tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35688627054147634692024-03-21T07:53:49.327-07:00Shotgun Seamstress Zinezine turned book, by and for Black Punks since 2006Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-45225827396132364472023-03-15T20:02:00.009-07:002023-03-16T12:44:59.327-07:00Ade Akinloba of Black Clash<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCdFnQaAAG03UTOR2naqQEusvRYDGz7obgYIlNxXiLyR5oSIU40SuF_THH0S4YTvHPXNiFcDigoa9wuDbLn46279qm8tJPLVxy-iCBFSo1-99UytslnApJL0nf5PGEABknaAgkXdjD22Ll9_jNFAez8mpieKDd4-ZEKInicKes8DRIlQHxpUWCBspC0w/s1222/ade%20interview%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1208" data-original-width="1222" height="579" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCdFnQaAAG03UTOR2naqQEusvRYDGz7obgYIlNxXiLyR5oSIU40SuF_THH0S4YTvHPXNiFcDigoa9wuDbLn46279qm8tJPLVxy-iCBFSo1-99UytslnApJL0nf5PGEABknaAgkXdjD22Ll9_jNFAez8mpieKDd4-ZEKInicKes8DRIlQHxpUWCBspC0w/w586-h579/ade%20interview%20cover.jpg" width="586" /></a></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> "<span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">I generally feel that black-led punk rock is still kept in a stereotypical box."</span></span></h1><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Well, since you asked to be interviewed, I wondered if there is something you already have in mind that you want to talk about. You seem like you have things you need to get off your chest.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-17a9d5b5-7fff-03d4-afab-f9b705e4b727"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Nothing in particular. Maybe the state of black punk but that might be controversial.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Okay, talk about that.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: You sure?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Sure, why not.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Okay. I generally feel that black-led punk rock is still kept in a stereotypical box. With really heavy leanings towards R&B and hip-hop influences with very little punk rock other than the gung-ho spirit really. We have a lot of trailblazers in Ramones style punk and hardcore and metal and that's still not as well represented or referred to in my personal opinion. I do feel like a lot of bands get looked over for that reason and there's way too many to name.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: I have totally felt this way about the Afro-Punk festivals in the past, so I get that. I guess I just wonder if that's what people want to hear, you know?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: I guess I take it a little more personally since I am in a hardcore band myself that really doesn't take a lot of influence from hip-hop, R&B. I</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> feel like that's what people are fed and then they don't know to ask for something else.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: So, the way I first heard about you is I was searching that Discord message board for St. Pete/Tampa punk shows. You know what I'm talking about?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Yep. I remember that.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Pretty sure Chris from Permanent Makeup started it. Anyway, it was a flier for a benefit show to support you after your mom died. Is that right? Who played the show and how did it feel to see the scene come together for you in that way?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Mr. ENC, Wreath, and The Nervous Girls played. It was a really weird feeling but it was a good feeling. It was really nice to know that deep down the Florida music community will come together for someone just to make sure that they're doing all right. It speaks volumes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC5aDNWybzRPqSRLHPbJ8OAg00SwllgPNs3y4J0Jomv0Vxxzun8fersPc0n4SgaS41UvsLdDhhWSkSH2EpGwk19xGUV_HWLENWhnXmygKCtvs0FUdBy-WNq8fjfDBrKrlIhg0YVy6xnsnFQolo4Za8t0QGqr6S3NJHNLxcWZEoZmvEhR_g6LYNDuCvjw/s1024/black%20clash%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="720" height="644" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC5aDNWybzRPqSRLHPbJ8OAg00SwllgPNs3y4J0Jomv0Vxxzun8fersPc0n4SgaS41UvsLdDhhWSkSH2EpGwk19xGUV_HWLENWhnXmygKCtvs0FUdBy-WNq8fjfDBrKrlIhg0YVy6xnsnFQolo4Za8t0QGqr6S3NJHNLxcWZEoZmvEhR_g6LYNDuCvjw/w453-h644/black%20clash%202.jpeg" width="453" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Yeah, I thought it was a really kind gesture for the community. I’m really sorry about your mom’s passing. But, that's how I found out about your band and when I saw your name, I knew you were Nigerian. Do you have anything to say about being both Nigerian and a punk rocker?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Not really. It's pretty weird but being black in the punk scene already gets me a lot of unwanted attention. Me being specifically Nigerian doesn't really add on to the awkwardness.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS:That's interesting though. A lot of people of color in punk and other predominantly white spaces talk about feeling invisible or left out. What kind of unwanted attention do you receive just based on being a black punk?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Usually people over thanking me for being involved in the scene so heavily, drunk people constantly comparing me to Hendricks even though I don't play in that style at all, people immediately talking about any black band to try to relate to me after a show. Like, I normally don't get to interact with people who like really deep cuts of the music and stuff. They just kind of keep it to surface level stuff. The whole “I have a black friend” mentality kind of stuff.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: That's wack. How did Black Clash come together?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: I started the band about 15 years ago with my singer Michael who was going to be the drummer at the time. We were very unskilled and had no idea what we were doing. Ben came in later after we made friends in high school and we walked home together and I said I needed a singer for my band, and then we got Jacob who lasted for a while on drums and then after he got arrested we brought on Kenny.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: I noticed the lineup changed. Is Jacob still in jail?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: No, Jacob is not in jail, he's been out for like 6 years.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Did you play a show right away when you started?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: We started writing songs immediately and I think we played a show in my backyard or something like a while after that.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Did you feel immediately accepted in the Tampa punk scene? Who are some of the local bands you've played with over the years?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Not at first but over time I think we've earned our stripes. Oh my god there are so many... Rath in the wise guys, Samsara, Pilot Jonezz, The Prople, The Damnsels, umm... Ocean's End, Human Error, Really Smelly Socks, Nervous Girls, Vomit Sawdust, and Jolly Fuckers. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just so many bands. To be honest we were always kind of the weird ones out and we didn't know a lot of these people for years so we weren't established in that scene despite me really liking the music.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Yeah. I just saw Pilot Jonezz for the first time last fall. It was at an Afro-Futurist Festival in St. Pete. Did you go?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: I didn't go unfortunately.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Are those the types of events you think you'd have an easier time being included in if you were more R&B or hip-hop influenced?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Yes. Very much so.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: I mean, Dea & Saint also played and they are hip-hop influenced while Pilot Jonezz has those little R&B guitar licks even though I guess I would describe them more as indie overall. So, yeah, I see your point.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: It's easier to listen to and it's a lot groovier so it's just better for fans. My music is pretty alienating if you don't like the genre. Like it's not for people who don't like hard rock, heavy metal, punk rock or hardcore. Yeah, it's not the best for me career wise but I feel much more fulfilled doing that type of music and laying out my anger that way.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx0Zg5NGj4yiEu0LX72_ezWbU0Bporpfutjltfg_H3QDnwYtaxVgjCkroK9iB-NcvClDAmPKutu0XgJzp6rvy4NySyQ4_c-EotMm4t1NXKd5B4uhnF19BhmVaOROtHLpm671pJcVfwTmcB_TUgJuYlZa01PRsuDaXm0r5ZOV7lXek037r3bqvDEhb9gQ/s754/8E41304F-6364-4FBE-81D4-E9D2A48F8168.jpeg" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; white-space: normal;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="754" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx0Zg5NGj4yiEu0LX72_ezWbU0Bporpfutjltfg_H3QDnwYtaxVgjCkroK9iB-NcvClDAmPKutu0XgJzp6rvy4NySyQ4_c-EotMm4t1NXKd5B4uhnF19BhmVaOROtHLpm671pJcVfwTmcB_TUgJuYlZa01PRsuDaXm0r5ZOV7lXek037r3bqvDEhb9gQ/w587-h498/8E41304F-6364-4FBE-81D4-E9D2A48F8168.jpeg" width="587" /></a></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Are you the main songwriter in Black Clash?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Yes, I am.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: What are your songs about?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: A lot of it tends to be inequality issues. Like a lot of songs are about wages or religion versus the populace and stuff like that. A lot of really biting angry controversial stuff. Most of the songs come from things that actually happened to me and my feelings based on that. Like when I got ripped off by a former employer and they basically only paid me like 60 bucks or something and I wrote like two or three songs based on that alone.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Ha! Yeah, that's infuriating. How do you feel about everything going on here politically in Florida?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: I feel like we've been screwed for a while and we're just getting more screwed right now.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: We've talked a little bit about how hard it is to tour right now. Has Black Clash ever gone on tour?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: We have not. We've gone out of state a couple of times but we're going to be touring this year and next year hopefully.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Oh, congratulations. Where are you going?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: For this year we're trying to hit up Atlanta, Nashville and Ohio.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: I hope I get to see you at Lost in St. Pete. Have you played it before?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AA: Yes we have! We played it last year.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>LISTEN TO BLACK CLASH:</b> <a href="http://blackclash.bandcamp.com">blackclash.bandcamp.com</a></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>LOST IN ST. PETE: April 28-30, 2023</b> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.lostinstpete.org">www.lostinstpete.org</a></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="561" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0nrGXJVvk1g" width="675" youtube-src-id="0nrGXJVvk1g"></iframe></div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-80544047026704790552022-11-05T18:07:00.008-07:002023-03-13T21:16:40.851-07:00Shotgun Seamstress: The Complete Zine Collection<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSD3RU30VLhkHo0etoQsenT7QuBGrwG6xZjf9IhciX4hYjcYur3pGbCidjgQ2oSGekDjPDxuLVU2Wx62z-zggrHQgxLtAgv1Zd9gBUb_YBHnaroHH1lpR60fsPvFnLp_DvHDOMsmZX9dChTlZnvWbyICuoFWhcAR7qnu4LYWDP8L-FxLk1a_mqGciKWA/s3780/01CE9F82-038D-4B37-AD1C-11C4D18C6665.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3780" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSD3RU30VLhkHo0etoQsenT7QuBGrwG6xZjf9IhciX4hYjcYur3pGbCidjgQ2oSGekDjPDxuLVU2Wx62z-zggrHQgxLtAgv1Zd9gBUb_YBHnaroHH1lpR60fsPvFnLp_DvHDOMsmZX9dChTlZnvWbyICuoFWhcAR7qnu4LYWDP8L-FxLk1a_mqGciKWA/s320/01CE9F82-038D-4B37-AD1C-11C4D18C6665.JPG" width="256" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The second edition of Shotgun Seamstress will be released on November 29, 2022 by <a href="http://softskull.com" target="_blank">Soft Skull Press</a>. <b>Pre-order your copy from an independent <a href="https://bookshop.org/lists/black-owned-bookstores-2022" target="_blank">Black-Owned Bookshop</a> today. </b>This beautiful hardback volume contains every issue of the zine (numbers one through eight) including issue six and a half: "Naija Punx." I'm so excited that this project I worked on for a decade (2006-2015), a labor of love, will be widely available for the very first time. Many thanks to Mensah Demary at Soft Skull, Kathleen Hanna and every single person who contributed to or was interviewed for Shotgun Seamstress zine including queer punk icon <a href="http://www.vaginaldavis.com/" target="_blank">Vaginal Davis</a> who is on the cover. Follow along on social media (<a href="http://instagram.com/shotgunseamstresszine" target="_blank">@shotgunseamstresszine</a> on Instagram) for news, events, and cut-n-paste zine art. </div>Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-18498009381734098382015-05-13T16:52:00.002-07:002023-03-13T21:19:15.500-07:00Brand New Issue!<div>
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<a href="http://mendmydresspress.bigcartel.com/product/shotgun-seamstress-8" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://mendmydresspress.bigcartel.com/product/shotgun-seamstress-8" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisU3voxFs-9yCymA1Qw5cHZ9sTzTZ-bRhHh9SCIJyS9XZTpreLDBuTy7dcP6GmqzSXrtaIflnGb50oRPF6nRF60LrogfspdN482caeDo-GaMuGO2nQHSWGHQE1o74s_wbZpWOjTLT9atpm/s400/SS+no+8+ACTUAL+COVER.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">New issue is out <i>now</i> and available to order through <a href="http://mendmydresspress.bigcartel.com/product/shotgun-seamstress-8" target="_blank">Mend My Dress Press</a>! If you're a zine distro or a store, you can order wholesale through them as well. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I'm really proud of the contents of this zine. If you remember, issue #6 barely had any writing from my point of view. It was all interviews or article submissions from other people. Part of the reason I felt like I needed to quit making this zine at that time is that I felt that I didn't know what else to say on the topic of Black Punk. I think I just needed to take a break and absorb new information and ideas for a couple of years. Experiences such as traveling to Nigeria, the Black Lives Matter movement, and meeting new black weirdos helped re-inspire me to write from my perspective, the way I did in issue #2. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Here is a contents list for #8 and some scans. Below, you'll find info on where to find <a href="http://mendmydresspress.bigcartel.com/product/shotgun-seamstress-zine-anthology-by-osa-atoe" target="_blank">Shotgun Seamstress zine collection book</a>. I also have four back issues of SS zine available to read for FREE in full online. Either go <a href="http://issuu.com/shotgunseamstress" target="_blank">here</a> or scroll down to the end of the post.</span><br />
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CONTENTS</h2>
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Okada Boys</div>
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Interview: Wizard Apprentice</div>
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Taquila Mockingbird Revisted</div>
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Kids Doing the Noise-Making Thing: Marc Edwards of Cellular Chaos</div>
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Late Night Rant on the Day of Walter Scott's Murder</div>
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Pay It No Mind: The Life & Times of Martha P. Johnson</div>
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Interview: Geretta Geretta</div>
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There Are No White Doves in My Neighborhood: Chicago Black & Brown Punk Shows</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLLYoxcvkPRbAMXm8sywEmxQsmJCJg0trH1F0BhON9ELt7fl9UCfoNoQ0IIAN12Xg7rFcpd05l_7xvjXzp64SHa-Y8TpA7Uvbamb2asa2DBDkScPq8DOGe0RP5_ING-xYJyhFryKuqbS6K/s1600/SS+no.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLLYoxcvkPRbAMXm8sywEmxQsmJCJg0trH1F0BhON9ELt7fl9UCfoNoQ0IIAN12Xg7rFcpd05l_7xvjXzp64SHa-Y8TpA7Uvbamb2asa2DBDkScPq8DOGe0RP5_ING-xYJyhFryKuqbS6K/s320/SS+no.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<h2>
<i>Some history...</i></h2>
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<a href="http://mendmydresspress.bigcartel.com/product/shotgun-seamstress-zine-anthology-by-osa-atoe" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://mendmydresspress.bigcartel.com/product/shotgun-seamstress-zine-anthology-by-osa-atoe" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXlxtPNHFcRhFbtnHBcJZ_w2EiUiqkYem4rPwGmoZNDV5K6Oioh3MAqTzwO4sSLssOqxt90b3WqLL6-ww0NnjEOtDbeb8rcHSsCNzYvn-qCilzPmke9itOIC-k39wOxkZ-kvDISL2PMEBF/s1600/Atoe-ShotgunSeamstressZineCollection.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Shotgun Seamstress began as a photocopy zine in 2006. I called it a zine by and for black punks, queers, feminists, activists, artists & musicians. Each issue features interviews, articles and a few personal writings that promoted free expression and anti-consumerist/DIY ethics for everyone but especially for black youth. Every single page of every single issue was laid out by hand.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Issues #1-6 were compiled as a book and published by <i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://mendmydress.com/" target="_blank">Mend My Dress Press</a> </i>in the fall of 2011. It is $18 and you can order it directly from <a href="http://mendmydresspress.bigcartel.com/product/shotgun-seamstress-zine-anthology-by-osa-atoe" target="_blank">Mend My Dress</a> or from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shotgun-Seamstress-Zine-Collection-Zines/dp/098501315X" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</span><br />
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Since publishing the book, I have made issue #6.5, "Naija Punx" and issue #7 "Flyer Art." "Naija Punx" features interviews with four Nigerian-American punk rockers including myself. "Flyer Art" contains flyers from the woman- and queer-positive punk shows I put on in New Orleans under the name <a href="http://nomorefiction.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">No More Fiction</a>. It also includes personal writings that some of the flyers inspired such as show anecdotes, the story of now-defunct Southern girl band, Kicktease, booking shows during hurricane season, the first year of Not Enough Fest in New Orleans and more. These issues, as well as copies of nos. 1-6 can be found at the following distros:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.brownreclusezinedistro.com/zines-r-z" target="_blank">Brown Recluse</a>*</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NoShamedistro" target="_blank">No Shame</a>*</b></span></div>
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<a href="http://antiquatedfuture.com/artist/osa" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;">Antiquated Future</b></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.dorisdorisdoris.com/zines3" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;">Doris Zine Distro</b></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-size: large;"><b style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://strangerdangerzines.com/catalog/s-t" target="_blank">Stranger Danger</a></b></span><br />
<span style="color: magenta; font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://seite.storenvy.com/" target="_blank">Seite </a></b></span><span style="color: #0000ee; font-size: large;"><b><u>Books</u></b></span></div>
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<i>*These distros are run by people of color. Brown Recluse carries zines by people of color only.</i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Read full issues of Shotgun Seamstress here:</span></div>
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<script async="true" src="//e.issuu.com/embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script>Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-8183733861274069482015-05-04T20:26:00.000-07:002015-05-04T20:39:57.983-07:00There Are No White Doves in My Neighborhood: Chicago’s Black & Brown Punk Shows<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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An Interview with Monika Estrella Negra</span></h2>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monika (left) and Donte, BNB organizers</td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Monika moved to Chicago from Milwaukee in 2009 and soon became enmeshed in one of the country’s largest, most diverse and most radical punk scenes. As we discuss in the following interview, there is no one Chicago scene. Like the city itself, Chicago’s punk scenes vary greatly by neighborhood, demographic and ideology. Because of the zine I make that centers black punk experiences, I was able to connect with a couple black punks in Chicago who then lead me to the specific scene that Monika inhabits. I have done zine readings in Chicago where the vast majority of faces that looked back at me from the audience were black and brown--a situation I never thought I’d have the chance to experience. It was Monika who set up these zine events for me and the other zinesters of color I was on tour with. It is also Monika who heads up the annual Black and Brown Punk Shows (BNB) in Chicago. </span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To be sure, BNB is more than just another punk music fest painted black (and brown); The shows reflect the intersectional identity politics that are a part of Monika’s everyday life as a queer black woman in the Midwest. BNB is a space for consciousness raising and community building. It is also a peaceful response to the ongoing strife that is a part of the daily lives of so many Chicagoans who face violence, poverty and the various effects of the city’s gentrification. Furthermore, while the shows’ band lineups reflect the full range of people of color (POC), Monika is specifically attentive to the ways anti-black sentiments and behaviors can still exist in POC spaces. The result is a warm, celebratory, inclusive and safer atmosphere buoyed by the sounds of some of the best punk and hardcore bands in the country. As she put it herself, “I guess that is where I show my understanding of punk and rad subculture. It's more than just music and clothes, it is a lifestyle of resistance, and mutual aid.”</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: The Black & Brown Punk Show is important to me because it is totally DIY. I’ve spent so long complaining about Afro-Punk's corporate fest and I love that there's an alternative to it. Did you get the idea for Black & Brown after Afro-Punk was already a thing? Was it a response to that at all?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> You know, when I was 15, the “Afro-Punk” documentary was such a relief for me! I found out about it through a Black member of a local punk band in Milwaukee called Eighty-D. The website led me to the forums, in which I met other rad Black punks, metal heads, whatever. That was so life changing, it gave me validation. I was completely obsessed, and immersed myself in everything that involved Afro-Punk. However, as the film became recognized and bigger, the corporate sponsorship and the superficiality started to seep in. I was deeply saddened by it, because it lost it's authenticity for me. I definitely thought of the idea of Afro-Punk influencing BNB, but over the past couple of years I realized that it was Chicago's brown punk scene that inspired the festival.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">BNB benefit show (photo by Obsidian Bellis)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: I've seen numbers of punks of color at events in Chicago that I would've never thought possible in the United States. It's such a unique scene. If you had to describe the various Chicago scenes to another punk from another city who'd never been there, what would you say?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I would say that it’s a very large, diverse and sometimes homogeneous scene. The city is so large that different sects and aesthetics of punk culture exist on different sides of town. You have bar punks, ‘77 punks, queer and trans punks, skins, hardcore punks, DIY punks... It can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. It can also be incredibly hard to navigate if you are new to it. Elitism is something that is often encountered, as with any subculture. It's just good to know that some punk spaces aren't necessarily receptive or sensitive to particular identities and ideologies. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: I'm surprised you used the word homogeneous to describe it. How is it at the same time diverse and homogenous?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Some scenes are more diverse than some. I can't sugarcoat it, there are some shows that are straight up cisgendered, heteronormative white bros who reek of nihilism and apolitical nonsense. Because of their privilege, they are able to maintain spaces that are not welcoming to those who don't fit that demographic. That's nothing new, it's fact. All of the scenes in Chicago fall under the umbrella of 'Punk', they just vary in minor aesthetic. There is no one united punk scene. That's why I used the word homogeneous to describe some. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: What part of Chicago do black and brown punks tend to hang out in?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Bella: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Southside, Northwest side. Due to gentrification, there has been some relocations. The majority of BNB shows have happened on the Southside. The first show happened in Logan Square before gentrification took it's toll. Logan Square used to be a Latino and back neighborhood, but is now seeing the fate of being a new hotspot for collegians and yuppies. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: What year did BNB start? Was it ever a collective? Who are the people who made it happen?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The first BNB was held in 2010. It was a project that I thought of while being active in Anarchist People of Color (APOC) and volunteering at a radical, DIY library in Pilsen called Biblioteca Popular (now closed.) BNB wasn’t a full collective at that point, but a lot of my friends in APOC helped make the show happen. In 2011, Donte asked me if I wanted to do BNB again, in order to raise funds for CeCe McDonald, a trans womyn of color who was jailed due to her defending herself. I hadn't planned on doing another BNB because I thought of it as a one time fundraiser. Donte convinced me to do it, and we have busted our asses since then to make the show happen every summer. We finally became a full collective in 2013 and there are countless folks who help make the show happen mostly BNB folks/punks, activists, moms, etc.. We are looking to broaden the collective space and have more people come on board. Collectives are hard to maintain, and take a lot of work. It will take more practice. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: That's so amazing that you mention APOC as an impetus. I just got back in touch with an old friend of mine. We organized an APOC chapter together in 2004. Did you go to the first APOC gathering in Detroit?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I did not. I went to the one in Philly in 2009 where it was completely sketch as fuck. (Laughs)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: I missed the one in Detroit, too! But it's so cool to see all of the ripples it caused.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Exactly! Which is what I want to happen with BNB. We have plans of expanding to New Orleans and New York. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: That's exactly what I was going to ask you next! You've talked to me about your plans to expand to other cities. I would love to see BNB expand its reach, but I also see it as being specific to Chicago. What do you envision BNB looking like in other cities? Or how do you anticipate it being different than previous ones?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I like to think that punks of color in different cities vary to their own respective scenes, but the experiences had could potentially be the same. We all deal with universal struggle just for being people of color, or queer or trans, identities that are oppressed in this country. I am actually excited to see what manifests in different cities and scenes. BNB is actually supposed to model APOC in a lot of ways. Utilizing DIY culture, communal decision [making], self-sustainability, resistance--these are all concepts that can be learned and maintained in different areas. I am not afraid of differences! I just know that we can all connect a base level, no matter the challenges.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> SS: To be honest, I worry that the entire audience at the New Orleans BNB show would be all white. Even though there are tons of black people in this town, after living here for years, I haven't seen a place where blackness and punk intersect. And most of our Latino community are recent immigrants, not like the 2nd and 3rd generation Latinos you have in Chicago… Do you think you can bring out a black and brown audience for BNB New Orleans? Or would it bother you if the audience was majority white? Does that matter?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I think that it is possible to bring out a black and brown audience in New Orleans. I am not bothered by white people coming to our shows, I am more concerned with the highlighting of BNB bands. It would be great to bring those type of shows to the punks in NOLA, and open up the space for the few POC punks that are there. It only takes one person to bring these bands out, or to connect with bands who are touring etc. I also am comfortable with BNB shows 'meshing' the music genres and highlighting artists who may not sound 'punk' in the aesthetic sense, but bring that same ferocity and resistance through other musical disciplines. The politics of punk extends to so many different styles, that I try not to get pigeonholed by thinking only of guitars, brashness and studs. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: List some of the highlights of past BNB shows.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The 2nd annual BNB show was by far my favorite. Cojoba from New York performed, as well as R-Tronika and it was my first time seeing The Breathing Light perform. We raised a lot of money for the campaign, and it was my favorite considering that we got raided by the cops! Ha. The 2012 show was a benefit for Connect Force, which was a rad youth breakdancing/graffiti arts program on the Chicago’s Northeast side (Uptown). It was an amazing show! The first day was a sober show, and was for family. The youth showed us their breakdancing skills and we had a barbecue, and some artists painted live. It made me so excited to see the youth excited about a punk show. It showed them a different world aside from what they were used to seeing people of color doing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: Okay, what are your plans for this year's show?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This year, we’re going to focus on building black solidarity within the black/brown community and combatting anti-blackness and transphobia. At least year's Fed Up Fest, Donte, myself and Kyle [guitarist in The Breathing Light] led a discussion on anti-blackness to a primarily white, queer audience. Our hope is to bring this discussion to BNB this year in order to better relations among people of color in the scene. I spent some time in Ferguson in August and was a bit disappointed to see so few Latinos there in the streets. Same goes for the Black response toward Ayotizinapa. We obviously are all victims of the state, and it's about due time that solidarity and mutually beneficial resistance be discussed. We also want to remember all trans womyn of color murdered over the past five years and highlight the groups who specifically serve that community. It's still in the developing stages, but I think this year will be the most productive and vivacious one yet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: What about bands? </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Monika: I really want to get Alice Bag, Pure Hell and Death this year. I want the elders to headline, cause they were among the first punks that I learned about who weren't white. “We Don't Need the English” is probably one of my favorite songs ever. I would love to see some returning guests, like Cihuatl-Ce, La Armada, Yva Las Vegas and some new ones like Tamar Kali, The Younger Lovers and Cakes da Killa, an awesome queer rapper. I want more hip-hop artists this year! I am also hoping to have some locals step up to the plate. It's too bad, but Sick Sad World is playing their last show Friday. They were definitely my first pick. Itto, Ono, Mother Moor Goddess from Philly and a band from the UK called Big Joanie. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SS: And lastly, for those who might want to make BNB happen in their hometown but don't know where to start, any advice?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monika: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Organize with friends, and people you trust to get things done. Start volunteering with organizations that you think are important and support them in any way. Maintain safe spaces, and always express your intentions! Hold people accountable for inexcusable behavior, and learn how to communicate efficiently with those who don't know how. Most importantly, keep it fun and creative. Never follow a pattern, and stay true to yourself, no matter the oppositions. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>Printed in <a href="http://store.maximumrocknroll.com/product/mrr-384/" target="_blank">Maximum Rocknroll</a><a href="http://store.maximumrocknroll.com/product/mrr-384/" target="_blank"> #384</a> and <a href="http://shotgunseamstress.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-to-find-shotgun-seamstress-zine-book.html" target="_blank">Shotgun Seamstress #8</a></i><a href="http://shotgunseamstress.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-to-find-shotgun-seamstress-zine-book.html" target="_blank"> </a></span></div>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-91745289251837807212015-04-19T12:09:00.000-07:002015-04-22T10:28:36.927-07:00The Best of Black Punk Rock, in My Humble Opinion<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Hello! There is so much going on in the world of black punk rock
these days! I wanted to share with you a handful of bands that I've felt
compelled to listen to over and over again, that feature at least one
black punk.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">I mainly focus on what I
call DIY bands and artists. I want to explain what that means to me,
since punk is frequently reduced to a commodified visual or sonic
aesthetic, and not an approach or a process. The bands in my list mainly
function in the underground. Most do not use record labels to release
their music, or if they do, the labels are quite small and are
independently owned. I'd venture to say that none of the bands on this
list have managers and that they all book their own shows. They use very
limited means to produce excellent music. Bands like
these often play shows in makeshift DIY venues (such as people's
homes). These bands make music to express themselves, without dreams of
fame and wealth clouding their artistic visions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">DIY OR DIE!</span></b> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">P</span><span style="font-size: small;">unk is meaningless without DIY ethics. DIY ethics make punk
empowering, because instead of saying "I can't be in a band because I
don't have ____," you are encouraged to use whatever resources you <i>do</i> have at your disposal to make music and art <i>now</i>.
