Hot Grrrl Shit

Chances are, if you frequent the Seattle arts and music scene, you’ve run into Robin Edwards. The first time I came across Edwards was the night of my senior homecoming game, which I missed to see Boy Pablo at the Neptune, who she opened for as Lisa Prank.

Edwards started playing music as a teenager in Denver, where she picked up the guitar in the hospital while recovering from a blood clot. After playing in multiple bands Edwards started Lisa Prank, shortly before moving to Seattle after a breakup, hoping to find an adventure. 

She only intended to stay for the summer but fell in love with the city.

“It’s just so magical here,” Edwards shared. 

Ewards was also struck by the size and musical diversity of the Seattle scene. 

“I was so excited and inspired by all the bands. I was just like, Oh my God. There’s so many bands that I love that I get to see like every week, and it was just really magical and exciting and inspiring,” she said. 

One of the most notable things about Edwards’s performances as Lisa Prank is her iconic turquoise crown. She admits that her crown was a Seatatle-inspired choice, “I was a big Hole fan, so I was just wearing crowns because I was, like, ripping their whole

The original Lisa Prank crown was made for Edwards by a friend, but it has since been lost, “that one was actually stolen when I was on tour,”. 

The crown has existed in several forms, from its original form to its current cardboard iteration. 

By 2017, Edwards released the album Seattle Gossip with Seattle supergroup Who Is She, which consists of Bree McKenna of Tacocat and Julia Shaprio of Chasity Belt. Despite not being born in the city, Edwards manages to perfectly capture the atmosphere of Seattle throughout the record with songs like “Seattle Freeze”, and “Worst Girl at the Point 5”. 

Who Is She gained national attention at the start of 2023 as a result of their limited residency at Climate Pledge Arena. 

The gig was cut short after the band performed their Seattle-specific cover of the Le Tigre classic, “My My Metro Card”. Their cover, aptly titled, “My My Orca Card”, contains the lyrics; “Oh fuck Jeffery Besos, he’s such a fucking jerk, shut down all the bookstores, billionaires do not work,”. 

At the time, Edwards didn’t anticipate the backlash the cover would cause “I think we’re just like, ‘This is a song we have and it would be funny to play it in the Amazon arena’,”. 

And while most Seattlites, including myself, wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment expressed in the song, Climate Pledge Area (which just so happens to be funded by Amazon) did not. Their performance of “My My Orca Card” marked the end of Who Is She’s career as the Kraken’s in-house band. 

“I think we would like in retrospect, like we probably should have expected it,” Edwards joked.  

Despite losing the support of the Climate Pledge, the controversy gained Who Is She a new audience, including the mother of all PNW female musicians, Kathleen Hannah. 

In July of 2023, Who Is She opened for Le Tigre for three shows, where they performed “My My Orca Card”. 

“I think that we got those shows because of the controversy, so we had to play it there. If there’s anywhere to play it, it’s at a Le Tigre show,” Edwards said. 

In August of 2023, Who Is She dropped their sophomore record, Goddess Energy, which included “My My Orca Card”, along with ten other upbeat, tracks that center around nostalgia. 

As for 2024, Edwards had a lot in store for both of her projects. 

“I want to make a new Lisa Prank record, I have a bunch of songs I haven’t recorded… I’m excited about them. Who Is She, I’m sure, will tour at some point, and I’m excited for that,”.