Not Enough! Queer Music and Arts Festival

A Night of Possibilities is happening June 11th!

The Not Enough! Queer Music and Arts Festival is presenting the Night Of Possibilities on June 11th starting at 8 p.m. at the Fleetwood Shac (127 NE Lombard). The Not Enough! Queer Music and Arts Festival is a do-it-yourself & do-it-together grassroots festival started by a group of Portland-based queers who had the desire to see more support and experimentation in the queer art and music communities of Portland. The festival encourages participants in the festival to follow three guidelines when submitting music and/or artwork to show: collaborate, make new work specifically for the festival, and have any time-based projects or bands be under 25 minutes in length. Last year’s festival included over fifty bands, artists, film-makers, performers, poets, and participants. Hundreds attended and many volunteered to help out in the festival, creating a participatory and community-building atmosphere for all of those involved in the Not Enough! “happening.” In the spirit of collaboration and to help those who might be seeking other artists, musicians, performers, writers, film-makers, etc. find their matching partner(s), the Not Enough organizers are throwing a queer art social known as the “Night of Possibilities.” Portland queers (and those who fall in the queer spectrums) are asked to come and meet others with similar interests and to have dialogue about possible projects or band-ideas. There will also be an opportunity to submit your project into this year’s Not Enough! festival happening September 17th & 18th. This endeavor is an organic one that can only occur with the time and effort of the queer communities of Portland. Therefore, people are invited to participate in any way they can, and bring their ideas to this festival. The Night of Possibilities, like the festival, is all-inclusive, welcoming over everybody, all-ages, and accessible. We want you to show us who you are! For more information please visit: http://notenoughpdx.tumblr.com/.

girls and queers in girl/queer bands

In a perfect world, most shows would be filled with girls and queers. We’d be in all the bands, putting on all the shows and filling up basements, bars and feminist bookstores all over the damn place. Clearly this isn’t always the case, and playing music is still incredibly straight male-dominated. I have been thinking about this a lot in the context of being a queer feminist girl in a band with 2 other queers, and being asked to play mostly “straight” shows since our inception. This is something I originally felt like I had a problem with, but I’m starting to change my opinion.

I just want to play, and that’s part of where this all came from. I kind of want to play wherever, as long as I didn’t have a political problem with one of the bands or the venue. I’ve had a bit of a nagging feeling about the lack of queer bands I’m playing shows with, like, “Should we try to make more of an effort to only play with other queer bands?” I brought this up with one of my bandmates, who is a fag guitarist that has been playing in a lot of bands for a long time. He said something to the effect of “We need to be playing the straight shows, we need to be visible in those spaces, otherwise they’re pushing us aside.”

I’m clinging to that. I feel more comfortable in girl/queer spaces, but I really feel like it’s so fucking important as a girl and as a queer to be visible in all aspects of the punk scene. That said, it’s hard to let go of the way it feels to be playing your instrument and singing and be surrounded by a bunch of men. It’s a vulnerable space to be in, and men take up a lot of space and make women feel vulnerable all the time. I’d clearly prioritize playing with other queer/girl bands, but I don’t want to deny playing Bro Fest 2010 or whatever because I want us to be visible there, too.

I’m writing this because I am curious to find out how other girls/queer people in bands feel about this. I know that I have avoided seeing friends’ bands because they were playing total dudefests – but, I don’t want to do that anymore. I want the girls and the queers to show up at the shows and mark our fucking territories. Because this is ours.

What’s your experience?

Wild Flag

I feel like everyone I know is talking about this incessantly, but whatever, it’s exciting. Do you remember when the Spells EP came out and it was the world’s most perfect 8-or-so-minute long 4 song recording in existence?

Now there is Wild Flag, a new band with members Mary Timony, Janet Weiss, Rebecca Cole and Carrie Brownstein.

Some people are musical soulmates and meant to play together. I occasionally feel this way about people I play with, too. There’s just this sick and twisted magic that comes out of the combination of Mary Timony and Carrie Brownstein and I want to hear more forever and ever. Usually I am on the wrong coast for stuff I care about these days, but I lucked out this time – Wild Flag’s first tour dates all occur out here in the West Coast bubble:

Nov 10 Olympia, WA The Northern
Nov 12 Seattle, WA High Dive
Nov 13 Portland, OR Doug Fir
Nov 17 Sacaramento, CA The Hub
Nov 18 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
Nov 19 Los Angeles, CA Spaceland
Nov 20 San Diego, CA Casbah
Nov 21 Pomona, CA Aladdins

Wild Flag’s first album comes out in 2011 on Merge Records.

BAD BANANA!

Insanely fucking psyched for this! If you are lucky to be on the right coast, go see Bad Banana and Sourpatch (perhaps the cutest 90s-style twee band to ever pass through Portland) this coming February. Please give them lots of your money for gas to Portland. Thanks dudes.

fun with stats

Someone found Total Trash by searching for “giant clit dicks” on Google. Hmmm.

The Homewreckers

Because of the new goth punk band I’m in as part of the Not Enough Festival, I’ve been listening to an absurd amount of super depressing music over the past several weeks. I caught myself falling into a dark flaming pit of despair today, desperately seeking to reach the precious velvet rope meant solely to lift me back into the light (YES, WAY TOO MUCH GOTH). That rope, as it has been for the past 15 years or so, is pop punk.

