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2 weeks ago | Tags: ladyhawke lesbian queer artist proud mary club | Notes: 2

Support Proud Mary DJ and Ladyhawke’s artist get to London to get to her exhibit release in LONDON! She needs to raise the funds in 2 weeks. Support this awesome, queer, talented woman! You can check out her blog at www.sarahlarnach.com

Beth Ditto Gets Her Own MAC Makeup Collection

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4 months ago | Tags: beth ditto lesbian MAC makeup

What do Johnny Weir, Daphne Guinness, Iris Apfel, and Beth Ditto have in common? They all have a distinct style point-of-view, and now they all have MAC collections. WWD announced today that Beth Ditto is the latest quirky MAC muse.

The brand and the singer have a bit of a history: Ditto performed last September at the MAC store in NYC’s Soho neighborhood for Fashion’s Night Out, making it one of the top stops on everyone’s FNO agenda. The match makes a ton of sense–MAC loves a strong makeup statement and so does Ditto. She’s rarely seen without heavy, winged black eyeliner (sometimes purposely smeared all over her face).

While we’re still waiting for more details fromMAC about the pieces in the collection, the campaign shot above gives a few clues. Black inky eyeliner? Check. Pastel nail art and fuchsia lips? Check. The collection will debut in June. (MAC also finally opened a Twitter account yesterday, so you can follow them @MACcosmetics for more scoop.)

WWD reports that Ditto will attend tonight’s Gala Sidaction diner de la Mode as a guest of Estée Lauder (the parent company of MAC). MAC’s donating 190,000 euros (~$246,620) to Sidaction, continuing their long tradition of supporting AIDS charities.

Will you channel Beth Ditto when the collection hits counters?

By CHERYL WISCHHOVER

Source: fashonista.com

10 Great Albums of 2011 That Happen to Have Been Made by Women

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4 months ago | Tags: women music 2011 Wild Flag queer lesbian Coasting | Notes: 1

by Lindsay Zoladz.

Almost anywhere you looked, 2011 seemed like a banner year for women in music. Remember how exciting it was when the immensely talented Esperanza Spalding pissed off all those Justin Bieber fans and won the Best New Artist Grammy back in February? Remember when Adele went quadruple-platinum and became a pretty badass role model for those among us who are notairbrushed-Ralph-Lauren-model skinny? What about when Nicki Minaj became the first female hip hop artist totop the 3 million mark in digital sales for her monster hit “Super Bass”?

But as this year’s Top 10 lists started to roll out, I saw the same old problems: more lists skewed heavily male than vice versa, and very few publications bold enough to put a female artist in the #1 slot. So I decided to come up with a list of my own.

The following list of 10 great albums put out by female artists and all-female bands is not meant to be definitive or objective: Think of it as a guided stroll through one person’s experience listening to music in 2011. In presenting these albums this way, I don’t want to suggest that they’re similar because they were all made by women; instead, I’d like it to be a testament to the very different and very awesome sounds that women in music are making right now.

Julianna Barwick—The Magic Place. Ambient pioneer Brian Eno once said he strives to make music that “tints the air” around him; Julianna Barwick makes music that tints the soul. Using little more than layered vocal loops and a whole lot of reverb, Barwick’s soundscapes are things of misty and evocative beauty. (Some have gone so far to crown her The New Enya, a title she’s laughed off in interviews.) Like the best ambient compositions or a fresh coat of paint, her music has a way of transforming a room. I spent the summer of 2011 listening to Barwick’s music constantly, but also in a state of transience, moving between friends’ couches, hotel rooms and a half-empty apartment. When I needed to write, or feel grounded, or when everything just started to feel unfamiliar, I unfurled The Magic Place like an old rug. It still has a way of making the place I am, wherever it happens to be, sound like home.

Coasting—You’re Never Going Back. Coasting, the Brooklyn duo of Madison Farmer and current Vivian Girls drummer Fiona Campbell, make largehearted, stomp-and-holler-along indie pop that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the early 90s K Records roster. I love the gleefully noisy sound of tracks like “Kids” and “Starts and Stays.”You’re Never Going Back has the messy energy of a live performance, with Farmer and Campbell playing off each other as the songs’ dynamism escalates.

