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Sound Check: November 2007

News and reviews of queer women in music.

As recently as the 1990s, it felt like only a handful of gay musicians were out and proud, singing songs we could relate to and see ourselves in. Thankfully as times change, so does the music industry, and queer artists are viable parts of every musical genre. Lesbians are now visible in everything from punk rock to neo-soul to modern country.

Sound Check is AfterEllen.com’s new monthly music column dedicated to looking at lesbian and bi musicians. Each month we’ll take a look at live acts, new recordings and give you a rundown of what’s been making music news lately.

I’ll be writing the column, and just like the rest of AfterEllen.com, I encourage your thoughts and comments. Music is a matter of taste, and this is just mine. I’ve written about it for publications such as The Village Voice, Time Out Chicago, Punk Planet, OurChart.com and of course, AfterEllen.com. So here we go … testing one, two, three.

Live Onstage

Khaela Maricich is The Blow, a queer, one-woman electro-pop act from Portland, Ore. On her current tour, she played at small clubs to mostly sold-out crowds that were anxious to hear how the songs from her K Records album Paper Television would translate onstage – especially after she announced it would be the last time she sang these songs live.

Onstage at the Empty Bottle with nothing but a microphone and a water bottle, Khaela nodded to her girlfriend by the sound booth, who pressed “play” on her laptop to start the background tracks. Dressed in white pants and a shirt with the collar flipped and the sleeves rolled up, she grooved solo like a karaoke star who lacked choreography but had a natural, though awkward, rhythm.

But it works for The Blow, whose songs like “Parentheses” are the perfect kind of pop music, with cute and clever choruses such as, “When you’re holding me, we make a pair of parentheses/There’s plenty of space to encase whatever weird way my mind goes, I know I’ll be safe in these arms.”

Khaela is BFF with Miranda July, so it’s not a surprise that her show comes off more as performance art than a normal concert. The theme throughout her show was teaching the audience how to write their own songs so that they wouldn’t miss hers, even if the lyrics are about something like a water bottle that never calls you back – odd but enthralling.

Another inspiring solo gal, Jenny Hoyston, played as part of the kick-off of Ladyfest Chicago in October and continues to tour throughout November. Jenny is the vocalist and guitarist of Erase Errata and also plays as Paradise Island. Her newest trio, aptly named Lesbians, is the queerest of them all, but her new album as simply Jenny Hoyston is just as feminist and radical as fans have come to expect, but with a little more romance.

Playing songs from her recent release Isle Of (Southern Records)at the loft space Av-Aerie, Jenny was joined by a drummer, but kept all eyes on her with her soulful vocals and small stature. Her indie aesthetic has a folk edge with a throwback to old-school songwriting, and though her set was short (especially for the amount of material she has in her repertoire) it was a rad re-creation of her newest songs. To round out the month of solo songstresses, Erin McKeown came through Chicago on her fall tour, decked out in faux tux attire and sporting a spiky hairdo akin to Dragonball Z. A talented instrumentalist, Erin’s guitar and keyboard playing was worth paying attention to, but the excessive pleading for crowd participation was as tiring as her rehashing of jazz standards.

When she does play her own work, however, it’s refreshing and highlights her true skills on the strings, which she also uses on occasion to back up other artists such as Melissa Ferrick and Ani Difranco. For those who have stuck by McKeown since the late 1990s, you won’t miss much if you miss this tour: Just buy her new live album, Lafayette.

Releases Reviewed

Baltimore’s queer quintet Odd Girl Out is an East Coast hit with their pop-punk rock, but the band’s debut album, Hurry Up & Wait, is a cluster of predictable chords.

The lyrics are a little too trite, even for punk (“Do you recall all the truths you told in variation? Do you recall somethin’ you did for me without hesitation?”), and vocalist Tawni’s voice is too sweet for the hard-hitting riffs. Even a cover of “Eternal Flame” can’t save Odd Girl Out from being another forgotten band, but they’d be perfect for adding some much needed diversity to next year’s Warped Tour.

If you take your dance music seriously, you probably won’t appreciate Nicky Click‘s lighthearted approach. Her simplistic beats back her slow-moving rhymes on her new album, I’m on My Cell Phone. Her first album, You’re Already a Member, put Nicky on the map as an up-and-coming queer electro pseudo-MC with songs about femme-on-femme action, but the new CD lacks the clever witticism of the first. Even collaborations with JenRo and Katastrophe can’t save it from being annoying and erratic. News and Notes

Out guitarist Kaki King is currently on the Billboard 200 – twice. She plays on a track on the Foo Fighters’ new album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (which peaked at No. 3) and on two songs on Tegan and Sara’s The Con, which is currently positioned at No. 192. Kaki will also be featured in the upcoming film August Rush (Nov. 21). She stars as the lead character’s hands playing the guitar during a close-up. Speaking of the twins, Tegan and Sara recently released the second video for the title track of their most recent album, The Con. The girls are currently on their U.S. tour with hip-hop trio Northern State.

Katie Sketch, the androgynous model and former vocalist of Canadian band The Organ, has a new act called Mermaids, which debuted with a few songs on Canada’s late-night talk show Eyes on Toronto the last week of October. Hopefully there will be recordings or other appearances to follow.

On Oct. 26, former girlfriends and Sleater-Kinney members Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker performed under the moniker Electro Domestico with two other ladies in Portland to benefit the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls. The Willamette Week reports that they performed songs by The Eagles, Linda Ronstandt, The Ramones and The Kinks, and Carrie performed a few solo originals.

Melissa Etheridge will perform her Academy Award-winning song “I Need to Wake Up” at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Norway on Dec. 11. This year’s Peace Prize winner, Al Gore, invited her to perform the song that was originally written for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Lastly, check out the following lovely lady acts on tour now: Uh Huh Her, The Cliks, Mary Gauthier, Meshell Ndegeocello, Melissa Ferrick, Bunny Rabbit and Girl in a Coma.

Have tips, press kits, comments or suggestions? Feel free to fill us in at [email protected]

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