Typical Girls Shield

by TGs, Jess and Hebe

Typical Girls in the Garage (and other Mixes)

Here's our first 8tracks mix featuring awesome sixties garage babes.

..and here's another one by official-TG-pal, Kai (alias DJ K-Dog), featuring the ladies of post-punk.

Badges

We got some lovely badges made!

It's not long now until our next night at The Star and Garter, so we thought we'd make something special for you all, and so the badges were born!

Past Flyers

Here are some of the flyers for Typical Girls nights from when it lived in Sheffield. These shows happened in (I think) 2010 and featured the very amazing Talk Normal, The Lovely Eggs, Standard Fare (RIP!) and Hotpants Romance. We also organised a really dancey gig for Bearsuit in Sheffield but I can't ind the flyer for it!

What We've Been up to from May - Early August

Time for a bit of catching up! From May to early August we...

Held our first Typical Girls open meeting at Kro Bar.

Talked to the University of Manchester's feminist society, Riveters, about our plans for Typical Girls and how we could network with other Manchester / Salford based feminist groups.

DJ'd at Make Do and Dance at The Thirsty Scholar. Also at Make Do and Dance were the amazing Cherryade Records talking about "How to Start an Indie Label" as well as an open mic and stalls by For Books Sake.

We went on the wonderful All.FM Anything Goes Breakfast Show with Fiona Ledgard. We talked about feminism and Typical Girls as well as playing loads of our favourite female fronted music! You can have a listen to the show here.

Our first night at Wählbar went amazingly well and we raised nearly £500 for Manchester Rape Crisis! We had amazing sets by ILL, Rose Clout and Rachel Whatever as well as a stall by For Books Sake

DJ'd at the afterparty of What It Feels Like, an exhibition of women artists at Bankley Mill Studios. The afterparty was at the Klondyke Club in Levenshulme, a really lovely venue that we'd never been to before! The bands playing the afterparty were great as well, especially the late addition Los Cripis from Argentina!

Started looking for slightly bigger venues for our second night and ended up with the wonderfully DIY friendly Star & Garter.

Mixtapes

We're now on 8tracks!

We thought it'd be an easy way for us to make and share playlists of our current fave lady tunes. We haven't made any of our own mixes yet but for now here's one we really love!

Write for us, submit your art / music, get involved!

Illustration by Laura Callaghan

We're looking for reviews / rants / interviews / whatever else you can think of as long as it fits within the ethos of the night. You don't need to be a "good" writer, just have a passion for what you're writing about.

We'd also love to hear from you if you're a woman / queer person in a band full of other women / queer people, we could feature your music on the blog or book you at one of our nights! If you make art or zines we'd also love to feature your work.

Email us at typicalgirlsdisco[at]live.com or contact us on Facebook

M.A.S.H. (Manchester Action on Street Health)

For our next night (Friday 30th August at The Star & Garter) we have decided to support M.A.S.H. (Manchester Action on Street Health), a charity that helps out Manchester based sex workers.

They provide a number of services including street outreach, a sexual health clinic, needle exchange, and counselling.

They're a really amazing charity, find out more about them on their website.

Creating 'A Womens' Guide to Manchester'

Illustrations by the amazing Jen Collins

There has been talk of creating a 'Womens' Guide to Manchester' zine to give out at Freshers Week for a few months and now the ball has finally started rolling! Here's the original information from the Facebook event:

"So a couple of us decided it would be a fun idea to try and create a women's guide to Manchester to hand out at the freshers fair and other places if we like! We talked about how it had taken some of us a while to find spaces that we felt comfortable and happy in as women whilst others had found stuff they loved straight away. Either way it would have been great to be given a guide in our first week filled with women's history, comedy, music, groups, activities and other stuff, as well as signposting of health and emergency services etc. It would also be a way to promote fun stuff that is female fronted in Manchester as it's not always that obvious what is going on in our massive city! 

We also realised however, that we as a small group have a very limited experience of Manchester and what goes on here so would like to invite as many amazing women to contribute as possible :D Here are some examples of what we are looking for: nights out that have amazing music where you don't get hassled, a martial arts class that is especially women friendly, a comedy night full of female comics, a building that has significant history, a service you have used that was exceptionally excellent for women, a spiritual place or group that you feel particularly is particularly supportive, etc etc etc All ideas welcome :) 

We will be having a craft day to try and put this all together into a zine-like format on the 3rd but realise that we can never have a time that is convenient for anyone. If you can't make the crafting or don't want to but still want to contribute please do!!! Just post whatever you want on the event page and we will try and incorporate as much as possible! If it's successful maybe we could start a bi-monthly event for making up to date guides of what's on or something?! Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves! Location to be confirmed nearer the time but it may just be someone's house or the students union! Any questions, just post below :) Looking forward to learning lots more about other people's experiences of Manchester!"

 It would be wonderful if as many people as possibly could contribute to this to ensure that it's as varied and inclusive as possible. It will also be a great way to learn about zine making if you're curious about making your own zines! 

Get involved here if you have Facebook! Alternatively, email us and we'll pass your ideas on to the group. We'll also post the actual meet up details for creating the zine here nearer the time.

Manchester Rape Crisis

We gave the profits from our very first Typical Girls night to Manchester Rape Crisis- an amazing charity who offer free one-to-one and group support to women and girls who have been raped or sexually abused.

 They are based in a local women’s centre and women who access the services of Manchester Rape Crisis can access other activities at the centre such as drop-in groups, educational classes and alternative therapy groups. MRC also offer informal support and advocacy to women; for example, such as supporting asylum seeking women who have experienced rape and torture in their home countries. 

Also included on their website is advice for friends and family, information about the after-effects of abuse and a list of myths and facts about rape. Here are a few to consider:

Myth – A rapist is a stranger. 

Fact – Over 50% of women know their attacker in some 

capacity, for example, friend, lover, colleague, husband, ex-partner, neighbour. 

Myth – Rape only happens in dark alleys. 

Fact – 60% of women are attacked inside a building, and for 31% of women rape occurs in their own home - the most common place of all. 

Myth – Women get raped because they are dressed provocatively. 

Fact – If a man decides to rape someone, it makes no difference what she is wearing.

We managed to raise £450 for MRC on our first night, they are mostly volunteer-led so they really need the continued help and support from the rest of us. Keep them in mind if you're ever looking for a local charity to support! 

If you'd like some more information about Manchester Rape Crisis, please refer to their website

Hello from Typical Girls!

We're a new night in Manchester playing female fronted music for dancing! We organise nights that put emphasis on women in music, including women in bands, stalls and distros from women zinesters / artists. We want to challenge how society sometimes views women in music as 'decoration', 'groupies' or 'coat hangers'. We were also disappointed by the lack of female-fronted music being played at Manchester clubnights! 

We try to be as inclusive as possible in how we run our night and we're always open to suggestions. Also, if you're interested in helping out with the night/DJing/submitting some of your own art/writing/music on this blog please feel free to email us at typicalgirlsdisco[at]live.com