lifeblood: listlogs: 1998v01n042-news

ig-news-digest sunday, april 12 1998 volume 01 : number 042

                               today's subjects:
                               -----------------
  [ig-news] ig news on netguide :)              [hunterj1 <hunterj1@aol.com>]
  [ig-news] small virginia slam article     [sherlyn koo <sherlyn@fl.net.au>]
  [ig-news] ig article in rave (brisbane), feb 18 1998  [sherlyn koo <sherly]

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date: sat, 11 apr 1998 15:17:56 edt
from: hunterj1 <hunterj1@aol.com>
subject: [ig-news] ig news on netguide :)

[sherlyn's note: this message was originally sent to the
indigo girls mailing list at netspace.org. basically it
looks like a page of links to other places...]

this is a little breathless for me, but here is a note forwarded to me by one
of my family members. it's useful to have a personna sometimes :)

jude :)

netguide now
http://www.netguide.com
for the week of april 13, 1998
a cmp service

now on netguide

legendary folk duo the indigo girls are coming to nyc on april
27, and the women'sguide's psyched. stop by our "indigo crazy"
(get it? get it?) spectacular; you'll find a comprehensive guide
to dozens of indigo girls resources -- and a chance to win two
backstage passes to the show.
(http://www.netguide.com/special/women/indigo/home.html)

<snip>

- ---------------------------------------------------------------
this has been a message from the ig-news list.
please send feedback, questions etc to owner-ig-news@smoe.org.
submissions are welcome - please send these to ig-news@smoe.org.

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date: sun, 12 apr 1998 11:07:55 +1000
from: sherlyn koo <sherlyn@fl.net.au>
subject: [ig-news] small virginia slam article

hey everyone,

this comes from billboard online (http://www.billboard.com).

- -sherlyn

- --
daily music news
edited by julie taraska / april 10, 1998, 11:00 a.m. est

indigo girls slam tobacco giant's music label

indigo girls have joined a protest concert
against tobacco company philip morris
and its womanthing music label. the
benefit, called virginia slam! 2, will
target the imprint's use of music to sell a
deadly product; it will be held april 27 at
irving plaza in new york. cds released
by womanthing music, which was
formed last year to underwrite debut discs
by female performers, are only available with the purchase of
two packages of virginia slim cigarettes.

virginia slam! was founded by singer/songwriter leslie
nuchow, who was offered a record deal by womanthing
music. enraged by what she views as the company's
manipulation of music to promote cigarette smoking, she
rejected the offer and started the protest organization.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= sherlyn koo - sherlyn@fl.net.au =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
   "when i look around i think this, this is good enough,
    and i try to laugh at whatever life brings.
    'cos when i look down, i just miss all the good stuff,
    when i look up, i just trip over things..."   - ani difranco

------------------------------

date: sun, 12 apr 1998 16:30:36 +1000
from: sherlyn koo <sherlyn@fl.net.au>
subject: [ig-news] ig article in rave (brisbane), feb 18 1998

hey folks,

this article came from the february 18, 1998 issue of rave
magazine, a street paper from brisbane (australia). i have
to say, it's possibly one of the worst articles i've ever
read... ha.

:)
sherlyn

- ---
blood and fire starters

my first introduction to atlanta's indigo girls (aka amy ray and emily
saliers) involved nursing first love's broken heart, comforted by the
'good intentions' of a friend spinning the intensely painful lyrics (i
am intense/i am in pain...) of blood and fire, from their grammy award
winning self-titled debut album. in learned hindsight, not the best
approach to caress shattered aorta fragments! but speaking to amy down
the line from las vegas, we both realise how (fortunately) evolutionary
our collective journey has been since 1987!

many a fine tune, closer to fine even (from the said debut), has
emerged during their decade-spanning career, from their 1990 follow-up
album, nomads, indians, saints, to 1992's rites of passage containing
the popularised single, galileo, through swamp ophelia in 1994 to their
latest effort, again nominated for a contemporary folk grammy, shaming
of the sun. far too familiar with the universal need for categorising,
amy is accepting of the girls' history of awards allocated via gender,
genre, sexuality, whatever!

of the nomination, amy ironically laughs, "ooo, we won't win, but...
well i think the grammy categories are weird. i mean, we are a folk
act, because our sensibilities are folk, but this album is the furthest
from folk we've ever been."

despite isolated or specified recognition, amy is happy with the level
of success and explains their longevity has been pleasurable rather
than painfully enduring.

