Pitchfork

In Le Tigre's "Fake French", Kathleen Hanna sings, "I've got Plan B ability." She's talking about birth control, not Option X over Y. Still, the metaphor applies to bandmember (and Snarla author) Johanna Fateman's new project: Along with her BFF (and recent Seattle transplant) Shaun Cottle, Fateman is revamping Seagull, a beauty salon in New York City's West Village.

The first unisex barber shop in New York (and, some claim, the entire U.S.), Seagull opened in 1971. It's named after the title character in Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull, an actual bird who realizes that squabbling over food is, like, totally lame and maybe he should learn to fly instead. Fateman and Cottle's revamp includes custom-designed furniture by David MacLean, vintage styling chairs, and tchotchke-stylee magic from the co-owners' personal collections.

Seagull is staffed by a fistful of professionally trained stylists, and also a rotating group of hungry artists and off-tour musicians-- basically everyone you ever wanted to pick up on the subway and didn't. Fateman is the receptionist (and if you've seen the "Well Well Well" video, you'll know it's a job she has down pat), and Cottle wields his steez as a hair stylist and color specialist. Before moving to New York, he spent seven years at Vain, the only salon in Seattle where you can bring in a box of crayons and necklaces, then ask if they'll dye your hair to match. (They will.)

When Fateman isn't at the receptionist desk, she's working on LIBBER, a new project with Tracy + the Plastics' Wynne Greenwood. According to the zine Lesbians to the Rescue, LIBBER "brings percussion-based songs and video in a marching-band style to the stage."

Does this leave any time for Le Tigre? It's not impossible. (And Hanna does sing about "multiple alliances, whoah oh oh.") In the meantime, our hair's looking sweet.