The music business has finally decided to wholeheartedly embrace female musical acts. Artists like Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple and Alanis Morrisette are not only enjoying tremendous radio play, but also performing to capacity crowds. In fact, many of the aforementioned artists joined forces for a sell-out festival of their own dubbed "a celebration of women in music."

Long before there was a celebration for women rockers, however, there was Luscious Jackson. These four women from New York City's East Village not only know about the grittiness of the music business, but that of life growing up on the streets of the most fast-paced metropolis the Earth could envision.

There's a thing in life called an agenda and the ladies who make up Luscious Jackson seem to have one laid out for themselves. And what it entails is not joining up with a bunch of other female musicians, but rather working at their own pace. It's not just the Lilith Fair that they avoided, but other festivals as well.

They've been invited to perform at end-of-the-school-year bashes at colleges all over the country as well as to participate in festivals thrown by radio stations, like KROQ's annual Weenie Roast. Is it that Luscious Jackson doesn't like sharing the stage with other performers? "We were approached to play on Lilith but it gets to the point that you tour all the time and you just think, 'let's not do anything unless we have to,'" said Vivian Trimble, the group's keyboardist.

That kind of mindset is somewhat ironic since it was an uber-fest that more-or-less jumpstarted Luscious Jackson's career. Even before their 1994 Grand Royal debut Natural Ingredients, hit stores, Luscious Jackson found themselves playing Lollapalooza's second stage, a place that has helped launch other bands like Smashing Pumpkins and Hole into the spotlight. "Without Lollapalooza," Viv said, "we would be working in some library somewhere moaning about the huge mistake we made."

Make no bones about it, Luscious Jackson made no mistakes in 1994. After playing Lollapalooza, Natural Ingredients went on to sell more than 200,000 copies in the States alone and it set the pace for this funky foursome to take off. And having friends like MCA (Adam Yauch), Mike D. (Mike Diamond) and Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz) of the Beastie Boys didn't hurt getting the ladies connected. That relationship, however, goes much further back than the beginning of Luscious Jackson or even the Beastie Boys.

As kids, the three guys and three of the four ladies used to run in a pack of other New York City teens (Vivian spent much of her youth growing up in Europe, but more on that later). They all grew up fast and went to schools where learning wasn't as important as the social life was. "I spent a lot of my time sleeping on cars in the parking lot," said Luscious' brash yet very funny drummer Kate Schellenbach. Kate, like Jill Cunniff and Gabby Glaser, all learned about life on New York's streets. Now don't take that the wrong way; they all grew up in good homes and had plenty of food and clothing. But life in New York's public schools -- and even the private ones -- is different than any other lifestyle. It taught them how to treat other people, and how to stick with one another for support.

Being in the Big Apple also opened up their eyes to many cultural activities, the most important being music. Kate and Jill have known each other since their first encounter with the music scene. In the early '80s, when they were about 10 years old, the two girls, who now would look quite funny in tutus, took modern dance class and boogied to the likes of the Eurythmics. Perhaps it was hearing a strong female singer like Annie Lennox that inspired them. It wasn't much time after these lessons that Kate picked up a set of drumsticks. She hasn't put them down since.

In high school is when Jill and Kate hooked up with Gabby. It was also at this time that Kate began playing drums in a band with the aforementioned "boys" they ran around with. Kate and the three dudes who would soon become known to the world as the Beastie Boys jammed around New York together for about three years. It was around this time that the Boys met up with Rick Rubin, president of American Recordings. Rick started working with the Beasties. They tried their collective hands at rap and attained the status as "brash" boys. This is when Kate departed. This is also when Kate decided that "Rick Rubin is a pig."

So if everyone was running amuck in Manhattan when Viv was listening to her father sing in Viennese opera houses and watching her mother compose classical piano scores in Switzerland, how did she end up in Luscious? "Jill and I taught an adult education class together," she said." Because the four of them had similar musical upbringings, (Gabby's mom dated a guy named Manny who had a "great record collection and was instrumental to introducing her to the finer points of rock 'n' roll," Kate said.) it was an easy match. But Vivian didn't want to be a musician. "I wanted to be a dancer," she said. "I avoided music like the plague." Fortunately for their fans, Vivian stuck with keyboards and the foursome became Luscious Jackson.

There's another thing in life that's called freedom, and Luscious Jackson enjoys theirs. In fact, it seems that when they aren't on tour or traveling around, they are the most free hanging out in New York. It's a chance for them to escape the world of stardom and rock music. They get to hang out with friends and do what they love best. "I ride my bicycle, play basketball and meet my friends at the titty bar," Kate says in a very sarcastic tone. In all seriousness though, the ladies of Luscious just like to slink back into anonymity and hang out. "It's really nothing too special," Viv said of her private life. "I just catch up on movies and hang out with friends." Many people forget that rock stars are normal people too.

But it's when Luscious Jackson takes the stage that they really fell most at home. This is a band that enjoys touring, as long as they don't go to a jinxed city.

A jinxed city?

"There's certain cities that are jinxed no matter how much we try to play a good show, it just doesn't work," Viv said. It's other places like Columbus, Detroit and Chicago that have always been good to Luscious Jackson. There's something about the Midwest, where the fans are wild, that allows the band to have a really good time without being jinxed.

Another thing about playing live shows is getting to travel around the world. Some places to play are great, others, not so hot. Places like, well almost all of Europe. Luscious Jackson hit the other continent to support Fever In Fever Out, an album that shipped gold and as of last May had already sold more than 400,000 copies worldwide. Apparently the sales numbers were bigger in the States and Europeans needed a kick in the pants.

In the States, Luscious Jackson has a fan base that fills medium-sized venues, but in Europe they can barely fit on a stage. "We've moved up and gotten more sophisticated, which basically means we have more equipment," Viv said with a giggle. "Small dirtball clubs in Shittsberg, Germany can't handle all of our stuff," Kate and Viv said together as they laughed about it. For them, playing Europe was like taking a step back three years. It became disheartening to play to crowds of maybe a couple of hundred people after opening for bands like R.E.M. and Live as well as headlining their own shows at clubs like Metro in Chicago and Irving Plaza in New York. "We don't want to ever go back [to Europe] again," Kate said.

In addition to playing places in Europe, the ladies were invited to play a huge festival Down Under -- Australia's Big Day Out. This was one fest they weren't going to pass up. "Australia is really beautiful, but it takes a bit of getting used to," Viv said. "I kept comparing it to California only inhabited by all English people -- sunny, laid back climate with paunchy pubs and pubcrawlers."

In Sydney, Kate explained that there's a really strong music scene. "One of the reasons is that they don't have MTV there," she said. "They do have this thing called rock 'n' roll high school, though." Now this isn't the rock 'n' roll high school the Ramones sang about. Rather it's a program set up, mainly for young girls, to teach them how to be in a band. Instead of holding a workshop, Kate, Viv, Jill and Gabby were treated to a special performance by some of the program's attendees. Regarding Australia overall, "we're waiting for them to invite us back," Viv said.

Even though Luscious Jackson has traveled around the globe, they always can't wait to get home. They are New Yorkers through and through. In fact, they just recorded a bit for the "I Love NY" ad campaign. They like the small, cramped spaces. They like the grit and the dirt. They long for the alone time. But they love the fact that no matter when it happens, they can also book a show and be flogged by fans. Even if they don't feel like rock stars.

ARI BENDERSKY