Within the realm of DIY, you do not have to be a professional or
technical virtuoso to make important and interesting art that moves
people.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">To many of my readers, this is all stating the obvious, and I'm sorry! But, hey, I'm looking out for The Children. They are getting fed images of people with salon-styled mohawks, thrashing around on a big stage with their expensive equipment at expensive concerts with security guards and tons of corporate money circulating. That is just one version of punk. In other versions, you, the audience, are just as important a part of the experience as the band and there is less separation between the two. In this version, you look at the band and think, "I could do that, too."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The
other thing that I'd like to note is that the list of bands below is not meant to be
comprehensive in any way. These are just recent bands that I like. There are
tons more DIY/punk bands featuring black musicians and other musicians
of color out there. <a href="http://brujacore.tumblr.com/post/69614880707/a-list-of-woc-and-qtpoc-bands-would-be-amazing" target="_blank">This list</a> on Suxy Exposito's blog, <a href="http://brujacore/" target="_blank">BRUJAxCORE</a>, will help you find
some them, but even <i>that</i> list is not complete. Also, some of these bands, although relatively new, have already broken up. <i>C'est la vie.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>And lastly, if you've always wanted to be in a band, <i>now is your time</i>. Borrow an instrument to get started if you can't afford one. Get on it! And let these bands be your inspiration!</b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">SNEAKS</span></b></div>
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Washington, DC</div>
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Solo electro-punk. Minimal, melodic, post-punk vibes. I've been listening to this every single day for weeks. It makes me jealous because I play bass and I've tried to play solo music and I don't know how Sneaks manages to make music that is so simple and spare and yet it sounds so complete. There's a private, bedroom-recording feel to the cassette that reminds me of 90s DIY 4-track culture.</div>
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<a href="https://sneaks.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank"> https://sneaks.bandcamp.com/</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>TRASH KIT</b></span> </div>
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London</div>
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Multi-cultural
post-punkers from London, Trash Kit, have released a second LP and it's actually
better than the first one, which goes to show you that the first album
isn't always the best! If I had to pick a favorite band from this list, it would probably be them. And part of the reason is, besides creating a unique sound, they've actually had time to develop. As much as I love DIY bands, they come and go so quickly, before their sound ever gets to evolve into something more mature and cohesive. I guess punk isn't really meant to be mature and cohesive, though. I don't know, I guess I need both. I need spastic urgency and I also want bands to last long enough to deliver a well-crafted sound. Trash Kit definitely embodies all this and more. Check out singer/guitarist/violinist Rachel Agg's other bands: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/shoppingband" target="_blank">Shopping</a> and <a href="https://sacredpaws.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">Sacred Paws</a></div>
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<a href="http://trashkitrules.blogspot.com/">http://trashkitrules.blogspot.com/</a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS</span></b> </div>
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Oakland</div>
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Female-fronted Bay Area hardcore. Sorry, they already broke up, but their demo slays! Lynette, singer, says she's got a new band in the works, so keep your eyes peeled. Check out her other band, <a href="https://venkmanburninhell.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">Venkman</a>.<br />
<a href="https://firstworldproblemz.bandcamp.com/releases">https://firstworldproblemz.bandcamp.com</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>GLAZER</b></span> </div>
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New Brunswick</div>
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This
is Nneka A.'s new band. She was in <a href="https://3jane.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">3Jane</a> and I also interviewed her for
issue #6 1/2 NAIJA PUNX. She plays drums and sings on
"Carried Away." Glazer have a nostalgic sound. They remind me of Hazel,
Sonic Youth, the Wipers... Lynette (FWP singer) says they remind her of
Eric's Trip. I don't know. Solid tunes that remind you of the glory days
of late-80s and 90s indie rock. Perfect for upcoming summer days/daze.</div>
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<a href="https://glazer.bandcamp.com/">https://glazer.bandcamp.com</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>PURE DISGUST</b></span> </div>
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Washington, DC </div>
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Raging hardcore from the Nation's Capital. Why hasn't there been more black hc from DC, the home of Bad Brains, Scream, Dag Nasty, Red C, Void and many more? While Bad Brains is truly a lazy comparison (don't do it, guys!), Pure Disgust actually does sound very influenced by 1980s DCHC. The vocals on the newer recordings remind me of Swiz-era Shawn Brown. The lead singer, Rob Watson, is also very outspoken about race and politics in his lyrics and in real life, as you can see in <a href="http://bandwidth.wamu.org/rob-watson-of-pure-disgust-interview/" target="_blank">this interview</a> with the band. </div>
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<a href="https://puredisgustdc.bandcamp.com/">https://puredisgustdc.bandcamp.com/</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>SICK SAD WORLD</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Chicago</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Short-lived anarcho art punk band with a saxophone. I usually use the term "art punk" to refer to a sub-genre of post-punk, but their sound is more derived from hardcore and thrash. Female vocals, political lyrics. Their first demo was alright, <span style="font-family: inherit;">seeing the<span style="font-family: inherit;">m live was excellent, and</span></span> their newest song "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVpFoGcCdHg" target="_blank">Altered Joy</a>" is my favorite <span style="font-family: inherit;">track. It</span> was released just before they announced their breakup. <a href="https://sicksadworldchi.bandcamp.com/">https://sicksadworldchi.bandcamp.com/</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>HARTLEY C. WHITE</b></span></div>
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New York</div>
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I found this record at Domino Sound Record Shack here in New Orleans. It's experimental, outsider music by White and some guest musicians. I wanted to do an interview with this guy, but couldn't track him down. White calls his off-kilter style of music "Whopazootic" and the lyrical subject matter ranges from anthemic ("Under the Radar") to creepy ("Bicycle Lady"). The album, "This Is Not What You Expect," is actually a compilation of tracks from over the last 25 years. Check out his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/hartleycwhite" target="_blank">YouTube channel</a> and you will not be disappointed. I love freaky black people. He's a genuine BLACK WEIRDO, for sure. I <i>will</i> interview him, dammit.</div>
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<a href="https://myspace.com/hartleycwhite">https://myspace.com/hartleycwhite</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>WIZARD APPRENTICE</b></span></div>
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Oakland</div>
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I just interviewed Tieraney Carter for issue #8! I'd heard of her project, Wizard Apprentice, before, but became really interested in her work after the release of her DIY documentary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzlTI0L5mcQ" target="_blank">"Enter the Pink Void"</a> which is a must see! It covers current LGTBQ punk and DIY musicians all over the country including beloved political hot heads Downtown Boys, The Younger Lovers, Best Friend/Grrlfriend, Try the Pie and more. The honesty and transparency of Tieraney’s lyrics are raw, but her vocal delivery is cool and, at times, seemingly distant. The mostly electronic sounds on her EP range from soothing to strange. “Rash of Feathers” is my favorite so far. The lyrics describe a disturbing dream, and the odd ebb and flow of the song’s uneven rhythm adds to its surreality.</div>
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<a href="https://wizardapprentice.bandcamp.com/releases" target="_blank">https://wizardapprentice.bandcamp.com/releases </a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>FAT STUPID UGLY PEOPLE</b></span></div>
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New Orleans</div>
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Grindcore from New Orleans fronted by Hollise Murphy. This is the only band on the list that I don't actively listen to because I don't listen to <i>any</i> grindcore at all. But Hollise is the only other black punk musician in New Orleans that I know of. And once he gave me a big old nug of weed when I was sitting outside Siberia one night. He didn't have to do that, you know? Nice dude.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><a href="https://fatstupiduglypeople.bandcamp.com/">https://fatstupiduglypeople.bandcamp.com/</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>NEGATION</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">New Orleans</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the last band I was in before I quit playing music. We were a noisy post-punk band, tritely influenced by early Sonic Youth, feelings of anxiety and New Orleans magic/nihilism. I played bass and sang. A couple of my other bands: <a href="http://youtu.be/tkWM87fM4L4" target="_blank">Firebrand</a>, <a href="http://www.killrockstars.com/artists/new-bloods" target="_blank">New Bloods</a>, <a href="http://youtu.be/yR7KinxHfR8" target="_blank">Heat Rash</a><b> </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://negationisaband.tumblr.com/">http://negationisaband.tumblr.com/</a></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b> THE YOUNGER LOVERS</b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Oakland</span> </span></div>
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Long-time Shotgun Seamstress contributor, general bad ass Brontez Purnell's solo project turned band. The best way to get into this band is by watching the incredibly cute videos. I think Brontez should win the award for Most Twee Black Punk on the Planet. I haven't even been able to get my hands on a YL LP since the debut, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJEk8luiUnMBfMb7KiJovuw" target="_blank">the videos</a> are all stellar! </div>
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<a href="http://www.colorlines.com/articles/five-reasons-love-brontez-purnell-and-younger-lovers" target="_blank"><b>Colorlines: "Five Reasons to Love Brontez Purnell and The Younger Lovers"</b></a></div>
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<b style="font-size: x-large;">AYE NAKO</b></div>
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Brooklyn</div>
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I'm not even much of a pop-punker and this band blows me a way--recorded and live. They're just so good at what they do! A couple years ago, a slew of bands came out that sounded like they grew up worshiping Superchunk. Most of them faded into the background for me, except for Aye Nako. I interviewed lead singer/guitarist Mars for SS #5.</div>
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<b><a href="https://ayenako.org/">https://ayenako.org/</a></b><br />
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<b>Please support all of these bands by buying their tapes and records, hooking them up with shows in your town and spreading the word! Also, we need more people of color (POC) interviewing and reviewing POC DIY bands. Think about starting your own zine or blog covering music you love!</b></div>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-7055752052866045932015-03-24T12:00:00.002-07:002015-03-27T12:30:30.300-07:00I Will Resist With Every Inch and Every Breath: Punk and the Art of Feminism<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1jK-s0JfJZJjmbD1Jq9bmnSqwsFhOQ5aIvLDq-cmK2q_BzUgsuX_Dvxa36kjdEI6OW0pvZVJBfNsPCF1SlwpgIWsKGEhbAFvLT2Nb4LF1s_gYNfW7pUnYWEuOdhnuIGEabK0CgF2Fqukj/s1600/osa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1jK-s0JfJZJjmbD1Jq9bmnSqwsFhOQ5aIvLDq-cmK2q_BzUgsuX_Dvxa36kjdEI6OW0pvZVJBfNsPCF1SlwpgIWsKGEhbAFvLT2Nb4LF1s_gYNfW7pUnYWEuOdhnuIGEabK0CgF2Fqukj/s1600/osa.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me, Osa Atoe by David Ensminger</td></tr>
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<b>This is the talk I gave on a recent panel I was asked to participate in at the Brooklyn Museum Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, along with Astria Suparak (the curator of the "Alien She" riot grrrl exhibits), Johanna Fateman (Le Tigre, "Artaud-Mania" zine), performance artist Narcissister and an artist and musician I've admire for a very long time, Lydia Lunch. The panel was titled, "I Will Resist with Every Inch and Every Breath: Punk and the Art of Feminism" and it took place on Thursday, March 12, 2015 to a live audience as well as an online audience via <a href="http://new.livestream.com/BrooklynMuseum/punkartfem" target="_blank">livestream</a>. I thought I was going to be really nervous--and I was before we started--but when I began speaking, I suddenly felt really grounded and like I was talking to people who pretty much already understood where I was coming from, so I could just be myself and not worry. My mom was there with one of her best friends, a lot of old friends I've known for over 10 years showed up and so did Aaron Cometbus. After the show, I hurried over to 538 Johnson and caught Honey and my favorite current band Sheer Mag! I woke up the next morning after some bad sleep on a dirty couch feeling super pumped.</b><br />
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Hi, my name is Osa Atoe. I’m an art teacher and potter in New Orleans, Louisiana. I used to play in bands all the time but they kept breaking up and I couldn’t take it anymore so I guess you could say I’m on an indefinite hiatus from music making. I’m sitting here on this panel tonight because I’m a punk and a feminist, but I lived those ideologies out in the world mainly through being in bands and booking shows. That’s why, more than anything else, “Shotgun Seamstress” has been a music fanzine.<br />
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Before I was a punk or a feminist, I was a teenage music nerd. I was an only child of Nigerian immigrant parents living in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. Starting at the age of 14, I would sit in my room alone ingesting as many band interviews and record reviews as I could. At first, I was fixated on underground hip-hop and then I switched to alternative. I loved the Smashing Pumpkins and Courtney Love. Reading their interviews lead me into the world of 90s indie rock and then later punk. Doesn’t sound too unusual except when you consider that around the same time, the other black girls in my school were listening to TLC and Boys II Men. Also, although my dad had a large vinyl collection, it contained not a single iota of rock’n’roll. He likes African pop and R&B and stuff like that.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxJPKOkQkAw_sP8-r_MVgba0uqyTw1zyqM7x3co04eLXG8ZW3JHE0Xq-YnydC9qwJpMGB__r_03yA1ozW44Dt1V118yfGehr8jrvKQebSlGfxxhng-TSxDh-jep8H3EX_Ae1Nfw7W-Wyd5/s1600/1288121001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxJPKOkQkAw_sP8-r_MVgba0uqyTw1zyqM7x3co04eLXG8ZW3JHE0Xq-YnydC9qwJpMGB__r_03yA1ozW44Dt1V118yfGehr8jrvKQebSlGfxxhng-TSxDh-jep8H3EX_Ae1Nfw7W-Wyd5/s1600/1288121001.jpg" height="320" width="269" /></a><b> </b><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>I had to learn about rock music all by myself, with no help from friends or older siblings.</b></span><br />
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And to be clear, I'm not whining about that; I'm proud of it. I think it's really cool that I cared so much.<br />
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We had a little bit of intermittent internet access, if you remember those free AOL dial up disks that came in the mail… But mostly I relied on magazines for most of my information. I read “Rolling Stone” and “Spin” and then “Ray Gun”, “Venus” and “BB Gun” magazines. I read <i>Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung</i> by Lester Bangs. I remember trading mixtapes and live show bootlegs in the mail with other music nerd penpals around the country. <br />
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I grew up playing the violin in school orchestra, but I was 19 when I started playing guitar. At the age of 20, after dropping out of college for the first time, I moved to DC and put ads in the “Washington City Paper” to find bandmates. I am still in touch with some of the people I met through placing those ads. Being so consumed with starting bands and playing shows and touring in my 20s resulted in me not finishing college until 2007, at the ripe old age of 28, despite the fact that I graduated high school and started college at the age of 17. I actually dropped out of school for about 5 years and was convinced I could learn everything I needed to know through self-education. I had read a book called <i>The Day I Became an Autodidact</i> when I was younger and didn’t see the point of paying thousands of dollars for information I could find myself for free. My parents, having left Nigeria specifically in order to procure college educations, never let the issue rest and so I did end up finishing eventually, thanks to them.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My parents on graduation day with baby me.</td></tr>
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So, the first issue of “Shotgun Seamstress” came out in 2006. I had a head full of feminist theory that I had acquired on my own, through my community and from school—including the very useful concept of <b>intersecting identities</b>. I was also volunteering a lot and doing some community organizing and felt that any art I made should also be political. <br />
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The intersection of punk and radical politics felt natural to me, being from the Washington, DC area (with Fugazi, Positive Force, etc.) and also having been deeply inspired by riot grrrl. And most of all, I began to feel very isolated as a black person in punk—particularly when I moved to Portland, Oregon and found myself in a political but predominantly white punk scene that was constantly but awkwardly attempting to address its own <a href="http://shotgunseamstress.blogspot.com/2012/10/radical-anti-racist-racism-or-rarrrrrrr.html" target="_blank">racism</a>. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5r2uACfntfOVZtTCevj0pK0Q8DxHbLhUsGt-qvk1tXjLN4YwspPJlCKImqtvoMDGw_kju5OjZaLCYN308cXBMT8chV_UbUT_gUDY4C-SqFtFxXfjJVgy1EmSp-B3Hr8jnNNZoCdPC64CF/s1600/imrs.php.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5r2uACfntfOVZtTCevj0pK0Q8DxHbLhUsGt-qvk1tXjLN4YwspPJlCKImqtvoMDGw_kju5OjZaLCYN308cXBMT8chV_UbUT_gUDY4C-SqFtFxXfjJVgy1EmSp-B3Hr8jnNNZoCdPC64CF/s1600/imrs.php.jpg" height="400" width="312" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Positive Force from washingtonpost.com<br />
Marc Anderson in second row, Jenny Toomey to his left. </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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By that time, I had already read many other zines by punks of color that described the problem of being isolated and misunderstood within a predominantly white scene. They detailed the symptoms of white privilege and created a space for dialogue for kids of color that had not previously existed. One such zine that really inspired me in this way was <b>“Evolution of a Race Riot”</b> edited by Mimi Nguyen. I think that if it wasn’t for that zine in particular, mine would never have gotten made. I’ve spoken to other people of color who never were able to find POC (people of color) zines. I’ve spoken to women who grew up only seeing guys in bands.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I feel really lucky to say that by the time I started writing zines and playing in bands, I had the road already paved for me by people who had already come before me. </span><br />
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A zine like “Evolution of a Race Riot” was not only educational and cathartic for its readers but also assured me that if I made a zine about black punks, there was an audience of interested readers waiting for me out there. That zine created a sense of a unified POC community within punk that I don’t think existed before.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">by Mimi Thi Nguyen</td></tr>
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I’ve spoken in the past about how riot grrrl and Cometbus spawned a lot of personal zine writing and how I felt inundated by that style by the time I started my own zine. That’s one reason I chose to make a fanzine. I also didn’t want to come from a place of critique. Other people were already doing that. I wanted to make a zine that was a celebration of black punk identity and I made it about black punks specifically because there weren’t many black voices within the dialogue that was occurring among punks of color. The punks of color dialogue was dominated by light skinned people: mixed folks, Latinos and Asians especially on the West Coast. Plus, I grew up in a house full of “Ebony” and “Essence” magazine… <br />
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So, my zine was kinda like a junior "Maximum Rocknroll" or "Punk Planet" for black kids. I didn’t really talk about feminism so much, it just <i>was</i> feminist in its approach. In the first issue, I interviewed my friends: <b>Brontez Purnell</b> and my ex-girlfriend <b>Adee Roberson</b> who would later become my bandmate. In the next issue, I wrote about a book I read by <b>RuPaul</b> and another I read by <b>Don Letts</b> (the reggae DJ who brought reggae to the London punx.) In later issues, I covered New York photographer <b>Alvin Baltrop</b> and performance artist <b>Kalup Linzy</b>. I got to interview <b>Mick Collins</b> of the Gories face to face and <b>Poly Styrene</b> of X-Ray Spex via e-mail shortly before she died. I wrote about all the black kids in early 1980s DC hardcore scene and wondered what happened to them all because by the time I got there, the scene was pretty much all white. I paid homage to the punk photo book <b><i>Banned in DC</i></b> by Cynthia Connolly, Leslie Clague and Sharon Cheslow because it showed me that black people have always been a part of punk and hardcore. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpYNfoDEkxHGDF2cS4xvrDETuIjixlM2AQUoAlNeXNl67-0gZDWYHoAQIRMz5DpJTxcjV3wufMK8mdQWE9El4GTh_l03dXGr7s0fPw7l3c3Guzzw0aMd-y6XoaFEgJEcodflY7pS3q96Zy/s1600/the.bluest.eye_.cover_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpYNfoDEkxHGDF2cS4xvrDETuIjixlM2AQUoAlNeXNl67-0gZDWYHoAQIRMz5DpJTxcjV3wufMK8mdQWE9El4GTh_l03dXGr7s0fPw7l3c3Guzzw0aMd-y6XoaFEgJEcodflY7pS3q96Zy/s1600/the.bluest.eye_.cover_.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></div>
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">“Shotgun Seamstress” was definitely me creating a psychic refuge for myself and other black kids isolated in white punk scenes.</span></b><br />
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For those of you who don’t know, the name of this event is taken from the song “Resist Psychic Death.” It is one of my favorite Bikini Kill songs and I even have a vague memory of one of my old bands covering it. Although sung by a white woman, the words “psychic death” remind me of the character Pecola Breedlove in Toni Morrison’s first novel <i>The Bluest Eye</i>. To make a short story even shorter, Pecola is born a dark-skinned black girl into a racist, misogynist, violent world that eventually drives her to insanity. Now, I am not saying that mental illness is equivalent to psychic death. I know that’s not true. The culprit in the book isn’t insanity, the culprit is hatred and its internalization. We live in an ugly and dysfunctional world and we all carry that ugliness and dysfunction around inside of us. Our mission in this life is to prevent self-destruction, to prevent our own psychic deaths--and then to lend a hand to others so that they can do the same. Often, it’s just as simple as speaking publicly from your experience just so that other people like you realize they are not alone in <i>their</i> thoughts and experiences. <br />
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And then there are those among us who actually experience physical death. Premature, violent, unjust physical death. In the last year, we’ve seen the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement here in the U.S. in the response to the killings of unarmed black men and the lack of accountability for their deaths. Of course, this predicament isn’t new and my zine was definitely written in reaction to the limited expectations placed on black people solely because of our skin color. Like the Afro-Punk movement, I focus on freedom of expression for black people--but admittedly, this goal has seemed frivolous to me when compared to the myriad other challenges faced by black American communities. But on the other hand, look at how acceptable black expression and representation has been newly confined in the wake of the shooting of Trayvon Martin in particular. Now, black men can’t wear hoodies without feeling the weight of suspicion on their backs? Respectability politics are in increased effect in black communities and in its own little way, “Shotgun Seamstress" was always meant to reject those kinds of confines.<br />
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<b> <span style="font-size: x-large;">I attempt to use a Xerox copy music fanzine to resist stereotypical conceptions of blackness. It doesn’t feel like much, but I promise, the desire to redefine ourselves, to redefine blackness, to surprise people with the scope of our self-expression, was always central to the project. </span></b><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5bHD4Cvcrj1v0bVnlGhHrLDTGn88XfTLD53djHSndtT65loRnReuVfoQBBYPq-Ecdjlctc_VMjoHodrkKVPnkJh-OXHa8AEyTCGdGe3pvWsNzbDOYl9IZ7QIj4dl-l2APNJxZ4beoSCwd/s1600/10922068_10152633250187187_612434430_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5bHD4Cvcrj1v0bVnlGhHrLDTGn88XfTLD53djHSndtT65loRnReuVfoQBBYPq-Ecdjlctc_VMjoHodrkKVPnkJh-OXHa8AEyTCGdGe3pvWsNzbDOYl9IZ7QIj4dl-l2APNJxZ4beoSCwd/s1600/10922068_10152633250187187_612434430_n.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marc Edwards came to see me!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1a1VzRpqlpyz9UgP4xedt8bp46vkzY5gsXCHtdU4zMOk0DyimDeE7hl7fUUUG1z0N3ykjyiKjX6Dm6cIeUhldl2lpKe4JuUPEoDVPgQ9CXzzxWeYwKs_pMOAY_lpay5cqZBW5vJah2gS/s1600/11073522_10152637940802187_1402997047_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1a1VzRpqlpyz9UgP4xedt8bp46vkzY5gsXCHtdU4zMOk0DyimDeE7hl7fUUUG1z0N3ykjyiKjX6Dm6cIeUhldl2lpKe4JuUPEoDVPgQ9CXzzxWeYwKs_pMOAY_lpay5cqZBW5vJah2gS/s1600/11073522_10152637940802187_1402997047_n.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from the event by Marc Edwards</td></tr>
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Thank you to <a href="http://leahdevun.com/punk-archive-friendship-books" target="_blank">Leah DeVun</a> and Jess Wilcox at the Brooklyn Museum for coordinating the event.</span></span><br />
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A review:<br /> </h2>
<h1 class="post-title">
<a href="http://bedfordandbowery.com/2015/03/feminist-punk-panel-talks-zines-radical-politics-and-race/" target="_blank">Feminist Punk Panel Talks Zines, Radical Politics, And Race</a></h1>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-16643558153396088992014-12-12T07:36:00.000-08:002015-04-20T20:12:21.344-07:00Black Lives Matter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAWJVgZ1USeIi-Ckl34a1H8gXELsjWzp6y6wa_KqckB77kYts8PxN33lzEYzYSS4Pkt6ccETAk3ks9WArfql_Y2xdNAsU73cBI6FO1POveKldutQgA_mBs5FTKpvafPI6pOYvc8pxVoyrE/s1600/10842352_496524790489722_5581585713172989311_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAWJVgZ1USeIi-Ckl34a1H8gXELsjWzp6y6wa_KqckB77kYts8PxN33lzEYzYSS4Pkt6ccETAk3ks9WArfql_Y2xdNAsU73cBI6FO1POveKldutQgA_mBs5FTKpvafPI6pOYvc8pxVoyrE/s1600/10842352_496524790489722_5581585713172989311_o.jpg" height="432" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="userContent">Like most people who make things, I tend to be
self-deprecating about my work. At times, I think that being black and
worrying about your alternative self-expression is an exercise in
privilege. Like, on the long list of things black peop<span class="text_exposed_show">le
have to worry about, that's number 2,000,000. But at other times, I
see how my zines were feeble but conviction-filled attempts to change
mainstream conceptions of blackness. </span></span><br />
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show">We have to say "Black Lives
Matter" because our humanity is stripped of us whenever we are treated
as worthless walking stereotypes. </span></span></h2>
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<span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show">Black people like me see that these
stereotypes are alive and well when non-black people express their
surprise at how different we are from what they expected. In this
society, having black skin is a burden because our skin color is infused
with socially constructed meaning. I have to remind myself that
absolutely <i>every single thing we do to redefine ourselves as black
people is indeed an act of resistance</i>. </span></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoFlaTlA7km62mKtL6Kd7nLgB0eMhC2OeGnygAHsZ9c4wffmX5JLPQ_JEmD3rntXBdj_jGqJ3QK3jP3XkCrmaUhMSX-60QdH1UkUy6jLSNAxtiz_hV0j5HemBG-Ht-1_vdfzKsBGSpG2bw/s1600/il_fullxfull.376865272_7o8q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoFlaTlA7km62mKtL6Kd7nLgB0eMhC2OeGnygAHsZ9c4wffmX5JLPQ_JEmD3rntXBdj_jGqJ3QK3jP3XkCrmaUhMSX-60QdH1UkUy6jLSNAxtiz_hV0j5HemBG-Ht-1_vdfzKsBGSpG2bw/s1600/il_fullxfull.376865272_7o8q.jpg" height="400" width="277" /></a><span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span><br />
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<span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show">Please support efforts toward black empowerment and social justice this
holiday season! </span></span></h2>
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<span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show">When you buy Shotgun Seamstress zine collection from <a href="http://mendmydresspress.bigcartel.com/product/shotgun-seamstress-zine-anthology-by-osa-atoe" target="_blank">Mend My Dress Press</a> between
now and December 25, 2014 all profits will be donated to <a href="http://byp100.org/" target="_blank">Black Youth Project 100</a>,
who have been organizing protests and sit-ins all over the country in
response to recent black deaths at the hands of law enforcement and the
lack of accountability for those injustices. Support the movement and
maybe turn a young person in your life on to the world of black punk
