Celebrate International Women's Day with Rock!

I was going to post a Heartless Bastards song yesterday -- because I thought, on the way home, that Erika Wennerstrom has one of the great rock 'n' roll voices of all time, and that the band surrounding her is of similar caliber. But I forgot about it, with the press of other things.

But today is an even better day to post a great rock song sung by a woman -- since it's International Women's Day, the one day devoted to half the human race, and so here's "Into the Open," the opening track of their 2006 record All This Time (they've got a new one, Arrow, that just came out, but I've only heard one song from it so far):


But Heartless Bastards -- while clearly awesome, and possessed of a great name -- are not the only strong band featuring a tough woman singer. How about Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes? So here's "New York," from last year's Sin Sin Sin:


And then I can't forget the Ettes, who have been doing the neo-'60s garage rock thing -- and doing it very well -- for nearly a decade now as a female-majority power trio. Their newest album, Wicked Will, is a bit quieter and more subdued than the mood I've got going on here, so, instead, I'll give you "Red in Tooth and Claw" from their previous record, Do You Want Power. (I wanted to embed "Blood Red Blood," which is even tougher, but there's no accessible version I could find.):

Three bands, all of which rock like nobody's business, all centered around great women musicians. That's something to celebrate. Happy IWD, everyone.