Talent and beauty can't coexist according to so many male journalists. Seriously, when will women be written about as artists and not highly sexualized dolls?
And speaking of annoying press habits, how about a story on Juggalos being the new Ravers and the LA Weekly that needs to be proven by showing pictures of scantily clad women. Try harder LA Weekly.
Do all female event lineups actually help or hurt our cause since it stresses our gender over the art we make?
Grace Jones is replacing M.IA. as the Afropunk London headliner.
Public service announcement: There are "professionals" trying to use LinkedIn like Tinder. Check out when a "nice website for nice people" turns into shark infested waters.
As electronic music enters classrooms a a way to teach children about music making, what does this mean for the future of this genre in 10 or so years? I can't wait to find out.
Kenny and I are still mourning the end of our record label this year but I love reading about a couple who run one of my favorite American record labels currently, Trouble In Mind.
It is really hard to be your best at anything (music or otherwise) when our health and female bodies are grossly stigmatized and unserved. Girls also tend to be more anxiety prone, why is that?
Michelle Obama and Missy Elliott rocking out in a car with James Corden is the BEST THING I HAVE SEEN OR HEARD ALL WEEK.
Backyard report, get to know one of my favorite local musicians (that velvet voice!) and a fabulous feminist to boot Julie Karr. Also Sisterhood of Hip Hop season 3 includes an artist we booked at Richmond's Fall Line Fest, Audra the Rapper (from DC/ Virginia Beach)
And in things that have made my friend's week, I think The Julie Ruin covering Courtney Barnett is the best thing they have heard or seen all week.
In other riot grrrl news, you can wear a piece of its history - via an Ebay auction right now.
One more piece of grrrl news, you can help fund a film on this very subject, all 25 years of it.
My fluff piece of the week, play a record in a whole new way - like a guitar.
Gillian McCain talks Please Kill Me twenty years later.
Her story (IE women in music) is an important party of punk's HIStory. Viv Albertine to the rescue!
Goth at 40 is a nice reminder that age is a stupid thing and music we love is forever.
A Friday Flashback to Containe, a band that included Fontaine Toups from Versus and at one point Georgia from YLT on drums.
What could be more important to music fans than a scientific discovery that could reverse hearing loss?
Sharon Jones discusses the fight of her life (fuck cancer!) and isn't willing to give up hope via the Soul Sisters podcast.
Don't know anything about the Fluxus art movement? I have a remedy for that. Spoiler, it involves women doing amazing things in art, including graphic design, performance pieces, and sound.
Showing posts with label electronic music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electronic music. Show all posts
Friday, July 22, 2016
Friday, July 15, 2016
Feminist Friday : A Weekly Round Up for July 8, 2016
St. Vincent covered The Golden Girls theme. Sure, I will take this ethereal distraction from my otherwise mostly depressing social media feed.
Is it that there are fewer women in music than men currently or do we blame the people of power in the industry for excluding us from venues, publications, festivals, offices, and label rosters? Meaning we are here, get used to it, and hire us damn it. The Guardian has some answers. Harvard Business Review also offers some related insight to confidence of women in the workplace. Apparently unless we also radiate competence and warmth, we will continue to be looked over. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
Pittsburgh has a three day music festival that celebrates women in music called Ladyfest that kicks off today.
Music fan's interest in the long player continue to wane as singles and EPs cycle back to meet our ever diminishing attention span. I don't care about trends. As a musician who loves the creative process of creating a whole album; building a story that has a beginning, middle, and end, I will ignore this data and carry on as I please.
Did you know Jean Smith from Mecca Normal is also a stunning painter? I am obsessed with her very affordable portraits.
Indie record store owners are reminded that the major labels really don't give a crap about them. This week WEA will stop selling music to accounts who purchase less than 10k a year from them. Perhaps someone can tell me, does this mean ADA who is a part of that umbrella also cutting off these smaller record stores? For those of you who aren't familiar, ADA is a music distro that is one stop shopping tha represent some of the biggest and best indie music labels in the business and the very stores who have helped to make those record labels household names will no longer be able to purchase their catalog. Yikes. The music industry desperately needs more DIY distributors. Record stores need product to sell and it is impossible to go direct with every label or band they like. They rely on distributors to help keep their stores stocked.
The transgender community deserves a better voice says Genesis P-Orridge and Laura Jane Grace. I couldn't agree more.