rock. </span></span></h4>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-46606610562824041412014-07-23T14:58:00.003-07:002014-07-24T09:03:50.653-07:00Kids Doing the Noise-Making Thing: Marc Edwards of Cellular Chaos<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEa_QXfyB_SMImck80It8F0cwO_0E7gU48ScxhCa64cgkkb9aW4KpZR7W3ZI3pxaJqL1XzlMWBJuIahSFgS5zBhkp5X8xWQkpqvkLUVYkq_bMI6KIL90sa9BAbpLByQjUn3bdtCNUetc8B/s1600/998693_10200269236360464_950489854_n.jpg" height="640" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="360" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Michael Dent</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEa_QXfyB_SMImck80It8F0cwO_0E7gU48ScxhCa64cgkkb9aW4KpZR7W3ZI3pxaJqL1XzlMWBJuIahSFgS5zBhkp5X8xWQkpqvkLUVYkq_bMI6KIL90sa9BAbpLByQjUn3bdtCNUetc8B/s1600/998693_10200269236360464_950489854_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfd0XTrrvmj6QCu2Jq1-58-6XXDFPPqJOep69xjenINufQnaB8j_R-LkCNDX74BVYChFOU3teFqhatc_1SULV5vDCkW3UK0896FV0sl8zHl2o0nRnhJs-ALKht0lkgLKnbRrqJYyFF4P3n/s1600/marc+edwards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Marc Edwards embodies all of the ideas Shotgun Seamstress zine ever meant to convey. I generally focus on punk rock in my zines and blog but I also try as hard as I can to broaden the confines of that genre--to show punk for what it is meant to be, which is a place to experiment, excel at being a novice and express oneself uniquely. While Edwards is no novice, his band Cellular Chaos is his first attempt at rock drumming, albeit in an experimental "guitar freakout band," as described by his bandmate Weasel Walter (ex-Flying Luttenbachers, XBXRX, etc.) Edwards is a 65 year old jazz drummer, born, raised and still residing in New York City. He attended the Berklee School of Music in Boston as a young man and continued on to play and record with the likes of David S. Ware and Cecil Taylor, even touring to Europe with Taylor in 1976. He also has his own group, Marc Edwards & Slipstream Time Travel, an afrofuturistic free jazz ensemble, based in NYC.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I found out about Cellular Chaos because they played two shows here in New Orleans last fall. I saw their first show in the alley behind Parse Gallery in the CBD, heard they would be back for another show in a few days, and decided I had to take that opportunity to find out more about their drummer--a black man, about the same age as my dad, playing spastic, chaotic, herky-jerky No Wave with a bunch of white people who looked to be half his age. I mention Edwards' age not to turn him into punk rock novelty, but to reveal him as a transgressor of boundaries. His connection with his bandmates in Cellular Chaos transcends race, age and subcultural identity. In a world where most of us, even in the year 2014, still tend to stay safe within our social groups, Edwards' participation in the punk and noise scenes is remarkable--and, unfortunately, misunderstood by some of his peers. In this interview, Edwards revealed himself to be sensitive, talented and expansive in his worldview. He has been a vegetarian for about 50 years, is a practitioner of yoga, subscribes to new age and futuristic spiritual beliefs, and his energy and optimism flow through his band and back out into the universe with every gig they play. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">SS: Is Cellular Chaos your first non-jazz project?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: In this context, I’d say yes because I’m doing rock drumming and I’ve never done rock drumming before. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: Did you grow up with any rock'n'roll music and in the 1970s and 80s did you hear any punk music?</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">ME: The funny thing is, by the time punk came out and they started wearing all the colorful clothing with the hair and all of that, I simply saw them as another version of the hippie movement. Because when I was growing up, hippies were the thing and before that, there were beatniks and they'd be doing the poetry and playing the bongos and all that. Every generation has its own group of outcasts. So, I never really got punk, but I've had a couple of conversations with Weasel [Walter] about it, and he feels that a lot of the jazz musicians have a similar attitude to punk musicians and I never really thought of it that way... I have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to punk. You may as well throw in heavy metal, death metal and all of that. All of that stuff is new [to me.]</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY8uWF1p8LRAB6zlbmOfdjsqM8nWqs-farbILAYYJYUUjmDv5GgZCB8YwwMOQQo-0eANxHJMgQvBwJDbgvElBVYdsVFgpVL165voeHutSbn2DMO6KAXJVrR6TZQhm-j0tkc24vgDx3mBlM/s1600/1069271_10200269303882152_1335877397_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY8uWF1p8LRAB6zlbmOfdjsqM8nWqs-farbILAYYJYUUjmDv5GgZCB8YwwMOQQo-0eANxHJMgQvBwJDbgvElBVYdsVFgpVL165voeHutSbn2DMO6KAXJVrR6TZQhm-j0tkc24vgDx3mBlM/s1600/1069271_10200269303882152_1335877397_n.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Michael Dent</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: So, how'd you start getting into punk and metal?</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: Well, I saw this two-piece band called Ettrick from San Francisco. They're friends of Weasel [Walter.] Both of them play saxophone and they also play drums. When they sat down at the drums, they were using double bass drum pedals and I'd never heard that before and really loved the sound, so, you heard on some of the songs tonight, I was using a double bass drum pedal.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"The funny thing is, by the time punk came out... I simply saw them as another version of the hippie movement."</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: Free jazz and noise share a lot of similarities sonically, but those communities of musicians seem very separate. Do you have any thoughts about the genres being similar but largely unrelated?</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: Well, I think that there are similarities, but when you come from the so-called jazz tradition, our improvisation is based on the form for the song. You're always operating from how the piece was originally set up. Now, when I see kids doing the noise-making thing, I don't really hear the melodic content...</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: Yeah, people aren't necessarily thinking about chord progressions.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: Right, exactly. It's a very different approach...</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: Which is why I don't feel like I understand jazz that well...</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbG52T9mXQ3Mzj35ZIvIgbAmf20YcCngY3IdGo3hnOxrBum8diG1gRXFB7tRU4cGEVasnXg9WG5URAXdSFuKEPqV1wYvL124GENGIBQrwXUfctrReQ0rx1mSDq_Fjdg9jP7NefYQEyCeO/s1600/1010052_10200269328042756_1051032903_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: Well, that's why they play the head. They play the melody and then what follows after that is the improvisation on what you just heard at the very beginning. So, if you keep listening to jazz, you will always hear where they are in the song because that's how the traditional guys do it. But with the free jazz approach, they often take extreme liberties... It's a very open-ended and very spontaneous form of music at times, but I tend to be more traditional in the way I approach it [with Slipstream Time Travel.]</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbG52T9mXQ3Mzj35ZIvIgbAmf20YcCngY3IdGo3hnOxrBum8diG1gRXFB7tRU4cGEVasnXg9WG5URAXdSFuKEPqV1wYvL124GENGIBQrwXUfctrReQ0rx1mSDq_Fjdg9jP7NefYQEyCeO/s1600/1010052_10200269328042756_1051032903_n.jpg" height="640" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="360" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edwards backing singer Admiral Grey in Cellular Chaos<br />
photo by Michael Dent</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: I'm 34 years old and I grew up with black people saying, 'That is white music and this is black music.' Today, we’re seeing many examples of white artists getting rich & famous playing so-called “black music,” but we haven’t really seen it happen the other way. What do you think is the barrier to black people believing that they can and should participate in any and all forms of music making, or modes of self-expression in general? </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: Well, that’s all a part of the race thing. That separation, you know, ‘They do this, we don’t do that, we do only this...’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I was always the odd man out... </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve always done the things that people considered to be crazy."</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: Where do you think it comes from, though?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: It’s hard to say. I think it’s been ingrained in us from being brought over here as slaves and all of that stuff we went through. I can’t begin to imagine what our ancestors went through during that time…</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: Do you think it’s a way we try to preserve our culture?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ME: I’ve heard the term </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ancestral memory</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I think that is a factor in all races. There’s a lot of family stuff that gets passed onto you, almost at a genetic level, it would seem. So, whatever a group goes through is never forgotten. It’s just there, maybe perhaps at a subconscious level.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: So, how do you feel like you yourself are able to transcend that?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: Because I was always the odd man out. There are some people who, you know, when you go to school and you’re doing all the normal things that people say you should be doing and somehow you know that you don’t fit? You’re like a piece of the puzzle that just doesn’t fit. You know early on that you’re kind of like--not exactly an outcast--but you know that you don’t fit into the normal mode of how people think people should act in society. So, it was very easy for me, relatively speaking, to break away and do different things. I’ve always done the things that people considered to be crazy. I mean, when I changed my diet back in the 1960s, people thought that if you became a vegetarian, that you were a health nut and you were subject to no end of public ridicule. So, I’ve always been one who thought outside of the box.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: Seems like in order to be a good artist, you have to be somewhat of an independent thinker.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: I think a lot of artists are born with that and that is their strength. But unfortunately, you’re not always around the right people and if you’re not strong on the inside, you can succumb to the wishes of your parents and everything else. ‘Oh, you don’t want to be an artist. You know, artists do drugs and they have this problem & that problem...’ You’ve gotta be kind of strong and just know that you will be supported on some level.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfd0XTrrvmj6QCu2Jq1-58-6XXDFPPqJOep69xjenINufQnaB8j_R-LkCNDX74BVYChFOU3teFqhatc_1SULV5vDCkW3UK0896FV0sl8zHl2o0nRnhJs-ALKht0lkgLKnbRrqJYyFF4P3n/s1600/marc+edwards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfd0XTrrvmj6QCu2Jq1-58-6XXDFPPqJOep69xjenINufQnaB8j_R-LkCNDX74BVYChFOU3teFqhatc_1SULV5vDCkW3UK0896FV0sl8zHl2o0nRnhJs-ALKht0lkgLKnbRrqJYyFF4P3n/s1600/marc+edwards.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SS: So, I saw you for the first time three days ago, and you just told me that in that amount of time, you feel as though Cellular Chaos has grown as a band. Want to talk about that a little bit?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ME: Yeah, well, it seems like every time we play, the magic happens and everyone is picking up on the energy of what Cellular Chaos is doing and it just pulls you. It’s a combination of the music--the interaction between the four of us--and also the energy that the audience brings. It’s such a wonderful experience to have that. One helps the other, believe it or not… You gotta bring it. You gotta do something memorable and people will talk about it: ‘Oh, I saw Cellular Chaos in their early days! Yeah, I saw them! I’m one of their early fans!’ [laughs]</span></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Cellular Chaos - "Adviser" (official video):</span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ccv-rCCKpP4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Printed in Antigravity July 2014.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Remember the days when punk bands sang with conviction about everything that wasn’t right with the world? Corporate exploitation of land and people, poverty, shitty landlord-renter or employer-employee dynamics, the lies inherent in mainstream media reporting, war, sexism, racism, homophobia... well, thanks to bands like Downtown Boys, those days aren’t over. They combine fierce politics with a dancey art punk aesthetic, complete with saxophones and strong vocals by Victoria Ruiz, to make you move your body and open your eyes. And the thing is, it isn’t all just talk; this group of musicians actually walk the walk by being politically active in the towns they live in, whether through community organizing or education. As guitarist/vocalist Joey DeFrancesco (ex-member of What Cheer? Brigade) points out in this interview, punk isn’t just an aesthetic, it can be a way of tying art to politics. Punk politics can and have lead to actual social change. Downtown Boys show us how it’s done in 2014.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">New Orleans is a big marching band town and our love of brass instruments sometimes trickles down into the punk scene. In other words, people will be stoked that there’s saxophones in your band. Was it your past involvement in What Cheer? Brigade that moved you to include horns in Downtown Boys?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Joey DeFrancesco: This is an interesting question and never something we've been asked before! A few of us are actually in What Cheer? and are heavily influenced by the brass traditions in New Orleans, Balkans and Mexico, and all over. We love the energy created by lots of musicians and by horn sections in particular. I'd say more than What Cheer? though, what we thought about in creating this band are the free jazz or punk uses of saxophones, so like Sun Ra, Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Zorn, and so on. These are some of our favorite groups and I think some of the most powerful political music out there. This kind of abstracted human voice screaming through the horn fits well with what we're trying to say.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbNvoKLzZVSx01Kc83Nq7bdr0flPZ9tLaS9Eg4qmY49IjgkHoCbUxP6CmUJwcx3rk3_CROhcIo3ZzflDDyt-m8va2NFEi-oXMoHE8owq3AU9ncoHpMVRfcjQpyd1dxkElsa5FOZ_9UwhCh/s1600/dtb1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbNvoKLzZVSx01Kc83Nq7bdr0flPZ9tLaS9Eg4qmY49IjgkHoCbUxP6CmUJwcx3rk3_CROhcIo3ZzflDDyt-m8va2NFEi-oXMoHE8owq3AU9ncoHpMVRfcjQpyd1dxkElsa5FOZ_9UwhCh/s1600/dtb1.jpg" height="264" width="400" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Many artists who sing about politics in their bands don’t actually do any social justice work in the towns they live in, but a couple of you guys were actually involved in organizing hotel workers in Providence?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">JD: Yes, we're all involved in organizing or community work in some capacity. Me and Victoria met while working at the Renaissance Providence Hotel—which is currently under a worker-called boycott so don't stay there!—and became deeply involved in worker organizing there. We're both still very involved in the campaigns at the Renaissance and at other hotels in Providence. Emmett [Fitzgerald, tenor sax] has been deeply involved in prison justice campaigns and does journalism around environmental justice issues. Dan [Schleifer, bass] and Norlan [Olivo, drums] have worked for a while with New Urban Arts, an amazing arts and music after school program for Providence youth. We all very much act on what we talk about in our music.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Victoria Ruiz: I’m not doing any labor organizing [currently], but I just finished a job as a caseworker at the public defender to work on a bank-worker campaign for Make the Road New York [a Latino and working class community organizing group].</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"</span></i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">...What we thought about in creating
this band are the free jazz or punk uses of saxophones, so like Sun Ra,
Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Zorn, and so on. These are some of our
favorite groups and I think some of the most powerful political music
out there."</span></i></b></span> </span></h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdCvEJ9_awgi6uj8x8g7nxTJilWKDdEmjX3k6Z_SseYOzUMPpLmOI07IobrYmGB5AR5_DvqU9qJfOlqE2qheIf92oaZjk0ojJFEarVaWZYxVscj2k61C3JgGNLexj2VVk80Nype8d9w5Dd/s1600/dtb2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdCvEJ9_awgi6uj8x8g7nxTJilWKDdEmjX3k6Z_SseYOzUMPpLmOI07IobrYmGB5AR5_DvqU9qJfOlqE2qheIf92oaZjk0ojJFEarVaWZYxVscj2k61C3JgGNLexj2VVk80Nype8d9w5Dd/s1600/dtb2.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In a recent interview with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Impose</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Magazine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, Joey is quoted as saying, “Punk as an aesthetic and individualistic lifestyle means nothing. Punk as an ethics [of] collectivism, anti-oppression and action can and should imbue everything from the stage to the picket line, but we have to make it mean that.” Well said! Do you think political art can help motivate people to political action?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">JD: We talk a lot about this in the car on tour actually about when people ask "How important is culture?" as opposed</span> to like hard political organizing or something. And it's often like, "Hey, it's kind of a strange question to begin with because we shouldn't divide culture from organizing and everything else." <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We often fall into this trap of dividing culture from everyday life, as if culture is something that stops at the gallery door or the stage</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. This is what capitalism wants culture to be—a neatly separated experience that you consume and then move on. Truly revolutionary art or music reaches beyond where it's supposed to be confined and inspires you to take action at work, against the people you who are putting you down, and so on. I don't know if we achieve this, but we're aiming for this kind of total culture.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In New Orleans, I perceive a division between the punk scene, the activist scene, the queer scene, etc., whereas maybe 10 to 15 years ago, I saw these scenes more united in other cities. Do you see those scene divisions in Providence?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">JD: Yes, the scenes are sadly too divided. A good discussion of this is probably beyond the scope of this interview, as all these scenes have many scenes within themselves and all have aspects which are oppressive and alienating to the other groups and that should be analyzed at length. Just to talk about one aspect, I think the punk scene too often focuses on a self-serving individualism. Running as far away from society as possible, focusing on lifestyle issues like biking and consumer-sided food activism, and so on. None of this is bad in and of itself, but its flip side is often a lack of solidarity with anyone outside the punk scene. Why are there so few punks at picket lines? Why so few punks door-knocking or storming city hall? It's complicated, and everyone has different levels of access to organizing spaces; but if we're serious about creating a new world, we've got to get more serious about uniting with the radical elements in the existing world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Truly
revolutionary art or music reaches beyond where it's supposed to be
confined and inspires you to take action at work, against the people you
who are putting you down, and so on. I don't know if we achieve this,
but we're aiming for this kind of total culture."</span></span></b></i></span></h2>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What are your favorite political bands from the past and present?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">JD: MIA, Los Prisioneros, Crass, Priests, Shady Hawkins, DJ Haram, to name a few. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">VR: Selena, The Fugees, Mana, The Cure, Fugazi, Sun Ra!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Victoria, tell us about the zine you make. Will you have it with you on tour?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">VR: I will have the zine, yes! It’s called </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Brown is Beautiful</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. I wanted to put something together that was a collaboration of brown friends and white "allies" that are part of my inspiration and thought process. We were about to go on tour with EMA and play a lot of bars to a lot of people we’d never met or interacted with. I wanted people to be able to get some information on where our band is coming from! I believe in political education and Afro-futurism as a liberation pedagogy and I wanted to create something around that.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTm7PDlcrT1glUDTZua3vtxZpasUerI3dIwK3uqA2ZAtv6tbygigul9Nq9pIzk9ZVTyPFvJqyI0chkBiLQqwXY3jxoxdx0SiiGNgmntJfQxGbQXbDCqP5yGOj-I_Rc3K9myulRmhSEhxDS/s1600/dtb4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTm7PDlcrT1glUDTZua3vtxZpasUerI3dIwK3uqA2ZAtv6tbygigul9Nq9pIzk9ZVTyPFvJqyI0chkBiLQqwXY3jxoxdx0SiiGNgmntJfQxGbQXbDCqP5yGOj-I_Rc3K9myulRmhSEhxDS/s1600/dtb4.jpg" height="126" width="200" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Is Downtown Boys the first band any of you have played in?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">VR: This is my first band! I was always real into performing, though. Anytime “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” [by Selena] came on the radio when I was a kid, I would grab a bottle or hairbrush and my family would watch me sing along. I always loved going to shows and that's how I got involved in Downtown Boys. They had actually played a couple shows without me, and I'd go and pretend I knew the lyrics and dance and go crazy. One day I told Joey I wanted to be in a band, and he was like, "Be in this one."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Downtown Boys play The Wherehouse on Monday, July 14th at 7 p.m., with Panty Waste and Room 101. Check out noladiy.org and downtownboys.bandcamp.com for more info.</span>Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-78451635347045937212014-02-18T12:48:00.002-08:002014-02-19T10:53:47.327-08:00Almost Ready: The Story of Punk Rock in New Orleans<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">An Interview with Director Al Champagne</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Printed in Antigravity December 2013 and Maximum RocknRoll #370</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht9i9wHgsC_iW3Zetomzu8G3uNLcBRRWNguDHa57agnt64NJ_kgRHKqUekvih6hgz8hNjxAbtBJLRd8DjZ-hIxXrxa0rGEpWGLJx6qvv_KWAWgUsgAQluWKzPHCsfj6huv7TTxhKle_DIg/s1600/normals+on+frenchman+poster+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht9i9wHgsC_iW3Zetomzu8G3uNLcBRRWNguDHa57agnt64NJ_kgRHKqUekvih6hgz8hNjxAbtBJLRd8DjZ-hIxXrxa0rGEpWGLJx6qvv_KWAWgUsgAQluWKzPHCsfj6huv7TTxhKle_DIg/s1600/normals+on+frenchman+poster+(1).jpg" height="320" width="251" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Normals show on Frenchmen St.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Osa Atoe</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could ask a million different people how they found out about punk and what it meant to them when they did, and never get bored of hearing the variety of answers. It could be Ian McKaye's story or my friend’s, but I put equal weight on those anecdotes because it’s not about who it happened to or how well-known they became. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s about that transformational moment and how good it feels to discover something that makes everything new again</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It’s like a fresh start in life that a lot of people never get to experience. New Orleans never produced a nationally famous punk band; but ideally, the concept of fame doesn’t matter to punk, does it? I like to think about how punk rock eventually creeped into every crevice of our country and made its mark, no mat</span>ter how small the scene. Director Al Champagne, his production partner Pablo Romero-Estevez and cameraman <span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Andrew Mayeux have been working on </span><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Almost Ready: The Story of Punk Rock in New Orleans</span><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for over two years, attempting to piece together a recent history of a scene that didn’t leave many artifacts behind. Most early New Orleans punk bands didn’t even get a chance to record or put out a record. Also a song by the Normals, the documentary title hints at the almost-but-not-quite nature of New Orleans punk: all of the bands that broke up too soon, the bands that tried to move to NYC to get big but missed the boat and the truly great bands who were underrated at the time but are finally enjoying a bit of attention in the last couple of years due to vinyl reissues. In this interview, Al Champagne speaks to the artistic variety, fearlessness and scene unity in late 1970s to mid-’80s New Orleans punk rock, new wave and hardcore.</span></span></i></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where are you at in the making of the film at this point?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Al Champagne: Well, we’ve been doing interviews for the past two years and we’ve got a few left to do locally. My production partner, Pablo Romero-Estevez, moved out to LA and he’ll be interviewing some subjects who have since moved out to LA. We’re almost finished shooting the project as a whole. The end of the month will mark the two year anniversary of our first shoot. We’ve done a few dozen interviews so far.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is there a substantial number of old New Orleans punks living in LA?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’d be surprised. A gentleman from the Skinnies by the name of Rick Polizzi... If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s one of the producers of the Simpsons. There are a lot of folks in LA.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiI50TUhmm3B0HnQ7InkiB5ZFgxxx2pk150Ex_9zSisEoVIQwRD0_6ZIgq15mMzuj5LVqildTitNzFCfpel63CQpjhGV2u4lTCbHogc_b45p8-q0YN-OANPAR7_3uBqCRvsfRTybfXnnkS/s1600/antigravitydec13_Page_10_Image_0001-377x256.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiI50TUhmm3B0HnQ7InkiB5ZFgxxx2pk150Ex_9zSisEoVIQwRD0_6ZIgq15mMzuj5LVqildTitNzFCfpel63CQpjhGV2u4lTCbHogc_b45p8-q0YN-OANPAR7_3uBqCRvsfRTybfXnnkS/s1600/antigravitydec13_Page_10_Image_0001-377x256.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dave Slut and Al Champagne</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being from here, was this older stuff easy to find or did you feel like you had to discover it?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I found it pretty early, when I was around 11 or so. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when I was in elementary school, they’d bring some guy in to speak to the kids. And I guess the story is he was some former drug addict or alcoholic, but he would go and warn the kids about all the evil music out there. And all he did was end up introducing a bunch of bored 11 and 12 year-old suburban kids to music they’d otherwise never heard of.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> He even ended up mentioning how he thought that Woodstock should never come back.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, basically from this guy, this entire generation of pre-teens was introduced to everything from Slayer to the Dead Kennedys when otherwise they probably would never have heard of them.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what about the local stuff, specifically?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hadn’t heard about this scene until probably over a decade ago. I was in a record store—I think one of the chain stores in Kenner—and I came across a CD by a band called the Normals, who I’d never heard of. So I picked up that CD. Pretty much all of the knowledge I had of the early days of New Orleans punk rock came from the liner notes of that CD. I’d actually had the idea to do a documentary about [early New Orleans punk] ever since. It turns out that there was so little written about it that I could find, I thought this was going to be only a small project with only a few people to interview and here I am two years later and we’re still trying to finish it up.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What’s everyone like? Did a lot of people from those days remain artists and weirdos or did a lot of people proceed to lead more traditional lifestyles?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s kind of a mix. A lot of people performing today started off in this scene. John Thomas Griffith, the guitar player for Cowboy Mouth, started off in the band the Rat Finks, which later became the Red Rockers, which was the most successful band to come out of the old scene.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After working on this film for a while, why do you think that punk rock is kind of underrated in New Orleans, then and now? Do you think it’s the simple fact that we have more of a reputation for being a jazz town?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think if you look back, even Louis Armstrong wasn’t appreciated when he was here. He very seldom came back to New Orleans after he was shunned by the city and its government. So it’s essentially the story of New Orleans music, from Louis Armstrong until today. Another thing is, New Orleans is a live music town rather than a recorded music town. And people characterize New Orleans as a jazz town, but what kind of music did Fats Domino play? </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMzzderTCtNjbPH1ud-mfAgZxhUNkhAyX3n0Soz4EY6b6kXO7cO2Hh8Le1pVPIkROBnMSNMPEAib25D5GM-wpNNzLpj-Z3RhsteX1C1QSz1MpfBkJcoFUAeUPDDtF0qN0tmUFLL4dw4I3P/s1600/redrockersJulieStein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMzzderTCtNjbPH1ud-mfAgZxhUNkhAyX3n0Soz4EY6b6kXO7cO2Hh8Le1pVPIkROBnMSNMPEAib25D5GM-wpNNzLpj-Z3RhsteX1C1QSz1MpfBkJcoFUAeUPDDtF0qN0tmUFLL4dw4I3P/s1600/redrockersJulieStein.jpg" height="320" width="246" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Rockers</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Early rock’n’roll. That’s a cool answer. When looking back on these punk histories, it’s really common for bands to cite that an already established band came through town on tour and inspired the creation of a rash of new bands, and therefore a scene. Was that true for New Orleans?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, in New Orleans it was a radio show, New Wave Hour on WTUL with Jay Hollingsworth and John G. That’s what pretty much launched the scene—like the Ramones would come and all these local bands would open for them. It started off with the Normals in about 1978, ‘79; but then after that it was the Red Rockers who would open for bands around ‘81. The Cold were also popular in their own right. They were local celebrities at the time and would open for bands like Squeeze. I guess at the time, the term “new wave” became more synonymous with bands like Squeeze, but in ‘78 it was pretty much the same thing as punk.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Are you going to dive into ‘80s hardcore?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, definitely because there are very important aspects of the early local hardcore scene, one being the notorious band the Sluts. The Sluts’ frontman, Dave Turgeon, actually auditioned to front Black Flag before the job ultimately went to Henry Rollins. So he actually performed one night with Black Flag in Philadelphia. But yeah, the Sluts were a pretty notorious band. They toured the country and they were punk rock in the sense of offending everybody and anyone, being really loud and really obnoxious and they really left their mark. As notorious as they were, I’m kind of shocked that they faded into obscurity. They had a lot of famous friends and a lot of famous non-friends, too. They existed to rile anybody and everybody up and they had a good three year run before they couldn’t take it anymore.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Are you talking to Ron from Disappointed Parents? I know they’re still trying to play shows.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDXq_f6XVXVFfz3EPrYytYWPqng1lu2HsVf7BPqH0E1FzRQbYi9s8uC5Ae3sRSGaffy1b0xdaWjmPpu-RifvrJHjJvstymtDXh6lxKRQGebPCcmlsHzKM378JL1zOVCib7bbuNIQ4b9rN/s1600/ron+chris+dp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDXq_f6XVXVFfz3EPrYytYWPqng1lu2HsVf7BPqH0E1FzRQbYi9s8uC5Ae3sRSGaffy1b0xdaWjmPpu-RifvrJHjJvstymtDXh6lxKRQGebPCcmlsHzKM378JL1zOVCib7bbuNIQ4b9rN/s1600/ron+chris+dp.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ron Chris, Disappointed Parents</td></tr>