"it's not been hard at all.  we love what we're doin'.  we feel so
lucky all the time.  we really don't feel a sense of regret or
bitterness or like, we're suffering through some sort of a rockstar
thing!" she laughs, before continuing to itemise their contentment, "we
love travelling, we love playing, we love creating music, and we feel
like our career's been at a level that's been very comfortable for a
long time.  we haven't had to worry about big stardom, but we also
haven't had to worry about whether we're going to be able to eat our
next meal."

"the only area where we've lacked recognition has probably been the
mainstream rock media, and mtv and that whole sort of network. and
that's just been something that we've had to accept over the years -
that they're resistant to us - and we have to keep doing what we do and
not worry about whether we're recognised by them or not... it can drive
you in an underdog kind of way, but it's not like a sign of success,
necessarily, to be recognised by *them*."

evidently enjoying the nature of their gig, the 'girls have always
managed to marry music with message, politics with passion, issues with
inspiration, ethics with enthusiasm. oh the privilege of simultaneously
informing and entertaining, so journalism 101 promises - this somehow
seems exemplified more so in the musician's role.

"i do find it to be a privilege.  i find our position definitely to be a
luxury because we are political activists - we always have been -
because it's given us a platform, and that's a really easy way to
express our concerns about the world and to be involved.  in a way, we
have an easier road than a lot of the activists that we work with,
especially all the hands-on work and all the really hard work.  what
we're doing is learning and growing and experiencing all these great
communities that we work with, all these great activists and
environmentalists, and playing music at the same time, so we really have
the best of both worlds."

admittedly the music biz does provide a forum to voice what 'you'
believe in, publicly and loudly, but it's somewhat incidental to amy -
they just happen to be voicing their concerns via melodies and chords.

"we're doing what we would be doing normally. i mean, even if we
weren't playing music, we would be involved in all the issues that we
are involved in."

delivered with as much conviction as her intensely passionate vocals,
amy talks about their current involvements - with a mexican movement,
the zapatistas.

"the zapatistas are a group of mayan indians that, ever since the
early nineties, have been trying to gain automony over their own land
and represented in the next government and theyve been suppressed,
killed and tortured and raped by the federal government of mexico. and
it's one of the groups that we work with to try to have them increase
their strength, and increase their awareness in the united states.
because the us taxpayer is partially funding the mexican military who
is, in turn, oppressing these people."

"it's frustrating because we know they're down there and we've seen the
way these people live and their communities are so strong and gracious
and disciplined and their value system is excellent, and you just feel
like, 'why aren't they allowed to exist the way they need to exist and
represented in the government in the way they should be represented?!'"

another perpetual commitment is the campaign amy and emily conceived to
support both environmental issues and native american land rights issues
as they directly affected one another.

"the honor the earth campaign started in 1991.  we'd been doing
environmental work for a long time before that and i had met up with
some north american indian activists and decided that it would be wise
to merge *our* efforts to the environmental community, with *their*
efforts in the indian community.  i felt that a lot of very important
policy and environmental regulation, and positions about corporate
responsibility to communities, had to do with resources that were on
indian land, or had to do with ballot being raised around indian
issues... so i felt that was probably the best realm for us to work in.
and emily agreed, so we hooked up with these activists.  we did a few
shows to raise some money, started a campaign and then every couple of
years, we went on a month-long tour, and donated all the money from it
to the campaign, which in turn, gives it out in grants, to indigenous
activists doing environmental work."

the last profit-free tour raised us$300,000; through commendable, amy's
genuine concern is focussed as much in raising funding as awareness.

