Rachel Carns

Rachel Carns
Rachel Carns (circa 1999)
Background information
Genres	Art rock, post-punk, stoner-prog
Occupation(s)	Musician, designer
Instruments	Drums, organ, vocals
Years active	1990–present
Labels	Troubleman Unlimited, Kill Rock Stars, K, Chainsaw
Associated acts	Kicking Giant, The Need, The King Cobra, TWIN, System Lux (art co.)

Rachel Carns (born August 13, 1969) is a musician, composer, artist and performer living in Olympia, Washington, U.S.. Raised in small-town Wisconsin, she went on to study painting and drawing at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City, where she completed her B.F.A. in 1991. Carns is perhaps best known for her distinctive stand-up drumming style; she began as drummer for Kicking Giant, later collaborating with several influential bands, including The Need. She is a celebrated graphic designer, working under the name System Lux, and plays drums and percussion with experimental performance art group Cloud Eye Control.

Carns' first band was Kicking Giant with fellow Cooper Union student Tae Won Yu, with whom she played drums and sang from 1990–1995. Their first show was in the storefront window of a Brooklyn junk shop; Carns stood up and played just one drum, a floor tom. Kicking Giant played around New York City and the northeast with bands like Codeine, Uncle Wiggly, and fellow "love-rockers" Sleepyhead; Carns continued to expand her stand-up kit, building around the central floor tom, anchor to Yu's whirling guitar and bedrock of their unique sound. Live, their largely improvised mash of punk, free jazz, sugar-candy pop, and pure poetry meant that Kicking Giant never played the same set, or even the same song, twice. Photographer Robert Frank filmed some live Kicking Giant shows; Carns later appeared in his film (1992) along with Taylor Mead, Zohra Lampert, and Chemical Imbalance magazine's Mike McGonigal. While in New York, Kicking Giant recorded songs on Yu's 4-track and released a number of homemade cassettes (including songs recorded with Kramer); circulating bootlegs soon garnered the band a fierce cult following, particularly in England and Japan. Through the underground fanzine network, Yu became penpals with Liz Phair and members of Bratmobile, trading tapes and letters and zines and introducing the band to Riot Grrrl, a movement that merged Do It Yourself culture and feminism. In the summer of 1991 Kicking Giant played the International Pop Underground Convention in Olympia with bands like Bikini Kill, Beat Happening, Fugazi, L7, Unwound, and Jad Fair. The energy of the northwest punk scene was infectious, and both members were ready to leave New York; the duo parted ways temporarily in 1992 when Yu moved to Olympia and Carns to Washington, D.C.