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</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah, I talked to Ron. There was Disappointed Parents, the Goners and of course, there was Shell Shocked in the mid-80s, from when hardcore/metal crossover started, and they were pretty much at the vanguard of that. That pretty much started the underground metal scene in New Orleans, which today is still going strong. Mike IX of Eyehategod was in a band called Teenage Waste at that point, but they were short-lived and no recordings exist of them. So, yeah... I cover everything from a band like the Cold to the Uptights and RZA, who were somewhere between punk and new wave. Their frontman, Lenny Zenith, was transgender at a time when that really wasn’t acceptable in the music industry.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It still isn’t entirely.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, it’s starting to today, but that’s why Lenny had a hard time branching out back then, and that’s a real shame because I think he’s a great songwriter in his own right, not just from the local scene, but I think in the whole era. Lenny Zenith is certainly a top notch writer and performer.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Favorite band of the era?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My favorite band would probably be Sex Dog. Sex Dog were really ahead of their time because when I listen to the recordings they made around 1981, the only thing I can think of that sounds anywhere close to it is the Replacements, but this is before the Replacements.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wanted to ask if you talked to Larry Holmes since he was such a prolific figure back then with his bands, his label and the fanzine. Have you uncovered any copies of “Final Solution”?</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4vX3pYDdBeVhSXmLqRrodKmU5XvYWgBYsSW_3TgTBDPOMPnRH3A3j8F2Rh7ov2GGWh1q5UdHJHg5hvIuoLqyESwIIL2ZU-s9cN4xSxOora1NeiHakW6b25JTAooHbH1r9BSPTUyXlC0U9/s1600/rza+use+this.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4vX3pYDdBeVhSXmLqRrodKmU5XvYWgBYsSW_3TgTBDPOMPnRH3A3j8F2Rh7ov2GGWh1q5UdHJHg5hvIuoLqyESwIIL2ZU-s9cN4xSxOora1NeiHakW6b25JTAooHbH1r9BSPTUyXlC0U9/s1600/rza+use+this.gif" height="320" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lenny Zenith (far left) and RZA</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah, I talked to Larry. There were a few zines... There was a zine called “Crispy Christ” that I think Ron Christ [of Disappointed Parents] used to put out. Yeah, I tried to cover everything because when you look at a movie like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">American Hardcore</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, you see [the touring bands] end up in all these cities where there was very much a division between all these scenes. But everybody pretty much got along here.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s so much punk nostalgia right now and everything you’ve said about the scene back then paints a pretty harmonious picture, but was there an ugly or difficult side to things at all? Like for instance, did punks have to clash with the police a lot?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Problems with the police came later with the hardcore scene. There are two punk/police clash stories in New Orleans that get a lot of attention, the first being when the Sex Pistols played at the Kingfish in Baton Rouge in 1978. The other story is when the Misfits were arrested in St. Louis cemetery #2 after their show at Tupelo’s Tavern in 1982. The cops were pretty rough with a lot of the underage people who were there. Mike IX [of Eyehategod] was one of those kids arrested that night.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have you heard stories about what it was like to look like a punk rocker and walk around the streets of New Orleans in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People would grab their kids and say, “Stay away from those people!” It’s kind of funny now; you wouldn’t give a second thought to someone with green hair. But if you were a punk at that time, people definitely looked down on you.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheuIKZJTL700yIsbII11LbYtBY__c6sjOnoc6DlKGUbNNJnHWHvSP0w9Gzy9VnhR9lYUE9PPvhIMgLweM7Eqm6BZ1JN5eFwszDKmFetPeUqyDBNj8WTYcpF8M5B3Uzs8JkrAgFnAfrG6PG/s1600/waywardyouth.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheuIKZJTL700yIsbII11LbYtBY__c6sjOnoc6DlKGUbNNJnHWHvSP0w9Gzy9VnhR9lYUE9PPvhIMgLweM7Eqm6BZ1JN5eFwszDKmFetPeUqyDBNj8WTYcpF8M5B3Uzs8JkrAgFnAfrG6PG/s1600/waywardyouth.jpeg" height="220" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An answer to musical boredom.</td></tr>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What about racial stuff? With a zine called </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Final Solution</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the Toxin III logo [a hybrid swastika/confederate flag] and things like that, was overt racism actually a part of the scene?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was [racist] imagery, mainly used for shock value. I talked to the guys in Toxin III and they said that in 1980 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> magazine declared the confederate flag to be the American swastika, so the point of their album cover was to make it recognizable. But if you listen to the lyrics, you’ll see that they were a band with left wing politics; so they weren’t a racist band. But I guess that people think, “Oh, a Southern band that had that album cover must be racist.” So, [in the documentary] I let them explain it their own way. I know that at least one of the “Punkette Pinups” for Larry Holmes' </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Final Solution</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> fanzine was Jewish, as was the original drummer for Red Rockers, who drummed on the EP released on Holmes' Vinyl Solution label. Even the LGBT community found acceptance in the New Orleans punk scene whereas gay bashing was the norm in other cities' scenes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When do you think you’ll be done filming and how are you planning on showing the documentary? Will it be out on DVD? Are you going to tour with it?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’re hoping for a release date sometime in 2014. We’re thinking we’ll maybe do the festival circuit, but we’ll see. Oh, there’s one more thing. There’s rumored to be footage of the Sluts out there somewhere, so I guess I can use this as an opportunity to appeal to readers. If there’s anyone out there with footage, please get in touch!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For more information on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Almost Ready: the Story of Punk Rock in New Orleans</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, check out facebook.com/almostreadymovie or email Al Champagne at achampagne981@hotmail.com</span></div>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-73048071071631740902013-10-29T19:17:00.000-07:002013-10-29T19:21:29.920-07:00Stand Up or Die: An Interview with Golnar Nikpour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Golnar Nikpour is one of the individuals I credit with helping <i>Maximum RockNRoll</i> evolve from a white male dominated hardcore zine to the more inclusive, feminist leaning punk/hc zine it's become today. We met for the first time around 2007 when she interviewed my old band New Bloods and fought to get us on the cover, making it one of the first times a black woman was on the cover of MRR, or any punk fanzine, for that matter. Now, Golnar lives in Queens, NY, plays drums in her band In School, co-edits the magazine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> B|ta'arof and is in graduate school. Let her wow you with her brilliance.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpZerf9cQh7b4sF0X5DAq0z3uLpNq3lLFTefnPKHhxOYWLbtyGJLjWds4Eahb3ZWzPAuhwvqF3YNYfrZe_3j0nfcKuD65NVDX7Qq-D7sKA1ig4lIG9ASFxgaw7bMTPjRy4BY-CUsRGdvg5/s1600/fmh4_cover_us_papersize.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(This interview was published in <a href="http://annavo.wordpress.com/2013-fix-my-head-no-4-more-punks-of-colour/">Fix My Head zine #4</a>, a zine for punx of color by Anna Vo.)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FMH: You have so many new projects! Let’s start with your band, In School. Your demo tape is phenomenal. Any plans to put out a record or tour?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GN: Thanks Osa! In School is the product of close friendships and mutually-shared love of punk music between the four members of the band. That said, all of us work full-time and/or are (literally) in school, and we all have other projects we’re involved with on top of that. This means that while we do want to put out a record and tour sometime in the near future, we don’t have anything specific lined up just yet. We recorded the demo about three months ago, and have been playing out quite a bit in New York and surrounding cities. Our plan now is to write some new songs, possibly record for a 7” this winter, and hopefully put together a tour in the spring. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FMH: In School is an all-female hardcore band with queer and people of color members. Where do you find yourself located in New York? Within the predominantly white hardcore scene? With other people of color, queer or female-fronted bands? Or all of the above? Is that an issue at all?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GN: Well, I think each of us would answer this question differently because we all have different relationships to and within the punk scene, both in NYC and in general. Since I can’t speak for the rest of my bandmates, I’ll stick to answering for myself on this one. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In School came together as a band because there was something natural and obvious about playing music together, not only because we are friends, but because I think we all feel some degree of insider/outsider-ness vis-a-vis the punk scene, even though we’ve all been involved with punk for a long time. That has to do with things like gender/queerness/race, etc. It also — for me anyway, at this point in time — has to do with being a bit older than a lot of the current hardcore/punk kids in NYC. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> In truth, I think In School is a bit of an awkward fit in a NYC scene that is divided into a raw/crust punk scene that is younger and more drug-lovin’ than we are, a largely whitestraightboy hardcore scene, some scattered emo kids, grrrl bands that are cool but not at all HC, garage & indie rock bands that are a world away from us in terms of DIY ethics, etc. When we show up to gigs all brown and kind of old and holding hands and wearing floor length dresses and shit (well, some of us to all of the above) but then play raging, angry hardcore, I think we confuse some people! It’s no surprise (to me at least) that, while we have some great friends and supporters in these various NYC scenes, we’ve also garnered much of our support from outside of New York.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Regardless of whatever is going on in NYC, we jump at any opportunity to play with other bands (wherever they’re from) with women, queers, punx of color, or freaks and fellow travellers of any kind, particularly if they also play raw and vicious punk. Playing the POC Zine Tour event was awesome, as were shows with bands like Pig DNA, Criaturas (probably my fave band in the U.S. these days), Hysterics, Potty Mouth, Shoxx, Shoppers, No Babies, etc. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVH1jccaHO1RPnftUfRRcIp7eejZAT4dodwn3cJooFlbzgoYjeX4gLFtzMqEaWAuiXaoHLxrN3yl8FeN5enQgMcU96pwpTgSqasEqfzGT7Yezx_SnfLhQjvk5qbL0aPXeLCoia_t4PR3fn/s1600/in+school+jesse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVH1jccaHO1RPnftUfRRcIp7eejZAT4dodwn3cJooFlbzgoYjeX4gLFtzMqEaWAuiXaoHLxrN3yl8FeN5enQgMcU96pwpTgSqasEqfzGT7Yezx_SnfLhQjvk5qbL0aPXeLCoia_t4PR3fn/s640/in+school+jesse.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bidi (vocals) and Golnar (drums) of In School. <br />
The title of this interview is taken from one of their songs. Photo by Jesse Riggins</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FMH: You play drums for In School, while Bidi Choudhury sings and is probably responsible for the lyrical content. Even so, could you talk about the messages you’re sending out with your band? When I listen to it, I hear anti-apathy, pro-accountability sentiments, but without the self-righteousness dogmatism that infects so much other positive hardcore.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GN: You’re right that Bidi writes all of the lyrics for our band, but 100% of In School is majorly excited about the lyrics that she writes. I didn’t know that this was going to be the case before the band started, but it turns out that Bidi is simply my favorite lyricist in the current punk scene. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The lyrics are, in Bidi’s own words, about standing up and fighting back when you are being shat on. What I hear in our lyrics is an unwillingness to succumb to the cruel pressures that life exposes us to on a day-to-day level. The lyrics deal with confronting violence in our communities, apathy in our scene, and assholes in general. The members of In School are usually easy-going people, but we are an angry band because this world is a fucked up place. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FMH: Tell us about </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">B|ta'arof </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Magazine. The very first issue just came out this month. Who do you work with on it and how did the idea come about?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></h1>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GN: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">B|ta’arof </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is a cultural arts magazine about Iranian lives and histories. The magazine features short stories adapted from oral history interviews, archival excavations, visual arts pieces by Iranian artists both in and out of Iran, and essays/articles/interviews on music, film, political/intellectual history, etc. The first issue of the magazine was just released, and the second is slated to come out in Spring of 2013. For the first issue, I wrote an essay on the preponderance of American and European labels reissuing classic Iranian pop records in particular, and the politics of global music reissues in general.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I was the last of four (all-volunteer) editors to join onto the project, which was pitched to me over giant margaritas about a year and a half ago by my friend Arash Davari, a fellow grad student and writer. The magazine is a passion project — like In School or </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum Rocknroll</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">B|t</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> a labor of love. We do it because there are very few outlets through which Iranians are able to speak across generational lines, borders, or languages. Because of the vicissitudes of politics and history, Iranians are spread around the world, and as a result our lived experiences and intellectual worlds are rich but fractured. While in the scheme of things ours is a small project, the idea is to be intentional in the act of making culture. This means that culture (like art) is not something we simply “have” but a process through which we make sense of the world around us. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Z07wNGNiGBKpnRQxq0fW9liIZWVgZGLJMKWHjo6Ewb11i5X54Ht8RG2cbV25ijwu6h7jf603chuUwDKb1mduBOkXEKr8WoUCtoEGcYRGx1euIarsHKQ1aTUywMLj5_N20Jgx9Oez9IcS/s1600/1_SLIDESHOWV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Z07wNGNiGBKpnRQxq0fW9liIZWVgZGLJMKWHjo6Ewb11i5X54Ht8RG2cbV25ijwu6h7jf603chuUwDKb1mduBOkXEKr8WoUCtoEGcYRGx1euIarsHKQ1aTUywMLj5_N20Jgx9Oez9IcS/s400/1_SLIDESHOWV.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cover of the 2nd issue of B|ta'arof magazine.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FMH: Did the experience you gained as coordinator at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum Rocknroll </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">prepare you for your work with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">B|ta'arof</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Magazine? How so, and also how is it completely different?</span></h1>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GN: I don’t think I would be working on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">B|ta’arof</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> had it not been for my experience coordinating </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. When my three co-editors at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">B|t</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> asked me to join work with them on the magazine, none of them had any experience working on a functioning periodical — this was their major impetus in asking me to join forces with them to begin with. At first, we had a lot of great ideas but not a whole lot of structure; as a result, I borrowed a lot of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">’s structures and strategies to deal with the day-to-day labor of putting out a magazine. Creating workable internal deadlines, dealing with late writers, haggling with printers, all-night editing sessions, and most importantly, my belief that a project like this can and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">should</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> be do-it-yourself -- all of these are skills hard-won from my three years at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Of course, it’s different than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">in that when all four editors are in the same room working I get out-voted when I want to listen to Anti-Cimex.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FMH: Punk rock can have the effect of taking you places in life you never thought you’d go. Do you relate to that, especially in relation to your experience at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GN: My time at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> was completely transformational. When I started there, I was a 22-year old kid who had never really lived anywhere other than New York and had never worked terribly hard at anything I actually cared about. Not only did the folks at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> let me into their lives, but they basically said, “Here’s the keys kid, the place is yours.” I had no experience, and yet I was totally entrusted with something that was (and remains) precious to a lot of people. I didn’t want to let the punx — or myself — down, so I worked my ass off. I didn’t realize it right away, but that experience changed me from a shy goofball into someone generally unafraid of trying any sort of project or standing up for myself in any situation.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit6lfV1Qna1kQqTd5RlLw3H2TQYtqjOG9pt9Kv9UfnymG7sIrJyK06L6cDh_e5QzZPvk-q92KK4XDNXHkSPtjE4BVzBWv5UuRNp0I82i4bjHbuAe8JMCuL8iE-n8b8zBCiXFW5fyEPhM_S/s1600/golnar_subway_stop_horiz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit6lfV1Qna1kQqTd5RlLw3H2TQYtqjOG9pt9Kv9UfnymG7sIrJyK06L6cDh_e5QzZPvk-q92KK4XDNXHkSPtjE4BVzBWv5UuRNp0I82i4bjHbuAe8JMCuL8iE-n8b8zBCiXFW5fyEPhM_S/s320/golnar_subway_stop_horiz.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Before I worked at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, I already believed in DIY because I was punk as fuck (duh). Still, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> turned DIY from a concept into an everyday reality for me. The truth is, my three years at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> were both difficult and lonely -- I worked 70, 80 hour weeks to make the magazine work with a single-minded focus I don’t hope to recreate on any other project. I did this all in a city that never stopped feeling every bit of the 3,000 miles away from home that it was. Still, when I’m on my deathbed I’ll look back at that time as three of the truly great years of my life because the people and process at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> taught me all sorts of things about friendship, art, community, inspiration, and ethics that I could never have hoped to gain anywhere else. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maximum Rocknroll </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is fucking awesome, and I am proud to be a part of its history.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On a less corny note, punk rock has opened a crazy number of doors for me. It’s helped me travel, tour, teach myself how to play the drums, learn how to really write, make the best friends I have, etc. I’ve felt outside of punk, or alienated by punk, or one foot out the punk scene more times than I can remember. Still, I never manage to get all the way out because well, punk rules, OK! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FMH: How has your relationship to punk changed since you left </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, or has it?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GN: When I first left </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(I was coordinator from 2004-2007), I was pretty burned out on the punk scene. I had had one too many stupid conversations about whether or not I was the PC police and one too many altercations with assholes who didn’t get why I was not impressed by their “shocking” antics. I was even burned out on the stuff I loved about punk -- I was tired of shooting the shit aimlessly about my favorite Discharge song or my most recent record score. Worst of all, I was getting less pleasure out of actually putting the zine together towards the end of my run, whereas for most of my time at MRR I fuckin’ loved working on the zine. All of this made it impossible for me to stay at MRR any longer.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">After I left, I threw myself into all sorts of things I was craving, including many things that were decidedly not punk. I went to graduate school (I’m still there, working on a dissertation on 19th & 20th century Iranian political and intellectual history), reconnected with friends who were queers, poets, freaks, artists, whatever, but who happened not to be punk, hung out like crazy with my family, went to more baseball games, and got involved more intensively in political organizing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FMH: So, besides being a Die Kreuzen reference, at least a couple of you in In School are actually in school! You have interesting thoughts on the intersection of punk and academia, especially when it comes to feminist zine culture. Please share.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GN: Phew, this is a hard question, and something I could talk about for days...! Generally speaking, I am wary of academic projects on punk or its surrounding subcultures. This is not because I am “anti-intellectual,” — as someone accused me of being after reading my review of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">White Riot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(!!)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> — </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">but rather because as both a practicing historian and punk, I believe that most academic studies of punk suffer from being methodologically unsound, poorly researched, and limited in their archival scope. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhnIQkzUCxuW3ufKBzlsnavZPz4cJGrQqGqoqUMuyR1h27LYYTKWaJSp3DdXPL_TiLsO9KvBOVL9hEM56wNwBfO72k30TLBw9LSrkryQoDna9zSp5vjSQIx-397OS3b218GNPpRYYpD_eo/s1600/drinkingcoffee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhnIQkzUCxuW3ufKBzlsnavZPz4cJGrQqGqoqUMuyR1h27LYYTKWaJSp3DdXPL_TiLsO9KvBOVL9hEM56wNwBfO72k30TLBw9LSrkryQoDna9zSp5vjSQIx-397OS3b218GNPpRYYpD_eo/s320/drinkingcoffee.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the academy, all scholarly work is anonymously “peer reviewed” by other scholars in the field before being released as a book or in a scholarly journal. This doesn’t really happen in so-called “punk studies,” because the “peers” who would most easily see through the holes in this work are punk’s own historians and zinesters, who are largely unaffiliated with the academy. This makes “punk studies” a closed echo chamber that tacitly condones the trading in of “insider” experiences in the punk scene for steps up the rungs of the academic ladder. The academic notion of expertise (hierarchical, institution-centered) is utterly antithetical to the punk notion of expertise (democratic, DIY, auto-didactic). Legit experts are shut out of academic debates in punk studies. Punks are instead patronizingly treated as “raw material” that cannot speak back to the academy. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In many of these books, ex-punk academics often bizarrely treat </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">themselves</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> as scenester/native informants while at the same time maintaining a pretense of scholarly distance and “objectivity” about the scenes they are studying, missing altogether that their experience may not be generalizable for all punks the world over. I should be clear: this is not only an academic phenomenon. Trade books by ex-scenesters -- take Steven Blush’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">American Hardcore, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">for instance</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> — </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">also claim to be definitive statements on punk, simultaneously selling themselves as unimpeachably “insider” accounts at the same time that they feign apparent objectivity. Many of these studies are marred by a brutal combination of know-it-all arrogance and the myopia of believing that their limited understanding of punk is absolutely generalizable.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Aside from ex-punks, “punk studies” is littered with folks who aren’t punk and never really were, but who gain some sense of cool-by-association out of writing about “underground” or even “dangerous” subcultures. (I have noticed that this is much the same some “hip hop studies,” and any kind of subculture studies, really.) I should mention here — and I can’t emphasize this enough — that</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I do not at all believe that one has to be a true “insider” to write intelligently about punk,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> but rather that I think that punk has been approached cavalierly by researchers who have so far gotten away with their shoddy scholarship because there is no one to stop them from writing whatever the hell they want.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I question not only the methodologies of these studies — which present clichés about punk as hard and true facts (“these kids are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">white rebels! </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">James Dean invented the leather jacket!</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Punks are this generation’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">hippies!!”)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, rarely treat punk as a global phenomenon, and seem unaware of many theoretical debates in historiography/cultural studies/etc. — but also their archives. In many of the studies I’ve seen produced on feminist/riot grrrl zines, for example, zines by grrrls of color are treated as addendums, or later interventions in the larger riot grrrl movement if they are mentioned at all. (Check out Mimi Nguyen’s article exposing the myth of the grrrl of color “intervention” in riot grrrl for a brilliant analysis of this phenomenon.) The fact that riot grrrl zines came out of a larger engagement with punk in general is often ignored or not taken as an intellectually important matter. Only a handful of zinesters — mostly the same great white mothers — are considered important. From these limited archives, researchers feel emboldened to make definitive claims about punk/zines/etc. that barely pass the sniff test let alone close historical scrutiny. And then, these motherfuckers get tenure-track jobs at fancy research universities or book deals with major publishers. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fuck that.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FMH: You laid out a very thorough critique of the book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> recently in MRR. It seems obvious to me that any book curated by two white guys about race & punk will be inherently flawed. What are some ideas you have about how all punks, and particularly punks of color, can counteract the effects of a book like this. In fact, what are examples of ways that we are already doing so?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Before I answer this question, I have to say that I disagree with the idea that a research book about race & punk by two white dudes is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">inherently </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">or </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">necessarily</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> flawed, even if if the odds are stacked against such a project. Such a book would be fatally flawed if it spoke </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">for</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> punks of color, or claimed to be the definitive work on race & punk (a la </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">White Riot</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">), but I truly believe that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">anyone </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">*could* do good analytical work on race/class/gender/history/punk/etc. This goes to my earlier point that I am not making an essentialist argument that only “insiders” can know what’s up. Indeed, there is more than one way to write “about” race. For example, James Baldwin or Audre Lorde teach us certain things about racism in the U.S. that no white author ever could, but that doesn’t mean that, say, David Roediger’s classic scholarly work on race and the labor movement in the U.S. doesn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">also </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">teach us about race in important ways. