Arcade doesn't try to revel in its femininity. One of the few all-women bands in the area, the group doesn't talk about politics or revolution, and they don't claim to be strongly opinionated.
"There's a lot of misconceptions out there, that we have to be man-haters, or have some sort of agenda," drummer Joy Gerwe-Johnson said. "There's nothing wrong with that, but we just want to perform."
They also like to belch.
The women, who practice in Gerwe-Johnson's garage, seem proud of their vulgar behavior, taking a break to sip on Keystone, and homemade beer and exchange humorous insights.
"We can be really dorky," guitarist Jill Gerwe said.
Arcade consists of Gerwe-Johnson, her sister Jill Gerwe, bassist Lisa Fett and singer Carrie Conley.
The group's origins stretch back six years when Conley, then a freshman at Ball State, helped form a band called Blacklisted. Gerwe-Johnson became involved within a year and Fett joined last spring.
Conley, the only original member, decided to change the name, after most of the rest of the band graduated or moved elsewhere.
"We'd changed a lot and the girl who came up with the name Blacklisted wasn't even in the band anymore," Conley said. "We still play a lot of old songs but we wanted a new start."
"Blacklisted kind of made us sound like a punk band," Gerwe said. "It made us sound a lot harder than what we really were."
Gerwe-Johnson was inspired by an old arcade on Centennial Avenue, near where she works.
"I think I originally just thought about afternoons in the arcade," she said. "But it was hard to come up with a new name, it took us weeks."
The band describes itself as a work in progress, unsure even of how to describe its music.
"We like to say gritty rock, but that makes it sound all dirty and hard core," Fett said.
"We have some fun music, fun rock," Gerwe said. "Every time somebody asks (about the style of music) we just tell them rock, because we don't know what else to say. It's a problem we've got to figure out."
Conley, who pens most of the lyrics, said she draws inspiration from true crime stories, and newspaper headlines.
"I just like looking on the internet for stories that kind of shock and make me feel a certain way," she said. "For example a couple of months after Sept. 11, a kid crashed a small plane into the Bank of America building in Tampa, my hometown. He went to my high school. I write about things like that, that provoke me. It's not necessarily political."
Though a few women do perform on the Muncie music scene, Arcade is the only local band that consists entirely of females. For the most part, they say, the band fits in well with the area's other musicians.
"The (music) scene here is pretty intimate," Gerwe-Johnson said. "You know a lot of the bands that are playing and they seem supportive of each other."
Reactions among audiences vary.
"One of our biggest fears is that a lot of people may not listen to our music, simply because they just can't get past the fact that we're all girls," Gerwe-Johnson said. "They may be kind of impressed just because we are girls. This one guy wanted to be our manager once, and wanted us to dress sexy."
In spite of such attitudes, the group, who come on stage in jeans and T-shirts, feels comfortable performing in local venues.
"We don't really hear anything bad," Conley said. "A lot of people who are friends will jokingly say stuff just to piss us off. They may say things like 'do you need help carrying your equipment?' We do get some of that."
"Well of course, if people want to help us and we're tired that's cool," Fett responded.
Band members are unsure of what type of future they want to pursue. They have performed mainly in Central Indiana, venturing as far as Fort Wayne and Terre Haute. A Ball State graduate, Gerwe-Johnson is married and works as a teacher at Huffer Memorial Children's Center for troubled youths. The other three women still attend Ball State.
"School takes up a lot of time," Conley said. "But we're almost to the stage where the band can be a full-time job, if we promote ourselves, get artwork, e-mail and a Web site. There's so much more than writing music and playing it, if you want to get shows. It's getting to the point where we have to decide if we want to do anything more."
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