgasm Addict,” and “Fuck Yerself.” During the following decade the musicians joined forces with the industrial dance ensemble Consolidated for the 1992 single “You Suck,” which gained traction in dance clubs, and they placed their rallying cry “Yeast Power” on the 1997 MAXIMUMROCKNROLL anthology Turn It Around. TV Girl later lifted material from the band for the track “Not Allowed,” while the Yeastie Girlz themselves persist in motivating successive waves of feminist artists.