lifeblood: listlogs: 1998v01n102-news

ig-news-digest sunday, june 14 1998 volume 01 : number 102

today's subjects:
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[ig-news] amy interview in curve, part ii [sherlyn koo <sherlyn@fl.net.au]
[ig-news] clash tribute album news [sherlyn koo <sherlyn@fl.net.au>]

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date: sat, 13 jun 1998 19:10:37 +1000
from: sherlyn koo <sherlyn@fl.net.au>
subject: [ig-news] amy interview in curve, part ii

hey folks,

i thought i'd post this... this is the second part of the curve
interview with amy, from the march 1998 issue of curve magazine
(thanks leslie :).

- -sherlyn

===
basking in the indiglow
by shirley liu
photography by susan alzner

with each stirring song and tough political stance, amy ray and
emily saliers have touched our hearts and brought us all a little
closer to fine. in the last issue of curve, amy talked with
assistant editor shirley liu about coming out, her relationship
with emily and the honor the earth tour. now the conversation
continues, as amy discusses the lesbian community and our culture,
the girls' new activism with the zapatistas, and the folks who
inspire their passionate words and sounds.

* do you have any opinions on the new highly visible, more
widely-accepted lesbian culture?

you mean like ellen?

* yeah, the single-name people like ellen, k.d., melissa,
martina...

[laughs] i love lesbians.  that's funny.  people start calling
you by first names; it's very familiar, you know?  i like it.  i
had this construction guy over at my house and he was trying to
bond with me, so he told me he loved ellen.  i looked at him and
i thought, "this is great," because ellen is a point of context
for everybody.

anything that's helping the mainstream see things more clearly
and be more open-minded is great.  i don't look deeper into that
and worry it might be hurting us in the long run; i don't see how
anybody could feel that way about it.  i don't think it's
homogenizing lesbianism; people tend to homogenize things
themselves in their minds.  they put things into categories and
stereotype them and it takes a while for people to evolve and
figure it all out.

it's similar to when people talk about the indians - they think
it's one big tribe. i can get frustrated about that or i can
think that the first thing to do is to open their minds up to it,
and then teach them that there are five hundered different tribes.

the same thing exists with gay issues. we should open people's
minds to the fact that gay people exist and then to the fact that
we're all different from each other - that there are republican
gays and democratic gays and independents, that there are some
gays who like porn and s/m and some who don't. we're all
different people, but the one thing that we're all fighting for
is the right to sleep with who we want to.

* are there any particularly influential people in your life?

god, there are so many.  the people that influence us the most,
emily and me, do so on a day-to-day basis.  most are activists,
from environmental to gay rights.  people that are doing
hands-on work and fighting battles are the people that influence
me the most.  i usually just sit there anre listen to eveything
they say and try to learn it all.

* in the august 1997 spin article on ani difranco, it said that
you two felt that the lilith fair wasn't pushing the envelope
enough. what exactly did you mean by that?

the style of music.  there were no punk bands, black bands or
world music.  on the second stages, there were some, but at the
time i was speaking, i was talking about the main stages.  after
talking to sarah about it, i found out that she did make an
effort to get people from the punk and alternative communities
but wasn't successful.  i don't know if she could have tried
harder.

when you look at the main acts, like sheryl crow and jewel, they
have radio hits that make them seem a certain way. then you see
them perform and realize how diverse and incredibly gifted they
are.

you *need* to see the different dimensions of women because women
tend to stereotype and be sexist about other women. we say, "ah,
she's blonde, she can't really do it." things like that are
really bad, really negative.

i think lilith showed people that yeah, these artists have had
big hits and mainstream success, but give them a chance to see
how diverse they are. so that's what i learned from the tour -
that yeah, maybe there aren't punk bands and maybe sarah didn't
get a good soul act, but she did show us that artists like jewel
and sheryl crow are gifted and versatile.

i do think that lilith needs to be more radical though.  at the
press conferences, there was a tendency at first to shy away from
calling it feminist.  but i was like, "look, i don't mind being
specified by gender; i'm proud to be a woman."  i don't consider
it a ghettoization.  i can't separate being gay or being a woman
from anything that i do, because it influences everything i do.
by the end of the tour, i think sarah came around to that too.
she was being much more outspoken about it.  it was cool to see
that evolution.

* do you see lilith evolving that wya in the future?

yeah, now that lilith has more clout too, it's probably going to
be easier to get sleater-kinney or tlc.  or *queen latifah*!!
you know, she's hard to get.  i've asked her to do stuff for me
and she doesn't respond.  i don't think it's her fault though.

when i put together the honor the earth cd, i called every band i
could think of from the black community. no one responded. it
wasn't because the black community doesn't want to support it, it
was because there are barriers. we have to continuously work to
break them down.

* what do you think those barriers are?

it hasn't been that long since everything was so segregated, and
it still is. i think that we put up barriers and they put them up
and we both need to work on it. i don't think it's malicious
though; it takes time, you know.

* can you talk about your involvement with the zapatistas [mexican
rebel fighters]?

we funded a program through honor the earth in 1995 that supported
a women's art co-op. these women are comandantes (commanders) in
the zapatista army. they needed to stockpile and store supplies
for their art, textile, weaving - the things they do to bring some
money into their village.

before, they would make continuous trips to other villages and the
main town to buy supplies. they would be harassed by the mexican
military, which is stationed in that area all over the place.
women were raped and verbally abused; they'd have to go through a
lot just to get their art supplies. basically, we funded this
project to build a place to stockpile everything so they wouldn't
have to make so many trips.

when i went down there to meet these women, it was an incredibly
eye-opening experience.  at the time, there was an international
conference going on that was hosted by the zapatistas.  they had
five different locations in the rainforest and you went to whatever
location was talking about the issue important to you.  so i went
to the "women's table."  in this particular village, they talked
about women's issues and how women had been affected by nafta.
people from all over the world talked about women's issues in their
own countries.  they also dealt with gay rights.

