kicking giant was Rachel Carns and Tae Won Yu, two musicians and skilled graphic designers who met at Cooper Union in New York City.

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 NYC 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 upturned 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 The Last Supper (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 Grrl, 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 DC.

In DC, Carns briefly joined Slant 6 as drummer; in fall 1992 they toured the USA with Nation of Ulysses, including a stopover in Olympia. She recorded only one song with the band ("Alien Movie Star") before moving to Olympia to rejoin Yu and Kicking Giant. During the next three years she also performed and recorded with Sue P. Fox, The Fakes, The Pet Stains, and in the notorious three-drummer line-up of Witchypoo. In the meantime, Kicking Giant released another full-length album and toured the west coast with Sue P. Fox, Tattle Tale, and Nikki McClure, the east coast with Versus, and later with Team Dresch and the Free to Fight tour.

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