Johanna Fateman

Johanna Fateman

Johanna Fateman, probably best known as a member of the band Le Tigre, attended Reed College of Portland, OR -- notorious for academic excellence contrasted with an unconventional grading system -- where, Fateman writes, she "started making a fanzine called Snarla with my best friend from high school, Miranda July."

Fateman went on to pen such titles as My Need to Speak on the Subject of Jackson Pollock, The Opposite and The Opposite Part II and ArtaudMania, the latter of which detailed Fateman's hilarious in-class feuds with an abrasive art professor.

She met Kathleen Hanna at a Bikini Kill show, and the two became fast friends when Fateman gave Hanna one of her zines. Fateman dropped out of Reed and, when Hanna moved to town, they embarked on their first musical collaboration, a band called The Troublemakers, after the film of the same name by G.B. Jones. The band played often in Portland at basement parties in the house the two women shared, until Fateman moved to New York City to go to school. After Fateman graduated, Kathleen Hanna moved up to the east coast. They formed Le Tigre with Sadie Benning. Once she left the band JD Sampson filled her place and the band released a number of recordings before going on hiatus.