1
C reating culture
by Kim Severson
The past two years have been hard ones
for me. Seems like every time I went to my
turntable to hear some good women’s music,
I found myself taking the album off after the
first few cuts. I mean, how many times can
you listen to Meg sing about the sweet wo
men in her life, Ferron wax lyrical about get
ting her heart smashed or Cris sing what is
undoubtedly the worst lyric in the genre
(com e to your life like a warrior/nothing will
bore ya)? Oh sure, Linda Tillery’s Secrets
album helped, and sometimes the old tried-
and-true stuff soothed my weary soul. But I
had to face it I was in a lesbian rut, culturally
speaking.
And then I went to Michigan. (For those of
you not familiar with this amazing annual
lesbian — o h . . . uh, wom en s — cultural
event the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival
is the premiere music cultural and spiritual
get-together in the country. To those of us
who have ventured to the northern Michigan
woods for the fete, it is simply called “Michi
gan”.) In the five days I spent listening, talking
and living music (and women), I found that
there’s a lot of great performers out there,
and that my turntable would not be bored for
some time to come.
The changes in women’s music are hap
pening at several levels. The most obvious is
the growth of the genie as a whole. Back in
the early 1970s when the commercial appeal
of music written by and for women was just
beginning, there weren't a whole lot of wo
men who knew how to mix a record, how to
produce a concert or even how to start a
band. We had to rely, to some degree, on the
knowledge held by men. By the same token,
the freedom to make music that centered on
the fact that the artist was a dyke was not as
available. What was apparent however, was
that there were dykes, and by some miracu
lous efforts on the part of women who wanted
more out of life than Anne Murray, we created
record companies, distribution networks and
music producers. We found our culture.
In creating that culture, however, some
thing was forgotten. When I played high
school basketball, the coach lived in constant
fear of having a crummy junior varsity team. If
there were no new players being trained to
take over when the varsity graduated, the
basketball program would die. Olivia Records,
arguably the leader in dictating what — for
lack of a better term — I’ll call modem lesbian
pop culture, seemed to lack a J.V. team. The
rest of us did, too. Older women (I’m 25, so I
consider anyone over 30 older) were left
wondering what happened to the early ac
tivism that sparked political and cultural
change, and we younger women had not yet
found our place with a pop culture that had
gained steam merely 10 years earlier. The old
music didn't totally speak to us, and our
cultural and political viewpoint was changing.
But during the void of the early 1980s, wo
men still kept making music and political
choices, Olivia and Redwood Records got
bigger, and we kept hearing from each other.
The result was a larger number of women
artists who, finally, are ready to burst into
lesbian superstardom. Olivia and Redwood,
for example, are now pushing Deidre McCalla
and Hunter Davis, two Michigan acts who will
show up in Portland before the year is ou t
Casselberry-DuPree, an incredible duo on the
Iceberg Records label, were a smash at
Michigan. Several others of different styles of
music are available, and the musical and
technical quality of recordings are sounding
better than ever. In addition, the variety of
political messages are stressing racial issues,
religious issues and some music doesn’t even
Unique,
excellent and very
affordable!"
stress an issue at alL (Hey, that’s refreshing.)
So we finally have a new varsity. But in
1986, the game is being played differently.
Opening up the genre means opening up the
definitions of women’s music to include more
than politically correct statements and white,
lesbian love songs. And the sheer numbers of
different types of groups means the traditional
women’s music audience (even with all our
incredible wealth) cannot support the number
of women out there who deserve to make a
living doing their music. To survive culturally
and financially, women’s music needs to tap
the mainstream audience.
I’m sure the idea of having men in the
audience of an Alix Dobkin concert produces
chills in the traditional souls of some lesbians.
In addition, big-name labels are threatening
to start distributing some albums, and the
local women’s music distributors who built
an incredible network stand to lose money. If
Tower Records sells albums, it means less
money for women’s bookstores. The key is to
work to keep the space we have, and grow
into larger markets — not at the expense of
women producers and distributors, but in
conjunction with them. I still buy as much
music as I can from the women’s bookstore. I
hear women’s music at straight clubs, when
possible, and go to women-only events. I
remain steadfast in working to preserve
spiritual drinking fountains such as Michigan
and women-only spaces. But I also believe
there are a lot of straight people who can
benefit from hearing good, feminist music
and a lot of money in the pockets of some of
these same people.
Another important aspect of opening our
culture to a diverse audience is what it can
bring into the culture. A genre dominated for
too long by the middle-class, white camomile
tea crowd can grow stagnant Culture is not
static, however. To grow, new ideas and new
energy needs to be introduced. And, happily,
that is happening. One small example is Max
ine Howard, a Saturday night act at Michigan.
I mean you should have heard the rumors fly
after her set Imagine a woman dressed in
black leather hotpants and a tuxedo jacket
kicking out the hottest rock and roll ever to hit
Michigan. Some said she was straight Some
were incredibly offended by the music, writ
ten by the likes of Chuck Berry and B.B. King.
But damn if you couldn't dance to it And
after she left the stage, Teresa Trull took over,
and we heard from a white lesbian who has
been around almost since the onset of com
mercial women's music. And we had diversity,
we had empowerment and most importantly,
we had fun.
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