Street roots., April 13, 2012, Image 1

WWW.
APRIL 13, 2012
reloaded
........... ;
P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F M IC H E L L E S H O C K E D
o
f
the
80s,
is
back
-
and
recharged!
the
altna-folk
icon
Michelle Shocked,
music-executive wannabe, Pete Lawrence at
BY SUE ZALOKAR
S T A F F W R IT E R
the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas. He
pulled out a Sony cassette player, recorded
ichelle Shocked doesn’t fit into any
the session, returned to England and there
category, really, except genuine.
released the bootleg album, “The Texas
She hails from East Texas - a self-
proclaimed hillbilly with the requisite Campfire Sessions” without Shocked s
knowledge. Shocked learned months later
degree in the oral interpretation of
that she was on the charts in England. In
literature. Having traveled the world as a
January of 1987, Shocked performed her
military brat turned “skateboard punk-
very first professional gig at the Queen
rocker” turned folk icon turned student of
Elizabeth Hall in London.
gospel music turned born-again
Shocked signed with Mercury Records in
fundamentalist Christian, she continues to
the late 80s and released three albums on
shock her followers into reality as if to say,
the label. The relationship ended in a bitter
“This is who I am. Be who you are.”
lawsuit against the corporate machinery,
At 16, she ran away from home and
with Shocked retaining full ownership of her
became a troubadour, residing in squats in
songs.
Amsterdam and San Francisco. She was
In 2010, she launched Roadworks, an
arrested for protesting at the 1984
ongoing, 5-year touring project. This month
Democratic National Convention in San
she will “Roccupy” Portland at Mississippi
Francisco (the photo of her arrest became
Studios on April 27.
the cover for her album, “Short Sharp
Shocked”). In 1986, Shocked met English
M
S u e Zalokar: You have said, “I c a n t tell
you where I am going - as an artist - but I
can tell you where I come from. ” Where do you
come from?
M ichelle Shocked: I was a runaway
when I was 16. Unlike a lot of runaways, I
finished school. You know, I didn t really
run away. I was kicked out, I was thrown
away and I think that is something that a lot
of people - people caught up in that cycle of
homelessness experiences - feel. Your self
esteem takes such a mortal blow. You
cannot find a single, solid piece of ground to
stand on to have any sense of worth that
you even deserve the shelter everybody
needs. It’s a downward spiral. A lot of
people self-medicate, not everybody...I did.
But when I finally found a politically active
community of squatters in San Francisco, it
gave me just enough of a foothold to realize
that I wasn’t in this thing alone - that
what I was dealing with many other people
were dealing with.
I lived in Amsterdam and squatted there,
in a fairly liberal economy, it was a
revelation to me that it was decriminalized
to be homeless. It was like, you weren’t a
criminal because you were poor. And when
the city and the national government helped
its youth, it basically was creating a safety
net for them to say, “well they’ve got to live
somewhere”. So we had an entire economy
built around squats. We had squat cafes and
restaurants, even a squat barber shop. I was
working with a pirate radio station that was
in a squat. So because we didn’t have to
struggle with sheer survival, we had the
luxury of organizing ourselves into a
collective that was very productive and very
positive and really helped me to get a
foothold. I never forgot that experience.
And then shortly after that, I found out that
See SHOCKED page 5
Inside
Life after war
Portland
photographer Jim
Lommasson
documents
returning veterans
Page 3
Making right
The State of
from wrong
Housing
Fariborz Pakseresht
takes the helm of
the Oregon Youth
Authority
Portland City
Commissioner Nick
Fish lays out the
city’s story on
housing
Page 4
Page 8