* really?

yeah, i was sitting there in the middle of the jungle in this
meeting on gay issues hosted by the zapatistas. it was fascinating
to me!

* what did they have to say?

different people from different countries talked about the
disenfranchisement caused by nafta and the people who are affected.
gay people are included because as cultures become homogenized, the
profit-ridden companies become very powerful; gay issues become
less important and tolerance goes down.

they also talked about how in traditional communities, gay people
are accepted much more than they are in colonized societies. i've
experienced traditional communities (like the indian community)
where it was so open-minded. and then i would go into areas that
had been destroyed by colonization, where the people were just
down-trodden with suffering, and there was much less tolerance.

* why do you think that is?

traditional values in the indian community are based on something
much more accepting.  they have a place for people in their
community who are different from other people.  there's no room
for that in an industrialized society; i think it's because of
god and the church, probably a lot of it is christianity.  but my
experience is the more traditional the commnity, the more
open-minded.

emily and i went down [to chiapas] recently. we hung out for a
few days and met with different comandantes and learned as much as
we could about the situation. every single day, the mexican
military would drive through the village with giant tanks and
machine guns pointed at everybody.

* for the intimidation factor?

yeah.  the thing that really hit home was i realized that my tax
dollars were probably paying for this.  mexico and america have a
very close relationship - we fund a lot of their military activity
and call it "drug wars."  but our government's just protecting
corporate interests.  there's a group emily and i work with called
the national commission for democracy in mexico located in el paso,
texas, if people are interested in learning more.

* how do you educate yourself on all these different issues?

sometimes i find things out from people in the audience who send me
booklets or send stuff up to the stage, or from other bands.  i go
to environmental conferences now and then and find out who's doing
what.  greenpeace is a really good resource.  and honor the earth
is a network, so basically, all the different indian communities
report to us on what's going on.  i read the nation magazine.  i
spend a lot of my time reading.

* in the midst of all this activism and creating music, what do you
do in down time?

daemon, my record label, takes a lot of my time.  and i hike a lot
and spend a lot of time outside.  i kayak, canoe and montain bike.
i really enjoy outdoorsy, mountainy sporting activities; that's what
i do during *real* down time.  it's always in the woods.  i don't
socialize much actually.  i'm sort of a hermit at heart.

* you were signed in 1988, so it's been ten years. any thoughts?

[laughs] how much longer is this contract?!  no, i love epic.  emily
and i keep having the "what's going to happen when our contract's
up?" thoughts.  should we go independent or stay on a major label?
we have three more albums left to do, so we're fine.  we love our
company; they don't have any agenda for us.  they're just like, "you
gals go do what you need to do and we'll support it."

* do you have anything to say to your lesbian fans and lesbian
readers? any final parting words?

[laughs] oh god... you know, people in the lesbian community move
from one relationship to the next without sitting back and taking
time to figure out what's going on with themselves - jumping from
one thing to the next.

* a continuum...

i would advise against a continuum. [laughs] but i would advise
against that continuum in the heterosexual world too - i just don't
know if it exists because i'm not in that world. i would advise
against the continuum, but i would still suggest watching star trek
and the x-files. [laughs]

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= sherlyn koo - sherlyn@fl.net.au =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
   "it's all about hope, so don't lose sight now,
    it's all about faith, so don't give up on me,
    it's all about trust..."            - abra moore

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

date: sun, 14 jun 1998 13:39:16 +1000
from: sherlyn koo <sherlyn@fl.net.au>
subject: [ig-news] clash tribute album news

hey folks,

i found this on rocktropolis (http://www.rocktropolis.com).

- -sherlyn

==
the clash tribute album pushed to '99; live disc up first
third eye blind to cover 'train in vain'

clash fans will have to wait a little bit longer for the
highly-anticipated tribute album to the band. the album --
whose once-simple title of clash tribute album looks to be
changing -- has been taken off the aug. 25 release schedule
at epic records and pushed back to a first quarter of 1999
release. why? well, epic plans to release the clash live
album that joe strummer has been working on first, followed
by the star-studded tribute set. while the live disc
doensn't have a track listing or title yet, epic hopes to
have it out in october.

though the clash tribute album is pretty much in the can,
third eye blind has now added a track. contrary to what
lead singer stephan jenkins said to mtv's carson daly on
thursday (june 11), the band is recording one of the
clash's most successful and well-known songs, "train in
vain (stand by me)." thursday night's mtv show was taped
about a week ago, and this is what jenkins had to say about
their plans for the clash album: "we wanted to do 'straight
to hell' but the indigo girls are doing it [ed. note:
heather nova and moby are actually recording it]... they
asked us to do 'train in vain,' but everyone knows that one
so we wanted to do something more obscure... we're doing
'somebody got murdered.'" not anymore.

as previously reported in allstar, the tribute album also
includes rancid, korn with ice cube and mack 10, 311,
silverchair, mighty mighty bosstones, as well as no doubt,
mxpx, the urge, face to face, unwritten law, cracker, and
others.

- --- sherlyn koo - sherlyn@fl.net.au ------------------------- a+e=ig
"all my life and all my days and all my nights surround me,
every time i needed it, the magic always found me.
and if i'm bound to all the world, all the world is bound to be..."
- peter mulvey

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end of ig-news-digest v1 #102
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