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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 2002)
march L W J— i — >|37 MUSIC .................▼.................. n the early to mid-70s, lesbians promi nently placed their Holly Near and Chris Williamson albums in the living rcxnn as an unspoken message to other women. A well-known code was to ask another woman you suspected (or hoped) to he a lesbian, “Do you know Holly V * Williamson and Near pioneered “women’s music,” and the very notion that the term might be outdated is due to their phenomenal success. The folk heroes have spent more than 25 years battering down industry walls that obstruct open lesbians from controlling, publishing and playing their own music. O n March 16, Williamson and Near will play Aladdin Theater-as a benefit for the Hambleton Project, a direct ser vices network for lesbians with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. O n March 15, Near will speak at Portland Community College as part of W om ens History M onth festivities. Ju st Out spoke with the busy icons between performance dates throughout the United States. Kim Stephenson: During my first gay march in 1975, I witnessed the savage beating of a gay man by a policeman with a billy club. I know it sounds obvi ous, but the environment today is so dif ferent. How was it that the both of you were so brave back then? Chris Williamson: 1 didn’t know I was brave. If someone is under the thumb of some one oppressive, you step up. You just do. It was just the right thing to do. 1 didn’t think about my own safety. I thought about my voice— that 1 could put that to work. Feminists at the time came right up to me, pointed their finger and said: “We want you. We need you. We need your music." Previous to that, people said, “That’s nice music, but we don’t know wbat it is.” My music found a home in the feminist movement, and I found a home there. Holly Near: 1 think there was a growing movement happening that created a cushion. The culture always serves the movement, and the movement always serves the culture. We see that in the civil rights movement. The music empowers the people doing the social change work, and the music is informed by [that] work. I think it was much braver for someone to walk into a small-town grocery store with an “I’m gay!" button on or come out in a work place than it was for us, because they were alone. A kind of support network surrounded us, and it was an unstoppable energy. for a checkup, 1 think, “What if?" In fear lie our victories. When you confront fear you will gain strength. Now we have the cushion and arms of community. Think of the women who didn’t have that— the women before us. 1 have a friend who went through radical surgery and got so depressed, and it’s been a struggle for two years to come back with a good body image, and the community was there. It think it’s a solo journey, like heartbreak is. You have to go through the eye of the needle alone. It’s a kind of death and rebirth, I think. H N : There is a lot of cancer in my family: my aunt, my uncle, my father. It’s been in our blood. I have a friend now who lives out in the woods, and when she comes in for chemo, she has a key to the house and she stays here. There are many ways that our lives are riddled with disease and dysfunction, and the only way we can make that work for our selves is to have community. I think it is outrageous [President] Bush and other politicians present themselves like they are taking care of us. W e are taking care of us. J H Chris Williamson and Holly Near bring women’s music to Portland We K S: fought really In your 3 0 by _____ K im S t ep h e n s o n hard to become years as part of accessible and visible as les the lesbian culture, how bians. In the ’60s you didn’t hear the word “les have you seen it change, and how do you see bian” much. It was a word to be said behind a your contributions? hand. We became some of the visible signs of H N : We wanted to lay the groundwork for lesbian culture. women to be able to sing the songs they want ed to sing— songs about their real lives— rather If you talk about mainstream— and I think than having to shave off the truth to get their of it metaphorically as a big mother river— there are lots of little feeder streams. I am one, music played. And that happened to such a as is Holly, but unless the water is a different degree that the next generation of women color, you don’t know we are in there. went sailing by us into the music industry and found themselves on the cover of Time maga K S: The concert in zine and doing big tours, etc. We didn’t realize Portland is a benefit we would be that successful.... for the Hambleton The other side of it is there is still not nxim Project. Has either for radical politics in the music industry, and one of you or any we continue to carry that position. It dix;sn’t one you’re close to matter if you are a lesbian or anti-imperialist; been touched by the chances are the mainstream corporate breast cancer? music industry will not subsidize or promote CW : Yes. I have you. It’s important to remember the cutting not been touched per edge never makes it to the middle. sonally, thankfully, but CW : Sometimes you become part of the it could happen. culture, and you don’t know it. “Song of the Every time I Soul,” for example, is huge in churches all over go get a mam the world, and it doesn’t matter that a lesbian mogram or go wrote it. C hris W illiamson and H olly N ear play 8 p.m . March 16 at Aladdin Theatre, 3017 SE Milwaukee Ave. Tickets— $20 or $50 for reserved seating and postshow reception with the artists— are available from the box office, It’s My Pleasure or Ticketmaster. N ear will speak about music's role in sociopolitical events at 1:30 p.m. March 15 in Room 122 at Terrell Hall on Portland Commumty College's C ascade Cam pus, 705 N . Killingsworth St. For more information call 503-978-5248. K im S tephenson is a Portland free-lance writer. T he celebrated pair are old friends onstage and off eJlie S&Ue ‘-Boutique The adult gift shop fo r lovers with good taste" “ * V * V * V V V A dult G ifts & C ards L otions & P otions M assage O ils M en ' s & W omen ’ s L ingerie S ex T oys N ovelties A dult C andies & G ames 20% O ft S elected L ong G owns Open Mon-Sat 1720 SE 122nd Avenue • Portland OR 503-252-2017 • www.lboutique.com
