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Welcome to my first turn as Guest Blogger for the XPN 885 Most Memorable Musical Moments Countdown, where today I offer some significant female musical moments, all of which helped make me the rock and roll mami I am today. No particular order, and some will be more, er, universal than others. But like the lady says, great moments are made of small ones. And a tip o’ the bra to Michaela Majoun, who keeps it real for the rock broads every Friday.

Patti Smith on SNL, ‘75: Gloucester County, represent! To my sisters, Terrie and Susan, who as my teenaged babysitters let me stay up way past my bedtime, I remain in your eternal debt.

Chrissie Hynde in the “Brass in Pocket” video. Life handbook of the girl who’s never described as “You know, the pretty one.”

Tina Turner and her bad self, 1971: OK, so I wasn’t born until ‘72 but my mother’s been a Tina fan since way back in the day; imagining this stuff coming out of the TV screen and seeping into my developing brain does explain a lot, methinks.

Though I can’t give you an exact moment when Kim Deal became important to me, I estimate it as a few minutes after my friend Jason clapped his headphones on my ears and said something like, “Listen to this, they have a girl bassist.” Then I heard her sing. Even on record, you can hear that smile in her voice.

I’m sure there’s a post in me somewhere just about Rock Hotties of the 1970s, but The Wilson Sisters are for me the most significant. So if we’re talking looking for the memorable moment here, consider it the one, long ago, when Ann was the hot one, her gorgeous howl the battle cry of brunettes everywhere. And holy drum solo!

Any number of Memorable Moments surround Janis Joplin, but for me means one thing: WMMR in the 1970s. Feel it, people.

Yeah, yeah, the “official” memorable rock moment about Debbie Harry will be her “rap” with Fab 5 Freddy. However, if I wrote about that, I wouldn’t get to tell you about when my best friend Laura got Parallel Lines and we made a disco in her Barbie Dream House and had our dolls slamdance to this song. And really, how did you ever live before you knew that?

… and

OK, this last one is a guilty pleasure choice for me, but I need to include Suzi Quatro, aka Leather
Tuscadero. Her appearances on “Happy Days” didn’t make a lot of sense to me as a kid, until I found out later what a rock star she was in Europe. But even at the time, she was a badass. And is that really Paris Hilton’s mom shaking her thang in back? The video quality’s too crappy to really tell.