[PREVIEW] Bitchfest @ Charlie Bob’s | Saturday, August 30

The annual Bitchfest is upon us this holiday weekend, and it’s your chance to rock out to some great female-powered rock bands, support local branches of feminist organizations, and stock up on free contraceptives. The event is put on by local all-girl hard rockers Thelma and the Sleaze, and will include the post punks from Athens, Motherfucker; scary hard rockers from Indianapolis, We Are Hex; Memphis-based gangster rapper Chopper Girl; and the proto-punk influenced, Las Vegas-based group Tiger Sex. The grassroots, DIY festival will not only be badass, but also helps support women in music and great feminist organizations. It’s all going down on at 7 p.m. on Saturday at Charlie Bob’s; click through to find out more about the ladies in the lineup.

Thelma and the Sleaze

Thelma and the Sleaze are a Nashville-based hard-rocking trio of ladies that play bluesy cock-rock better than the boys. Their new EP, Heart Like a Fist, is coming out the week after this show, so hopefully we’ll get to hear some new material. The band is also responsible for organizing the wonderful thing that is Bitchfest four years running, so these women are truly dedicated to female empowerment and rock and roll.

Tiger Sex

Tiger Sex are based in that most debauched of cities Las Vegas, Nevada and count the very earliest of punk bands as their biggest influences. If you like the Stooges, the Runaways, or the New York Dolls and live for a raunchy, rowdy live show, then you’ll be into Tiger Sex.

Chopper Girl

Chopper Girl is a gangster rapper from Memphis who will add something different to a bill filled mostly with rock and roll bands, and that inclusive spirit is what makes Bitchfest so awesome. Hip-hop is perhaps the one genre where women are even more under-represented than rock and roll, so putting a girl rapper in the lineup was a great move from both a musical and a political standpoint.

We Are Hex

We Are Hex are a bunch of scary punks from Indianapolis. Equally influenced by punk, goth, and anything seedy, the band describes itself as “skin rubbed raw by a pleasant sin.”  That being said, we met them before their last event in town at Fond Object Record store, and they were a lot of fun to chat with over beers.

Motherfucker

This Athens, Georgia-based threesome of self-described best friends delivers what they call “punch-in-the-air” rock and roll and get points for having the (figurative) balls to call themselves Motherfucker.

Bitchfest will be held Saturday, August 30 at Charlie Bob’s. The show begins at 7 p.m., and tickets are available for $8 presale, $10 at the door.