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7 Out Musicians to Watch

There is no shortage of queer musical artists quietly making a name for themselves in cities throughout the U.S., but we’ve brought together five acts (comprised of seven musicians) we think you should know about, in case you don’t already. Some have been touring and performing for years; some are turning in a new musical direction; and some are just about to release debut albums.

All are openly gay and deserve a spin on your iPod. So sit back and take a look – and listen – to these out lesbian and bisexual musicians.

NINA STOREY Nina Storey uses the phrase “21st-century soul” to describe her music, “because it’s rooted in a soul sound with bluesy overtones,” she explained to AfterEllen.com. “The music that I write is a mix of singer-songwriter acoustic stuff, and then there’s rock, and then there’s quirky stuff that’s totally out of the box.”

A Boulder, Colo., native now living in Los Angeles, Storey has been singing pretty much her whole life – professionally since the age of 12. She is self-taught, but grew up in a very musical family: Her mother is a songwriter and producer (and also acts as her manager and publicist), and her dad is a sound engineer. Her parents always encouraged her to pursue her craft.

Storey has independently released five albums and is about to release her sixth later this month. She plans to tour extensively throughout the country with her new CD. She already has followings in northern and central California, parts of the Pacific Northwest, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, New York and in Boston, but on this tour she will visit other places as well.

Storey’s music can be heard on both film and television, and she recently performed a song for the WB series Girlfriends. Her work will also be featured on the new Fox series Standoff. A more unusual gig is her concert appearance on Frontier Airlines’ in-flight television channel.

Storey said she hasn’t talked about her sexual orientation in interviews before this one. “I’ve always kept a very private personal life my entire musical career,” she said. “I’ve always been kind of protective of that. Mostly it’s just because I’m a pretty shy person, and it feels kind of vulnerable to me. But I think it’s really important to be a whole person. In my daily life, I’ve always been out and that’s never been an issue.”

The subject matter of Storey’s songs runs the gamut from relationships to politics and social commentary. “I definitely have some music that’s more pointed and more out, and then some stuff that’s more general,” she said. “Personally I’ve lived a life where I’ve had relationships with men and women and celebrated both of those things equally, and my music has always reflected that.”

But Storey and the persona of a particular song aren’t necessarily one and the same. “That’s the beautiful safety that you have writing,” she said. “It may or may not be about me. It may be thinly veiled or completely fictitious. I would like the listener to have the opportunity to interpret it however they want.”

Storey described some of her songs as gender-bending, such as “Better Man,” where she sings in the first person of the people who have inspired her to be a better man. She also has a song about someone transitioning. “I toy with the concept of identity,” Storey said.

“If you’re writing music from a passionate place, the listener is hopefully going to identify with that,” she said, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.

Watch a video of Nina Storey’s song “This Naked Woman” here: For more on Nina Storey, visit her MySpace page or her official website.

PAMELA MEANS Pamela Means describes her own music as “very groove- and rhythmic-based,” as well as “real and honest and confrontational at times.” The Brooklyn-based artist performs solo as well as with her jazz ensemble, the Pamela Means Jazz Project.

She said her songs tend to be challenging and political because she draws from her own life. “I wouldn’t be true to my own experience if I didn’t pick up those topics,” she said.

“All a writer has is their own life and experience to draw from, and my experience happens to be a biracial lesbian who grew up in narrow, conservative Milwaukee and who didn’t really start to come out until after 25.” She found early inspiration in reading Audre Lorde and bell hooks.

Means likes to keep herself constantly busy, with a heavy touring schedule – nearly 150 shows each year – and frequent gigs close to home when she’s not on the road.

She has shared the stage with the likes of Ani DiFranco, Shawn Colvin, Melissa Ferrick and Patty Larkin. Her accolades include winning Outmusic’s 2004 Outstanding New Recording award for a female for her album Single Bullet Theory, the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival’s No. 1 Most Wanted New Artist, and Wisconsin’s Folk Artist of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year.

With five solo recordings and one jazz album already under her belt, Means is planning to release a new acoustic CD later this year. “I used to hate the word ‘folk’ and lean towards ‘acoustic,'” she explained, “because I always thought it had a lot more to it than what ‘folk singer’ brings up, which is kind of strum strum, ‘Puff the Magic Dragon,’ although the definition has definitely expanded now.”

Originally from Milwaukee, Means started out self-taught before studying classical guitar and jazz at the Wisconsin Conservatory. Then she lived in Boston for nine years, playing in subway stations whenever she wasn’t on tour.

After moving to subway-less Northampton, Mass., she started the Pamela Means Jazz Project. “I started getting serious about my old jazz homework that was over my head at the time,” she said.

Now 37, Means was 20 when she first started performing. “I guess I was out to myself but I was really freaked out, having grown up Lutheran,” she recalled. “I was trying to perform around town, and rumors started to spread and I didn’t know how to handle it. It kind of freaked me out, and lesbians were coming to my shows.”

Boston was the first place she saw same-sex couples openly walking hand in hand, and she recalled encountering one of her now-cherished mantras shortly after moving there: “Audre Lorde says you must use your own truth to empower yourself or someone will use it against you, and I still kind of remind myself of that quote on a regular basis.”