EMA—Past Life Martyred Saints. Earlier in the year I wrote about how Erika M. Anderson’s first solo album, Past Life Martyred Saints, sounded like Dante singing along to an early Cat Power record: a personal, private, poetic remaining of Hell. That might sound bleak, but what makes Martyred Saints so compelling is the light that glints through the murk: “Breakfast” begins sounding wounded but builds into some kind of devotional (“You feel just like a priest to me,” Anderson sings; in the background someone musters the strength to clap along), “Butterfly Knife” finds something universal — and even compassionate — in self-destructive impulses (“I’ve been inside your bedroom/I’ve got the same scars, you see”) and the finale “Red Star” rejects the whole heartbreak-as-the-end-of-the-world thing. During the song’s smoldering climax, she’s defiant: “If you don’t love me/Someone will.”

Eleanor Friedberger—Last Summer. This debut solo album from Eleanor Friedberger is a scrapbook of sorts: a lyrical pastiche of the everyday banalities that shaped her experience when she first moved to New York in her early twenties, backed by the kind of retro-tinged piano-pop that a Peanuts character might dance to. I happen to love Friedberger’s other band, the zany, neo-prog duo the Fiery Furnaces, but I recognize their divisiveness; the band’s more experimental impulses can sometimes feel impenetrable and off-putting. So the great surprise of Last Summer is how breezy, inviting and relatable it is. Listening to Last Summer feels like reading a page from Friedberger’s diary, and sometimes (“Watch Footloose with the biggest bottle of vodka in the world”; look me in the eyes and tell me you haven’t been there) your own.

Julia Holter—Tragedy. L.A.-based experimental composer Julia Holter’s first album Tragedy sounds like the lost soundtrack to an old, decaying film. Holter’s said the piece is a reimagining of the myth of Hippolytus, but it’s got a definite Laurie Anderson vibe too (see: “Goddess Eyes”). Tragedy is a compelling listen that unites all sorts of disparate sounds and reference points into something that feels incredibly unique—definitely a rare feat these days. I can’t wait to hear what she comes up with next.

Household—Items. Googling Brooklyn trio Household’s debut album Items is a bit of a pain, but those who wade through the deluge of ironing board advertisements and Febreeze fan testimonials are in for a treat. Clocking in at a taut 18 minutes, Items is a post-punk throwback with some cheeky pop sensibility thrown in for good measure: tracks like “Why Baby” and “Never After” sound like Wire meets the Waitresses. My personal favorite, “Go Away” finds the common ground between the appliances conjured by the band’s namesake and a robotic and passionless relationship: “Defective/Defective!”

Beyonce—4. The working title of my forthcoming memoir is Better Living Through Beyonce. There is a chapter that contains an email, plucked from the inbox of a few of your favorite Canonball contributors, in which I responded to the question “How was your night?” with a link to the video for “Best Thing I Never Had” and maybe a few choice lines quoted in capital letters (“You showed your ass and then I saw the real you” = pure pop poetry). There is an enclosed DVD of me and Ryan Gosling dancing to our wedding song “1+1″ (Hey girl, I don’t know much about guns, but I’ve been shot by you.) There is a full chapter detailing why I left him a few months later, when he demanded that I be all up in the kitchen in my heels (annulment time). There is a ten-page reverie about how much I love the part in “I Care” when she gets all Artist Formerly Known as Beyonce and sings along with the guitar solo. What we are talking about here is a woman with a voice powerful enough to make me reevaluate my stance on the song “Sex on Fire.” Disrespect her? No you won’t.

