The banter on laudable local-scene website coffeestain.com's graffiti board has never been what you'd call intellectual. Or reasonable, or rational, or even coherent, for the most part. But the last year saw an overwhelming majority of those who held out hope for the board as a positive scene tool jumping ship for good, and leaving the page to a handful of metal bands and fans with too much time on their hands and too few thoughts in their heads. These days, the site is barely more than a place for people in bands that suck to talk about how badly people in other bands that suck, suck. And no one has endured more time as "the Coffeestain bitch" as Cindy Sexton. Sexton, a capable, motivated bassist who's been at it for more than 15 years, spent time during the last couple of years in a few local metal bands (Puddin' Hogs, Chumley's Toy and Struggle, to name a few), and invoked the developmentally stunted ire of a few 'stainers. Unable to attack her talent and drive, the wags instead went straight to the kind of petty character assassination that made high-school rumor mongering look like a well-organized debate. Sexton admits that some of the more vicious slander was tough to laugh off.
"Still, the only negative things that were said had nothing to do with my ability," she points out via e-mail.
"I don't think guys were too happy with having their territory invaded by 'the enemy.'"
Sexton has since found a place in a great new Bay area power-pop band called My Own Hero, and if any more evidence that it was her mere presence in metal bands that sent some dudes screaming to affirm their masculinity were needed, the fact that she's no longer mentioned on the graffiti board should serve nicely. Sexton declines to dredge up the whole deal when people at shows want to ask her about it, but confirms that, in a way, it serves as a backhanded compliment to the kind of power a strong woman can wield:
"I'm pissing the guys off because I'm not some stupid fucking doll they can sit on a shelf or treat as a novelty," she writes. "I can actually play, and I play just as hard as any guy."