Putting on Screeching Weasel’s Boogadaboogadaboogada worked wonders on my mood and completely saved my weekend. Yeah, I love goth. Yeah, I love Siouxsie. But I fucking love The Weasel even more, so much more that I’m letting Jess Lanzillo give me a Weasel stick-and-poke tattoo as soon as I can peel her away from fests for long enough to visit me in Portland. I want my weasel leaning up against a brick wall smoking a cigarette and… you get the idea.

Anyway, there was a show tonight put on by my friends Sheana and Marlena, who have this really rad booking collective called Punkstart My Heart. They are the only bookers in town who focus on putting on shows exclusively featuring bands that are comprised of girls, homos and people of color. They are doing such amazing things for our city, and I’m so psyched that they have done so many shows this summer… if only we could convince more local queers to leave their comfort zones of dance parties and come back home to punk rock. Where did ya’ll go???

So The Homewreckers played, and they were exactly what I needed – upbeat bratty pop punk played by girls and queers, fast drums and power chords! If they are passing through your town and you’re deeply entrenched in end-of-summer depression spiked with rediscovering your pseudo-goth roots (or if you just wanna fucking dance), go check them out, give em a few bucks and buy their 7″!

Here’s a video from a show they played in San Francisco.

not dead yet?

I have been hardcore neglecting this blog because it’s summer, I’m dealing with a bunch of personal crap, and I started playing music again. Two out of three ain’t bad.

The sun is starting to set earlier, which is perfect because I’m now playing bass and singing in an arty goth band and I don’t know what happens to goth bands in the sunlight.  I have been attempting to channel Siouxsie Sioux because she’s like my shining star or whatever.

I made you a short Siouxsie mix. You will like it, even if you think you hate goth. Listen to the last song, Rhapsody, on headphones, top volume, lights out.

here ya go

Also, I would kill to find a live video of Siouxsie and the Banshees performing Rhapsody. If anyone knows where to find this (YouTube is not coming through for me today), please share! In the meantime, stare at Siouxsie and her dudes while she gives you the chills:

Female Fronted (Fuck Yeah!) Fest!

My adopted 2nd home, Baltimore, gets even bigger props than usual – they are hosting their first ever Female Fronted (Fuck Yeah!) Fest @ The Hexagon Space September 3+4, 2010.

Rachel of Hoax Zine has organized this and put together a diverse lineup. For its first year, it looks pretty Fuck Yeah to me. I wish I had known about it sooner, but I will be on the opposite coast, doing some far less feminist festing.

Of course, I found out about it via a bunch of dudes crying exclusionism and, of course, “reverse sexism”. Listen, dudes; as someone who has helped organize women’s music festivals on and off for years, shit ain’t easy. Lots of women musicians are afraid of being ostracized from the greater music community for doing something as simple as, you know, playing with other women instead of tons of dudes. And that’s not even talking about the lack of accessible child care for the (actual, not proclaimed) creative class, having your looks discussed in EVERY mention of your band (if you even get mentioned in male-dominated publications), being told by supposedly feminist musician dudes “What’s a pretty little thing like you doing with a great big amp like that?”, etc forever and ever. The fact that his has upset any dudes at all is all the more reason for women to collaborate and support each other. Not to be all “feminism benefits MEN TOO” but, yeah, it do.

Anyway here’s the schedule!

Friday, September 3rd:

7 – Basinger (main stage)
7:30 – Fearsome Creatures (gallery stage)
8-  The Firecrackers (main stage)
9:15 – Naomi Dee (gallery stage)
10 – Akris (main stage)
10:45 – Erica Warford (galley stage)
11:30 – Mzery Loves Company (main stage)
12:15 – Laura Stevenson and the Cans (gallery stage)
1 – Mr. Mocassin (main stage)

Saturday, September 4th:

7– Kitten on Capitol Hill (main stage)
7:30 – So What?! (gallery stage)
8 -   Candy Hearts (main stage)
8:45 – Angie Head (gallery stage)
9:30 – Secret Mountains (main stage)
10:15 – Talk to Animals (gallery stage)
11 – The Shondes (main stage)
12 – The Two Funerals (main stage)
1 – The Oops (main stage)

A video from the Bangs/Need Natalie Cox benefit in Portland

I danced so hard that a random person on the street (who was at the show) approached me the next day and asked, “Do you have whiplash?”

No, but I’m still not over it! Bangs are still so fucking badass. The Need were awesome too, but… Bangs!!!!!

DEATH BY GUITAR

video by illintechnology

Edit: I kind of can’t stop watching Bangs videos right now, so here are a few more awesome ones from older shows.

Purple Rhinestone Eagle US/Europe tour

Purple Rhinestone Eagle is touring much of the US and Europe right fucking now. If you live anywhere near any of the cities listed on their MySpace page, you really need to go check them out and buy their new amazing record, The Great Return, which was just released on Stankhouse Records.

video by Nathan Backous

video by Nadia Buyse

video by jackalneo

They are this always this awesome, and it will be really difficult to leave one of their shows without whiplash, no matter  how jaded you think you are!