Dear friends, 

Today being the second anniversary of the archive’s on-line launch, it seems a good time for an update - and another huge thank you to everyone who has sent in items to be archived and for the welcome feedback many have sent. If you haven’t visited the site before, we hope you enjoy it. For those of you who have visited already, or are contributors and supporters, we hope you’ll be interested in the project’s progress.

Since May 2011, the website has had around fifty-two thousand visits, has expanded quite a bit with the addition of new material - please see the What’s new in the archive? page - and has just had a bit of a re-launch with a move to a new domain: http://womensliberationmusicarchive.co.uk/ - (though if you use the previous address you’ll automatically be redirected.)

The archive continues to welcome new donations of material – please get in touch at [log in to unmask] if you have anything you think would be relevant and should be in the archive, or if you were involved and would like to write about your experience of that time. Hopefully the project will continue to grow, gaps will be filled in and more entries created.

Physical items that have been donated to the WLMA will be housed by the Feminist Archive South and will be available for viewing and research purposes at the University of Bristol by arrangement with the Special Collections Archivists, who can be contacted at [log in to unmask]  

Unique offer! The CD ‘Music and Liberation: A Compilation of Music from the Women’s Liberation Movement’, which was created as part of the ‘Music and Liberation’  exhibition funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and curated by Dr Debi Withers, a co-founder of the WLMA, is still available. This comprises twenty tracks by some of the feminist musicians from the 1970s and 80s - Abandon Your Tutu, Bad Habits, Bright Girls, Fabulous Dirt Sisters, Feminist Improvising Group, Frankie Armstrong, Friggin Little Bits, Ginger and Spice, Hi-Jinx, Jam Today, Mistakes, No Rules OK, Ova, Proper Little Madams, Sadista Sisters, Siren, Spoilsports, Stepney Sisters, York Street Band – plus an informative booklet. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to revisit or discover some of these sounds – or introduce friends and family to the music and activism of the era! All proceeds from the CD will be used for the upkeep of the Women’s Liberation Music Archive, and we are grateful to Debi and all the women who made the CD possible who kindly agreed that its sales will benefit the WLMA, a not-for-profit, voluntary and otherwise unfunded project. Please contact the archive at [log in to unmask] for more information if you’d like a copy. Following the Music and Liberation exhibition, Debi has now left the archive, while Frankie Green continues as Administrator with project support from the WLMA Steering Group. We thank Debi for her work on the archive and good wishes for her future career go with her. 

Please do get in touch if you have any ideas or questions about the archive. If you have a website or blog you’d like to add to the list of links on our blog posts page please let us know, and please link to us to help spread the word. Thanks! And don’t forget you can advertise your gigs, music releases and other relevant happenings on our Events page. 

Happy May Day and best wishes, 

Frankie Green

The Women's Liberation Music Archive

Feminist music-making from the 1970/80s 

http://womensliberationmusicarchive.co.uk/

‘... an invaluable record of how in the early days of the Women's Liberation Movement the message was in the music as much as in the spoken and written word.' ~ Sheila Rowbotham 

'The truth is that feminism has changed the world and is changing the world. The Women's Liberation Music Archive celebrates and restores its rightful place in culture. And it's freaking cool.' ~ Bidisha

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