In “Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax,” Julia Armfield wants to tell one what it’s like to be working as a member of the crew touring with a female band. Many people don’t think about what it is like to work with a band. She wants to show that behind the scenes people are always working-even on the bus. You don’t do all of the back at your home base. Julia Armfield is showing that most of the work is done on the road. She wants you to know that it’s little play on the road.
Later, back on the bus, Mona edits her footage together, intercutting her shots of the queue with sequence of the show backstage. (82)
Armfield also wants it to be known that everyone could be preoccupied and you may have to step in to help and do something that could not have been what you job is is to do on a daily basis. She is wanting to say that you need to do what needs to be done-no matter what. She wants you to know that the crew may take on multiple roles when they are traveling. Mona, for example, who is mainly the videographer, is sent to an office to talk with someone at the venue to find a solution on the fly. Also, the bus driver is acting as a bodyguard when he has to pull over to get the sneak-ons out of the underneath luggage storage.
Julia Armfield wants to show that touring can be a tiring time in a band crew member’s life. During tours, they have to put up with constantly working, crazy fans trying to get close to the band, bus problems, stage mishaps and technological malfunctions. Armfield wants to show that you do not always want to deal with these things that are happening and sometimes you just want to forget some of the things that have happened on tour. She wants to make it known that you also may not sleep well or enough on tour.
Futile to go back to sleep. Mona sits at the front of the bus witht the road crew and drinks coffee cut with rum. (86)
The toilet on the tour bus clogs and they draw straws to see who has to fix it. (87)
Julia Armfield wants to show that touring is just not all fun and games. That you don’t just assign locations to a date and get on a bus and go there. You have to do more at the venue then you do when you’re picking the venue. She wants to show that mishaps happen and you get busy at the venue and have to improvise when you are in that moment and do whatever needs to in order to get the concert done in a smooth manner.
I agree with your interpretation of the tour life and I do believe that Mona was telling of the life on tour. I also believe that this story has more than meets the eye. The way that death and destruction followed the band everywhere they traveled and the way the teenagers were reacting to the band’s music was obsessive and creepy. It’s like the music casts a spell on them. In addition, a bunch of weird phenomenons happened when females started to listen to the band. In one instance, when Mona first listened to the band, she revealed that she was with a man and began to strangle him. On a far-stretched note, I believe that the band’s songs persuade women to form a vendetta against the male species, as seen near the end of the story when Mona is talking to an eighteen-year-old boy at a store and he made a comment about the band. Her reaction to his answer seemed as if she was expecting more praise and then he was hunted down by the fan girls.