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That said, I think that there are ways that punks — and particularly punks of color, feminist punks, queer punks, punx around the world, etc. — </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">have always</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> been doing things that would inherently counteract books like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">White Riot</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. The academic fascination with punk rock has had its ebbs and tides, but punk has, from its inception, produced countless auto-archiving, self-curating communities that reveal a different picture of punk than the one you’d find in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">White Riot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">or books of its ilk</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For me, the most important thing about punk is that it has been global since basically day one. This means that people of color — an admittedly flawed category when discussing folks in Asia or Latin America, who don’t deal with hegemonic whiteness in the same way that POCs in the U.S. or Europe do — have always had a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">formative</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> relationship to punk style, music, fashion, culture, history, et al. We are not simply a reactive mass waiting for white folks to show us the way. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I am obsessed with these histories and linkages, which is why projects like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Shotgun Seamstress,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> histories of global punk scenes in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MRR (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">like their recent two-part history of the Peruvian punk scene)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">or excavatory reissues of punk records/tapes from Mexico to Greece to Thailand (for just a few examples) are important to me. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Frankly though, I think as punks we don’t have to worry too much about books like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">White Riot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">in the long run</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We should critique them ruthlessly when they emerge, but we should mainly just poke fun at them amongst ourselves while we keep working on our own infinitely radder books, zines, records, shows, art, etc. I have wasted too much space writing about that book; I should just take the Big Boys advice and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">go write my own book! </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.btaarof.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">www.btaarof.com</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.maximumrocknroll.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">www.maximumrocknroll.com</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://inschool.bandcamp.com/</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-72651063608774019132013-10-20T11:56:00.000-07:002014-07-23T15:59:17.769-07:00Black Consumerism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS1khxUtRbxyrsB5mPYw2oY4AU7imOqKvHDYNb6jD_5AJi8QwR9mfHMJKNVpwY0czTjYPuwOpHfJ4ipqF2tedhu6mYnglBHFb-yAH2tC-SY3yf0qOvKjKccOUZwWMfVepVVFlIKu5no65b/s1600/black+consumerism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS1khxUtRbxyrsB5mPYw2oY4AU7imOqKvHDYNb6jD_5AJi8QwR9mfHMJKNVpwY0czTjYPuwOpHfJ4ipqF2tedhu6mYnglBHFb-yAH2tC-SY3yf0qOvKjKccOUZwWMfVepVVFlIKu5no65b/s1600/black+consumerism.jpg" height="468" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">SS zine was always supposed to be a response or alternative to mainstream black hip-hop culture and black consumerism, but I'm not sure I ever made that as clear as I wanted to. It was only in going on tour with the People of Color Zine Project and having the opportunity every day for two weeks to verbalize the thoughts behind the making of my zine that I came to realize how central anti-consumerist, anticapitalist and DIY ethics are to the zine, even though I mostly just talked about music. Of all the issues, #3 Money Is Fake, is probably the one speaks best to my belief that DIY has been and will continue to be a liberating tool for black people.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">The article, "The Soul of Black Consumerism," does an excellent job describing the problem, but in the end offers the solution of spirituality to counter materialism (the author is Baha'i). I do not disagree with him, but I wish to offer another solution: DIY culture creation. Instead of mindlessly consuming corporate culture, create your own using whatever resources you have at your disposal right now.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />From <a href="http://www.stateofformation.org/2012/02/the-soul-of-black-consumerism/" target="_blank">The Soul of Black Consumerism</a>:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">"<span style="line-height: 21px;">I believe that the feverish pursuit of material things that we witness among Black folk is a racialized expression of the</span><span style="line-height: 21px;"> </span><a href="http://www.bahaithought.com/2011/12/money-cannot-be-eaten.html" style="border: none; line-height: 21px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">consumerism</a><span style="line-height: 21px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21px;">afflicting Americans generally. For Black Americans, our economic behavior is a reflection of the collision of</span><span style="line-height: 21px;"> </span><em style="line-height: 21px;">internalized materialism </em><span style="line-height: 21px;">and</span><span style="line-height: 21px;"> </span><em style="line-height: 21px;">internalized racism</em><span style="line-height: 21px;">. Acquiring material things matters because we associate these things (consciously or not) with the power traditionally possessed by White Americans.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Acquiring them has not only practical value, but psychological value as a counter to our feelings of racial inferiority. We need to acquire more and more in order to quiet that nagging sense that no matter how much we have, we are never quite fully human beings. This is why you will witness even Black folk of means self-destruct either through disastrous financial decisions, or self-medicating their self-doubt (i.e. Whitney Houston).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Given our history this is hardly surprising. That a people who were long considered property should come to believe their salvation lay in amassing it is but one indication of <a href="http://www.joydegruy.com/ptss/index.html" style="border: none; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the psychic toll of slavery</a>. As such, the antics of a Jay-Z or Kanye West can be understood as reflecting a psyche still held in captivity to materialist conceptualizations of Black identity. It is art imitating life, or perhaps more accurately, <em>art imitating death</em>, the death of human nobility due to the insanity of White supremacy."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">-Phillipe Copeland</span></span></div>
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Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-63020147305758753162013-10-17T13:39:00.005-07:002015-03-26T07:04:56.994-07:00Taquila Mockingbird: The Queen Behind the Scene<div align="CENTER" style="widows: 4;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A young Taquila Mockingbird</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This
is the only interview I've ever done that left me wanting to ask so
many more questions. Taquila Mockingbird is a Rennaissance woman of
sorts and when I found out about her for the first time last year,
I'd never felt so excited and so annoyed at the same time. I was
elated to find out about a black rocker from the early days of LA
punk who had done so much for the scene but also pissed because she's
been obscured by history, the way that many women and people of color
often are. Taquila's earliest involvement with punk was as a
scenester, befriending the New York Dolls and The Sex Pistols during
the 1970s. She later worked as the music supervisor for New Wave
Theater, a late-night punk variety show that aired in LA in the 1980s
and was later nationally syndicated, featuring bands like The Circle
Jerks, Black Flag, The Go-Gos, Fear, 45 Grave, Suburban Lawns and
many, many more. Taquila booked live shows, worked as Nina Hagen's
backup singer and manager, continues to write for various
publication, ran her own magazine, has a background as an actress and
model, and is a singer/performer who continues to gig weekly at
various locations in LA. The list goes on & on. She started The
Punk Museum in Hollywood a year ago in keeping with her promise to
Darby Crash before he died to keep punk alive. I relate to Taquila
as a busybody and a black punk and felt lucky to have the chance to
sit down and talk to her for this interview.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Note: I've gotten feedback more than once that Brendan Mullen's portrayal in this interview is grossly inaccurate. See Shotgun Seamstress zine #8 (available in print April 2015) for clarification.</b> </span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span class="userContent">Published <a href="http://www.maximumrocknroll.com/" target="_blank">MRR </a>#363 in August, and <a href="http://published%20mrr%20/#363%20in%20August,%20and%20Fix%20My%20Head%20#4" target="_blank">Fix My Head #4</a>)</span> </span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>[We were chatting a bit
before the recorder was going. This is where the interview begins on
the tape...]</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM: I started with New Wave
Theater, so that was 1980-1983.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: Was that your first
punk related thing that you did?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM: No, I was actually
friends with the New York Dolls back in 1973-74, so by then I was
already on the path to hell. [laughs]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: So, I read </b><i><b>We've
Got the Neutron Bomb</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>
a while back and don't remember you being mentioned.</b></span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-style: normal;">TM:
Well, I was Brendan Mullen's [</span><i>founder
of punk club The Masque</i><span style="font-style: normal;">]
direct competition and he just decided that black people had no place
in punk. </span>
</span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR:
Did he ever say that to you explicitly or was it just his attitude?</b></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip8bUAxV6UFXFWhLyOwyHSGEtLWptmeH9jdjlY2Zi6790w5unrn1LNSqb-p7JfcKTnZy849UrcAUvwSHfBN9LMgmYFE08oygUSGky2xLi6D8gVjphE3dR3FDQMSAZspp-RguNi_N3vHJGS/s1600/gerr-i-bone-and-tequlia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip8bUAxV6UFXFWhLyOwyHSGEtLWptmeH9jdjlY2Zi6790w5unrn1LNSqb-p7JfcKTnZy849UrcAUvwSHfBN9LMgmYFE08oygUSGky2xLi6D8gVjphE3dR3FDQMSAZspp-RguNi_N3vHJGS/s400/gerr-i-bone-and-tequlia.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Taquila Mockingbird and Ger-I Lewis</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-style: normal;">TM:
Um, at the end of his life, he said to me, “Why did </span>you
do it?” and I said, “Do what?” and he said, “Why did you have
to book punk acts? I could've been all by myself. I could've been
the only one.” See, he did The Masque. I was at King's Palace.
That was my first night club. Brendan booked for the place once and
they didn't like it and they put him out. It was a black guy who
owned the place and he wanted me to do the same thing, which I was
already doing, but he wanted to make it more concentrated, so that it
would be our people, not their people. So, it became exclusively
white.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />
<b>MRR: Well, first of all,
what do you mean by our people instead of their people? Black people
instead of white people?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM: When I say my people, I
don't mean black people, I mean people that are outsiders. I don't
subscribe to the whole “We're all black, we're all in one club
together” mentality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: Okay, so tell me
more about how and why the scenes got segregated and Brendan's role
in that.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM: The owner of King's
Palace was a black pimp. Before punk, they mostly booked disco acts.
Brendan was the first to bring punks to that club and then I came in
and he moved over to The Masque. But The Masque was like... I didn't
wanna go in because a friend of mine was The Masque's janitor and we
would go in there the morning after shows and find syringes and puke
everywhere. Brendan denied it, but I saw it. It was just a place I
never wanted to go to. Carla [Maddog, drummer for The Controllers]
was the only black person who ever went in there.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR:</b>
<b>So, the atmosphere of
The Masque was alienating?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM:
Yes, but also because Brendan Mullen was only interested in
exploiting punk for profit. The Masque was initially a practice
space and he started having punk shows there when he realized he
could make money off of it. See, the first five years [of punk] we
were united. Then came people like Brendan who wanted to make punk
an exclusive club. The best part of punk was hanging out and finding
other outsiders. The worst part of punk was “Who is punker than
who?” And racism definitely was a part of that because people
became concerned with presenting a marketable image of punk. I don't
think Johnny Rotten thought about [punk] that way. He thought punk
should be open to all outsiders. But people like Brendan changed
that. They got what they wanted, they capitalized on it and also
made it an exclusive club.
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: What about the
Latino punk scene in East LA? </b>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM:
Everybody was a clique. I mean, you had to be with your own gang,
wherever it was.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: What was the name of
that one club, in East LA where a lot of the Latino punk bands
played?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">TM:
The Vex?</span><br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: Yeah.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"></span>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfwD2VLcJBYCb-1S2EoVZjhyphenhyphenNZsUuSrfa8VTqNksynm0gHlZH9rD8gvsIyvVFCV7-O-mk-mNCcyEyNwP8qkcHM7ymx7mFjsS31MzSggBE_s-wHT_Zgi2lE-PGqSlFTMp12kLSIeiS8d9F/s1600/taquila+%2526+rigor+mortis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfwD2VLcJBYCb-1S2EoVZjhyphenhyphenNZsUuSrfa8VTqNksynm0gHlZH9rD8gvsIyvVFCV7-O-mk-mNCcyEyNwP8qkcHM7ymx7mFjsS31MzSggBE_s-wHT_Zgi2lE-PGqSlFTMp12kLSIeiS8d9F/s1600/taquila+%2526+rigor+mortis.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: small; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: small; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: small;">TM:
Yeah, I'm not really associated, but we're all friends. It's not a
beauty contest or a competition, but everyone seems to treat it that
way in this town. Everybody's punker than thou and I don't really go
for that sort of thing. So, I just ignore everybody and do my own
thing.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: Do you want to talk
to me more about what you've done over the years, because I'm pretty
impressed with the scope of it.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">TM:
Well, I'm an actress so I've been in tons of movies. I was an
extra. Lots of us underground kids didn't have any other way to make
a living so we were extras in movies playing punkers. That was kind
of how I made my living most of the time. I wrote for a lot of
magazines. I was a high fashion model in Boston and I ran away from
all of that to be a punk rocker.</span><br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: When I found out
about you, it was because you were credited as a writer for Flipside
magazine.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">TM:
Really? Well, they only ever got two articles out of me. At this
point, I've done so many things, I could be known for just about any
of them.</span><br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: So, you run the Punk
Rock Museum, and I've heard you talk about how that came to be, but
for the purposes of this interview, do you want to say why you did
it?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM:
I did it because I totally loved all of my friends and I watched
them, you know, grow up in this culture and I thought the culture
would get lost if we didn't preserve it and start talking about it,
and make an attempt to nail down locations where it could be seen and
shown and appreciated. I think people ignore their youths. They try
to put it away in a box and forget about it, but I think punk rock
should still be talked about.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPjQVQWt4oB7vp16J-_-1Vd_D5rAQB_Yx6I_RsaoryqbOX4-QzHDzcLG_Kl4voxYnGhd4D0yc2WZn17DeOgsw63XMjaja_sYCb15Yot1Zg05SPKtWad2lXD_uBPb0knpq9KQO2k5roRWw9/s1600/tm333.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPjQVQWt4oB7vp16J-_-1Vd_D5rAQB_Yx6I_RsaoryqbOX4-QzHDzcLG_Kl4voxYnGhd4D0yc2WZn17DeOgsw63XMjaja_sYCb15Yot1Zg05SPKtWad2lXD_uBPb0knpq9KQO2k5roRWw9/s400/tm333.jpg" height="262" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Taquila has always been a performer, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">as well as a show booker.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: With the way you're
talking about punk, do you see it as this thing that existed at a
certain time in the past, or do you see it as this thing that still
exists?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM:
I see it everyday. I know there's a future of thought where you're
still rebellious against the plastic bullshit they're trying to shove
down your throat in America. Because basically, all they want you to
do is consume, consume, consume and they want you to buy their
clothes and their cars and they don't care about the music, they just
use it as commercials. And they'll squash anyone who doesn't want to
be a part of their commercials. That's how I see American culture.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: So, if you see punk
as this thing that's still happening, then why did you feel the need
to preserve it in museum form? Is it that you just want to preserve
the earlier days of punk?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM:
Well, now it's being done to death. It's a formula and everyone's
just using the formula. I like looking for new things. I think what
we did in the beginning was really strong and we meant every word we
said and we had a good time doing it. But I think now, pretty much,
people are complaining about their cell phone bills and gasoline
prices and it really doesn't apply to what punk actually is. Punk is
about being an individual and an individual who's against the system.
Anything less, like trying to buy in and get a record deal means
you're not fucking punk. That's it.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: So, you see people
using the aesthetic of it but not representing punk values?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM:
I'm glad that they know how to go to the store and shop at Hot Topic.
We made everything ourselves.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAnvnGOZG-Cf-P99VwICswrk4u8rA_UZ2WqJO9GOf3bCNue9o1Nf1-x7Wz7ZoBwq-gilECKbV7xBVo0n3z2R-JJEyzwrhpqkNSd54LNhwHp8H2ByMOg2VQxVKf4SvTXhTPh-triNnf_H0H/s1600/taquila+clash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAnvnGOZG-Cf-P99VwICswrk4u8rA_UZ2WqJO9GOf3bCNue9o1Nf1-x7Wz7ZoBwq-gilECKbV7xBVo0n3z2R-JJEyzwrhpqkNSd54LNhwHp8H2ByMOg2VQxVKf4SvTXhTPh-triNnf_H0H/s400/taquila+clash.jpg" height="400" width="298" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>
</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: The Punk Rock Museum
has hosted various exhibits & performances by folks like Alice
Bag, Rick Agnew, and Lydia Lunch. What's happening at the Punk
Museum now?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">TM:
There's nothing on the walls right now because we're putting up a
big show on March 1</span><sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">st</span></sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">
of Miripolsky. His work is all really whimsical and happy. I've
known him for thirty years... Well, I met him in '79 when I was
working at another art gallery called The Zero, which was the first
underground art gallery in LA, the first punk art gallery. I used to
put him on New Wave Theater back in the early 80s.</span></span><br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>MRR: And you're writing
an autobiography?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TM:
Yes, it's going to be five volumes, about 1500 pages, all about
rock'n'roll, my life, the museum.... It'll be full of pictures, and
writings. Out this summer on Transparency Press.</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>The Punk Museum</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><b><a href="http://www.lapunkmuseum.com/">http://www.lapunkmuseum.com/</a></b></u></span></span><b>
</b>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span lang="zxx"><u><br /></u></span>
<span lang="zxx"><b>Facebook</b></span></span><br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/tmockingbird"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>https://www.facebook.com/tmockingbird</b></span></a><br />
<br />Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-35088222471388690392013-05-17T22:15:00.002-07:002013-05-17T22:34:23.692-07:00A World of Her Own: An Interview with Mydolls<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNAf2YiYA_AdrQrZbTmtbGcKgyUCGvUu3FshyJ8bRvvK4yTBFeNeZC5TJkG1lfEp4poF2kE8ya-4w8jcLw3OS8hCxbJJA7NzmeO6bTc2IlbYwKuiWj-Lf6LPV65QXVBp8K71GQXyneRJ_D/s1600/photo_mydolls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNAf2YiYA_AdrQrZbTmtbGcKgyUCGvUu3FshyJ8bRvvK4yTBFeNeZC5TJkG1lfEp4poF2kE8ya-4w8jcLw3OS8hCxbJJA7NzmeO6bTc2IlbYwKuiWj-Lf6LPV65QXVBp8K71GQXyneRJ_D/s640/photo_mydolls.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="color: #222222;"><i style="background-color: white;">Printed in Maximum RockNRoll #356 January 2013, ANTIGRAVITY October 2012 and Fix My Head #4 June 2013</i></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mydolls</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">are
a Houston punk band who began playing shows in the late 1970s. They
were an important part of the Texas punk scene alongside bands like
Really Red, Big Boys and the Dicks. </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mydolls</span></span><span style="color: #222222;">'
music is imaginative, political post-punk that stretches the
boundaries of what most people consider "punk" and also
challenges the status quo. The band was active until the mid-1980s
and then made a comeback in 2003</span> <span style="color: #222222;">with
the release of a CD anthology of all of their previous work called "A
World of Her Own." The original </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mydolls</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">lineup
was Trish Herrera and Linda Younger on guitar and vocals, Trish's cousin
George Reyes on drums and Dianna Ray on bass. George was later
replaced by Kathy Johnston, who passed away from cancer in September
of 2011. Now David Ensminger is the fourth </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mydoll</span></span><span style="color: #222222;">,
although he does not participate in the following
interview. </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mydolls</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">is
a treat for those of us who already know and love early experimental
post-punk bands such as the Raincoats, the Slits, Kleenex/Liliput or
Essential Logic. I spoke with Herrera, Reyes, Ray and Younger about
the early Houston punk scene, their influences, feminism and kicking
cancer’s butt.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>When
I got to spend time with you in Houston a couple of months ago, I was
struck by the closeness and longevity of your friendship. You have
been friends, bandmates and even roommates for decades! When
did you meet and, briefly, how did </b></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mydolls</span></b></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b> </b></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>form?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">Trish
Herrera: Dianna and I met in 1977 and talked about starting a band. I
played guitar a little and could play piano a bit. Dianna had no
instrument but somehow got a hold of a keyboard bass and we started
trying to write songs. Linda was </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">client
at </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">hair
salon and we started talking about playing music.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">Dianna
Ray: I met Trish through a friend of a friend at the end of an
evening out. She took one look at </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my
</span></span><span style="color: #222222;">Cherie
Currie feathered hair (be</span> <span style="color: #222222;">fair,
it was 1978) and said, "We've got to do something about that
hair!" With those words, a friendship and so much more was born.
Music was central to both of us and we went out to the Island,
Houston's original punk rock club, most every night. The Island had
many Houston and Texas bands playing there, as well as touring acts.
A number of the bands were just this side of terrible but it never
stopped us from going. One night we decided we can't be any worse, so
let's start our own band; it'll be fun. Trish had a great voice and
that stage-front personality. I was much more of the back of the
stage type and had no musical skills at all. By default, I ended up
on bass and it has suited me just fine. George is Trish's cousin and
he knew how to play drums, so he was in and what a gift he turned out
to be. Linda rounded us out nicely with her own oft-admired guitar
and vocal</span> <span style="color: #222222;">stylings.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">Linda
Younger: I met Dianna getting </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">hair
cut at Trish’s salon...Funny how it all goes back to hair…. Even
now we tend to meet up there and let Trish do her thing while we plan
fun times together. When I had chemo in 2006 for breast cancer, we
had a very special ritual there when Trish shaved </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">head
for me with such love and tenderness.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihRg7A-pVE9j6RP98hWYo4svE48Bqx8Cn5Q2s_Z08dtE2dGhF_jva8fxK0BNNE0gfW4tanPCaNkMKzShnqsBMjHX7xxo59Q1wJ2MMxDCiRKLLEmJe6H3B4Fc9rkBWM28_78pQSlzj6S9p3/s1600/mydollsthis_category.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihRg7A-pVE9j6RP98hWYo4svE48Bqx8Cn5Q2s_Z08dtE2dGhF_jva8fxK0BNNE0gfW4tanPCaNkMKzShnqsBMjHX7xxo59Q1wJ2MMxDCiRKLLEmJe6H3B4Fc9rkBWM28_78pQSlzj6S9p3/s640/mydollsthis_category.jpg" width="441" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MYDOLLS! Experimental post-punkers <br />
from Houston, Texas.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>How
did a punk movement start in Houston?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">George
Reyes: Punk in Houston was largely due to Pacifica Radio (KPFT).
There was a lot of opportunity for alternative music to have a</span> <span style="color: #222222;">voice
and platform. Also, although in oil-rich Texas, Houston was going
through a lot of economic upheaval. Along with Detroit, Houston</span> <span style="color: #222222;">had
a reputation for a bad-ass police force. Lots of repressive news on a
daily basis was being broadcast.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">LY:
I think all of the ingredients for the recipe just came together in
the right degrees at the right time. What is most interesting to me
is how it seemed very un-self-aware for a good number of years. It
just was. [Punk] didn't question why or where it was going and that
is</span> <span style="color: #222222;">when
it was most beautiful and accessible. There was a lot of creativity.
We had visual artists, performing artists, musicians, fashion
designers and it felt very much like a movement that birthed itself.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">TH:
There was a lot of space between each city so it wasn’t as easy as
the Midwest or the East Coast to get the wave that was passing
over</span> <span style="color: #222222;">the
country.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">LY:
It was truly the “perfect storm.” The art and music scenes were
inextricably woven and still are. Creativity was the name of the
game</span> <span style="color: #222222;">and
we were lucky to be right in the middle of it all.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>What
was your earliest involvement in Houston’s punk scene?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">DR:
First we were the audience and in many ways, we still are! Then we
just sort of jumped into the fray and started playing. When there
wasn't anywhere to play we would rent a space or play inside a
warehouse in 110 degree heat with no AC and love it. For the most
part I didn't feel a real separation between the audience and the
band because most of us were all friends or had seen each other
around the scene. When we toured or when touring bands came to
Houston someone</span> <span style="color: #222222;">always
let you stay at their house and usually they were in a band too. We
were a subculture and we were taking care of our own.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">TH: </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mydolls</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">opened
for The Hates at a gay disco.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Did
you play with Big Boys a lot?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">LY:
Not enough... but thank goodness for the Biscuit Bombs for keeping
the songs alive.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">TH:
Yes! We loved playing in Austin. Once we got our tires slashed by
frat boys. There was a big Houston-Austin connection then. The
entire</span> <span style="color: #222222;">art
and music and dance scene was fused. We did a lot together in
Texas, more Austin than Dallas. In San Antonio we friended all the
bands in the Kung Fu Movement, which included the Butthole Surfers.</span></span><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">DR:
Yes! What an exciting band and a great group of fellows. I lost </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my
</span></span><span style="color: #222222;">2
front teeth in 1982 while watching them play.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>It
is </b></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my</span></b></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b> </b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #222222;">opinion
that over time, punk has come to be understood as a specific style of
music, perhaps almost a formula rather than a place to experiment.