Now she is even out in her conservative hometown. Her father once spotted her face emblazoned across a city bus, along with her name and the words “gay pride,” when Means was home playing Milwaukee Pride. (“They have a big advertising budget,” she explained.)

In the spirit of being true to her experience in terms of her songwriting and her image, she became committed to queer visibility and started to come out in all of her press kit information. She decided she needed to “be honest and therefore inspire other people, because coming out is still the most powerful tool the queer community has to advance ourselves.”

Sample Pamela Mean’s music here:

For more on Pamela Means, visit her MySpace page or her official site, where you can also browse this frequent traveler and serious coffee connoisseur’s ratings of java joints from around the country.

MARY DELANEY

In an early conversation with the organizers for this year’s Dinah Shore Weekend, Atlanta-based performer Mary Delaney mentioned that she thought it would be cool – since she wasn’t going to have her band, Letters to Mary, with her – if she could have a couple of dancers in chaps on stage with her.

“Not in a hokey way,” Delaney explained to AfterEllen.com, “but just sort of providing a Southern sizzle.” She barely remembered the offhand request once she was in Palm Springs, Calif., singing. But the crowd’s reaction made her look back, only to find two of the event’s famous go-go dancers behind her – in glitter, cowboy hats and, of course, chaps. Surely a sign that this artist has arrived.

Delaney’s most recent release is the Letters to Mary CD In the Meantime, which she classifies, when pressed, as alternative country. But with her concurrent love for bluegrass and indie rock, as well as her ever-changing musical style, Delaney isn’t easy to categorize.

She refers to her 2001 solo recording, American Detox, as a hip-hop project that includes both spoken word and singing, a departure from her other material. “It’s a really different genre, but I like to flit around,” Delaney said.

Lately she’s been having fun with her new drum machine. “I’ve usually been a person that just sits down with another guitar player or just myself and creates a song from there. But now I’m experiencing writing from a beat, which is really actually a lot of fun,” she said.

Originally from Lafayette, Ind., Delaney is a self-taught musician. She doesn’t even come from a musical family, although her toy schnoodle, Tater, was crooning a bit in the background during her interview.

Delaney has been touring quite a bit to promote her CD, but she said she feels like she’s at a crossroads now as she tries to determine her next direction: “Do I take this in an indie rock direction, or do I really dial it down and just work with an accompanist? Right now I’m just learning to breathe, and not getting involved in something I don’t feel comfortable with.”

Describing herself as the engine, cheerleader, organizer, manager and front person of the nearly 10 bands she has formed over the years, Delaney said her nature is to start something right away. “But I thought, this time I going to put the brakes on a little bit,” she said.

Her next CD is already on the horizon, though; Delaney has 10 songs that are ready for the studio. She envisions full band support on two or three tracks, but otherwise she foresees a solo release with a raw, live feel to it.

Delaney also has a new music video for her song “We Ain’t Over” that was directed by fellow Atlanta denizen Amanda Bearse and shot in Delaney’s neighborhood of historic Kirkwood. (Watch the video here.) The song is about that first intense childhood friendship. Delaney said Bearse thought it was a delicate, sweet story and really connected with the line “Would it make a difference to hear that I carved your name up a tree?”

Though she is definitely out to her listeners, Delaney said she has never been one to make a proclamation to her family or other people she knows. “I didn’t feel like I ever I had to,” she explained. “Sexuality is paradoxical, because it’s a huge part of who I am, but on the other hand, it’s such a minute part of who I am. Sometimes I forget that I’m gay.”

But she chalks that up to having come to terms with her sexuality long ago. “I think it’s vital when we’re first coming out to feel connected and maybe wear our sexuality on our sleeve and to be proud,” she said.

“But after being out for a while,” she added, “it’s just who I am, and I don’t make any excuses for it. It never occurs to me to hide it or mislead anyone.”

Listen to Letters to Mary at their MySpace page.

CHRIS PUREKA Browsing articles about Northampton-based singer-songwriter Chris Pureka, you come across the occasional misguided comparison to the Indigo Girls, which must be based more on sexual orientation and choice of instrument than on musical style.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune more aptly describes Pureka’s understated sound as “stark as solo Springsteen and as edgy and deep as Lucinda Williams,” and refers to her “raspy voice that’s as dry as the Dust Bowl.”

Pureka, who will turn 28 this summer, has been writing songs since she was 8. At 16 she picked up the guitar, and now it’s nearly impossible to read a review of her music that doesn’t mention how skillfully she plays it.

But Pureka is also a gifted lyricist. Performing Songwriter says she “puts a novel’s worth of imagery into every song,” and Alix Olson says her “gritty tunes are charged with charm, toe tapping poetry, and a sexy dose of wit.”

Pureka toured with Olson in 2001, right after graduating college. Then she headlined her own national tour a year after releasing her first album, Driving North, in 2004.