Laura Marling—A Creature I Don’t Know. British folk singer Laura Marling’s voice gets under my skin. It’s got this world-weariness that always makes me gasp a little bit when I remember that she was born the same year as my little sister (1990!); she sounds so much wiser than me. A Creature I Don’t Know is her third album; the songs sound like shanties and they move like the sea: crashing fury in some moments (“The Beast”) that lurch into peaceful calm (“All My Rage”). She’s got Joni Mitchell’s nimble fingers on the single “Sophia,” easily one of my favorite songs of the year.

tUnE-yArDs—w h o k i l l. “I haven’t tried to find a compromise between myself and others,” the filmmaker Chantal Akerman once said in an interview. “I have thought that the more particular I am, the more I address the general.” I kept coming back to this quote while listening to w h o k i l l, multi-instrumentalist Merrill Garbus’s eccentric and masterful second album. w h o k i l l is a pointed examination of self (Garbus’s undauntedly intimate lyrics focus on sex, violence, politics, and body image), but the chords it strikes are universal. With its gaze fixed on social divisions and economic inequality, w h o k i l l seemed by year’s end like one of pop music’s only honest statements on what it felt like to be an American in 2011. My favorite record of the year by a mile.

Wild Flag—Wild Flag. “I felt like I was standing beneath an airplane right after take-off,” I wrote the night I saw Wild Flag live for the first time in April 2011–back before the release of their debut album. Everyone left their early performances wondering whether they’d be able to replicate the turbine whoosh of their live show on a record, but somehow, they found a way. Wild Flag is more than just the best rock record of the year, it’s a document of music as a life force. “We sing to free ourselves from the room,” they proclaim on “Romance,” while former Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein documents her enduring urge to rock out on “Future Crimes:” “I can’t turn it down/Or make it quiet.” Though Brownstein, Rebecca Cole, Mary Timony, and Janet Weiss could easily rest on the stellar reputation of their previous bands, their first record together was a testament to the power of punk rock in the present tense. Of so many great, inspiring and all too rare things, Wild Flag are living proof.

This list was excerpted from Cannonball’s list of “20 Best 2011 Albums (That Happened to Be Made by Women)”. Click here to see the rest.

Photo of Wild Flag from Flickr user henofthewood under Creative Commons 2.0

Source: msmagazine.com

Proud Mary Club & Strange News bring you… MEN - 4:20, AUCKLAND - 23.02.12 - AMAZING! @jdsamson

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5 months ago | Tags: jd samson le tigre MEN Queer Lesbian Music Live AUckland

Source: facebook.com

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5 months ago | Tags: Jd jd samson men music queer lesbian

Video for “Who am I to feel so free?” by MEN off their upcoming album Let’s Talk About Body.

I Love My Job, But It Made Me Poorer

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7 months ago | Tags: Le Tigre, JD Samson Lesbian queer economy | Notes: 1

By JD Samson

I am so lucky that I have been able to create art and music and fulfill my passions through my job for the past 11 years. But I’m stupid enough to have put all my eggs in one basket. It is now the only thing I can do to make money. I’m 33 years old and I can’t make coffee. I don’t know how to use Excel, or bartend, or wait tables, and I’m officially too old to join the police force. I’ve lost the confidence to go back to school and feel stressed out about impending debt when I think about further education for even one second.

I have several jobs within the music industry as of now: bands, DJing, remixing and even writing music for other artists. I’m a workaholic and have my hands in a bunch of different places. But, all these jobs have unstable incomes. I don’t get a salary; I don’t know how much money I will make next month, next year or five years from now. I don’t have health insurance. And I live with the stress of not knowing, not planning and not understanding whether or not I will ever be able to reach my goals of having a family and feeling safe financially. When I say “safe,” I mean safe. I mean basics. I mean health insurance that is good enough for me to take care of myself, not just if I need a $10,000-dollar, life-threatening procedure. I mean dental care. I mean saving money in a retirement fund so that I can take care of myself when I’m 80 years old. Clearly, there is a difference between survival and luxury.

Like so many teenagers, I believed in the “American Dream,” that I could move to New York from the Midwest and become an artist. I would achieve both fame and success, and I would never have to think about money. The first half was true. I made art and lived activism, and I achieved amazing amounts of success that I feel incredibly proud of. The second half, not so much. I have been able to live well, eat well, invest in my arts and make my own schedule, but I forgot to save money and think about my future.

This summer I tried to rent an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The process sent me into an emotional crisis and awakened me into a whole new realization of our economy, the music industry at large and, more specifically, what it means to be a queer artist in 2011.