When you were active in the late 1970s and 1980s, did you feel like
you were going against the grain of what people expected from punk or
do you think there was less of a herd mentality about</span> </b></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>punk
back then?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvFLo6Ar5gua5oXX21igwhz0gHuRizMw2XPfU79K4D7tR1kXK2hFePwGLATtEh5_wneOmS2en_UDlsvKVyrm5DHRjo_pslWGb-ixl0az7lpjS6eHjAxvFVeJVj-JeUKBs9ilMiE88ULyrw/s400/Mydolls+%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trish, Dianna, Linda and George (L to R)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvFLo6Ar5gua5oXX21igwhz0gHuRizMw2XPfU79K4D7tR1kXK2hFePwGLATtEh5_wneOmS2en_UDlsvKVyrm5DHRjo_pslWGb-ixl0az7lpjS6eHjAxvFVeJVj-JeUKBs9ilMiE88ULyrw/s1600/Mydolls+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></a><span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">DR:
I think initially there was much less of a herd mentality. A few
years into it Oi and hardcore seemed to begin to define what it was
to be punk and things became much more aggressive musically and in
the audience. There was a "second wave" of kids that
started coming to the clubs at the same time new-wave began playing
on the airways, so this may have been a bit of a push-back against
that; I'm not sure. In retrospect, the very idea of defining "punk"
is an anathema to punk. At the time it really did feel like the
beginning of the end to me.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">LY:
I honestly never thought about that… for me it was permission to
say what I think and I got tremendous enjoyment from others wanting
to listen. It’s incredible how the lyrics hold up to the test of
time…</span><span style="color: #222222;">“</span><span style="color: #222222;">Walls
of Tunisia,” “Politician Kill Your Son,” “It’s Too Hot for
Revolution”… could have been written today.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">GR:
Linda had a great interview with John Peel that talked about the
demands of the audience and the kind of music you wanted to play. I
think that we just wanted to play our own music and didn’t really
consider expectations of punk. There were those on the fringe that I
guess would follow a herd mentality but we really reflected our
experiences socially, politically and environmentally through our
songs. If it turned out to be punk then I guess that’s what we
were.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Who
were your favorite bands to play with in the 1970s and early 1980s?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">DR:
Big Boys, Really Red, Butthole Surfers, Meat Joy, Siouxsie and the
Banshees, the Judys, AK47, the Hates, DOA, Dead Kennedys…</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">LY:
We mustn't forget the Cramps. What a double bill, </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">favorite
poster of all. There are so many local bands that we played with…
bottom line, we were all like family.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Do
you think that being a mostly-female band had anything to do with
your willingness to create unusual sounds that push the boundaries of
punk and new wave?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">TH:
We were very influenced by the British girl bands and bands like
Young Marble Giants and Red Krayola. Mayo Thompson being from
Texas</span> <span style="color: #222222;">and
the Red Krayola starting here, there was a huge connection. I think
Linda knew his mom.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">DR: </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mydolls</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">is
three-fourths female and we would not have our sound if it weren't
for both the male and female influences in our band. Half of the band
had no musical experience and we learned on the job, so to speak.
There is a certain freedom in that because you are not constrained by
rules. Plus, we just really wanted to have fun.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">LY:
George is the foundation for our music… he is an awesome drummer
</span>a<span style="color: #222222;">nd
dear friend. Honestly, he is “one of the girls” to us… and so
tender and loving to his wife, kids and mom who he visits every
weekend since she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's We are so blessed
to</span> <span style="color: #222222;">have
each other and our music.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>One
of </b></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my
</span></b></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>favorite
bands of all time is Crass. They manage to combine anarchist politics
with an equally radical and unique aesthetic that </b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>i</b></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>s
almost impossible to emulate. </b></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mydolls
</span></b></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>express
political ideas, specifically feminist ideas, in your songs, from
"Soldiers of a Pure War" to "The/rapist." What is
the relationship between your lyrical content and your sound?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">TH:
I love Crass. “Punk is Dead” came out and it was true; punk was
dead. You could already buy torn t-shirts at Kmart in 1981. Yes, we
talk about what pisses us off and try to imagine life without the
stupidity of war and hate.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">DR:
Many of us from the first-wave of punk are still playing music,making
art and staying politically active. Politics and art was a part</span> <span style="color: #222222;">of
what brought us together in the first place so it was necessarily a
part of the music.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">LY:
It was a way to express ourselves in a very personal way… most of
the songs, if not all, were based on real life experiences. Our new
collaboration was one that was especially meaningful since both Kathy
and I are/were battling cancer… we feel her when we work on it now
and are planning to record it soon…. It’s called “Don’t
F***ing Die.” Those are the words Trish wrote in the journal that
I had for friends who stitched on </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> “</span><span style="color: #222222;">Bound
By Friendship” quilt. Most of the entries were positive
affirmations of how I was going to kick some serious cancer butt and
words of encouragement… but when Trish went to write in it, she
wrote those words as her tear fell on the page… something like that
had to be expressed in music. I am just sorry that Kathy can’t be
here to help finalize the music and play her awesome guitar.We hope
to somehow use some of the early recordings with her in them on the
CD.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTVahgjvfxCGeTKf-YU7zO7VMRU5S_j4hUxfG3Gbe9M_CIqmqt338lXRkSpEdBGlSnT6fYoyqI6jogjxJYcs9jY4YCbMDipGsL__BS9BSOIW5qz1PLKW1uskNRELS64t_NrD5fALy13HCD/s1600/mydollshymnal1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTVahgjvfxCGeTKf-YU7zO7VMRU5S_j4hUxfG3Gbe9M_CIqmqt338lXRkSpEdBGlSnT6fYoyqI6jogjxJYcs9jY4YCbMDipGsL__BS9BSOIW5qz1PLKW1uskNRELS64t_NrD5fALy13HCD/s1600/mydollshymnal1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>I
love the title of your CD anthology A World of Her Own. To me it
speaks to the creation of an autonomous physical and mental space to
exist as an artist and as a woman, free from social pressure and
expectation. What does the title mean to you?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">DR:
I think you nailed it, Osa!</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">TH:
It is about the isolation of relationships and how that relates to
learning to become strong as an individual, male or female... the
trick of course as we travel the road is to somehow let another
person in once we know who we are. The words are from a nursery
rhyme.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">GR:
The title and lyrics are making more sense to me now as I experience
many different roles in </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">my</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">life.
I agree that it is a journey.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>I
read Alice Bag's book Violence Girl earlier this year. For those who
don't know, Alice Bag was the lead singer in seminal LA punk band the
Bags. She is Mexican-American and bisexual but speaks to the feeling
that social identities like gender, race and sexuality, while still
important, took a backseat to her identity as a rocker and a freak.
Do any of you relate to this perspective?</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;">DR:
Absolutely! I am gay but I wasn't "raised" in the gay
subculture; I was "raised" in the punk rock subculture.
Labels like "butch" and</span> <span style="color: #222222;">“</span><span style="color: #222222;">femme"
didn't exist there. People were punk first and Queer, Mexican, Black,
etc. secondarily. You had gay men like Gary Floyd and Randy "Biscuit"
Turner fronting punk bands just the same as heterosexual men and it
felt absolutely level to me.</span></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBL4_x4bBeZVx92LCEd76drwodkS39ZdVMwdIR7ML-wqX0zgsuhzXkOUBFItRPgDpYekiMeNO9sfNuRwrj_TjvNJX3KgYM7kc5KaHJuK9lU060boPNCXNrkeQFp0Qe6lg2wu43JHourcNb/s1600/mydollsfull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBL4_x4bBeZVx92LCEd76drwodkS39ZdVMwdIR7ML-wqX0zgsuhzXkOUBFItRPgDpYekiMeNO9sfNuRwrj_TjvNJX3KgYM7kc5KaHJuK9lU060boPNCXNrkeQFp0Qe6lg2wu43JHourcNb/s1600/mydollsfull.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Late Mydoll Kathy with Trish, Linda and Dianna (L to R)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">TH:
George and I being Hispanic and Dianna being gay and Linda being
Cajun from the beautiful swampland of Louisiana, I think we can all
relate to not being what America would like to portray as
English-speaking white bread. The inclusiveness of punk was sweet...
until boys got all sweaty and spiky and started pushing us out of
the slam thrash. Then it became a uniform just like Dockers, Nikes
and printed t-shirts are now.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>What
are some of the most exciting things coming out of Houston's DIY
community currently?</b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="color: #222222;">DR:
Collaboration. A lot of musicians play in multiple bands, teach each
other about their craft and share that with the next generation</span> <span style="color: #222222;">as
well. We have our own Girls Rock Camp in Houston and it is run
entirely by volunteers who put a lot of time, effort and heart
into</span> <span style="color: #222222;">bringing
music and self-esteem to a whole new generation of girls. We really
can do a whole lot more united than divided. Listen up America!</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Courier New', monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Courier New, monospace;">LY:
Girls Rock Camp Houston is awesome. We've been involved in that
since its inception and continue to support it. Most of the parents
express their delight in seeing their daughters allowed to express
themselves through music. Friends for life are connected here. I
can’t say enough about it! Go make a band!</span></span></div>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-14522005550977752482012-11-05T13:13:00.000-08:002012-11-06T07:24:55.846-08:00Ode to Roctober<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6gtCQUOHMDgVX4An_RH6i6RNU8UIx5FhvKyPhBv-V4LsnGMW08QduFmt1SV4uq_CXqkygjahFdZ5-2B9-5QeveiPZs6i1yw4NRSlGzUqPgPwm1-V-AwIMhbo1qLXueapivsACSVHfCYNg/s1600/scan0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6gtCQUOHMDgVX4An_RH6i6RNU8UIx5FhvKyPhBv-V4LsnGMW08QduFmt1SV4uq_CXqkygjahFdZ5-2B9-5QeveiPZs6i1yw4NRSlGzUqPgPwm1-V-AwIMhbo1qLXueapivsACSVHfCYNg/s320/scan0002.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Neon Leon with Honi O'Rourke<br />
from "Neon Leon: Alive and Well" <br />
by James Porter, Roctober #40</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I first became aware of Roctober in the early 2000s as a young black punk searching the world wide web for my likeness since that was something I could not find in real life. Before the "Afro-Punk" documentary came out, if you went on the Internet and searched for "black punks," the most substantial thing you could find was an article called "Black Punk Time: Blacks In Punk, New Wave and Hardcore 1976-1983" by James Porter and Jake Austen. The print version of that article was turned into an </span><a href="http://www.roctober.com/roctober/blackpunk1.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">online archive</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> that is still being updated even though the original article was printed a decade ago. It is literally an encyclopedia for black freaks--the most comprehensive listing of black punk rockers that exists. I remember this being one of the first things me and <a href="http://pineappleblack.blogspot.com/">Adee Roberson</a> talked about when we met in Portland in the early 2000s. It was a very important document for us as isolated black punks who were also obsessive music nerds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Last spring, I went to Chicago with the </span><a href="http://poczineproject.tumblr.com/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">People of Color Zine Project</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> to do a zine reading and to table at Chicago Zine Fest. I had never seen an issue of Roctober in print and wasn't even aware that it was still being published, so imagine my happy surprise when I found a table full of Roctober back issues, including the issue containing my highly treasured and oft-referenced "Black Punk Time" article. (I talk about this article in SS No. 5 as part of a review for "Ataxia" zine, in which "Black Punk Time" was re-printed.) Interestingly enough, "Black Punk Time" was published in Roctober's 10th anniversary hip-hop themed issue. From the introduction: "In these pages you'll read about the characters on the fringes of the Rap world... And if that wasn't enough, we take an in depth look at an under-historicized African American underground that parallels Hip Hop; Blacks in punk during the late 70s/early 80s!" How awesome to see black punk rock written about in relation to other concurrent black subcultures! Like my own zine, Roctober made the phenomenon of "black punk rock" seem like this cohesive thing, even though in reality, the black punks covered were separated by time and geography. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm0cqWBfyC9nsfuHoWl2PtXI6xjUbDTEPD33H1Z-sSPDrSnN02-wWX1jtqitVoJnmX9MyHMa1NH-WseYShUmYWdEv56WaRohp9f1pYQSdhqJzVsivYVlyvWIcNq1SmYx0LDTTeFHXMVZX/s1600/scan0005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm0cqWBfyC9nsfuHoWl2PtXI6xjUbDTEPD33H1Z-sSPDrSnN02-wWX1jtqitVoJnmX9MyHMa1NH-WseYShUmYWdEv56WaRohp9f1pYQSdhqJzVsivYVlyvWIcNq1SmYx0LDTTeFHXMVZX/s640/scan0005.jpg" width="484" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Roctober #32, Winter 2002</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Upon flipping through multiple issues of Roctober, I was even further surprised and delighted to discover that "Black Punk Time" was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to their coverage of obscure black rock'n'roll nuggets. I scanned issue after issue with wide eyes and asked the guy behind the table how and why this was so. Roctober magazine does not have any sort of racial agenda and its editor, Jake Austen, is a white guy. The full title of the magazine is "Roctober: Comics & Music" and its real focus is all things subterranean. Articles about obscure soul, rock'n'roll, reggae, free jazz, bounce rap, you name it, with comic illustrations to boot. The guy behind the table, who I now suspect was Austen himself, said he didn't know exactly why Roctober is the way it is. He mumbled something about it being a natural result of the diversity of Chicago's various music scenes and left it at that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">See, now, that's what I'm talking about. It's really too bad that in order for people of color to be mentioned in any realm, it has to be this very self-conscious thing. It has to be a "people of color history." As a women's studies major in college, this thought always crossed my mind. It's annoying that women's studies has to be this separate topic when it should just be a natural part of every field. The problem is that <i>it isn't</i> and so that's why we have to have "women's studies" and "African-American studies" and so forth. Roctober is refreshing to me because the inclusion of people of color in the magazine is just <i>natural</i>. When white people write a book about something and forget to mention or include people of color, when men make a documentary about something and forget to include women, it just baffles me. The absence of that natural curiosity about people and experiences that are different from your own is something that I just can't understand. I want to chalk it up to white, heterosexual and/or male privilege--and surely it is a result of that--but honestly, that way of being in the world sounds like a total drag to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;">Okay, enough ranting, back to the good stuff. Look at this spread on black skinhead, punk and reggae by The Soul Rebel, published in Roctober #40!</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjKGAbW6ksVPo2-BRJSokaJsSuHBaYiA4WtY4wSLW1ZdyU_P-PkVmqk0WjKPEbHK2f5sOLwRkfV9XGXe-ZI_BP2nY6sEAvPIm4f_JU7vL1vEPoNybxogegyHrN4US63GtGSAQYJY5I-Pi-/s1600/scan0004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjKGAbW6ksVPo2-BRJSokaJsSuHBaYiA4WtY4wSLW1ZdyU_P-PkVmqk0WjKPEbHK2f5sOLwRkfV9XGXe-ZI_BP2nY6sEAvPIm4f_JU7vL1vEPoNybxogegyHrN4US63GtGSAQYJY5I-Pi-/s640/scan0004.jpg" width="486" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Roctober's contributors were a diverse group of people with diverse musical interests. For instance, James Porter, who compiled the list of black punks for the "Black Punk Time" article with Austen, is a black dude. Porter is a regular contributor who did an excellent <a href="http://www.roctober.com/roctober/neonleon.html">interview</a> with black rocker Neon Leon about the early days of punk and his time at the Chelsea Hotel (see photo at top of page.) Check out this other <a href="http://www.roctober.com/roctober/greatness/sugar.html">interview</a> he did with Filipino-American blues singer Sugar Pie Desanto for Roctober #24.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I really appreciate the way that Roctober presents punk rock as part of this larger continuum of underground, obscure and esoteric musical subculture. Here's a taste of the other kinds of stuff they cover. (Click them to view full size image.)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHvdx2DT0tYlwLWmhyphenhypheniURBy7f_e0PyDlX8TD8KHewE7BgXO9NwrlVZIJIMW5gFoBIiTLY97MyuOYhpSWzlSsXrYcXEMk3WNYsVZlXNMEEwe8HZfnhzkrej1cJonroTiuz4IIDezzWKgXa/s1600/scan0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHvdx2DT0tYlwLWmhyphenhypheniURBy7f_e0PyDlX8TD8KHewE7BgXO9NwrlVZIJIMW5gFoBIiTLY97MyuOYhpSWzlSsXrYcXEMk3WNYsVZlXNMEEwe8HZfnhzkrej1cJonroTiuz4IIDezzWKgXa/s400/scan0003.jpg" width="182" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr0kiWqLOaI_hSMfbsVTRa1eGjtW9pET4NG7CNkOsYhGY8MOHm4DBJVmsIcQkaI3phJ-4nnhKv0uKi8HkRh543mQjqH-BH7M3D9s8G0Z1a8yr_XJddipFmkf2uDBBVHvkKnnYa14NdhQ0t/s1600/scan0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr0kiWqLOaI_hSMfbsVTRa1eGjtW9pET4NG7CNkOsYhGY8MOHm4DBJVmsIcQkaI3phJ-4nnhKv0uKi8HkRh543mQjqH-BH7M3D9s8G0Z1a8yr_XJddipFmkf2uDBBVHvkKnnYa14NdhQ0t/s320/scan0001.jpg" width="244" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Roctober just celebrated its <a href="http://reglarwiglar.com/zinesters/JakeAustenRoctober.html">20th anniversary of existence</a>! To find out more about the magazine, visit their <a href="http://www.roctober.com/">website</a></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. They have back issues available for order. To learn more about the editor of Roctober, Jake Austen, read this very well-written <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-10-26/entertainment/ct-ent-1027-roctober-20111026_1_jake-austen-roctober-radio-station">article</a> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">from </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Chicago Tribune </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">which also includes a brief Q&A with Steve Albini about the magazine</span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Jake Austen is also the host and creator of the cable access show </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chic-a-Go-Go" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chic-A-Go-Go</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. The show, in all of its low-budget bizarreness, is a very fitting audio-visual counterpart to Roctober.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Chic-A-Go-Go</span></div>
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<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://0.gvt0.com/vi/IeMTfR_M8Kw/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IeMTfR_M8Kw&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IeMTfR_M8Kw&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
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Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-59133866325514295862012-10-29T07:01:00.000-07:002012-10-29T07:01:08.955-07:00Pay It No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10M0MdGmTdtWIrJ6-GwwbxhkDAw55x3b8nd-ZWmiKtqFCQVGxpXYcNVcmZ4ZHRRWtm8ro2BIs9-fPmoHrJpBGD1o0dq5zIO61uN7qvweIrTMYmltjGvQRALSplOICyhrlGCltopsN7Trb/s1600/mpj+by+andy+warhol+b&w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10M0MdGmTdtWIrJ6-GwwbxhkDAw55x3b8nd-ZWmiKtqFCQVGxpXYcNVcmZ4ZHRRWtm8ro2BIs9-fPmoHrJpBGD1o0dq5zIO61uN7qvweIrTMYmltjGvQRALSplOICyhrlGCltopsN7Trb/s320/mpj+by+andy+warhol+b&w.jpg" width="256" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marsha P. Johnson</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Black & white version </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">of Andy Warhol Polaroid</span></td></tr>
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<h2>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></h2>
<h2>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">"I was no one, nobody, from Nowheresville until I became a drag queen. That's what made me in New York, that's what made me in New Jersey, that's what made me in the world." -Martha P. Johnson</span></h2>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The thing that still thrills me about punk rock, the reason it remains relevant and viable to me always, is the transformative power of it. To me, punk rock has always been about the ability to turn nothing into something, to turn shit into gold. In our society, we are taught that if you want to feel better about yourself, if you want to change the way people perceive you, you should go out and buy something. Clothing, makeup, gadgets, a new car, a new life. As a black child who had the fortune of being raised by relatively unmaterialistic, college educated immigrant parents, I was also taught that the acquisition of a formal education was the key to self-transformation, and ultimately class mobility. Even so, discovering punk rock and DIY culture took me further than I ever thought I would go. It taught me that I could make myself the person I wanted to be through the power of my own convictions and creativity, no purchase necessary. Marsha P. Johnson, who came from a much more stringent and oppressive socio-political context than I ever had to endure, is a stunning, humbling example of the kind of personal alchemy that I'm trying to describe. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPl3WUFpzt3AvsHKDPHL0QzYuMB6ThvQSuXhCSp3Tmt0hJbHlHjZF2giNguSeIm4MBDrz4oJ5N-x-Z87HF-I7ttpkxts7qUmbEit-HQkrFjjHj0aoWFVJBekEp2pm6Px3VmbfzrlIcJ0m6/s1600/stonewall-veteran-Marsha-P-Johnson-441x600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPl3WUFpzt3AvsHKDPHL0QzYuMB6ThvQSuXhCSp3Tmt0hJbHlHjZF2giNguSeIm4MBDrz4oJ5N-x-Z87HF-I7ttpkxts7qUmbEit-HQkrFjjHj0aoWFVJBekEp2pm6Px3VmbfzrlIcJ0m6/s320/stonewall-veteran-Marsha-P-Johnson-441x600.jpg" width="235" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fresh flowers were a trademark</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> look for Marsha.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Johnson was a drag performer and gay & transgender rights activist in New York from 1966 until her death in 1992. The hour-long documentary about her life, "Pay It No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson," was recently made available online (see below.) Many of us have heard of transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, but Johnson, Rivera's friend and collaborator, remains a more obscure figure in queer history. Together Rivera and Johnson founded the group Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (STAR) and were central figures during the Stonewall Riots. Johnson was a drag mother, the head of the STAR House, along with Rivera. They took in, clothed and fed young, homeless drag queens and transwomen, and fought for transgender inclusion within the gay rights movement. It has even been noted that Johnson & Rivera worked the streets so that the younger ones didn't have to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It can be said that Johnson's activism flowed through her self-reinvention as a drag performer and transgender woman--that the power she harnessed through her ability to freely express her identity was then used to change her community and the world. Johnson was an artist. She cultivated a look and persona that were unique to her. She toured to London with the performance group Hot Peaches and was a model for Andy Warhol's "Ladies and Gentlemen" photography series. She used her drag persona to make money on the streets of New York. She also used her drag persona to make social change on the streets of New York. Her personal transformation lead her to participate in a greater social transformation. The two are inextricably linked.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA_vEezeJjnIBIXJqlnmMNzNAxy_ST2eXlUyCsZT_jik8OW2WRiCMVRG-GO_hW-TVOI4NdDMle80BSe7n6-Dqfal4XW4xivWe7KUo_RVxnp3YPFkCUdECYlRt2-3m3wrw4DOvrugvvcDWW/s1600/marsha+as+activist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA_vEezeJjnIBIXJqlnmMNzNAxy_ST2eXlUyCsZT_jik8OW2WRiCMVRG-GO_hW-TVOI4NdDMle80BSe7n6-Dqfal4XW4xivWe7KUo_RVxnp3YPFkCUdECYlRt2-3m3wrw4DOvrugvvcDWW/s400/marsha+as+activist.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Marsha handing out pamphlets on the streets of New York</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I was born on November 27, 1978. By that time, rock'n'roll rebellion was old hat, hippies had already come and gone and punk rock had already been birthed and buried. I was born at a time when more options for existence were open to me as a black person and as a woman, largely thanks to the civil rights movements of the 1960s. I try to imagine Malcolm Michaels, Jr., a small, black, queer child living in Elizabeth, New Jersey in the 1940s and 50s--in a world that seemed to require his extinction--somehow summoning up the courage, with possibly no encouragement and certainly no money, to become the legendary figure we have come to know as Marsha P. Johnson. I am humbled and challenged by this image.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">To quote punk and new wave innovator Richard Hell, "If you just amass the courage that is necessary, you can completely reinvent yourself. You can be your own hero, and once everybody is their own hero, then everybody is gonna be able to communicate with each other on a real basis rather than a hand-me-down set of societal standards." People like Marsha P. Johnson made it possible for people like me to live our lives authentically, to express ourselves truthfully rather than live a lie based on </span><span style="background-color: white;">archaic</span><span style="background-color: white;"> & restrictive social norms. Be black and proud, be queer and proud, be a proud punk. And if people don't like it, just remember, the "P" in Marsha P. Johnson stands for "Pay it no mind!"</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>MORE:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: large;">Interview: </span><a href="http://thespiritwas.tumblr.com/post/18201180869/rapping-with-marsha-p-johnson" style="background-color: white;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Rapping with Marsha P. Johnson</span></b></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Article: </span><a href="http://zagria.blogspot.com/2009/05/marsha-p-johnson-1944-1992-activist.html"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Marsha P. Johnson (1944 - 1992) activist, drag mother. </span></b></a></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi456zYm20VgVIrXEPyHLEl0PzZUGi870BIWhK0DPzTNuVKhEWTD8GdI_tNsJcqGJi_jXMDsiyyBmhauQ5oGBbZFZF6N0fXSY521dx8OZmPiYVg2TnLSIaOB8vv0y9CZAWMQOndK5UkWdS5/s1600/mpj+by+andy+warhol.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi456zYm20VgVIrXEPyHLEl0PzZUGi870BIWhK0DPzTNuVKhEWTD8GdI_tNsJcqGJi_jXMDsiyyBmhauQ5oGBbZFZF6N0fXSY521dx8OZmPiYVg2TnLSIaOB8vv0y9CZAWMQOndK5UkWdS5/s320/mpj+by+andy+warhol.jpg" width="256" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Original color version of Andy Warhol Polaroid </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">from the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Ladies and Gentlemen " Series, 1974</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5iPCJFl3HYSFSGapxzvKKolyyH2CCZHre6-iXg8quCq1jMZS5VtUhQ2zltvli-Pif-pBRIJ2FX6dLOcHRwQZSOhX6njuru0nCupqHmc-6MDEpd5DWl22VQHiubykkdJN3yVhEbL_8lp3c/s1600/mpj+by+andy+warhol2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5iPCJFl3HYSFSGapxzvKKolyyH2CCZHre6-iXg8quCq1jMZS5VtUhQ2zltvli-Pif-pBRIJ2FX6dLOcHRwQZSOhX6njuru0nCupqHmc-6MDEpd5DWl22VQHiubykkdJN3yVhEbL_8lp3c/s1600/mpj+by+andy+warhol2.JPG" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Martha P. Johnson</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Warhol screen print</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Documentary: "Pay It No Mind: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson"</span></div>
