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May 07, 2025 Music » Music News + Views
Published May 7, 2025 at 10:00 a.m.
Talk to anyone who’s been in the local punk and hardcore scene for a while and you’re bound to hear about 242 Main. The Burlington all-ages venue in the basement of Memorial Auditorium was once the epicenter of the scene, hosting shows for more than 30 years and providing a nexus for the area’s nascent bands and a large community of punk fans.
Although two of the venue’s most formative figures were Jane Sanders and Kathy Lawrence, it’s not unfair to say that 242 was something of a boys‘ club. For every dude I know with a rosy memory of the venue, there’s a woman who recalls less savory experiences — just check out former Seven Days freelancer Amelia Devoid’s riposte to the coverage surrounding the 2016 closure of 242. In a nutshell, most of the acts that came through those doors were male-dominated, as were the crowds and the mosh pits.
„Regardless of anyone’s intentions, a man using his normal amount of strength in a pit can still feel really hard on a woman like me, who is physically smaller,“ said Rae Murphy of the femme punk act Burly Girlies. „In a lot of those pits, you’re getting groped and touched inappropriately when you’re just trying to enjoy the show. It just drives home the feeling that you’re a minority in that space. You might even be the only one, which is a scary sensation.“
To combat that state of affairs, Murphy and her best friend, bassist Morgan Vespa, formed Burly Girlies in 2021. Not satisfied with just starting a femme-fronted punk band, the duo wanted to create a safe space for similar acts. So they started throwing their biannual show, Femme Fest.
„It can feel isolating to go to shows and not see your identities represented on stage,“ the press release reads. Accordingly, Femme Fest devotes its „lineup exclusively to bands with members who identify as femme.“
Femme Fest IV: Punk Prom goes down at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge in South Burlington this Friday, May 9. The prom-themed event features Philadelphia hardcore duo ShyGodwin; Portland, Maine, punks theWorst; and the University of Vermont’s Hissy Fit. Burly Girlies round out a night of female-fronted fury.
Vespa and Murphy got the idea for Femme Fest after playing an event of the same name in Philadelphia in 2023 with ShyGodwin.
„Seeing that community inspired us to stage a Femme Fest here with bands we’ve toured with and the bands from our own scene we’ve started to meet,“ Vespa said. „It’s really an awesome way to create a bill: music we love and people we vibe with.“
Throwing the punk rager feels like both a rebellion and common sense to Murphy, who said she believes in the importance of empathy and encouraging change.
„My actual values are to try and connect with as many people as possible,“ she said, citing the example of family members with whom she disagrees politically. „In order to fight fascism, you have to make connections, and that means having uncomfortable conversations with people who have different values than I do.“
But when it comes to Femme Fest, she draws a line.
„I’m not onstage saying, ‚Listen, guys, let’s think about where the transphobic people are coming from with this,'“ she said, drawing a laugh from Vespa. „Femme Fest is where we all can just let out our frustration and scream. Discourse is good and healthy, but sometimes you just have to be able to scream about how much we fucking hate some of what’s going on in the world.“
The band will show up to Femme Fest with a brand new EP in tow. Titled Puss, the six-song blast of punk is the first to feature new guitarist Spencer Soulia, who produced the record, along with drummer Emmett Carr, making the Girlies a four-piece.
Several years in the making, Puss finds the young band growing in confidence, taking its earliest songs and reworking them to reflect its musical evolution. It’s a massive step up for a band that started out as raw as possible.
„Our whole aesthetic is ‚If we can do it, you can do it,'“ Vespa said. „I didn’t even play the bass until we decided to start a band.“
To encourage other women and female-identifying aspiring musicians to start their own projects and join the community, the band is handing out a zine called How to Start a Band at Femme Fest. It’s packed with information on music theory and basic chord charts, as well as terminology and social media guides.
„At this point now, almost every show we play locally feels like a Femme Fest,“ Murphy said. „Women will come up to us after shows and say it was the first time they felt comfortable being in a mosh pit. How cool is that?“
Grab tickets to Femme Fest IV: Punk Prom at highergroundmusic.com.
Tags: Music News + Views, Femme Fest IV, Burly Girlies, ShyGodwin, theWorst, Hissy Fit
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