The EYE WEEKLY CMW 3-Way Throwdown
Sponsored by
General Nutrition Centre. Part of Canadian Music Week, March 11-13. The
Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen W). CMW wristband or $10 at the door.
www.eyeweekly.com/cmw.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11
(Presented in partnership with The MuseBox)
9pm - The Job
10pm - Everything All The Time
11pm - Foxfire
12am - Lioness
1am - Mansion
THURSDAY, MARCH 12
9pm - Castlemusic
10pm - Angela Desveaux
11pm - The Week That Was
12am - Slim Twig
1am - Rural Alberta Advantage
FRIDAY, MARCH 13
9pm - Hooded Fang
10pm - Teen Anger
11pm - Japandroids
12am - Josh Reichmann Oracle Band
1am - The Best
EYE WEEKLY’S showcase at Canadian Music Week features several of Toronto’s excellent female musicians. Kate Carraway moderated a roundtable discussing the state of the union of women and music in Toronto, to investigate via 10 different perspectives how, why, and when being female impacts the experience of making music in this city.
EYE WEEKLY: Do you think being invited to a roundtable like this is tokenistic or inherently limiting?
Alanna Stuart (Everything All The Time): I don’t think that women coming together is tokenistic, but I do think women coming together for International Women’s Day can be an exception.
April Aliermo (Hooded Fang): I agree with Alanna, I think it's good to talk about women’s issues. When I got the invite [to this roundtable], it made me think about it carefully. I’m always thinking about my presence as a woman on the scene, but it made me reflect and analyze whether there is a big issue about women in the music scene.
Mary Cobham (Everything All The Time): Gender doesn’t factor into music much for me so talking about it almost makes an issue of nothing. Or, it makes it seem like it factors in [to my life as a musician] more than it does. I’m not saying it doesn’t entirely factor in but I’m saying it doesn’t as much. But at the same time, I’m happy to talk about it.
EYE WEEKLY: Do you consider yourselves or call yourselves feminists?
Vanessa Fischer (Lioness): Feminism is more about equality and everyone [being] treated the same. I’m sure most of you feel like you’re a musician before you’re a woman. Do you feel like that? I feel like I’m a singer before I’m a woman. A [journalist] asked me, “How does being a woman empower you or challenge you?” And I thought, it’s such a loaded question, because you only get asked that as a girl. So I wrote, “You’re only asking me this because I’m a girl. You never ask, ‘How does being a man empower or challenge you in this industry?’”
April: I can see why that question would make me think, “What the hell? Why are you asking me? Fuck you.” You know? But at the same time it’s good that it’s addressed because…. When did women get the vote in Canada?
Hannah Krapivinsky (Foxfire): I think right now we’re [suffering] a bit of a lag. There isn’t much changeover. The world was set up by men for hundreds of years and because of that we still suffer and there are consequences from that, like [problems with] body image, and the media consequences of that. However, I do feel it has changed... I think that young girls are in a great position to do what they want to do.
Amy Cole (Rural Alberta Advantage): It worries me that the word “feminist” seems to be taking on a negative connotation in some areas. I read an interview with Kelly Clarkson a few weeks ago and she was asked if she was a feminist and she said no because she thinks men and women are already equal. That’s great, but why does that mean you’re not a feminist? It didn’t make any sense, and I’m, like, “Oh God, she has so many fans who are girls and who are afraid of that word.” It’s so weird.
Alanna: I don’t know if I can call myself a feminist because I don’t know what it means anymore. Feminism has been slandered so many times. But, at the same time, in the traditional sense of the word, my dad is a feminist and my mom is a feminist because I just grew up in an environment where my mom would teach me how to change a tire and how to dress for church in the morning, and my dad would say eating tomatoes in the morning are good for women’s health, but he would also teach me to shift gears in an 18-wheeler truck. I never had a division of roles so I never had to... I don’t want to say never had to be a feminist, but I never considered myself that way, sort of, in the same way it’s like considering myself as a woman. It’s just what you know and how you were raised. I don’t know if I consider myself a feminist but I would like to read the definition of what it is in 2009.
Julia Barnes (Hooded Fang): I consider myself a feminist but I avoid talking about it in those terms. It’s more like I make my values known where appropriate through action.
Violca Yryku (Mansion): I totally consider myself a feminist, especially in the industry that I’m in — the dance music, DJ-ing industry — that’s a boys’ club. I think the fact that my DJ partner and production partner [Barletta] is a man kind of helps the fact that we’re so [well-known]. But I totally have to stand my ground. I’m getting to a certain point where I’m getting more respect because now I’m competing with the bigwigs in the DJ industry, so it feels fantastic.
Hannah: I think it’s easier to get written off as a girl in a band in general.
EYE WEEKLY: What do you think about how you represent yourself onstage?
Vanessa: I’ve been compared to Karen O so many times, but I don’t understand why that is. The only reason is because I’m a girl. Can anyone else see Karen O [when you look at me]? I just find it's easier [for music writers] to draw those [comparisons] and then dismiss you in that way. I’ve read so many things about my hair or what I’m wearing, which has no relevance to the music I make or anything I’m part of. I changed my hair today, do you have to write about it?