Backyard Report! * Once upon a time Richmond, VA had a legendary large brick building called Garbers filled with band practice spaces spread over many floors. Our local creative community suffered a serious blow recently when it was announced the building was sold and was going to become condos. All bands renting a space there have been asked to vacate the premises. Our city lacks affordable practice spaces so more than 30 (I bet closer to 50 band) have lost their rehearsal spaces this month and now there is a small army of talent now looking for new places to call home. Local musician and filmmaker Allison Apperson (of the band Hot Lava) is working on a short documentary on this important piece of Richmond's music history. My band Positive No called this space home for the first three years of our existence and nearly all of the music we have released to date was written and worked out in a room there. * I can't get enough of GIRLS ROCK! RVA.
Nylon has selected 5 female fronted bands they think you should know about.
Enjoy visiting this LEGO record store created by the legendary artist Coop.
My favorite on the planet Sheila B is taking her act on the road. Europe, you have no idea how lucky you are.
LA Weekly has published a story on women smashing misogyny in the music industry. Behind the scenes there is a growing network of us coming banding together in person and on social media in private groups to help bring about change and support each other when sexism strikes which as you can imagine is a daily event. No more secret keeping. We are naming names and calling situations out in an effort to protect each other from those who abuse or oppress us.
Erykah Badu is donating concert funds to Detroit's rape kit process.
There is a Classical music tribute entitled Sing Her Name that commemorates women black women impacted by racial justice. #BLACKLIVESMATTER
I could look at Rock and Roll fashion portraits from the past all day long. Punks! Goths! Disco Queens!
Want to feel insecure about who you were as a 17 year old? Lindsey Jordan from Snail Mail is the kind of talented young musician that is decades ahead of her peers and she has only just begun. And I thought I was accomplished as a teen for learning how to drive stick shift.
Why can't electronic music festivals give us some love? Owning just 3% of a talent roster is not acceptable.
Is it that there are fewer women in music than men currently or do we blame the people of power in the industry for excluding us from venues, publications, festivals, offices, and label rosters? Meaning we are here, get used to it, and hire us damn it. The Guardian has some answers. Harvard Business Review also offers some related insight to confidence of women in the workplace. Apparently unless we also radiate competence and warmth, we will continue to be looked over. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
Pittsburgh has a three day music festival that celebrates women in music called Ladyfest that kicks off today.
Music fan's interest in the long player continue to wane as singles and EPs cycle back to meet our ever diminishing attention span. I don't care about trends. As a musician who loves the creative process of creating a whole album; building a story that has a beginning, middle, and end, I will ignore this data and carry on as I please.
Did you know Jean Smith from Mecca Normal is also a stunning painter? I am obsessed with her very affordable portraits.
Indie record store owners are reminded that the major labels really don't give a crap about them. This week WEA will stop selling music to accounts who purchase less than 10k a year from them. Perhaps someone can tell me, does this mean ADA who is a part of that umbrella also cutting off these smaller record stores? For those of you who aren't familiar, ADA is a music distro that is one stop shopping tha represent some of the biggest and best indie music labels in the business and the very stores who have helped to make those record labels household names will no longer be able to purchase their catalog. Yikes. The music industry desperately needs more DIY distributors. Record stores need product to sell and it is impossible to go direct with every label or band they like. They rely on distributors to help keep their stores stocked.
The transgender community deserves a better voice says Genesis P-Orridge and Laura Jane Grace. I couldn't agree more.
Backyard Report! * Once upon a time Richmond, VA had a legendary large brick building called Garbers filled with band practice spaces spread over many floors. Our local creative community suffered a serious blow recently when it was announced the building was sold and was going to become condos. All bands renting a space there have been asked to vacate the premises. Our city lacks affordable practice spaces so more than 30 (I bet closer to 50 band) have lost their rehearsal spaces this month and now there is a small army of talent now looking for new places to call home. Local musician and filmmaker Allison Apperson (of the band Hot Lava) is working on a short documentary on this important piece of Richmond's music history. My band Positive No called this space home for the first three years of our existence and nearly all of the music we have released to date was written and worked out in a room there. * I can't get enough of GIRLS ROCK! RVA.
Nylon has selected 5 female fronted bands they think you should know about.
Enjoy visiting this LEGO record store created by the legendary artist Coop.
My favorite on the planet Sheila B is taking her act on the road. Europe, you have no idea how lucky you are.