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<br />Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-46415912995089734712012-10-21T21:51:00.001-07:002013-03-06T13:15:59.099-08:00Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes from the DC Punk Underground<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdLl0_IlVnxHe0kDLHFbbg96aT2oKm8mg10Gb3qQuudqLXtc0SyHHDGpySIlA2iu7YQh2qyqAgH6oLG-R9kZvCUR3e9qwyj6v197IcJtU5scJMyby3W_lcjgn_N_qBkhi-62W8Dyv6jxWF/s1600/HR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdLl0_IlVnxHe0kDLHFbbg96aT2oKm8mg10Gb3qQuudqLXtc0SyHHDGpySIlA2iu7YQh2qyqAgH6oLG-R9kZvCUR3e9qwyj6v197IcJtU5scJMyby3W_lcjgn_N_qBkhi-62W8Dyv6jxWF/s320/HR.jpg" width="218" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">HR of Bad Brains at Hard Art Gallery by Lucian Perkins</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I've sung the praises of <u>Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes from the DC Punk Underground (79-85)</u> before and I'm gonna do it again. Right now. This book is phenomenal! Here are some scans from <u>Banned in DC</u> that I never got around to using. It's unbelievable that there's anything left over that I didn't already use because <i>I wore this book out</i> making Shotgun Seamstress zine. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje3WxDUbSuCTgAj01vBaeW7mRHIqp5DCMwM9dKPN3rKCNHNnPfVoUYlWII5Ha8IzEUqxCKzCIJL99FYE8wExYY6cUCCS9ouV8uL4CPa9tUsFsQWad4XZgDGKJc-Wb-shgzlJzNLI0DwXBv/s1600/dag+with+shawn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje3WxDUbSuCTgAj01vBaeW7mRHIqp5DCMwM9dKPN3rKCNHNnPfVoUYlWII5Ha8IzEUqxCKzCIJL99FYE8wExYY6cUCCS9ouV8uL4CPa9tUsFsQWad4XZgDGKJc-Wb-shgzlJzNLI0DwXBv/s320/dag+with+shawn.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Favorite picture of Dag Nasty with Shawn Brown by Mary Diaz</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36DgWSTThUU1rRvPEomqJW4T5Oy116m_wT-fALSFmXCBqmDiGZ0DrxI1inQrdiwAWX9Js1c_259dd9xiWseOgLd6yDBh9aLQM1jZf_mGvJhH1gNLKvfoAcV0v46X2CP4C0LMac32x3LwY/s1600/darryl+jenn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36DgWSTThUU1rRvPEomqJW4T5Oy116m_wT-fALSFmXCBqmDiGZ0DrxI1inQrdiwAWX9Js1c_259dd9xiWseOgLd6yDBh9aLQM1jZf_mGvJhH1gNLKvfoAcV0v46X2CP4C0LMac32x3LwY/s400/darryl+jenn.jpg" width="282" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Darryl Jennifer (Bad Brains) outside Ontario Theater circa 1979</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Banned in DC</u> is my favorite punk photo book. It was compiled by Cynthia Connolly, Leslie Clague and Sharon Cheslow and features more black punks and women than any other punk book I've ever seen. Also, so many punk books suffer from misogynist or racist words or imagery (I love the Touch & Go book, but that blurb about Penelope Houston of Avengers makes me wanna hurl!) and <u>Banned in DC</u> completely avoids this.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3CBJcdnQ_xzGzo8vc08HVu0XPp8hdbDlnpVNCMQWoCJ1Z0el0Lx4Bw4GGZmNeZ12aNAZpF1Nx2ibBgVJH_uiSfVdb6AkhuNJPhO_JsX3mhrYa43qHAZt9mkeUkbREh90flZ4HVc6uh-UB/s1600/trouble+funk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3CBJcdnQ_xzGzo8vc08HVu0XPp8hdbDlnpVNCMQWoCJ1Z0el0Lx4Bw4GGZmNeZ12aNAZpF1Nx2ibBgVJH_uiSfVdb6AkhuNJPhO_JsX3mhrYa43qHAZt9mkeUkbREh90flZ4HVc6uh-UB/s320/trouble+funk.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Outside Wilson Center 1-28-84 by Amy Pickering</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is the picture I was writing about in the SS No. 2 article called "black punk zine that never happened." It's hard to see, but the flyer this guy is holding says Trouble Funk, Government Issue and Grand Mal. In that article, I wrote about seeing this photo and trying to imagine a punk show where a black go-go band and a white hardcore band played together. I love nostalgia, what can I say?</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim2-rZ8cYTkpAvAuLtBTW0lVuf91FDYsyKnuoZcqSxTkadsuExFpYxmyXNLE_rjaZb4harBoJF6-GZFnmrGJ7oW6BV4lvkLKAlY_1di9_gC9n5jXBJIi-r4LnRZ60YwBAC8VuW_zIpuHqK/s1600/scan0014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim2-rZ8cYTkpAvAuLtBTW0lVuf91FDYsyKnuoZcqSxTkadsuExFpYxmyXNLE_rjaZb4harBoJF6-GZFnmrGJ7oW6BV4lvkLKAlY_1di9_gC9n5jXBJIi-r4LnRZ60YwBAC8VuW_zIpuHqK/s320/scan0014.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Void (Sean Finnegan, John Weiffenbach, Bubba Dupree and Chris Stover's sneakers)<br />
by Rebecca Hammel</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYMQaPl4yilXGY2E2IGRi7r2DAoN-pQ6jAREJbmHM4inP3BChQFjWhgs4JU0SE5BaKzfH5P4pyrpKl-_BlYWjxoOZdQmlMsNBBlxBMsFHQONPwfCmw_FRBCd-jlwzBfW0X38GYO2hYFYRN/s1600/scan0011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYMQaPl4yilXGY2E2IGRi7r2DAoN-pQ6jAREJbmHM4inP3BChQFjWhgs4JU0SE5BaKzfH5P4pyrpKl-_BlYWjxoOZdQmlMsNBBlxBMsFHQONPwfCmw_FRBCd-jlwzBfW0X38GYO2hYFYRN/s400/scan0011.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bad Brains at Hard Art Gallery by Lucian Perkins</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This photo exhibit called "Hard Art" came through New Orleans over a year ago. It featured the photographs of Lucian Perkins, who was a beginning photographer at <i>The Washington Post</i> when he got the assignment to photograph the goings on of the early 1980s Washington, DC hardcore scene. I recognized some of the photos from <u>Banned in DC</u> and figured that one of the ladies who compiled the book would be present at the exhibit. I also assumed that Lucian Perkins was a woman! Have you ever seen those pictures of Bad Brains playing for an almost all-black audience at a housing project in DC? There's a woman carrying a baby up front and little black kids just staring up at HR with wide, white eyes. Those are Perkins' photographs, and it completely floored me to be able to see them, full size in real life. I was smiling like an idiot the whole time. Lucian Perkins wasn't there at the art show, but Alec MacKaye was. I gave him a couple copies of my zine to pass on to the photographer so that he could see how his pictures inspired my project. Somehow, the zines ended up in the hands of Cynthia Connolly, which is rad because she ended up writing me a nice letter. We wrote back and forth a few times talking about Glen Friedman, women in punk, photography and representation, the infamous Lefty, and more. Excerpts from our exchange are below.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4mnvf3lPYkr-qC2C81Z_Bgu8fMfx6v9hIrvjfNSVksEnj8KjsIqmNrSODy0Zm-UBAd9r2OruqbXSUMzr6V1GVbve9D4uo2xUpHtpAC4B4LQIO3O1iltelKp60lsmbpJB9oyGMCgvKI-ZU/s1600/scan0015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4mnvf3lPYkr-qC2C81Z_Bgu8fMfx6v9hIrvjfNSVksEnj8KjsIqmNrSODy0Zm-UBAd9r2OruqbXSUMzr6V1GVbve9D4uo2xUpHtpAC4B4LQIO3O1iltelKp60lsmbpJB9oyGMCgvKI-ZU/s200/scan0015.jpg" width="194" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cynthia then...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcJaii5l-t4bZd9ij8GZDxIajqDi2y9zCxyHbJGAB_agisKTtDzNDAZPM6P7l_VZnfGARweVXA5HSi25PYbDoDGpo-j8sfwXvfstOnMVPyNIldbGI3FFSvVTocCZPCYTEvdawwsgM3Isp/s1600/cynthiaconnolly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcJaii5l-t4bZd9ij8GZDxIajqDi2y9zCxyHbJGAB_agisKTtDzNDAZPM6P7l_VZnfGARweVXA5HSi25PYbDoDGpo-j8sfwXvfstOnMVPyNIldbGI3FFSvVTocCZPCYTEvdawwsgM3Isp/s320/cynthiaconnolly.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">... and Cynthia now.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">February 9, 2012</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Cynthia!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Thanks so much for writing. I'm impressed that my zines actually made it into your hands! So, yes, I've only recently begun to realize how influential Banned in DC was and is on me as a musician, artist and black punk...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">.......</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Anyway, the point of Shotgun Seamstress was to make DIY, punk and anti-consumerist ideas accessible to young black kids. Since my network is comprised mostly of white punks who are adults, it is always a challenge for me to get my zine into the right hands, but I do try. Just recently, I've been invited to speak to high school kids of diverse racial backgrounds and those experiences have made me feel like my ideas have finally been communicated to my target audience. Feminists and people of color are always talking about the importance of representation. If a young black girl sees a black female medical doctor, for instance, in a magazine or on TV, she is more likely to believe that she herself can be a doctor one day than if she'd never seen that image represented in the media that surrounds her. So with my zine, I knew it was important to include powerful images of black punks expressing their identities fearlessly and that's where<u> Banned in DC</u> comes in. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I've had <u>Banned in DC</u> for years and I also owned Glen E. Friedman's <u>Fuck You Heroes</u> for a while until I realized that the only woman in the entire book wasn't a musician at all, but was scantily clad and posing with a gun. I sold it to Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, but not before ripping out that awesome picture of Junkyard Band, that go-go band from DC. It's a picture of the band when all of the members were very young, some not even teenagers yet. I used that image in SS #2 and I still have that page from the book. I also remember going to Powell's and digging through their punk book section hoping to find other images suitable for my zine but, to my surprise, it was slim pickings. <u>Banned in DC</u> is a very unique book in the way that it documents not only tons of black punk rockers, and not only tons of women, but also events and shows that must have been very specific to the DC area such as punk shows featuring both hc and go-go bands. The more I look through that book and learn about it, the less I am able to tell if what you all captured was representative of the punk/hc scene at the time or what you all thought was most interesting and worth photographing. Maybe you can tell me. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222;">.......</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;">xo Osa</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Osa,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">This is all very interesting what you are saying, as I don't know if Glen </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">will even admit, but I was a big influence on him and his work. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I used to argue with him </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">all the time about the way he represented women, and I totally agree on the fact </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">that representation to younger adults inspires them and makes them believe </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">that they can do the same. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I think the reverse example can also keep </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">people in the place that they are. (I lived in Alabama for a year in the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">poorest county there and seeing most not working and nothing to do, with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">nothing to show what they can do, they stay in that stagnant place.) </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Anyway, <u>Banned in DC</u> to me represents what I remembered mostly from </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">the time I moved there in 1981 to 1986. 79 and 80 I was not there and </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">what you see are the photos I could find. I decided to collect stories </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">from people because I noticed that people loved to tell stories in DC.... W</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">hich I never thought at the time was anything really "regional" but it </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">is! I grew up in LA, and that is not how people talked of their life... In </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">these stories. </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIxTg7UHdfqbKf5TSPA_IdehRJNX3ix9bcQ37IO0JWXZeQNsd_-IRmhk_vre8YpSbgGLgne4zXgrLeC2MIAx3H4iK9__KKA80Ij1S1jJPoqf9OKsSA2ELtWHiffqQfRlJIC2otvzq7BSQu/s1600/scan0012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIxTg7UHdfqbKf5TSPA_IdehRJNX3ix9bcQ37IO0JWXZeQNsd_-IRmhk_vre8YpSbgGLgne4zXgrLeC2MIAx3H4iK9__KKA80Ij1S1jJPoqf9OKsSA2ELtWHiffqQfRlJIC2otvzq7BSQu/s320/scan0012.jpg" width="197" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peer Pressure (David Byers, Tom Berard, <br />
Toni Young and Danny Ingram)<br />
by SFW. Toni Young was the<br />
coverstar of SS No. 1. She was also in the<br />
band Red C.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Toni Young was amazing. She died of pneumonia and </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">everyone thought maybe she had AIDS, but no one knows. It was sudden and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">sad... And that was in the late 80's when the first book was published. So, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I dedicated the first book to her. She was amazing and I wish she were </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">here today as I would like to know what she would be doing. She was a bit </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">of a partier, and hung out with Vivienne. Vivienne works for the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Guggenhiem. She also hung out with Tina. And Tina owns her own </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">restaurant in Rehoboth Beach and does catering as well. I think she owns </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">a house out there as well. So, I think Toni would have gone in a creative </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">direction if she were with us.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">My best friend is still Nicky Thomas, who is black. [<i>Nicky is an ex-member of the all-girl Dischord band Fire Party. -ed</i>] She and I went to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">China in 1992. When I made <u>Banned in DC</u> I don't think I knew her </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">much, but she was going to shows with her brother who made her hold his </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">coat. A typical thing that "girls" did a lot. So, in order for me to be </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">sure the 'ladies" were represented, I made the few photos I had of them </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">really big in the book. With the exception of "Lefty" who I had a hard </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">time with, as she was sort of violent and called herself a Nazi and I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">really didn't get that. (She hung out with skinhead dudes mostly and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">this REALLY confused me. She was black, called herself a Nazi Skin and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">hung out with White guys who were "skins"...)</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Anyway, I tried to make the women big. I also decided to make the book as </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I knew if I didn't some dude would... And I really didn't want someone </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">'WRITING' about it. Actually, some dudes are making a film about the DC </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">scene and I have YET TO BE INTERVIEWED, which really is starting to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">piss me off. They are interviewing a bunch of dudes. Anyway, women were </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">really involved, and made zines and were at the shows, but since a lot </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">were NOT at the foot of the stage they were NOT photographed... and I wanted </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">to be sure they are represented none the less!</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">..........</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-Cynthia Connolly</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />Go here <a href="http://www.cynthiaconnolly.com/">http://www.cynthiaconnolly.com/</a> to see Cynthia's photographs and learn about current events & exhibits.</span><br />
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<br />Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-13923958878172854182012-10-21T18:56:00.002-07:002013-02-09T11:48:55.459-08:00Radical Anti-Racist Racism (or "Rarrrrrrr!!!")Okay, me and a friend of mine, Takiaya, were having this conversation that I wanted to share with other people in the hopes that it may prevent confusion or at least alleviate it a bit. We were talking about the complexity of having white friends who actively identify as anti-racist. This is <b>a very specific phenomenon</b> that happens mostly within communities that consider themselves politically radical. The trials and tribulations of having white friends in more mainstream, less politically radical circles have been addressed by folks like Damali Ayo, the creator of <a href="http://blackpeopleloveus.com/" target="_blank">Black People Love Us</a> and author of <a href="http://damaliayo.com/book%20promos/pages/How%20to%20Rent.htm" target="_blank">How To Rent a Negro</a>, and also in this article <a href="http://www.blackyouthproject.com/2011/01/for-white-people-a-quick-guide-to-having-black-friends/" target="_blank">"For White People: A Quick Guide to Having Black Friends"</a>. <br />
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I would say that what Ayo and the "For White People" article describe are instances of "liberal racism." In radical circles, we agree on the following premise: We live in a white supremacist society wherein all white people are taught to be racist and all people of color are taught internalized racism. I have existed in scenes & communities where most if not all of the white people I encountered accepted this as a basic truth, but of course accepting that as a truth does not absolve one of their racism or make our experiences as people of color in those communities any less awkward or disappointing.<br />
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When I was in my early 20s and moved to Portland, Oregon, that was the first time I encountered large groups of white folks who identified as anti-racist and only in hindsight have I been able to realize how confusing that was for me. The way racism plays out in society keeps changing over time. When racism was considered factual, i.e."people of color are indeed inferior to white people," interpersonal racism was definitely more brutal and destructive but also easier to identify. I grew up with the, "You're different from other black people," "Can I touch your hair," "You're <i>so articulate!</i>" kind of racism. What I encountered on the West Coast was more savvy than that. White people, whether they actually knew real life people of color or not, had at least read their bell hooks, their Malcolm X and maybe even some Patricia Hill Collins, and to some extent they knew what to say and what not to say. In that context, I never experienced being congratulated for not being like other black folks, the way I had when I was younger. The white people I was surrounded with knew better than that. I wanted so desperately as a young black person to feel relief from the experience of racism, but instead, I would be required to decode a whole different style of racism than I'd ever encountered before.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYSaIOkItPbEUzHueOUQeovA5HLFe60FYs-IBl9k8S_KMKFk2WjUMnooRsAwYey8W6qIcjAlyA-ESad9CADbaFoEJ-UbNmv_bi3Yrlu9Cn57FRrMHQ-bMkMOSCmhXSe2fd11P4I2q9tBdl/s1600/rarrrrr!.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYSaIOkItPbEUzHueOUQeovA5HLFe60FYs-IBl9k8S_KMKFk2WjUMnooRsAwYey8W6qIcjAlyA-ESad9CADbaFoEJ-UbNmv_bi3Yrlu9Cn57FRrMHQ-bMkMOSCmhXSe2fd11P4I2q9tBdl/s320/rarrrrr!.jpg" width="314" /></a></div>
So, here's what to look for when it comes to radical anti-racist racism (rarrrrr!) If a white person is talking about racism with you as if it's something that other white people do, as if they could never identify, something is wrong. If a white person is judging other white people's lack of anti-racist politics, especially in a way that seems like they're trying to prove themselves to you, something is wrong. If you know white people who just talk about race too damn much or fetishize people of color in the realm of dating & romance, something is wrong. If a white person becomes defensive when you speak about your experiences with racism as a person of color and tries to use another form of oppression such as class or gender identity to "top" you, Oppression Olympics style, something is wrong. As far as I've learned through my healthy relationships with my white friends, it's best when race is a non-issue. I am not comfortable having personal friendships with white people in which we frequently end up discussing race or racial politics. If I need to process race, that's what my brown friends are for. If me and a white person are working together in a political or community organizing capacity, perhaps that makes sense, but if we are just friends or dates, it's weird. My best, healthiest friendships with white people are those in which race comes up casually and naturally and they are definitely not looking to me for education or approval. <br />
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I don't want anyone stressing out about racism unnecessarily. There is enough of it in the world without you going to look for it. However, it is a psychologically unhealthy state for a person of color to be experiencing racism without also being able to pin point it so that it can somehow be addressed. You just have to use your intuition. If it feels awkward, it's probably because the white person you're talking to is uneasy about race and you can sense it. When I say that racism needs to be a non-issue in my personal relationships with white people, I'm not talking about colorblindness. In my relationships with my white friends, race comes up every so often as an incidental fact of life, not something that we feel we need to process together, and certainly not as something I need to help them process. If a white person can't behave naturally about race & racism around you, they have a weird complex about race. Even if they've read every book by bell hooks. It's a strange world when you find yourself having to decode racism in self-proclaimed anti-racist communities, but this, my friends, is the world we live in.<br />
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So, in the end, the question is, "What do you do about your radical anti-racist racist friend/scene/community?" Well, that is up to you. You can keep them around and try to talk about it and work through it because you love them and are willing to do them that favor. You can say, "Fuck it," and retreat into a brown separatist community for a little while or forever, if you have access to it. You can try to work on building relationships with other people of color in geographically separate places so that you have more support, if you are racially isolated. You can write me a letter or an e-mail full of complaints and critiques and I'll hear you out and validate you and assure you that you are not crazy. Because, really, that's the point of this: to help brown kids identify a complicated dynamic that can be difficult to put your finger on in the first place. <br />
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<br />Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-6905001304839225912012-10-20T12:04:00.002-07:002012-11-06T22:05:31.706-08:00BLACK OUTLAWS, EXAMPLE #2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMWJZvAILBMuci9ayi1paK7zhtAABd8NvpGpU6D5qBl0ZW4qHW58qhfSwpYPQyK1nuZ4ytwNR_EmpvmqwHGUbMs4c4EaWLQDrRhoHIo2Z3iZX3WLptN2aVFvLlA7hlj-nRU2bi_alJS4VU/s1600/Black+Cowboys+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMWJZvAILBMuci9ayi1paK7zhtAABd8NvpGpU6D5qBl0ZW4qHW58qhfSwpYPQyK1nuZ4ytwNR_EmpvmqwHGUbMs4c4EaWLQDrRhoHIo2Z3iZX3WLptN2aVFvLlA7hlj-nRU2bi_alJS4VU/s400/Black+Cowboys+4.JPG" width="356" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In school, I learned about black people as an oppressed people and that's it. Black people as slaves, maybe one line about The Reconstruction Period (in which black folks made impressive strides socially, econom</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">ically and intellectually, but they don't really want us to know anything about that...) maybe the briefest mention of sharecropping and then fast forward to Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights era, The End. Alright, so they also mentioned Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. Still, this ridiculously abbreviated, oversimplified version of U.S. black history is damaging to black people. There is a way in which we all subconsciously absorb messages about our potential as a people through what we are taught about ourselves through stereotypes that are made pervasive through mass media and through the inaccurate retelling of history. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In my adult life, it excited me and inspired me to learn about the black folks who were never slaves, the black folks who ran away and rebelled, the black folks who wandered free, the black folks who refused to be caged. To me, that's kind of what black cowboys represent even though I know that cow herding was industry like any other, and that black cowboys faced racism just like any other black person at the time. Still, the "Wild West" was a freer place for black folks than the rest of the country. Did you know one in three cowboys was either black or Mexican? The first black cowboy I ever learned about was Nat Love, but there were so many more and you can read about them here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_950038519"><br />
</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://blackcowboys.com/">http://blackcowboys.com/</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://robt.shepherd.tripod.com/black-cowboy.html">Black Cowboys & Buffalo Soldiers</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/bkcowboy.htm">Negro on the American Frontier: Black Cowboys, Part I</a></div>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-49185328393988463282012-10-20T12:01:00.001-07:002012-11-07T05:55:31.103-08:00BLACK OUTLAWS, EXAMPLE #1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1nLPNxhTyCAUI3zMYd8B_UYJac6hsiSWowk92u870xQit5RAQDL0WvTkxeC4SQEgIZXanViq177PJUTNXe9lqEmPzrbrlfTDlL1Uu6bJlRW-NcfsoKIhUraJfmishVTqmhjVGeoCmQyBH/s1600/black+biker+gang.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="507" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1nLPNxhTyCAUI3zMYd8B_UYJac6hsiSWowk92u870xQit5RAQDL0WvTkxeC4SQEgIZXanViq177PJUTNXe9lqEmPzrbrlfTDlL1Uu6bJlRW-NcfsoKIhUraJfmishVTqmhjVGeoCmQyBH/s640/black+biker+gang.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">In the van on tour with the People of Color Zine Project RACE RIOT! Tour, Mimi Nguyen (editor of the historically important "Evolution of a Race Riot" zine) went through the list of things she found notable about Urbana, Illinois, the town where she lives and teaches. Turns out that small, Midwestern college town is home to an all-black biker gang whose name I cannot recall right now. If you've ever been to Urbana, Illinois, you can imagine my surprise. Additionally, that information was enough to make me rethink my decision to quit making Shotgun Seamstress zine...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 17.981481552124023px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 17.925926208496094px;">Hearing about black biker gangs reminds me, for some reason, of the interview I did with Ms. Jacci Gresham, a black, female tattooist and shop owner here in New Orleans, Louisiana (issue #6.) She told me in that interview about this bike shop in the French Quarter where people used to give tattoos illegally. Someone fire bombed the place causing enough destruction in that historical part of the city that tattooing was from then on forbidden in The French Quarter. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 17.907407760620117px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 17.925926208496094px;">As far as I can tell from what I've read, it seems that there was hardly room for women to be anything more than arm candy in this subculture. Still, after a childhood spent watching "The Cosby Show" and "A Different World," I like to imagine 10-year-old-me's mind being blown at the sight of this wild & crazy, all-black underworld. It's just another example of something I grew up thinking was outside the realm of blackness when I was a kid.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">From "Chosen Few & East Bay Dragons: America's Black Biker Set Revisited":</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">"When you talk of the Outlaw Bikers, you automatically think of 'Them Crazy White Boys' doing what a lot of folks wish they could do. Live Life Like You Want & F*ck You and Your Rules. Well Guess What? There are some crazy Black bikers who felt the same way and didn't give a F*ck. Thus was born the Black Outlaw Bikers!" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Black motorcycle clubs emerged throughout Cali in the 50s and 60s, and fought against racism and stereotypes of the day for their right to live the outlaw biker lifestyle... </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Read more at the link below. Also, excellent photographs!</span></span><br />
<a forcediv="true" forceinline="true" href="http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/chosen-few-east-bay-dragons-americas-black-biker-set-revisited/" original_target="http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/chosen-few-east-bay-dragons-americas-black-biker-set-revisited/&h=laqhxform&s=1" rel="nofollow nofollow" saprocessedanchor="true" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" verdict_1d5l49d="OK"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/chosen-few-east-bay-dragons-americas-black-biker-set-revisited/</span></a><br />
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Thanks to Mimi Nguyen for the idea.</span></div>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-20762408297514632362011-02-11T09:27:00.000-08:002012-10-22T09:11:39.139-07:00Follow Up to "Don't Punch Me"<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A couple of months ago I wrote a column about physical violence at underage punk shows in New Orleans. I had so many thoughts about what was going on and about how to address violence in our communities and promised to continue the discussion later because I couldn't fit it all into one column. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The feedback that I got from writing that column and others (like the one I wrote months before that about ironic bigotry for shock value) makes me realize that there are just so many different ways of relating to punk, and that my way of relating to it is a minority perspective, and I use the word minority recognizing all of its connotations. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I grew up going to shows in a town where if certain people in the audience were making it impossible for the rest of the audience to enjoy the show by being violent or otherwise intolerable, certain bands would stop playing and wait for the idiocy to die down before they started playing again. That is punk to me: Creating the kind of atmosphere you want to have around you. Realizing that you are in charge of your own experience.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The point of writing that column wasn't to slam a local band but to show how a community or scene can deal with conflict in a way that doesn't dismiss or vilify the accused party so that actual change can happen. I guess that was a naïve goal because even though I thought I dealt with the issue respectfully, the negative feedback I got was pretty similar to what I would've gotten if I had explicitly called them out as being fucked up misogynist pigs. Looking back at my own history of calling out and being called out, I always imagine that a more diplomatic approach would bring better results, but that doesn't seem to be the case, so ladies, feminists, people in the scene who wish to confront difficult issues in your communities, go ahead and do it and don't mince your words. It doesn't matter how you say it, you'll get a nasty, defensive response that evades accountability no matter what. Even so, it's still worth doing. Just be ready.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Thanks to the people who wrote me about the difficult situations they've encountered in their own communities—from being sexually harassed in front of your peers and not being supported, to thinking about how to call out a rapist who is well known and liked in your community. These are important struggles that seem to happen in the margins, issues that most people don't have to deal with. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Local scenes are important, but most, outside of major cities, are very small and limited in their scope. Even though I've lived in cities with pretty large scenes, I don't think I would've been able to survive socially in punk if I hadn't been able to get in touch with other brown punks and queer punks through writing, traveling and living in different cities over the years. I continue to write this column for the minority of kids who need this liberating tool that is punk rock but who might also potentially be alienated by the people who make up the majority of the subculture. I want to retain you. I don't want you to leave! We are each others' audience and your experiences validate mine. We can support each other, even from really far away.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Anyway, it's time to retreat for a while. It's finally cooled down in New Orleans. The days are short and the nights are long and that means I'm spending way more time inside writing songs, making plans for next year, talking on the phone to faraway friends, working on projects and listening to a shit ton of music. Listening to music is the number one way that I create my own ideal world for myself. Here is my winter listening top 10 in no particular order.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <ol><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Trash Kit </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Lydia Lunch – Queen of Siam</p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Fugazi - Repeater</p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Next Stop... Soweto: Township Sounds from the Golden Age of Mbaqanga</p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Neonates (tape)</p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Chin Chin – Sound of the Westway</p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hans-a-plast – 2</p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Echo and the Bunnymen – Songs to Learn and Sing</p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Moss Icon – Lyburnum Wits End Liberation Fly</p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Mydolls – A World of Her Own</p> </li></ol> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">...and lots of old mixtapes!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Write me: <a href="mailto:shotgunseamstress@gmail.com" target="_blank">shotgunseamstress@gmail.com</a></p>Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-47276853447699749412011-02-11T09:25:00.000-08:002012-10-22T13:44:53.580-07:00The Revolution Will Not Be Funded<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Five folks who put on all-ages punk shows around town got together a few months ago to talk about creating a permanent all-ages venue in New Orleans, where we live. We are all in bands and we all book shows for bands on tour and we're all invested in providing an alternative to the 21+ bar show in a city where bar shows reign supreme. Some of us have been frustrated at the process of looking high and low for a house or other DIY space to put a show every time a band gets in touch to say that they'll be coming through town. We figured it would be worth it to sit down and talk about the possibility of having a spot that is available every night of the week and commercially zoned so we'd never have to worry about cops.</div>
