I was enjoying a NY Times dispatch from Silicon Valley about Ellen Pao, a junior partner “at the distinguished venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,” who’s brought a sexual discrimination lawsuit against her employer. It’s a key look inside the center of the tech world, which is still dominated by men, but I’ve fixated on the story’s lede: “MEN invented the Internet.”Yeah, sure, men invented the Internet. But MEN, all-caps, also do something else: They rock.If that’s not the most roundabout way of talking about JD Samson, then I’m Carl Weathers. Still, I’ll take any chance I can get to chat up the member of Le Tigre who’s gone on — along with fellow Le Tigre member Johanna Fateman — to create MEN, an awesome dance-pop outfit with a heavy dose of feminism, queercore, and performance art.In 2009 Motherboard paid a visit to Samson’s New York enclave for one of the early episode of our Electric Independence series. She was kind enough to chat with us about Le Tigre’s legacy, showed off her synths, and gave us some background on her work in Dykes Can Dance, a charitable volunteer group dedicated to sharing the gift of ass-moving with New York's lesbian scene. It turned out to be a real gem, and stands as proof that no matter your message, it can’t hurt to deliver it with some dance jams.Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @derektmead.
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