Cafe Select

Night's like last night are why I play music. Small stage, spotlight, rad ambiance, trendy atmosphere, couches and a full house that interacts and listens :)

Thank you to Jordan Payne for his stellar guitar licks and roadie skills :) Thanks also to Chris Quesnel and Cafe Select for having me.

The Vue Newspaper Article

I was interviewed last week for an article about women in today's music scene. You can read it below. The Vue is Edmonton's only 100% independent news and music weekly. If you want to know what's happening around the city... this is where you look. A total honor :)

MUSIC

IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP WHEN WOMEN ROCK 'N' ROLL

EDEN MUNRO / eden@vueweekly.com

Spend a few minutes scouring the internet looking for something along the lines of “sexy album covers” and you’ll quickly turn up a vast assortment of images that have graced the jackets of all kinds of records, from Whitesnake’s Love Hunter to Ween’s Chocolate and Cheese to Christina Aguilera’s Stripped. And while there’s plenty of variety in the sounds that each of those albums holds within its covers, the one thing shared amongst them all—and plenty of others, too—is the placement of scantily clad women at the front and centre.

It’s difficult to deny that, for most of its history, rock ‘n’ roll has been a male dominated form of music but not every female is under the thumb of male powers. While someone like Madonna, who keeps a tight reign on the control of both her image and her music, might be an exception in a world that is beset by insta-star making machines like American Idol, with singers being judged more on their ability to perform material written by professional songwriters than their own creativity, the fact remains that there are women out there who are capable of so much more, and who are right now flexing their own creative muscles.

Kim Rackel makes up one half of the horn section in The Wet Secrets, and she admits that there were a few female musicians who intrigued her as a child—The Misfits, the rocker girls from the cartoon Jem and the Holograms, and Joan Jett—but as much as she was thrilled by the images, she was never won over by an aesthetic alone
“I was pretty infatuated with Madonna when I was little, and Michael Jackson—I loved Michael Jackson, as well—but I think it was more the sparkles and the dancing,” she recalls. “It was the music—I loved the music, too—but I think it was the whole package ... I thought it was pretty goddamn cool.”

The other half of the band’s horn section is Donna Ball, who has also held down the bass for local metal band Some Won Spit, and she agrees with Rackel’s assertion that music is about more than simply the image. Counting off the first bands that she listened to while growing up, Ball doesn’t name a single act with any sort of official female presence.

“When I was a kid I really liked Bon Jovi and Def Leppard, Glass Tiger—whatever my sister listened to is what I liked when I was little,” she explains. “I didn’t really think about female influence. It was always 100 per cent music. I was always more about music—I can play music, I like it, I’m good at it—more so than having an idol in music.”
After moving from the West Coast to Edmonton, singer-songwriter Sall Gibson says that she has been impressed with the number of girls she has seen out playing at this city’s numerous open mic nights. Gibson says that her initial influences were, like Ball’s, more male-centric than female, though for different reasons.

“If anything, women musicians influenced me in a reverse way,” she chuckles. “Because my vocal styling is in a lower range I was frustrated constantly because I couldn’t sing any of the female songwriters that I liked, so I ended up playing a lot of guy’s songs.”

Just as women count plenty of male musicians as influences, the opposite is often true of men. Edmonton’s Eamon McGrath, who performs solo and with both The Wild Dogs and Red Medicine, says that he was already looking up to local all-girl punk band The Homewrekers when he was 13 years old, and today he lists both Joni Mitchell and Lucinda Williams among his favourite songwriters. McGrath is also quick to add that he likes all of them because of their songs, not the novelty of a woman playing music.

In fact, the idea of shaking up the traditional male mentality of rock ‘n’ roll with a female presence is something that McGrath takes seriously—the drummer in his first band was a girl and until just a few days ago his girlfriend was playing bass in The Wild Dogs.

“It’s good to have girls in bands because they do bring a specific perspective to the music,” McGrath considers. “There’s something very male about rock ‘n’ roll and when you see a perspective from the other side of the gender fence it’s really refreshing.

“I’m not trying to say that there are these great, vast differences between guys and girls,” he emphasizes before continuing, “but the reality is that rock ‘n’ roll is a phallic kind of attitude historically, and changing that up is good.”

If there is some pressure for female musicians to put forward a particular image, it certainly doesn’t manifest itself in some overarching rule that applies to everyone, as Gibson makes clear.

“Because I’m a songwriter and I’m a reasonably proficient guitar player, I don’t really think about the image thing too much,” she says. “I mean, I’m most comfortable on stage with my toque and my hoody and would never really think twice about going on stage like that.”

For Rackel and Ball, sexuality is something that they have few problems with when it comes to the stage—in addition to The Wet Secrets, both women also perform with Capital City Burlesque.

“I can pretty much get on the stage and act like a total retard and take off my clothes at the same time, and be okay with it,” Rackel laughs, adding, “So I guess prancing around in the giant boots and the little marching band outfits that we have—we’re pretty comfortable doing it.”

Bobbi-Jo Moore, the singer/guitarist for Vancouver’s The Elixxxirs, admits that she’s never had any serious difficulties in music that she would attribute to her gender and she points out that there are some possible advantages for females in the industry, too, partly due to the fact that there are statistically a whole lot more men playing in bands.

“For me, booking gigs is really easy and it has been ever since I started the band,” she notes. “Even if [a promoter] hadn’t heard our music or anything, if I went up and talked to them they’d seem to give us a show. So I’m not exactly sure if that’s because I’m female—I think that has something to do with it—or if it’s my outgoing personality, but I’ve heard from a lot of my friends who are guys in bands and they don’t seem to have the same success. They have to try harder to get gigs.”

Moore goes on to say that she would be at a bit of a loss if image were the number one concern.
“One of the things that attracts our fans is the songs,” she says. “I’m not the greatest singer in the world and I’m not the greatest guitar player, either, but I write really great songs [that are] catchy and people like to dance to them. As a female, if I was singing other people’s songs it would be a lot harder.”

She sees the respect that she gets from other musicians as a direct result of working her way up from the bottom, rather than being plucked from obscurity and paraded around by a bunch of handlers.

In the end, Ball agrees that it’s important for women to prove themselves as musicians. “I don’t think a lot of people think that girls can play,” she admits regarding the challenges facing female musicians today, but she adds that, once the initial shock wears off, acceptance is usually not all that far behind. “You just have to prove yourself, I suppose.
“It’s almost not a sex issue and just an issue of talent, because I think that everyone has to go through it,” she says. “I don’t think it matters what gender you are.” V

The Big Reshuffle

Man!! If I have to re evaluate, contemplate on or dig deep on any more issues in my life... i think i might have to be committed:) too much too much!!!!!

anyway. i have a show next thursday at cafe select. hope to see you there. i am excited about this one :)