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Of course, our first big questions were, where would this new all-ages venue be and how would we afford it? We were unanimously against charging high prices at the door in order to cover rent. It's enough to worry about getting gas money for bands without having to also worry about covering rent, and none of us seemed interested in passing the extra costs on to the people who would be coming to the shows. Next option? Become a non-profit, one of us suggested. Get funding from an outside source to make this thing work.</div>
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Throughout our discussion, it was understood that everyone wanted to make sure everything was going to be legit, which makes sense. Every house show you put on, you wonder if the cops are gonna come by and shut it down. It would be awesome to have DIY all-ages shows and not have to worry about all that. I get that. But then again, a bigger part of me is wondering, isn't this what DIY and punk and anarchism is all about is operating outside of the law and operating without funding? </div>
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A couple of months later, I was talking to this lady Corrina who sings for this local band called Crackbox. She's been thinking about starting Home Alive out here (if you don't know about the original Home Alive in Seattle, please look it up!) She's done self-defense training for women here and there in the past and wants to start having classes again on a regular basis here in New Orleans. Awesome idea. I've been to self-defense trainings that my friends and housemates organized when I lived in Portland and they were really important events. When Corrina started talking about how she wanted to get grants to fund a workshop featuring the women who founded Home Alive Seattle, I asked her why she didn't start small and just teach a class or two herself in someone's house or at Nowe Miasto, this warehouse in Mid-City where a bunch of our friends live. </div>
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It could be that I'm misunderstanding some part of Corrina's plan, and that non-profit funding would be the most ideal way for her to make Home Alive New Orleans real. But after our conversation I was really confused about why her idea had to be a non-profit, especially right away. I'm not telling this story to criticize her or her idea; I'd love to see women's self-defense classes happen in whatever way they're gonna happen in this city and when it does, I'll support it in any way I can. I just wonder, why make it so complicated? I want everyone to feel empowered to make things happen <i>now</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> with the whatever resources you have at the moment. Isn't that kind of urgency and self-determination central to who we are as a community?</span></div>
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I really think it's time to rethink the whole non-profit style of organizing and making things happen. As I understand it, in order to apply for grants, you have to register with the U.S. government as a 501c3 organization, which is the same as having non-profit status. I really do think it's a bad sign that the vast majority of today's activism in our country (whether it be political or cultural) is registered through the United States government. It wasn't always this way, and I think that the transition to non-profit activism has everything to do with our government being able to keep tabs on and contain political and cultural resistance.</div>
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Also, most grant money ultimately flows down from rich individuals and families who are just looking for a tax shelter for all of their damn money. When rich folks start up a foundation, it's so that they can hoard more of their wealth instead of letting their money flow into the public sphere in the form of taxes. In other words, if you're working on the books for minimum wage or close to it, you're probably paying more percentage-wise in taxes than a rich person is. I think accepting money from foundations in the form of grants reinforces the mythology that all life springs from corporations and corporate money, and that we are helpless without it. In many ways, being a non-profit makes your anti-establishment political or cultural organization part of the establishment.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwnFH5EZ_zuc-2H5HRtrU3pLhzX-ymnUDgB2orhcZLTyWIznYuV08STJeJ94bXH8I2fdBFgUbgh1jh5bT4Y1gdwS6v-wjsXovEglng5tIlOvRsqSk4KQv1rFwFuVZ85cEMUaUPo3ksk4om/s1600/RevNotFunded.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwnFH5EZ_zuc-2H5HRtrU3pLhzX-ymnUDgB2orhcZLTyWIznYuV08STJeJ94bXH8I2fdBFgUbgh1jh5bT4Y1gdwS6v-wjsXovEglng5tIlOvRsqSk4KQv1rFwFuVZ85cEMUaUPo3ksk4om/s400/RevNotFunded.jpg" width="252" /></a>I learned a lot of this stuff in 2003 when I went to this conference in California put on by this organization called INCITE Women of Color Against Violence. It's a bunch of academics and some activists that run it, and I know there's also a semi-active INCITE chapter here in New Orleans. Anyway, the conference was called “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded” and they also put a book by the same title, shortly after the conference. Don't let those middle-aged lady professors fool you, they are <i>radical</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. They call the land of non-profits the Non-profit Industrial Complex and take us back to a time when activism didn't have corporate funding. The Black Panthers were not a non-profit, dude! And you can talk all the trash you want about how the National Organization of Women (NOW) is full of liberal, 2nd-wave feminist, white lady uselessness, but you gotta acknowledge the fact that as of the early 2000s they were (and probably still are) totally funded by individuals who believe in them, their members. NOW is not a non-profit.</span> </div>
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As far as the all-ages show space thing goes, I also disagree with the idea that people can own property and believe that property ownership is a figment of our capitalist imaginations. I already pay my landlord rent every month, so I'm not really down to be involved in yet another rental contract with yet another landlord, even if it's being paid for with someone else's money. The more I think about it, the more meaning I find in the hunt for another underground space to put my next show.</div>
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I know people who do great things with their non-profits. An old friend of mine created the Prison Birth Project in Massachusetts where she acts as a midwife and doula to women in prison who are pregnant and giving birth. This is important work and there's no way I'm going to denounce it just because I am critical of non-profits. She's got a kid and she deserves to get paid for her work, just like anyone else. Besides, all of us are always picking and choosing which aspects of capitalism we're willing to deal with and which one's we're not. It's hard to be an anti-capitalist purist in a capitalist reality. I just want us all to be strategic about when we engage with the the system. It seems like turning your newest idea into a non-profit organization has become such a natural way to imagine things working, but it's not natural. It's actually a relatively new way of organizing ourselves. I think we should all look at the history of non-profit organizing and question it and consider whether it's absolutely necessary to use that model. </div>
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From <i>The Revolution Will Not Be Funded</i><span style="font-style: normal;">:</span></div>
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“And what are our priorities? Perhaps the real problem is that we don’t spend enough time imagining what we want and then doing the work to sustain that vision. That is one of the fundamental ways the corporate-capitalist system tames us: by robbing us of our time and flooding us in a sea of bureaucratic red tape, which we are told is a necessary evil for guaranteeing our organization’s existence. We are too busy being told to market ourselves by pimping our communities’ poverty in proposals, selling “results” in reports and accounting for our finances in financial reviews.</div>
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“In essence, our organizations have become mini-corporations, because on some level, we have internalized the idea that power—the ability to create change—equals money.” --Amara Perez, Sisters in Action for Power, Portland, Oregon<br />
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It's always either love or hate: <a href="mailto:shotgunseamstress@gmail.com" target="_blank">shotgunseamstress@gmail.com</a></div>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-40209319601560964772011-02-04T08:38:00.000-08:002012-10-22T13:52:30.407-07:00Better Late than Never + Show Reviews<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEIwJUQ_mEvzECmKhVpig_QGdio8qnzw8zx7OSAYwiR0LtGhmxqkhTDwdetX7d9vKPKVxj59jNoD1H_pvFYvBFzDBPiQyyNhN-eRkn8bNMkjTIzwQx68BFQ87Fhkjsipn1uICEcIZsE9RY/s1600/cat+vet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEIwJUQ_mEvzECmKhVpig_QGdio8qnzw8zx7OSAYwiR0LtGhmxqkhTDwdetX7d9vKPKVxj59jNoD1H_pvFYvBFzDBPiQyyNhN-eRkn8bNMkjTIzwQx68BFQ87Fhkjsipn1uICEcIZsE9RY/s400/cat+vet.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cat Vet, Philadelphia, Pa</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My friend Jesse has wanted to be in a band for as long as I can remember and she finally did it with CAT VET, this new all-girl band out of Philly. It's so cool seeing your friends finally do something they've always wanted to do. I've got a lot of girl friends who are finally making their own dreams of being musicians come true but we're all in our late 20s and 30s. Seems like 27 is the new 17. I know women, including myself, finally taking the music they make seriously and playing shows, making recordings, going on tour... Finally taking ourselves seriously as musicians and artists in our late 20s and 30s, even if we may have been playing music in one way or another all of our lives. I know moms in punk bands that go on tour. This sort of self-expression is a necessity that you make time for no matter what. Maybe we're figuring it out later than the average boy musician, but at least we're figuring it out, right?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Okay, now let's get down to business. Show reviews and reviews of recordings are what you're getting this month. Let's return to CAT VET, a brand new band with a self-released tape out called <i>Yr Wild!</i> My band joined theirs for a few days, starting here in New Orleans and going through north Florida. CAT VET reminds me of BRATMOBILE or EXCUSE 17 with less trauma and anger. They are, for sure, the daughters of riot girl, even taking on subjects like consensual sex in one of their songs. They're also all about inside jokes, weird cat humor and having a bunch of people dancing up front while they play. Dawn and Jesse switch off on guitar and drums, while Kirstin sings and shouts, banging an egg shaker on her leg the whole time. All three of them are friends and housemates and share the same total weirdo sense of humor. If you're into BRILLIANT COLORS, I think that you'll probably like CAT VET.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Speaking of bands that actually sound like “riot girl” bands—rather than girl bands that are compared to other girl bands merely because they're girls—don't you think SON SKULL sounds like BIKINI KILL? That song, “Boston Girls” sounds like a BK-style riff to me, for sure. Mary, who sings in this band is one of the mamas I was talking about who still plays shows and goes on tour, along with her baby daddy, Hayes who is also in WHITE BOSS. When both SON SKULL and WHITE BOSS came to New Orleans and played Nowe Miasto warehouse a couple months ago, Mary had her two kids with her and I ended up helping one of her daughters look for a purple barrette she dropped on the ground outside the show while her mom set up to play.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">SON SKULL are from Olympia, as you may have learned from the Olympia scene report that just ran a couple issues ago. So are HYSTERICS who I got to see play at the public library in Olympia, Washington with BROKEN WATER for Ben Nuts! zine release party. Ben's zine is stellar when it covers local bands and has articles like the one Tobi Vail wrote about meeting Mike Watt when she was a teenager, but is less so when it features long-winded penis torture porn. The newest issue is awesome and also includes of flexi disc with tracks by MILK MUSIC and CARRIE WHITE of GUN OUTFIT. Getting back to HYSTERICS, they rock. I have a crush on that band. They're obsessed with the only kind of hardcore I like at all: the 80s DC stuff. They cover ARTIFICIAL PEACE and have an original that sounds lots like MINOR THREAT. The singer is even wearing an EMBRACE shirt in a picture on the inside of their tape sleeve. Very obsessed with 80s DC punk, these girls. They all seem to be in their early 20s but most of them, if not all of them, have been in other bands before. They've got a self-released tape with songs about gender roles within the punk scene and capitalism. Their singer, Stephi, has great energy and attitude. You already know all about them, if you read their interview in issue #xxx.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I grudgingly attended the CRACKBOX/TRANNY SHARK/CROWS FOOT show because, while I really wanted to see all those bands, I really dislike the bar that they had the show in. It's one of those places that feels like a warehouse for the wasted, you know what I mean? Just a big, cold, black box of a room that you cannot have fun in unless you get trashed. No ambiance to mention, and the owner of the place has a reputation for being a nihilistic dick. CRACKBOX, please let me book you a house show next time. Corrina, their singer, has all the power and heart to warm up a space like that, if only for the duration of their set. Crackbox's guitarist lives in a different state most of the time so they've been playing their hearts out (raw pop punk style) since he got back into town several weeks ago. TRANNY SHARK is a new all-girl band from New Orleans with a member of New Orleans' MOST HEINOUS and also with, lead singer, Alison Gaye, running her mouth, delivering snarky humor, while the rest of the band tries to keep up. They were raw, sloppy and engaging that night, and I'm excited to see their band get better and better the longer they play together. Gotta admit, I do have a difficult relationship with TRANNY SHARK. For instance, some of the members might have issue with the fact that I call them an all-girl band in this </span><span class="il" style="background-color: white;">column</span><span style="background-color: white;">, cuz, you know, why does it </span><i style="background-color: white;">matter</i><span style="background-color: white;"> that they're girls and what's the point of putting on shows with all girl bands? Whatever, that's fine. We don't all have to agree. The last band to play that night was CROWS FOOT and I left, like a jerk, during their first song.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The recent show at The Peach Orchard skate park was pretty dreamy. It's January and it's still just barely warm enough to be able to have a show outside at night. If the winter hadn't been so sad here, it would've been so easy. Every other day it's 70 degrees! They strung Christmas lights all around the skate park, which was just built within the last year in the perfect spot, out of the way, near a highway and some train tracks. Suddenly that night, out of nowhere I heard the voice of a goddess! I thought it was some pre-recorded music playing through the PA but it was in fact this lady named AMI DANG from Baltimore. She played electronics, with all of her waist-length hair draped over her left shoulder, seated on an orange blanket, with a sitar in front of her. Ami is Indian American (her family's from New Delhi) and she sang in a popular Indian female vocal style that most people are familiar with, and played the sitar along to some dirty, blown-out beats coming from the bass amp behind her. Later on in her set, she did this really awesome thing with two dissonant layers of vocals that sounded kinda creepy like in The Exorcist. Lydia Lunch does something similar in one of her songs on <i>Queen of Siam</i>. Very creepy, bizarre and awesome sounding. I smoked AMI DANG out after the show.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Will NEONATES ever come to New Orleans? What will Layla's new band sound like after she's done coordinating at MRR? If I listen to SONIC YOUTH and THE RATS too many times in a row will I stop liking them after a while? These are the questions that weigh heavy on my mind these days. Waiting for the heat to return...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Published in MRR #???</span></div>
Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-64224790509979423842010-10-21T09:37:00.000-07:002012-10-22T09:11:39.186-07:00Don't Punch Me in the Face<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >There's this really bizarre phenomenon happening in the New Orleans underage punk scene right now. Me and my friend Candice found out about this local band called <span class="il">Vapo</span>-Rats. They are an old-school sounding hardcore band comprised of 17 year old boys. We were initially excited about them because they're so young, because they had a black member, and because the recordings they made with their old guitar player (the black kid) were very reminiscent of Void. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >Candice invited them to play a show with her band Necro Hippies, and the show was awesome except for one thing. Near the end of their set, <span class="il">Vapo</span>-Rats' bass player punched this girl in the face! I was standing up close and saw the whole thing. I saw her fall back rather theatrically with a smile on her face, and almost instantly jump right up to shake the bassist's hand. My initial shock at the blow was quickly replaced with an eye roll; to me it seemed like seventeen year old horseplay. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >After the show, some older punks were talking about what had happened and lots of people were understandably upset. To others at the show, this behavior was completely appalling and intolerable. I went up to the bass player to ask him what was up and to tell him how it made people feel to see that kind of behavior at a show. I told him that to me it seemed like a joke but that it didn't look that way to a lot of other people. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >Almost immediately, his girlfriend jumps in between me and bass player/girl puncher dude (Why do girls do this? Your dudefriend can speak for himself!) and starts to explain, “Thank you for understanding it's a joke. They play around like this <i>all the time</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. She even </span><i>asked</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> him to hit her. See, look at them.” At this point, I look over to see the girl that got punched in the face pummeling the bassist in the stomach with her fists. It's obvious that they're just playing around. Bass player's girlfriend continues, “Sometimes people just wanna get punched in the face. I mean, isn't it sexist that guys can hit guys but guys can't hit girls?” </span></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >Good lord. What kind of logic is that? Why is that the way that this girl and her friends are choosing to exercise their power as women, and is that even what's happening here?</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >This woman named Breonne who is the singer in this local band named Small Bones, who also played that night, had a really interesting take on the whole thing. I've had the good fortune of being in non-violent punk scenes that were pretty gender balanced and woman and queer positive most of my adult life. Breonne came up in a very male-dominated scene and this experience made he question the nature of these girls' consent. Looking back, she realized that, yeah, girls might say, “I want you to hit me,” but they say so only because there's this pressure to prove themselves to the boys in their scene. Please, if you are a person of any gender and you exist in a straight boy-dominated punk scene, think twice about the inherent pressure of being “one of the guys” and how that pressure informs your behavior.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >At the Necro Hippies show, there were more girls in the pit than I ever saw at the shows I went to when I lived in DC. I felt like I couldn't really superimpose my own experience on the experiences of these kids because it looked so different to me, at least on the surface. As a girl watching scrawny white boys get naked and mosh to Pg. 99 in a church basement in DC, I felt like a complete outsider. I was probably only there to watch The Others (long defunct girl-fronted pop punk from DC) or one of Katy Otto's old bands, anyway. Another huge difference is the amount of underage drinking that goes on here in New Orleans that I don't remember seeing nearly as much in DC, where there was (and hopefully still is) more of a straight-edge culture in the punk scene. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >I finally took a side on this whole issue a few weeks later when me and Candice had some folks come and pay us a visit from Pensacola. We heard that <span class="il">Vapo</span>-Rats was playing a show downtown and we decided to walk over and check it out. We had missed <span class="il">Vapo</span>-Rats but the show was still going on. There were tons of kids, and some of them looked really young, like way younger than 17. This pretty, long-haired girl who was obviously wasted to oblivion kept coming over to us to talk. She was nice but she was sooo drunk. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >We didn't pay to get in. We were just peaking through the back door at the spectacle inside, and I'm glad we were being total deadbeats that evening because I wouldn't have wanted to support what I saw with my hard earned cash. In the middle of some band's set, this dude raises his hand, halls off and slaps this girl who is obviously shocked and hurt. It was loud and it was hard and I immediately felt stunned and disgusted. Twice is enough for me to see it as a pattern. I turned around and left right away. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >What the fuck, New Orleans?! Candice said she saw the girl go back and shake his hand as if it was all an agreement, but she also noticed that the girl had also turned around and left the space after she was hit, as if her first impulse was to just get the fuck out of that place. This time, it felt out of control, and not at all like horseplay. And both times I've witnessed it, it was women being assaulted by men, not vice versa, and not even men fighting other men. FUCK THAT.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >I think the real reason I wanted to talk about this is to tie it into a larger conversation about accountability in the punk scene. Instead of boycotting their band, Candice set up a date with the singer in <span class="il">Vapo</span>-Rats and she broke it down for him. Violence, particularly violence against women, isn't cool (unless it's self-defense, which is another topic for another day), nor is it cool to write stupid shit about clowns raping people in the liner notes of your CD. The singer, who wasn't directly involved in any of these situations, but who does have an influence on how his band's shows go down, was really receptive to Candice's comments. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >I really feel like Candice did the best thing for the situation. I'm sure her reaction would've been much different if they were 25, or even 20 for that matter. But the fact is, they're kids who are making mistakes and who will hopefully learn from them. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >I feel like if you're still involved in the punk scene as you get older, the best thing you can do with all of your experience is be kind of mentor or role model to younger kids who are just getting started. I know it sounds cheesy, but I remember being much younger, dealing with calling out a rapist in our community, and really feeling like it would've helped to have some advice from someone older who had already been through it. We had zines written by other women who had done what we were doing and we had each other, but we were all in our young 20s, and militant as fuck. We couldn't see both sides, the way I can now.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >As a person who has both called other people out publicly on their behavior and been publicly called out on her behavior, I have so much to say about the process of accountability particularly within punk and radical communities. I am also very curious about how all people, but especially women and queers are handling their shit across the country and the world. If you're trying to tackle issues of violence, assault, abuse or rape in public or personal settings in your community I'd like to know about it. I also have so many things to say about what I call “call-out culture” within punk rock and when and how it should be used, but I think I'm going to have to save those comments for another column.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >People like to say, and I myself has said, that the same injustices that are found outside of the punk scene can be found inside of it as well. I still think that's true, but let's not lose perspective. The fact is, many punks hang out in a pretty insular world and have no real gauge when it comes to comparing their interpersonal struggles with those that are happening in “the real world.” I guess all I'm saying is that even though I always want to see us confronting hard issues head-on, I also want to see less drama and judgment and more understanding and compassion when it comes to resolving conflict in our communities.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >This is one of those columns where I feel like I've left so much unsaid but I promise to revisit some of this stuff later.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;font-size:85%;" >Get in touch: <a href="mailto:shotgunseamstress@gmail.com" target="_blank">shotgunseamstress@gmail.com</a></span></p>Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3568862705414763469.post-47512244805955652010-09-13T16:46:00.000-07:002012-10-22T09:11:39.158-07:00BummerI finally made it out to <span class="il">Pensacola</span> Beach a couple weeks ago for the first time since the oil spill. The closer I got to the beach, the bigger the lump got in my throat and when I got there, all I could do was cry. I cried because of this huge uncontrollable disaster. I cried because I was exhausted and because I'm going through a break up. I cried because I was relieved, in some weird way, that the ocean still exists, and still feels powerful and vast. And the ocean absorbed all of my sorrow and washed it away. Not all of it, but enough. Mostly, I just went to the Gulf of Mexico to wish it well. For a moment early in the spring when the spill began, people were talking about how there was to be "no beach" this summer. But <span class="il">Pensacola</span> is the most amazing beach I've ever been to and I felt like it was stupid to never see it again, even if it's been ruined. It's like, if you had a friend in the hospital who was sick, would you just never go visit them and just figure they're going to die anyway? Of course, not. You go and you wish them well. So as pathetic as a gesture as it seems, that's what I did. And that made me cry some more. Sometimes all you can do is just let all of the grief move through you, just flow through. At the spot where I was at, the water still looked blue and the sand still looked white and we could see clean birds flying over head. Life does go on. I feel irritated by people's apocalyptic anxieties recently. It's not that I don't believe that the world is ending, and it's not that I do believe it, either. The fact is that none of us know what's going to happen. Since none of us knows the future, our choices are to fear for the worst or hope for the best and I choose to hope for the best, even in spite of all the doomy gloomy evidence to the contrary. Once upon a time a wise counselor told me that anxiety is fearing for the worst when the worst hasn't even happened yet, and when yr not even certain that the worst will ever in fact happen. I had a bunch of anxiety during the last half of my 20s and I finally got over it after a lot of hard work. Now, I'm living for today. I'm alive now and I love it, and I'm gonna keep singing and playing music and celebrating my life and life in general until I can't do it anymore.Osa Atoehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12434455837714452701noreply@blogger.com4