I spent days trolling around Williamsburg, looking at shitty apartments with cockroaches lining the doorways, fighting neighbors, rats in the ceiling, bedbugs infesting the linoleum floors, fifth-floor walk-ups and cat-pee-soaked carpets. The rent was exorbitant, availability was scarce, and I was turned down by two different landlords for being “freelance.” To be honest, I don’t blame them. Not only am I freelance, but I’m lesbian freelance. Double whammy. What was the reason they turned me down? Because it was easier to rent to a rich, trust-fund, straight-guy banker who wants to live in the coolest borough in the world? Because when he met me he saw a tattooed gender outlaw who makes “queer electronic punk music” and isn’t sure when the next check is going to come in? Yeah, I don’t blame him. He doesn’t give a shit about how kids email me all the time thanking me for keeping them from committing suicide. It’s not part of his capitalist business practice.

I surround myself with amazing and talented people, people who have made it in every sense of those words. They buy apartments, invest in their futures successfully, have children, save money. How do they do it? How can I keep up with them?

So I have to ask myself: where did I go wrong? And I can only guess that the answer lies in a combinations of three things: 1) my family is not rich, 2) I am a queer woman, and 3) I am trying so desperately to keep up with my peers that I am living beyond my means.

And as I am a productive, workaholic, processing lesbian, I am the only one responsible for change and growth and my own future. So I consider:

My family will never be rich; in fact, as they get older, they will use up their supply, perhaps even leaving me with their debts. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am so lucky to have the incredible health and support of every member of my family. I never forget how blessed I am to have such an incredible group of people in my life. In fact, our mutual understanding about how frustrating it can be to try to support yourself with your art is something we can all relate to as a family. And our own personal class struggles are not insular but truly a family affair. Now I understand why they supported my dreams but continually suggested having other interests or skills. My dad, a wood sculptor, turned sand and gravel miner. And my mother, a silversmith, turned elementary-school art teacher.
I will always be a queer woman, a woman who makes 77 cents to the man’s dollar, and a queer who makes 23 percent less than the heterosexual. Does that mean that I make 54 cents to the straight male dollar? Wow.
OK, so here’s the emotional part: I’m trying to keep up with artists who have had a similar amount of success as I have had, buying expensive meals, expensive jeans, expensive drinks, and trying my hardest to appear to be making the same amount of money as they are. I’m not them, for whatever above-mentioned reasons, but I just can’t pretend anymore. This is my coming out. I’m done feeling bad about myself. I wish I could afford a personal meeting with Suze Orman. She’s a lesbian. Maybe she could help me reestablish my financial security.

I’m so lucky to have gained so much from my life and my amazing career, but I’m ready to feel secure. I’m ready to build my future and save money so that I can have a family, so that I can enjoy making art and not trying to create a product out of it, so that I can spend more time being present and less time being a workaholic, frantically searching for the profitable answer. And if I need to, I’m ready to get a job, go to work in the morning, get a paycheck once a week, go to the dentist, get a check-up, bottom out to a boss and appreciate music without being worried that I can’t keep up.

We live in a society where people equate success with money. They see me on the pages of Vogue. They see me playing to an adoring crowd. They see me flying to gigs all across the world. And I’m not sure what people imagine, but I’m struggling, too. Over the past couple of weeks, I have realized how many other artists and musicians are in my position, people who are proud of their success but feel unable to continue, based on financial strain. Artists such as Spank Rock, Das Racist and the Drums have featured lyrics on their new records about struggling financially. My band MEN put out a record in February with similar tones. I know the economy is failing, but I think it is important to remember that it is failing for everyone. Even the people you think might have money. So here we go. Another reason to come together. Another reason to occupy Wall Street. Another reason for change.

Source: The Huffington Post

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8 months ago | Tags: Ellen Page lol yes lesbian | Notes: 1984

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

“CAN’T I JUST HUG A WOMAN WITH MY LEGS IN FRIENDSHIP??”

Yes.

(via vagina0rchard)

Source: icecoldnukacola