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BIG STEREO SLUTTY FRINGE CROOKED RAIN INTERVIEWS Interview with Francine Lee for the Sadie Lou Standard (unpublished) 1/07 My first inclination is to say that I'm not doing anything, but then I remember that there is a lot going on. I started writing a gay experimental fiction / porno zine called SCORCHER and I just finished the second issue, which I'm trying desperately to get out to people (anybody want one?). I started a blog, fagcity.blogspot.com, and I am going to begin publishing interviews with people. Also, I was in a play called WAITING FOR BARBARA that was at Galapagos on December 4th. I'm also working on a graffiti campaign and writing new songs for a still-embryonic rock opera called FAG CITY. How has life changed since graduating and how has your life as an artist/performer/musician changed since leaving Sarah Lawrence? I've had a blast since graduation. Unfortunately, I do not have a trust fund or wealthy parents so I have to work to pay rent. I don't want to sound bitter-- I'm very grateful. I go-go danced briefly and would be very happy making my living that way (PUTTING MY DEGREE TO USE). The nightclub hosts I worked with might disgaree. Obviously, I wish I had more time to work on things that are meaningful to me, or that I could sustain myself on making zines / performance / art work, but I don't have any real complaints in that regard. Shit gets done cause it has to. Performing outside of SLC is really great. It's harder to get shows, obviously, in "the real world", but the crowds are usually (hopefully?) more engaged and interested. Performing at school was wonderful, but it's nice to sing in front of people who don't already know a ton about me. I know somewhat that you've been involved in a number of musical groups at Sarah Lawrence. Which one are you focused on now and has the music changed/morphed? Where are you playing? And how has the response been? I was in a bunch of bands while I was at SLC, and I had a really great time. Unfortunately, I'm a really horrible collaborator in most respects. I'm often late, pretty selfish, and bad at compromise (when it comes to music). So I've been focusing on my "solo" project, Max Steele and the Party Ice. I've been sort of scrambling for shows, it can sometimes be hard to find interesting all-ages, women and queer-friendly spaces. It's difficult to translate what I do into a guitar-boy rock club band environment. Sometimes people don't like to dance. Other times, though, kids will want to get really deep with you. I played at the Knitting Factory on my birthday, opening for Gravy Train!!!! and the response was so weird. I played really early, so the crowd was either die-hard Gravy Train!!!! fans (which is to say, teenage homos) or my friends (post-teen homos). Total strangers were really sweet to me, it was unexpected. Something that kind of plagued me at Sarah Lawrence was the ways in which the tiny social environment breeds a certain kind of audience. When I performed punk songs with a cello or ukulele, people would see it as "cello music" or "ukulele music" rather than listening to the words. When I began using beats, people saw it as "electro" and wouldn't think about the content or question the form. I mean, I studied with Judith Rodenbeck, I'm a good little postmodernist, I can name-check Derrida and "the medium is the massage" and all, but soometimes crowds at SLC are so familiar with the performers as people that they forget the seriousness of the work (this happens a LOT in the Visual Arts department). Also, ore than a few times while performing at SLC, people would come up to me after shows at ask me who did my beats, where I got my music from. This hasn't happened when I play in NYC. What was it like to come back to your alma mater to play for your former schoolmates? I always have a blast playing at Sarah Lawrence. I actually came and played in September, with my dear dear friends from San Francisco: the Judy Experience and Man-Haterrr. That show was really special because I got to play with old friends and musically kindred spirits (Mason of Man-Haterr runs a tape label and distro, Bird Girl, that puts out a lot of my stuff. He is also my soul-sister from way back). It was also a really great, explicitly radically Gay! line-up. So, of course, was the Genderfuck Variety Show. (Maybe the bands at the Genderfuck show were a little bit more 'East-Coast'? I consider myself an archtypal Californian). You mentioned in our emails that there were no female-fronted band at the show on Friday which was an event organized for and by a feminist group on campus... What are your thoughts on that? As someone who used to book events on campus, I am very familiar with the difficulty of booking diverse performers. There were, of course, performers displaying a variety of gender presentations at the show. It would have been nice, I think, to see more female-fronted performances, but I don't want to nit-pick (wasn't The Good Fight female co-fronted? Am I being petty?). I will say that when I've played at the Battle of the Bands at SLC in the past, the almost complete lack of female performers (save the ineffable Lindsay Sanwald) was striking. Sarah Lawrence definitely has a perverse inclination towards Golden-Boy Worship when it comes to campus performances, but I completely trust FLUX to have their bases covered. I wish I could have seen more of the Genderfuck Symposium. I met Ginger Takahashi, member of The Ballet and also a zine artist, most notably known for LTTR (Lesbians to the Rescue). What was it like playing in the same event as someone you've admired for such a long time? I sort of only tangentially know Ginger's work. I found out the day of the show that she had been a visiting artist at SLC and I think that is rad. I've never really met her and didn't get a chance to fawn over her at the show. Lesbians To The Rescue is a really wonderful art magazine and I admire it's creators very much. I wish I had been able to come see Ginger give her presentation. In the past, I've been lucky enough to meet some really awesome people brought in for the school. Meeting people like Bruce LaBruce, Kiki Smith, Aura Rosenberg, Becky Howland, Wynne Greenwood, etc. was really influential for me and for a lot of other students. The importance of visiting artists cannot be understated. Gender Fuck was a weeklong symposium of events organized by FLUX, what are your thoughts on gender and sexual diversity after departing from the Sarah Lawrence Community? How have to dealt with the "real world", for lack of a better term, and the issues of gender and sexual diversity? An ongoing issue for me during my time at SLC was the issue of reactionary and unsafe elements on campus. I can't tell you how many times people would complain to me about "reverse racism / sexism / homophobia", or about how there were "not enough straight guys" (meaning too many gay guys, meaning me, meaning I should leave?). I worked at the TeaHaus all four years I was there, and often had mid-afternoon dance parties. Sometimes I'd play Madonna. Once, after my sophomore year, an unidentified straight boy too chicken-shit to ask me to change the music actually COMPLAINED ABOUT ME to Student Life, saying that basically, my presence as a gay human being made the TeaHaus a "heterophobic" space. Thankfully, the graceful, respectful and intelligent Student Life staff did not give this much credence. I think what FLUX and the Genderfuck organizers are doing is really important. SLC is so small, and has so many really wonderful, engaged people and truly dedicated institutional resources. The kids there have the real potential to foster an environment of safety and respect, in which everyone is accounted for. And on a last note, what's next on your agenda? I really want to travel, and use my art / performance as a vehicle to do that. It'd help if I knew how to drive (I'm very cosmopolitan, and I try not to support the war, so I take public transit). I want to participate more in community-based performance, try and make the world a more encouraging space for queer performers and writers. I am writing some new songs, thinking about some new good essays, making some new friends. Interview with Jayson Couture 5/07 BUBBLE POP ELECTRIC: Creativity is a beautiful thing, Some people are born with it, while others just gain it out of trial, error and experience. Max Steele is a gorgeous, funky little soul. He beats to his own drum and uses his own god given talent of creativity to make you tap your feet. Tell me a little bit about your music. I used to play all the instruments when I performed, then I found these cute little Todd Oldham booty shorts in a thrift store, and I needed to get an excuse to put them on. So I started making music to dance to. Interview with Ben Mattingly 8/05 Who were your favorite bands/artists in high school? |
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