Her most recent release is last year’s Dryland. When asked to compare this album to her first release, Pureka said to AfterEllen.com: “I think topically the songs have a broader scope. There are a lot of songs that are kind of about getting through life. They’re not all about relationships. That’s sort of where I’m at also with my life, so it’s reflective of me.”

Dryland also has a different sound. “Musically, this record is a little bit twangier,” Pureka offered, adding that she’s been listening to a lot of Americana and alt-country in the past few years. Her favorite artists include Gillian Welsh and Ryan Adams, and she’s also wild about friend and Colorado-based musician Gregory Alan Isakov.

While she wouldn’t categorize her own music as country or bluegrass, she noted that those influences can certainly be found in Dryland‘s layers, particularly in the banjo and fiddle instrumentation.

Pureka grew up in Connecticut, but has lived in Northampton, Mass., for the past five years. “I’ve never lived in a really big city, so there’s part of me that wants to do that,” she said. “So I don’t know if I’m going to stay. But now that I’m away touring all the time, it’s nice to be able to come home someplace pretty quiet.”

She studied biology at Wesleyan University, and said her science background and tendency to think linearly probably influences her lyrics. “I tend to tell a story from start to finish,” she said, “whereas a lot of other people have more abstract thinking, where they’re just kind of connecting random thoughts. But I feel like I always start at point A and try to go to point B.”

After college, Pureka worked in a biology lab at Smith College for several years. It gave her the flexibility to pursue her musical career gradually, scaling back her day-job hours as things took off. But now that she’s frequently on the road, she finds it hard to write as much as she used to.

“When I was working full-time, I used to have these fantasies about doing music full-time and how I’d be able to work on my writing all day long,” she recalled. “It’s sort of the opposite of that. I tour a lot, so I’m hardly ever home, and it’s really hard to find time to write.”

As a result, Pureka hasn’t had a chance to come up with enough material for a new record yet. But she said when she does, she thinks she’ll be “leaning a little bit away from being super folky.”

When asked whether she ever made a conscious decision to be out as a performer, Pureka let out a laugh and said, “It’s sort of not an option not to be, if you’ve ever really seen a picture of me.” She added that while she’s always been out to the queer community, she hasn’t exactly been “running around with a banner saying ‘I’m a big homo’ to everyone else.”

She said that being queer doesn’t influence her music in a specific way other than in terms of where she plays and who’s in her audience. Case in point: Her upcoming tour dates include this month’s Kentuckiana Pride Festival and the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in August. You can also catch her in Boston and Ann Arbor, Mich., with more dates to come.

Listen to Pureka’s latest album, Dryland, here: For more on Chris Pureka, visit her MySpace page or her official site.

YO MAJESTY Billing themselves as “the only openly lesbian rap group,” Shunda K., Jwl B. and Shon B. comprise the trio Yo Majesty, based in Tampa, Fla., which has been getting a lot of attention lately for their unique, bold sound as well as their live-show antics.

The East Bay Express likens the group’s shows to “parties at Studio 54 circa 1976 – ass-shaking is mandatory, nudity isn’t forbidden, and going temporarily insane from dancing and repeatedly yelling ‘Oh s—!” is common.” Apparently by the end of Yo Majesty’s performances, it’s not unusual for one of the women to be topless.

That said, Shunda has said that fans are more interested in what these women have to say than in what they’re wearing, which doesn’t happen to include tight skirts and skimpy halter tops.

The group describes its music as “slammed up against the sonic perimeter of hip-hop and R&B with a totally New Wave infrastructure.” As The New Yorker pointed out, it’s “a direct descendant of Miami bass, an unapologetically bawdy and rough-minded genre.” (Think 2 Live Crew.) As an example, one song on Yo Majesty’s recently released first EPI is titled “Kryptonite Pussy.”

But their unabashed bawdiness is only part of the Yo Majesty story. Shunda happens to have a solo gospel project on the side.

This past October she told The Stool Pigeon why she doesn’t see this as hypocritical: “Nobody’s perfect, and that’s why we’re up there talking about smoking and drinking and loving and fighting: If people can relate to us, then hopefully we can help them through their problems. At the end of the day, my goal is to win souls, whether I’m performing in a club or in a church.”

She also told the magazine that most of the group’s material is about how to love a woman, and who knows more about that than another woman?

As for the division of labor, Shunda raps, Shon rhymes and Jwl sings her heart out. Shon and Shunda have been performing together since 2000, long before they met Jwl. And the three women recently teamed up with Hard Feelings U.K., who provided the beats for the seven-track EP and also produced the recording.

The lead track, “Club Action,” has gotten air time in Europe on MTV’s DIY Disco and 120 Minutes, as well as the BBC’s Radio 1. Yo Majesty’s U.S. fan base has been steadily growing, and it spiked earlier this year after the group appeared at the South by Southwest music and film festival.

Yo Majesty has upcoming shows in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Quebec and Ontario, then they’re on to California and Texas. After that it’s Orlando and Chicago, then gigs in Sweden and Norway. Their new EP is scheduled for release in October, and a full-length CD is slated for early 2008.

Listen to Yo Majesty and watch their videos on their MySpace page.

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