LA Weekly has published a story on women smashing misogyny in the music industry. Behind the scenes there is a growing network of us coming banding together in person and on social media in private groups to help bring about change and support each other when sexism strikes which as you can imagine is a daily event. No more secret keeping. We are naming names and calling situations out in an effort to protect each other from those who abuse or oppress us.
Erykah Badu is donating concert funds to Detroit's rape kit process.
There is a Classical music tribute entitled Sing Her Name that commemorates women black women impacted by racial justice. #BLACKLIVESMATTER
I could look at Rock and Roll fashion portraits from the past all day long. Punks! Goths! Disco Queens!
Want to feel insecure about who you were as a 17 year old? Lindsey Jordan from Snail Mail is the kind of talented young musician that is decades ahead of her peers and she has only just begun. And I thought I was accomplished as a teen for learning how to drive stick shift.
Why can't electronic music festivals give us some love? Owning just 3% of a talent roster is not acceptable.
Monday, November 30, 2015
Fighting the Good Fight
Did you know that fewer than 5% of record producers and sound engineers are women? How about that when you review a huge festival line up, the number of women headliners of the bill make up for maybe one tenth of the line up? The numbers are discouraging when it comes to women verse men in the music industry however more and more women are working hard to change that number.
Antye Greie-Ripatti inspired by a 2015 interview with Björk who openly described women's role in music as "unacknowledged" and "uncredited" from personal experience, launched a Tumblr page called female:pressure that gives visibility to female producers, DJ's, media artists, and electronic music performers at work. The idea is that the more of us there are documenting our work and celebrating the work of our female peers is to remind people that women making music is normal and happening daily all over the world.
For more statistics of women in the music industry, go here. If you are making music behind the scenes and feel comfortable sharing images of it, you should post them on your social media pages and or pass them along to sites like female:pressure to share with their readers. As I write this I am reminded that I need to do this more too as I often record at home and never think to document this part of my writing process. I intend to practice what I preach.
I am far from technical when it comes to getting down my ideas for a new song. I have a PC and use a program called Mixcraft 5 to record my vocal rough drafts for Positive No and have also used this program to write whole songs electronically for my solo project Ringfinger.
Antye Greie-Ripatti inspired by a 2015 interview with Björk who openly described women's role in music as "unacknowledged" and "uncredited" from personal experience, launched a Tumblr page called female:pressure that gives visibility to female producers, DJ's, media artists, and electronic music performers at work. The idea is that the more of us there are documenting our work and celebrating the work of our female peers is to remind people that women making music is normal and happening daily all over the world.
For more statistics of women in the music industry, go here. If you are making music behind the scenes and feel comfortable sharing images of it, you should post them on your social media pages and or pass them along to sites like female:pressure to share with their readers. As I write this I am reminded that I need to do this more too as I often record at home and never think to document this part of my writing process. I intend to practice what I preach.
I am far from technical when it comes to getting down my ideas for a new song. I have a PC and use a program called Mixcraft 5 to record my vocal rough drafts for Positive No and have also used this program to write whole songs electronically for my solo project Ringfinger.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Backyard Report : Dazeases
Richmond, Virginia has an ever growing, diverse, and captivating music scene. It is almost impossible to keep up with it right now so I am grateful to Strange Matter for booking local artist Dazeases on the Shopping / Priests bill. She offers a powerful one woman show that takes electronic music to some dark and personal places with a flare for the dramatic. The secret goth in me that loves to dance couldn't be any more excited about her.
Her Facebook page is here.
Her Facebook page is here.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Discwoman : Girls to the Tables
A few days ago I decided my turntables were in need of new slipmats. I didn't know what I was looking for other than I wanted them to be colorful and not feature a logo of a band or gear brand name. Our record players are located in our dining room so these slipmats are something we (my boyfriend and I) need to live with daily. What I wasn't expecting in my Google search was a sea of images that mostly screamed horny, stoner dude. Meaning if it wasn't a picture of a pot leaf in some form on the slipmat, there were breasts and more breasts.
