A few weeks ago I posted about the return of Lilith Fair. Well, here’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for…
Lilith Fair has announced the first round of artists confirmed for Lilith 2010.
Here they are…
(more inside…)
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Lilith Fair 2010 Performers Announced
December 11, 2009 • Desirée O
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A Holiday Gift List for girls who ROCK!
December 3, 2009 • Desirée O
The holidays are approaching and if you celebrate by exchanging gifts, some of you might be wondering what to ask for.
In my never-ending quest to see more women significantly recognized in the music world, I’ve put together a little gift guide for all you awesome girls who rock.
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Lilith Fair is back! Will you go?
November 5, 2009 • Desirée O
After much talk through the Twitter grape-vine, Lilith Fair is indeed back with a new website and details starting to be released regarding the 2010 tour.
No news yet on performers but the first round of cities has been announced:
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Pop Goes The City
September 28, 2009 • Anna Leventhal
My hometown is all abuzz with excitement for the upcoming Pop Montreal music festival, and I’m happy to say that with a lineup of some of the most impressive female performers around, it gets the Venus seal of approval. Full schedule is available on the website, but I’m giving some of my top recommendations here - check the website for times and locations. One cool thing is that if you can’t afford the often-steep ticket prices for some of the bigger names, you can see many of the artists speaking on panels, keynotes, and symposia for free, and if you bring a tiny mp3 player with you and squint it’s like getting a backstage pass to their show.
The Heavy Hitters
Diamanda Galas: HIV/AIDS activist and OG (original goth) with a 3.5-octave range, not only is she performing but she’s giving a keynote address on the relationship between art and epidemics.
Buffy Ste. Marie: Whether she’s breaking your heart with her voice or breastfeeding her baby on Sesame Street, the iconic singer/songwriter is not to be missed.
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks: Despite claiming to hate most punk rock, Lydia Lunch is about the punkest lady ever. It seems unbelievable that her 1970s band is coming together again to play a show with Montreal art punks AIDS Wolf and Duchess Says, but I guess fairy godmothers really do exist.
Fever Ray: The female half of Swedish band The Knife (remember that song that you danced to for all of Summer 2007?) is known for the visual feastiness of her live shows, as if her haunting songs aren’t enough on their own. Check out the video for When I Grow Up from her self-titled 2009 album.
Under The Radar (but not for long)
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Blonde Redheads Have More Fun
September 3, 2009 • Anna Leventhal
I’ve always really liked Blonde Redhead, but after I saw them live a few years ago I stopped trusting them. They’re just way too attractive to be authentic. It’s like I can picture the boardroom meeting that came up with that scenario: “Okay, we need a really hot female singer, and a hot guy backing her up on guitar… no, make that two hot guys… no, wait, let’s make them TWINS! Jackpot!”
Anyway, my personal issues aside, when you combine them with performance artist Miranda July and a beautifully simple concept, you have a delicious hors d’oeuvre of perfection, and, like Swedish Berries, who cares if they’re actually real!
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Greenwich Good Time
August 27, 2009 • Anna Leventhal
Today’s post is on Ellie Greenwich, the songwriter who was behind some of the biggest girl group hits of the 1960s, including Be My Baby (The Ronettes) and Leader of the Pack (The Shangri-Las).
Greenwich passed away yesterday at the age of 68, but she’s left behind a huge legacy of rock solid tunes that have shaped the way pop music is made. She was also a female pioneer, one of the few women to work in the famous Brill Building (Carole King was another), that epicentre of pop hits that churned out hand-claps, rhymes involving “maybe” and “baby”, and some of the sweetest songs ever like they were Kraft Dinner.
It’s sad but unsurprising that Phil Spector is often credited as the architect of all those great 60s girl groups (The Crystals, The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las, The Dixie Cups), when in fact it was Greenwich doing most of the songwriting. Phil may have built the Wall of Sound, but it was Ellie who constructed the bricks. Oh yeah, and she never murdered anyone either.
When I was a kid I choreographed a dance to Be My Baby that I would routinely force my parents to watch and admire (they obliged), and I still count on so many of these songs for their ability to make me feel good without going overboard into the land of saccharine mush. They’re so much more than just pop songs, though - they encompass a whole era, a whole style, a whole movement. Big hair! Sincerity to the max! Tragedy with a four-four beat! Dramatic voice-overs! Black women on mainstream radio!
