Shiragirl’s fans know she’s always going to speak her mind, and she’s always going to stand up for the things she believes in. Just one example is the Shiragirl Stage at Warped Tour. Back in the early 2000s Shiragirl showed up at the Warped Tour and created a makeshift stage for female punk performers: nobody told her to do it but she saw a woeful lack of representation and decided to do something about it. Tour organiser Kevin Lyman noticed, acknowledged that Shiragirl was right, and allowed her to host an official stage. Since then, 200 female-fronted acts would play the Shiragirl Stage – including Joan Jett, Paramore (on their first tour ever), and Justina Valentine, and it’s become an essential part of the history of the Tour.
She’s also raised money for girls’ charities, shot a live video at the Women’s March, and pushed for gender equality throughout the music industry. Now she’s asking whether the world we’ve made with our phones and computers is optimal or even sustainable in her latest single, ‘Antisocial Media’.
The track expands on the theme she started on her six song concept EP, ‘Andi Underground’, produced by Tim Armstrong of Rancid. The record followed a rebel against techno-conformity who more than a little resembles Shiragirl. ‘Antisocial Media’ has the same punk rock energy as ‘Andi Underground’, and listeners should expect big beats, buzzsaw guitars, catchy melodies, irresistible riffs, and pointed lyrics about pointless online activities.
The colourful video for ‘Antisocial Media’ sees director Heather Ballish puts the Shiragirl’s personality front and centre. She leads her all female band in a wonderfully abrasive, and fiercely kinetic fashion, that sees them approach the camera with the confidence of seasoned stage veterans while maintaining the enthusiasm of kids with a story they’re burning to tell.
Ballish also captures Shiragirl and her bandmates in rooms that are sometimes rainbow-striped, sometimes covered in newsprint and decorated with dangling chains and staticky television monitors, and sometimes resembling cells of an insane asylum. It’s a striking visual metaphor for the technology that has held us all captive — the digital walls that we’ve created and which we could tear down, if only we had the guts to break free.
Find Shiragirl online on her website.
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