Alanna: I had an Afro over the summer and people were saying, “Oh, don’t cut your hair, that’s you!” [It’s] like, there’s nothing more to me than hair, tits, ass and a “diva voice.” It’s just bringing it down to the lowest common denominator. I don’t think I’ve ever really been — unless I’m referring to myself and being adamant about it — referred to as a singer/songwriter/producer. People say I have a great voice and am a great entertainer; well, yeah, I’ve been doing this since I was eight, I hope that I got good at something. But there’s so much more to what I’m doing, and when you have a male counterpart, people don’t think to look deeper. They just look at the surface. It’s frustrating, because the situation itself is frustrating. It takes so much energy to defend yourself and really put your contributions to your band on display, which is so stupid because that energy could be put into your music and your art. And at the same time, it’s frustrating because part of the energy is in fighting [to avoid] becoming a bitter woman. You don’t want to be that disgruntled woman who’s mad at the world because you’re all looking at my boobs. It’s a hard balance.
Lorna: Someone came up to me after a show and said, “I hate all girl singers. I don’t like their confidence on stage.” Or something like that. Anyways, then she said, “but I really liked you on stage” and I was, like, “Was I not confident?” It was a strange thing to hear that someone doesn’t like female singers because of how they present themselves on stage.
Julia: Something I do worry about when we perform is deciding how to present myself, because I like to play up my femininity and wear things that I think are really hot because I feel really comfortable and happy about that. But I worry that people won’t take me seriously.
Mary: I got tired of caring and it’s made me so much happier. It’s OK to be a stereotype sometimes; men and women end up being stereotypes at some point. We all do stereotypical and non-stereotypical things.
Hannah: We can’t keep the clothes on the guys in our band. It’s crazy. Our drummer generally just wears, like, underwear or maybe a Speedo, but often just colourful underwear. [Publications] that write about us only ever talk about how I don’t wear that much clothing, which can be true sometimes. But [the drummer] always wears way less than me and most of the guys in the band are wearing less than me. They only make mention of the fact that I’m an exhibitionist, so I don’t know what that’s about.
Amy: When [my band] started, we wore matching t-shirts and jeans and that’s what we wore for, like, two and a half, three years. We all looked the same, and it was awesome until very recently we decided to stop. And yes, I do feel more pressured now, trying to decide what I should bring to the photo shoot. I have to worry about it now.
Alanna: I just stopped caring. It was only recently that I stopped. Even for this photo shoot, I thought, “OK, I’m here. What would I wear on stage?” And that’s what I wore to the photo shoot [for this article]. Even being on stage as a female singing in other bands, I would wear jeans and t-shirts, tie back my afro, and not wear any make-up because I thought I would take [attention] away from the guys and be judged. I toured with 11 guys and I would always have my hair back and try to blend in the background. One of the guys was, like, “Don’t hold yourself back, be who you are. If you want to wear makeup, wear it, that’s fine.” And I was, like, “Fuck yeah.” I feel that our performances are better — I just feel more comfortable, and it's not forced. So however that manifests itself in the style, in the end it's just about doing what feels natural and trusting my intuition. Fuck people, really. Other people will naturally gravitate towards confidence and if you are not confident, people can tell. If you wear something that makes you not feel confident, people can tell. The good thing about bullshitters is that you can tell from a mile away.
Hannah: I think that what really attracts people to other people is the sense that they are true to being themselves, whether that is wearing something sexy and revealing, or just jeans and a t-shirt. I think the most attractive thing is when you can tell that a person is true to themselves onstage and off.
EYE WEEKLY: How does being female play into your relationships with bandmates and audiences?
Vanessa: I played with three guys who didn’t really show up on time, and I was always there on time. So I would always have to deal with sound guys, and I think if you don’t have any instruments [to set up], sometimes they are a bit harder on girl. I don’t know if that is because more men play music. I used to play in an all-girl band and we would always play shows with a friend’s band and he would be trying to adjust the knobs on our amps. We were, like, “We know what it’s suppose to sound like, we know what to do, why are you trying to help us like that? If we were guys, you definitely would not be adjusting the levels.”
Violca: I was DJing a party once, and this guy wanted to take over, and started adjusting my levels and shit. I was, like, “What are you doing? I’m playing music right now.” I got pretty pissed. I feel like they think, “Maybe she doesn’t know what she’s doing as much.” Fuck you.
Amy: As the only girl in our band, I feel like more and less is expected of me at the same time. One time after a show, a girl came up to me and said, “I was watching you closely because I don’t like when there’s girls in a band of guys. And so I watched you and you were really good.” I was, like, “Thanks?”
Lorna Wright (Hooded Fang): We have this set-up where we have a lead male singer and Julia and I sing a lot of backup. It seems like we’re falling into this mould, but at the same time we’ll have songs where I’m singing lead and [the men] are singing backup, so it’s a mixture, which is nice. But, I do go back and forth and feel confused about our roles and [whether we are] different.