Here are The Crystals with one of my favourite songs of the era, Da Do Ron Ron. Thank you, Ellie Greenwich. You’ll be in my heart heart heart, with your art art art.
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Are We Not MEN?
June 18, 2009 • Anna Leventhal
Q: When does a feminist blog concern itself with men? A: When we’re talking about New York City’s MEN, a band made of JD Samson (of Le Tigre and moustache fame), Ginger Brooks Takahashi (who’s also appeared in The Ballet and the wonderful Black Mountain Music Project, with Mirah), Michael O’Neill and other special guests. MEN make sounds in the proud queerio dance music tradition of Lesbians on Ecstasy, The Ssion, and Tracy & the Plastics. The video for Off Our Backs by K8 Hardy (who also produced the wicked tree-vulva video for the Lezzies on X song Sisters in the Struggle), below, is the kind of visual garage sale/image stew/eyecandy that half makes my head explode and half makes me want to go out and, like, be somebody.
MEN will be performing this Saturday in Montreal at La Sala Rossa (4848 St. Laurent) with a veritable panoply of loud and proud women, including Alexis O’Hara and DJ Lynne T, who has been spinning up a storm of late.
They play Toronto June 24 at Wrong Bar and June 26 at Lee’s Palace as part of Vazaleen. For more details and tour dates, check out their Myspace. -
Girls Rock, Better Believe
June 12, 2009 • Anna Leventhal
Why should Portland have all the fun? This August Montreal is hosting its first ever Rock Camp For Girls, a five-day camp where girls learn to play an instrument, form a band, and finish up by playing a show for their hysterical, screaming, panty-tossing fans.
From the organizers:
Rock Camp is a space where girls discover and express their talents, and become leaders in creating their own kind of cultural production through music. Female musicians and community members support girls through instrument instruction, tech tutorials, band practice and skill-building workshops.
RCfG is putting on a number of fundraisers over the next while to help finance the camp, one of which is tomorrow night, and features Giselle Numba One, who I posted on long ages ago, Nightwood, Little Scream, and DJ Lynne T of Lesbians on Ecstasy. There’s a word for it: “ladysplosion”. No, wait, I mean “awesome”. And also “not to be missed”.
Key details:
Saturday June 13th
Il Motore, 179 Jean-Talon Ouest
Show starts at 9:30pm
$10Here’s Giselle Numba One with a little taste of what you might find on Saturday.
For more details on Rock Camp For Girls and related events, check out their site.
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Great Canadian Tune Falls Short of Expectations
May 8, 2009 • Mir Verburg
So the Luminato festival and The Heartbroken are trying to break the world record for largest guitar jam. To do this they are running a Top 10 Canadian Tunes contest where visitors can vote for 10 famous Canadian songs on a short list. The tunes will be ranked according to the votes and then played by anyone with a guitar and the ability to learn a song at a massive public jam this summer.
Great concept! But, check out the list of songs that have been pre-selected as the ‘best 10’:
- 1234, Feist
- Basement Apartment, Sarah Harmer
- Boy Inside the Man, Tom Cochrane
- Courage, The Tragically Hip
- Cuts Like a Knife, Bryan Adams
- Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen
- Hasn’t Hit Me Yet, Blue Rodeo
- Helpless, Neil Young
- Taking Care of Business, BTO
- The Weight, The Band
Yeah, I think I had this compilation from K-Tel.
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Just In Time For My High School Reunion
May 4, 2009 • Diandra Jurkic-Walls
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
I can’t even begin to contain my excitement about the No Doubt reunion tour of 2009. I am unable to participate on all fronts due to working and defending my thesis this summer, but I can relish in the onslaught of YouTube’d live performances and as-seen-on-TV specials, such as this first one from Friday’s Today Show.Often, hearing about my favourite band from Grade 7 going on tour makes me feel old, but this one makes me feel like a teenager again. And from this day forward I commit to cramming my summer full of being outside, wearing mis-matched clothes that claim my independence from the pseudo-corporate “casual business attire” world, and dying my hair from bubble gum pink to a platinum blonde.
