38 ju st « i t • September tS. 2000
©
PAIAMO/
G a y D ads
ßun
Zen C e n t e r
2539 SE Madison Portland, Oregon 97214
503-239-4846 Fax: 503-239-5217
E-mail Staff@Dharma-Raln Org
D iscussion / S upport G roup
M eetings
T wice monthly
Book 'em, Tam
Portland woman creates her own perfect career
by
O r ia n a G r een
www Dharma-Ram Org
Dharma Ram Zen Center is a Soto Zen
Temple
for
Lay
practice,
bringing
P e r t in e n t T o p ic s :
C o m in g O ut
D iv o r c e
C ustody
R e l a t io n s h ip s w it h K ids
C o m m e n t s f r o m K ids
people
together to build community and wisdom through
practice
DRZC offers retreats classes, intro
ductory workshops, and sesshins
The Zendo
space is shared with groups in the Vipassana.
Tibetan. & Zen traditions, creating
a unique atmosphere and oppor
tunities for learning about Budd
hism and its daily application
Kyogen and Gyokuko Carlson,
resident teachers
For information call:
M ike / D on
T e r r y
667-9159
697-7004
Help form a GALA Mixed Chorus
Open house, Sunday, Sept 24, 3-5p.m
Gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and allies invited to sing
each Sunday afternoon, 3-5pm at the
Unitarian Universalist Congregation o f Salem, 5090 Center St. NE.
For Information call 541-754-4144, or e-mail UUTUNES@AOL.COM=
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et s say
you’re
putting; on
Pride 2000 in
Dubuque or Des Moines and
you need a lesbian headliner
for your bash— who ya gonna
call ? Only one answer: the
Queen of A-list lesbian
entertainment, Tam Martin. Where ya gonna
call her? At her Beachfront Productions office
in Portland. As the name of her company
hints, it didn’t start out 60 miles from the sea
hut a whole lot closer— in Long Beach, Calif.,
to he exact.
Martin’s life began far from the sea as
well— in Spokane, Wash., which she tied for
California as a young adult. Her first job out of
college was a plum: kxiking artist tours for
Olivia Records, the womens music pioneer.
“Olivia was a little grassroots company, and
they made it up as they went along— and they
got really good at it," Martin explains over a
recent alfresco lunch. “Out of that, all kinds of
women’s businesses grew—distributors, man
agers, producers, festivals.”
Martin and her position at Olivia evolved
together as she took on more and more publici
ty and kxiking duties. “The highlight for me
was getting to know the performers and work
ing with them,” she says.
But by 1987, she’d outgrown the job and
hungered to he her own Hiss. A t the time she
started Beachfront Productions, most of
Olivia’s performers had no agent or manager, so
it seemed natural for Martin to he the one to
offer those services.
She initially had just a few clients, includ
ing Cris Williamson and Tret Fure. Through
the years she added many more, until she was
Uxiking most of the touring lesbian musicians.
It rankles Martin a hit when she reads in
the national media what an innovative idea
Lilith Fair was, or even the recent Ladyfest,
because she ran her own music festival for five
years in the early ’90s: the Pacific Northwest
Womens Music and Cultural JamNiree. That
mouthful came to he known as "Tam’s Jam.”
Martin had to work really long hours during
the first three years running Beachfront and
had eight full-time clients on her list last year,
which caused her to work harder than she real
ly wanted to at this point in her life. So she’s
scaled hack to four full-time clients:
Williamson, Holly Near, Ferron and Suzanne
Westenhoefcr.
For that stellar quartet, Martin acts as
agent, which involves doing the deals for all
their gigs, making travel arrangements, snag
ging interviews and so on. That adds up to 100
dates a year for Westenhoefer and aH>ut half
that number for the rest.
As with most kinds of agents, Martin earns
a percentage of whatever her clients earn. But
what’s
unusual is she’s
never had a con
tract with her performers;
all her agreements with them
are oral.
“In 20 years, I’ve never
had a problem— we just do
it. We believe in each other,
we’re all friends, and we’re gixxl for our word.”
Martin also prtxluces some events, especial
ly fund-raisers. She brought Westenhixifer to
Portland earlier this year as a benefit for Equity
Foundation.
“1 love doing it,” she enthuses, “hut it’s
more lucrative for me to kxik than to prcxluce
because there’s no risk.” (The prixlucer rents
the hall, pays for advertising plus other upfront
costs and, if tickets sales are sluggish,, could lose
money on the deal.)
Although Martin jokes that her job is to
“Sell, sell, sell— Do I have a show for you!”—
the amazing fact is, akuit half of the gigs she
kxiks for her clients are fund-raisers for such
causes as AIDS, breast cancer, Greenpeace,
No on 9 and so forth. T hat means k ith she
and her performers work for reduced fees.
“As long as audiences keep coming, I’ll
keep doing it,” she says, not ready to retire her
dialing finger anytime soon.
Martin has also worked with Robin Tyler
on k ith the Marches on Washington, D.C., for
gay and lesbian rights. Another fun thing she
has done for the past decade is kxik artists on
all the Olivia cruises.
Then, gee, someone has to take the cruise to
act as stage manager for the performances, so
Martin often wears that hat, tcxi, which has
taken her to some far-flung places. In fact, she
just returned from Greece, Egypt and Turkey.
Nice work, and she can get it!
“My passion is traveling all over the world,”
she admits, eyes gleaming with visions of a
future trip to Thailand.
Martin organizes her day so she has free
time to pursue her latest hobby, French lessons.
“Mornings are hustley,” she says, “but 1 love
having control of my time.”
Her main rule is: If it’s not fun, stop doing
it! Good words to live by.
One gets the sense Tam Martin has figured
out how to have plenty of fun in her life. She
and her partner of nine years recently celebrat
ed their anniversary in Paris.
Does it getting any better than that? Well,
maybe— they’re already planning their 10th for
Australia.
1 love what I do, and my clients truly are
my friends, Martin reiterates. “We’re a team
and we have fun and we do work for gcxxi
causes that we all believe in. I feel so lucky,
because I just made this job up!”
We all should he so lucky!
in