"the tour is not just a money-maker, it's also a tour to address really
specific issues that are going on at that time, to raise public
awareness and media attention to them," she says, before going on to
discuss specific issues about nuclear and toxic waste dumping.

of course, the indigo girls are widely known for their beautiful music,
so to the issue at hand, the australian tour.

"we don't always have issue-oriented tours.  we do one big tour and the
rest of the year we let people set up tables in the lobby of our shows
and give out resource information so people can learn.  in australia, we
are actually looking to have some groups tabling aboriginal issues.  at
this point we're looking for where our best resources are and trying to
decide who it should be, working with some activists here that know
activists over there.  i heard that the political situation in australia
seems to be more conservative and that the aboriginal land issues were
becoming more threatened," she concludes, which suggests a certain
ipswich politician's reputation has crossed the pacific.

remarkably, shaming of the sun sees the girls in the producing console,
dare i say, twiddling knobs for the first time.

"we have had the opportunity (before) and we have always worked with the
producer in sort of a co-production spot, but with this record we took
more of a producer role... so we called it co-producing. we're
definitely more in charge. we had time to do it, we looked for some
producers and really couldn't find who we wanted to work with, so
decided it must mean that we should just do it ourselves!"

feeling "good about this record in ways i've never felt about anything
we've done in the past," is this a result of the hands-on role?

"i think so, although i have to say that every time you make a record
you usually feel like it's better than what you did before," amy laughs
proudly, "so it might just be that. i have to say that (when) we made
rites of passage with peter collins, that we the first time we'd worked
with him... and we still use so much of what peter taught us. but this
record's my favourite instrumental wise and personally, my whole
songwriting."

of the recording process, emily has said, "we felt completely free to do
exactly what we wanted; we learned and wrote on a lot of different
instruments and weren't afraid to try something different."

because of such diversity and experimentation, the album certainly pushes
the boundaries, and musically, tries on a new frock.

"emily is very good at playing a lot of different instruments and i kinda
hack around with them... but our whole thing, instead of bringing in a
bunch of players, we wanted to just try stuff ourselves and see what we
got.  it was definitely a point of like, trying to stretch, beause i
think we've been together for so long.  i mean," she continues,
chuckling, "we're constantly being bored with what we're doing and trying
to do something different.  i think we're just not taking a lead from
anybody except ourselves."

part of this album's transition reflects their political and geographical
travels - creating a distinct latin feel and the inclusion of ulali, a
vocal trio the girls' insisted record with them.

"yes, we were influenced by a lot of latin, we did a lot in latin
america, a lot of working with activists... and i think it seeped into
our music.  and ulali, is a few different indigenous groups from the
states.  three women, they sing vocals, and they drum sometimes, but they
are totally amazing.  we heard them - actually they helped us out with
some of the honor the earth stuff - and we were just like, 'you gotta
come sing on the record'."

communication of passion-penned ballads between musician and audiences
is something the indigo girls personify admirably and genuine heartfelt
gratitude seems to be a consequence - one which amy respects and
understands.

"if somebody's saying something that feels really pure, straight from
their heart and they're not just being kind of, blindly being like a fan,
but really expressing human affection with you, it makes me feel good
'cos i understand that. there's people in my life who have done
something that's helped me get through something, so i look at it as a
mutual pool with everybody helping each other out and it's good to tell
people when they're doing that for you, 'cos it helps them carry on, when
they don't feel so strong."

at this point i share my blood(y) and fire(y) experience.

"yeah that song, i wrote that song so long ago and now i hear it and i'm
like, oh wow!" she reminisces laughing in disbelief, then deadpans, "i
think, oh my god i was really suffering!"

oh yea, my recollection completely.

jeanette bergman
indigo girls play at the queensland performing arts complex next tuesday
(feb 24).

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end of ig-news-digest v1 #42
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