My takeaway from that experience was that the expected customer for these items are not women, they are predominantly men. If you spend much time attending DJ nights you will know that this is a fair assumption. Where the number of women playing in bands seems to be on the rise, the number of female DJs and club promoters is not. We are a very small number and the sexism I have faced while playing in band is nearly two fold as a DJ. The expectation is that I don't know anything about my gear, how a PA works, and most insultingly to me, that I don't know anything about music. There is also a frustratingly high level of sexual harassment and abuse from people in the crowd. Some men find no issue with randomly touching a female DJ's body, getting handsy with our turntables or mixers (IE let me show you how it's done or if you can do it, it must be easy and I will try it right now without your permission), flipping through our records without asking as if they are browsing at a store, or shouting at us comments relating to our bodies and what they would like to do to them. This is our work space and it, as well as our bodies, are being violated by strangers who occasionally look at female DJs like we are strippers soliciting lap dance.
Needless to say, whenever I discover fellow female DJs or women who operate in this male dominated music world at all, I take note.
NPR recently wrote an article about the the NYC based Discwoman, a trio of women who operate a DJ booking agency focused on showcasing female-identified DJs. Discwoman however aren't just curating events where women are the talent and running the show, they are also actively encouraging women to become involved in their world. It doesn't have to mean making or playing electronic music, they are helping teach others how to book events, run sound, and all the other various aspects that go into making a DJ night happen. It is inspiring to know that they are leading by example. The more of us there are doing these things, the less fetishized and alien women in this scene will be treated. There is comfort, safety, and power in growing our number. We all know learning a particular skill isn't the first hurdle, it is finding the courage to try at all. If we create a womb of nurturing support, there is so much talent to be born from this.
Here is a video I found that further expands on this subject. Maybe you will find it as illuminating and encouraging as I did.
My takeaway from that experience was that the expected customer for these items are not women, they are predominantly men. If you spend much time attending DJ nights you will know that this is a fair assumption. Where the number of women playing in bands seems to be on the rise, the number of female DJs and club promoters is not. We are a very small number and the sexism I have faced while playing in band is nearly two fold as a DJ. The expectation is that I don't know anything about my gear, how a PA works, and most insultingly to me, that I don't know anything about music. There is also a frustratingly high level of sexual harassment and abuse from people in the crowd. Some men find no issue with randomly touching a female DJ's body, getting handsy with our turntables or mixers (IE let me show you how it's done or if you can do it, it must be easy and I will try it right now without your permission), flipping through our records without asking as if they are browsing at a store, or shouting at us comments relating to our bodies and what they would like to do to them. This is our work space and it, as well as our bodies, are being violated by strangers who occasionally look at female DJs like we are strippers soliciting lap dance.
Needless to say, whenever I discover fellow female DJs or women who operate in this male dominated music world at all, I take note.
NPR recently wrote an article about the the NYC based Discwoman, a trio of women who operate a DJ booking agency focused on showcasing female-identified DJs. Discwoman however aren't just curating events where women are the talent and running the show, they are also actively encouraging women to become involved in their world. It doesn't have to mean making or playing electronic music, they are helping teach others how to book events, run sound, and all the other various aspects that go into making a DJ night happen. It is inspiring to know that they are leading by example. The more of us there are doing these things, the less fetishized and alien women in this scene will be treated. There is comfort, safety, and power in growing our number. We all know learning a particular skill isn't the first hurdle, it is finding the courage to try at all. If we create a womb of nurturing support, there is so much talent to be born from this.
Here is a video I found that further expands on this subject. Maybe you will find it as illuminating and encouraging as I did.
Sidenote: For clarity sake, I am not a DJ that creates electronic music in a live setting. I have made a solo record that merged electronic music and indie rock (Ringfinger) but as a DJ, I play other people's records. I pride myself on my large and varied record collection. I do not use a laptop, I cultivate a DJ set using vinyl records from my personal collection.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Many Many Women
There is site called Many Many Women that documents the women in the avant-garde / experimental music scene. It is the ultimate go-to resource of those interested in listening to, booking, or educating themselves to the ladies of this genre pool. Spoiler alert, there are a way more than you probably thought!
Here is a quote from the site about what they do:
"The focus of this index is on women in contemporary/post-classic composition, free improvisation and avant jazz, electronic/electroacoustic music, sound art, sound installations, radio art, etc. A few of these artists may also work within relatively mainstream forms (rock, singer-songwriter, folk, dance music), but they are included here because of their other work that is more experimental. I’ve also included some classical composers who lived and worked in the early part of the 20th century; while their music may be more conventional by current standards, they deserve recognition as pioneers in their own right. "
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