Alanna: With men, I’m very businesslike and straight to the point. I think it’s because I want to be taken seriously. With women, I’m not confident enough to be as assertive because I don’t want to come off as a threat. But with men, it’s very much, “This is what’s going to [happen].” With women I want to be accommodating.
Violca: There aren’t a lot of female DJs in Toronto; it’s very male dominated. Once you get past [a certain] point then people give you extra props because you are a girl.
EYE WEEKLY: When you’re in a creative environment with your bandmates, is the power dynamic dependent on sex and gender?
Mary: Not really, but to an extent most of the guys I work with or have worked with know an incredible and really impressive amount about the technology of music, about software. I’m learning, but I’m definitely way behind. And as someone who likes to produce stuff, I feel like it’s a setback as far as, not necessarily as songwriting goes, but as far as picking the right sound goes.
Alanna: We are still developing a relationship [as producers] together, so there is that culture where I want to be assertive as a female and assertive as someone who has a creative vision. But it’s a different dynamic of male and female, and we have a lot of conversations that sound like we’re dating. It’s funny with co-producing things, I’m definitely on the computer and working a lot more but when people have suggestions, like, “You should try to do this with your song, get so-and-so to do it,” they don’t assume that I’m the person behind the board and sort of [producing] the vocals or coming up with the same bassline. It’s, “Get that other person to do it.”
Vanessa: I think with my first experience of [being in a band with men], it was sort of being in a band with people I just sort of met as opposed to the band that I’m in now, [Lioness] — my boyfriend is in the band, the other guy, I went to high school with. That sort of close friendship makes a better dynamic for us. I think it's really important to be friends, which is not to say that I wasn’t friends with everyone in No Dynamics. I really love those guys and everything. I think starting off, though, it made me feel a little more discouraged when I was voicing my own [opinion about] a song. I think when you’re a singer... I don’t know how anybody else does it, but they’ll write [music] stuff and then offer up the melodies to compliment [it], so sometimes when you’re just being a singer you’re just sort of sitting and waiting for everything to come together before your lightbulb goes off and you can [add vocals]. Sometimes I find... I don’t know, it’s not just because of being a girl, but it's because of not knowing how to play or not being proficient with drums. I just really like the idea of being in a band. I think that’s the only thing I learned from the one band to the other.
EYE WEEKLY: Were your experiences developing as a musician informed by being female?
Hannah: I would say that I was maybe more often encouraged to be a performer but not necessarily a musician. I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that I was a singer or the fact I was a woman, but I definitely wish that I had been encouraged from a younger age to pursue [music] theory, because although I do have [a knowledge of] theory now, I think I would’ve benefited from an earlier start, and it definitely didn’t happen like that. Everyone was more encouraging me to do music theatre, but never to be a professional jazz musician.
Amy: I started singing and playing piano when I was eight years old. When I turned 18, I said, “Forget music, I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m so bored with the classical stuff.” A friend of mine said, “I want to start a band and I want a girl lead singer” and I said, “Well, I used to sing as a kid,” and that’s how I got into playing music, because I was a woman and [he said] “Here you go.” I didn’t write the songs, so I was singing these words that weren’t my words and I was trying to offer my own interpretation,. I feel that I’ve learned a lot, now that I’m in a band with two really good friends and we all bring our own elements. I’m not there because I’m a woman… Obviously I bring harmonies, I’m a girl, but I don’t feel like that’s why I’m there, and I think it's a lot healthier for me than how it started.
Lorna: I went to an alternative junior high and there was one teacher who really focused a lot of attention on the females at the school. I’m not sure if that's a good things for the males. We had a guitar class and it was mandatory to learn guitar and singing, and just seeing the progression of the girls that were really uncomfortable performing from grade seven to the end of grade eight was great. I feel like the boys had more confidence in terms of performing their stuff, and they had already learned some of the [music], but by the end of grade eight all the girls would be performing at the open mic night for our school. I think that’s what definitely got me into singing, was learning that confidence from that first teacher.
Hannah: I noticed that in all of my music classes — and the teacher made note of this — boys are always more comfortable improvising than girls are. This is a huge generalization, but I think, overall, this is totally true. I still feel pretty uncomfortable improvising. Guys don’t really have a problem jamming, and I don’t know what it is, but I think that it is not just me, from what I understand.
Alanna: When I went away to university and sort of rebelled against music I came across college radio. It was not, like, “You’re a female and you’re a very good singer,” it was more like “You’re a singer interested in indie-rock.” And I was thirsting for an environment that was a hybrid culture, because I was never quite comfortable in just one scene and I think that’s what inspired me to be a better songwriter. It was when I saw Feist perform and learned about her music-making process that I wanted to take more [initiative]. I never really played instruments and I just felt like [I would] just get a really good producer, I’ll write really good songs and leave it in the hands of the producer. But when I heard her sing her music and learned about her process, I was inspired to be more musically autonomous. I wanted to be able to have a more hands-on [approach].
Anna Edwards (Foxfire): [As a female guitarist,] I felt I had something to prove and was afraid of being judged more harshly. But I realized that most people really don’t care. Knowing that also helps to be able to shrug off the people that do. Thinking too much about it can become a setback; it’s more about just enjoying yourself. Otherwise why do it, right?