That was a little before my time. Biff was the first Canadian woman I could think of who would have set the stage for Avril (because I’m not as familiar with the early Canadian punk scene). I somehow blanked on Alanis Morrissette.
This article seems to have more info on the women of the early Canadian punk scene.
Also, the rabbit hole I fell down led me here to the wonderfully named Grindmother who seems to be going strong at 75 (although it looks like her career is more recent).
She’s great, but I wouldn’t think of her as punk either? I don’t know if she started out in an underground/punk scene or not?
BTW, in case anyone is wondering, I’m not putting any moral weight on being punk or not. But if we accept there are 2 metrics of punk (which I noted above) neither would be that… The kind of music one makes isn’t necessarily better than any other (with the exception of hatecore, white power music, which is morally objectionable). And it’s hard to fault people with taking advantage of the already existing system of music production… although we can certainly critique the global recording industry all day long. I’m just not sure individuals are entirely responsible for that if they decide to sign with a major which has a lot more reach and access to markets.
Nice! Thanks! Again, the book I linked above might have more on punk and gender in Canada.
I wouldn’t consider Alanis punk, either, but lines between punk and grunge felt pretty blurry in small town Canada around that time. It was loud, angry music that the kids listened to (and I say this as someone who was a kid in a small town in Canada around that time).
Oh cool! I hadn’t clicked the link before. I didn’t realize it was specific to the Canadian punk scene. I’d love to learn more about the scene. Most of my exposure to punk came through bands like NOFX and Pennywise in the late 90s. I know very little about the history of it, especially in Canada.
As someone who was into punk in the 90s and is Canadian, the scene back then was very, very male. I’d personally put Bif Naked over Alanis Morrissette, who I think of as less punk more pop, though the latter was far more commercially successful.
I’m also Canadian, but I didn’t get into punk until the late 90s. You’re likely way more familiar with the scene than I ever was.
She started out on television as a tween on one of the CanCon kids shows and made a couple of pop albums in the early 90s before writing Jagged Little Pill.
You mean You can’t do that on Television? I think she was only in a few episodes of that…
Unfortunately I was stuck out in the sticks (Saskatoon, SK) so we didn’t have the type of scene described in that article. It was just a bunch of boy bands here (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbJnAj-u_Uo).
I was into a lot of all women or woman-fronted bands at the time though. Like a suspiciously high percentage of my faves were for a ‘cis’ guy lol.
Saskatoon was/is a thriving metropolis compared to the island I lived on in the 90s (it wasn’t even one of the cool coastal islands) 
My horizons expanded a lot when I finally escaped.
I guess the grass is always greener. I’d have killed to have a scene like Vancouver’s as a teen. Though I did just move back to S’toon from Vancouver earlier this year, didn’t know how good it was here until I moved away.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s a clip floating around of her getting slime dumped on her. Point being that she started out in entertainment very early and with the backing of family and the Canadian entertainment industry.
Debbie Harry, The Runaways, Patti Smith, Wendy O’Williams, Viv Albertine, Jayne County, Bikini Kill, L7, Babes in Toyland, The Go-Gos…
My brother-in-law lives there. From the sounds of it, it’s got a really decent scene. Solid enough for him to play gigs when he feels like it (which is perfect for him these days).
Nice, my wife and I want to start a queercore band, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Still getting settled back into things here.
Yep… a long fuckin’ list!
Fuck it, do it now! 
Funny, the message I took from that movie was that you’re a poseur, and also that Stevo’s dad didn’t sell out, he bought in.
(I’m still scarred by that weirdass sequel though)
This reminds me of Dan Ozzi’s excellent book Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007), which goes through a few different punk-adjacent bands that were signed to majors post-Nirvana boom. The book is smartly split between bands that “made it” (like Green Day) and the ones that…did not, at all (like Jawbreaker).
But the most interesting chapters (perhaps unsurprisingly) were the ones with bands whose marginalized identities as women/transfolk/POCs made the experience that much more ugly and complicated — specifically, the Donnas, the Distillers, At The Drive-In, and Against Me! (The ATDI chapter in particular shocked me; I love that band, and genuinely thought nothing at the time about their Latino backgrounds; I also had no idea that people were showing up at their shows wearing fucking Afro wigs to imitate Cedric and Omar.)
