fleabag show

Before I moved to New Orleans a month ago, I had this idea of putting on queer/lady DIY punk shows because I knew that kind of scene was lacking here. During my last couple of years living in Portland, somehow everyone I was close to was either from the New Orleans or had lived there at some point--everyone from bandmates to housemates, even the lady I was babysitting for. It was through those people that I first learned about GirlGang Productions in New Orleans.

GirlGang was a group of three queer women who put on queer shows around town. They started in 2002 after a similar group called She Loves Me/She Loves Me Not went defunct. GirlGang petered out in 2006 after Katrina, but not solely because of the hurricane. The queer DIY scene in New Orleans was always tiny and whenever queer bands came to town, there was just one band to play with, and that band was Tragic Girls End Up Like This. My ex-bandmate Cassia Gammill played keyboards in that band along with Sarah Brooks (aka Sarah Action, ex-Ovary Action), Erin Dwyer (ex-Ovary Action), Elaine Little and Emily Elhaj. Tragic Girls opened for pretty much every queer band that came through Nola and kept the scene alive for women & queers in New Orleans, pretty much until the hurricane hit.

I decided to call the new effort to recreate a queer girl punk scene in New Orleans No More Fiction. I just looked at a list of Essential Logic song titles and picked one. (Runners up: "Music is a Better Noise" and "Born In Flames".) Before I really got started, I felt like it was important for me to get in touch with Mags, one of GirlGang's organizers who still lives in town. I called her up and we talked for a bit about the past and future of a queer girl punk scene in New Orleans. Basically, she told me, she's 40-something years old and in grad school and feels out of the loop when it comes to knowing which bands to invite to town. And if queer bands were brought to New Orleans, who would open for them now that Tragic Girls no longer exists? Mags agreed that there definitely would be enthusiasm and support for a new queer DIY scene in New Orleans. She's really well connected after having been here for so long, and offered her support with spreading the word about shows once No More Fiction got started.

Armed with Mags' blessing, I felt like I could finally start making shit happen. I already had a band in mind that I wanted to set up a show for. Marilyn, the singer/guitar player of Fleabag, this amazing pop-punk band from Oakland, got in touch with me and mentioned that they would be coming through New Orleans on tour in a couple of weeks. Not only is Marilyn's band great, but she's also another queer woman of color in punk. What a perfect band for No More Fiction's first show! I knew I had to get something together for them, but I had to do it fast!

Step 1: Search for a venue.

I exhausted the venue list on www.noladiy.org with no success at all. A couple of weeks notice just isn't enough for most places, and there are very, very few non-bar spaces that have shows here. Nowe Miasto, a punk warehouse in Mid-City, was an obvious choice but they only really do one show a month so I didn't want to overburden them. Dozens of phone calls later, I felt like I had no other choice so I rode my bike over to Nowe, walked through their unlocked front door and up the stairs to the kitchen.

"Hey, who lives here?" I said to the half dozen people crowded in that ridiculously hot kitchen. "I do... What are you looking for?" replied this tall girl with a rattail who was standing at the sink. Her name is Candice and she plays guitar in a New Orleans punk band called Necro Hippies. I told her about No More Fiction, Fleabag and my immediate need for a show space. She was like, "Hey, let me call my friend Hilary. She just moved into this house and they wanna have shows there. I know they'd want to have a show like this at their house." She called Hilary left a message and then said, "Hang on, I'm gonna go get Takiya." She walked out of the kitchen which, by then, was empty except for me. Takiaya? Candice reemerged with this tall, young black girl with baby dreads who was visiting New Orleans from Miami. (You say her name: ta-KEY-ya.) Pretty much immediately she was like, "Hey you play music? What do you play? You wanna play right now?" And right then, Deny It was born.

Step 2: Find an opening band.

Or if there isn't a fitting opening band, make one from scratch. Candice and Takiaya showed me the songs they'd been making up together with Candice on guitar and Takiya playing saxophone. I asked to sit in and play drums and they both seemed pretty patient and happy with my simple, no-lessons style beats. We decided we would open for Fleabag, Candice & Takiaya decided the band should be called Deny It, and we scheduled practice again for the next day.

Step 3: Make a shitty flyer and hand it out.

Hilary and her housemate Becca decided to call their house Witch Cunt. I ran into Hilary one night at a show and she talked to me about how psyched she was to have queer girl shows at her house. We both bubbled about how exciting it was that all these new things were coming together at once. Finally we've got a space for the show, an opening band and a flyer. On to...

Step 4: Carry extremely heavy things over to Witch Cunt, set it all up, play a show, sweat a lot and feel real happy.

I didn't move to New Orleans to do punk stuff, really. In fact, before I moved here, I was wondering if I'd have time to play a lot of music and continue making my zine with everything else I thought I'd have going on. I figured that between work and school, it would be a real challenge to fit other things in. I came to New Orleans to be a teacher because even before Hurricane Katrina, the public schools here have been terribly under-resourced and otherwise neglected. I want to be here for this beautiful city, and do my tiny part in helping to build it back up. For sure, there are more important things for New Orleans than making sure more punk shows happen. And if you want to make it a racial issue, is my priority the predominantly white punk scene in New Orleans or the predominantly Black communities that have inhabited New Orleans? To be completely fair, an awesome mix of people came to the Fleabag show, including a bunch of queers and people of color (most of us Black), and ultimately I don't feel like I have to choose one community or the other, anyway. I guess, I'm always trying to keep my eye on the big picture, and punk rock just isn't the big picture to me. It's a tiny, removed piece of society that I get a lot out of being a part of, but it isn't the big picture.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world isn't as laid back as punk is because I am as passionate about the work I can do in public schools as I am about overtly feminist queer/lady-style punk rock. But Witch Cunt didn't make me fill out an application and pay a fee to have a show there. We just asked and it happened. So wish me luck filling out applications, paying a bunch of fees and taking a bunch of silly exams on my journey to becoming a public school teacher. I think it'll be worth it in the end.

If you want more information on Girl Gang, including an archive of the shows they put on during their existence, got here: www.girlgangproductions.com.

For more information on No More Fiction go here: www.myspace.com/nomorefictionshows and you can e-mail us here: nomorefiction@gmail.com. If you're a band that fits into No More Fiction's mission and you're going on tour, come play New Orleans. We'll put you on!