In 2017, Geoff Edgars published a requiem for the guitar in the Washington Post with “The Slow, Secret Death of the Electric Guitar.” According to the piece, electric guitar sales had dropped significantly during the previous decade, from about 1.5 million annually to just over 1 million, and the biggest names in the business were either bankrupt, in debt, or making major budget cuts. However, the following year Fender’s market research showed that the market was evolving: the new generation’s motivation had shifted, with a focus on emotional benefits, and 50 percent of all beginner and aspirational players identified as women—with 19 percent as Black and 25 percent as Latinx. This critical progression of both motive and player offered the industry a seemingly clear cut way to resurrect the guitar: by taking the demands of women—especially those of women of color—more seriously, and offering more visibility.

And yet, many music industry leaders and media outlets seem to prefer to bury the guitar alive—or wait for a catastrophic pandemic—rather than include us in the conversation.

Earlier this month, the New York Times published, “Guitars Are Back, Baby!,” which reflects on 2020’s record-breaking increase of guitar sales due to the pandemic. The piece includes quotes from some of the industry’’s leading companies, demographic statistics, the influence of the guitar hero, and a few slight nods to the role of women. However, this piece fails us in the same ways previous writing about the relevance of guitar has: the visual portrayal and influence of BIPOC women are nowhere to be found and, more often than not, images of women rely on sexualized and feminine depictions.

The inherent problem lies in who’s doing the writing (older white men), who they are writing for (certainly not us, who make up half the market), who is invited into the conversation (older men), and who is being visually represented (cis white men and women). These same regurgitated voices and images preserve an antiquated guitar industry and culture, and in turn, these pieces speak exclusively to an older, white demographic. Apparently we, a community of diverse players from many different backgrounds and ages, are not included.

Changing Tides Featured Img — Collage from “Changing Tides: The Evolution of Women in Music Media” featuring Aretha Franklin, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Mamie Smith

Mainstream media, as we mentioned in “Changing Tides: The Evolution of Women in Music Media,” shapes our understanding of who truly embodies and belongs in guitar and music culture. Imagine how these guitar death/rebirth pieces might read if they were written by a woman of color guitarist—the choices in language, representation, and dialogue would be drastically different, and more representative of players as a whole.

In an attempt to fill some of the gaps left by the New York Times piece, we aim to answer the following questions: Why are mainstream publications repeatedly failing to document our experiences and stories? What parts of the guitar and its culture are we saying goodbye to? Who are we welcoming and how is that shifting our understanding of guitar culture, education, and community?

Death to the Guitar Hero

The role of the guitar hero is almost always speculated upon in these articles. This archaic and masculine model (or overtly sexualized when women are depicted) perpetuated by these writers has long been dead in many of our communities. In general, the term refers to a guitar player’s specific individual ability to inspire through technical ability, and someone who fits this definition, yet very rarely mentioned, is H.E.R.

With an amazing combination of inspiration variations, H.E.R. plays with a technical presentation that leans toward melodic and ear-heavy training, as discussed in our cover interview for She Shreds Issue 20. Just last week, she became the first Black woman to release a Fender Signature Guitar, and yet the mainstream is still choosing to almost exclusively showcase Taylor Swift—as if women who play guitar should exclusively stick to acoustic, singer-songwriter music.

H E R Strat Web 2 — H.E.R performing with her Fender signature guitar

In 2020, the mainstream media must prioritize the representation and influence of communities outside of the white cis mold in order to keep up with trends and, ultimately, to showcase the reality of the culture, which is why H.E.R.’s signature guitar is a massive milestone. There is plenty of mainstream visibility for women and women of color guitarists right now (H.E.R., St. Vincent, Willow Smith, Brittany Howard, Yola, and the increased popularity of pop stars and their all-women bands, like Beyonce and Lizzo) but when guitar is discussed at an industry level, we’re still seeing the same old faces and hearing the same dull voices.

On the other hand, the guitar hero is no longer our sole source of inspiration. The ability to immediately connect via social media has strengthened our desire to learn and our ability to create community through guitar and music. On the ground level, we must recognize that community over individuality is of utmost importance for change—something that the mainstream and older generations seem to have a hard time grasping. To inspire outside of the mainstream understanding of guitar heros, we need to broaden our definition of what inspires us. And in order to include an intersectionality of women players, we need to look outside of ourselves to create and find inspiration through each other.

Shifting Culture and Community

The death of the 20th century guitar hero seems to be at the hands of technological advances, resulting in a shift toward community-based inspiration and learning. “Maybe the issue isn’t too few guitar heroes, but too many of them,” writes Alex Williams in the New York Times article. “As any 30-minute foray through cover-song videos on YouTube will attest, there are approximately 1,000,000,007 much-better-than-average guitarists out there, many of whom are in their teens or early 20s. A great many of them are tearing through Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen or Jimmy Page licks. And a great many of them positively shred.” But Williams overlooked two crucial changes in the culture: first, that being “a good guitar player” no longer only means playing like the aforementioned men (for many, it’s to have the ability to express feeling and communicate); and second, that there is strength in community—modern players seek inspiration through representation.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBDulimFwbr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

In Fender’s 2018 market research, the company found that 72 percent of respondents picked up the guitar to learn something new and better their lives (players don’t necessarily want to become rock stars anymore), 61 percent of guitar players want to learn how to play for themselves, and 42 percent viewed guitar as part of their identity. While the 20th century beginner guitarist may have needed a hero to inspire progress and stardom, players today can learn more easily than ever through technological advances which equipt just about everyone with the right tools. But oftentimes, because of the overwhelming options and stimulation, there might be a lack of emotional, cultural, or personal connection, and the process might not be as meaningful or engaging. Watching a player show off their soloing speed is no longer as fulfilling as the right combination of chords, personality, and kindredship.

The shift toward community-based learning and inspiration is even more apparent in 2020, with stay-at-home orders and more time on our hands. While Williams credits the resurrection of the guitar to the pandemic, he fails to consider the recent trends that have greatly contributed as well—many of which are led by women and women of color. Musicians are hitting IG Live for more intimate performances, often accompanied by a minimal set up including an electric or acoustic guitar. One example has been Girls with Guitars, a weekly Instagram live performance and conversation series hosted by H.E.R. that gave viewers a glimpse into her technique, and even helped the rise of other participating guitarists including Cat Burns, who has recently become the face of TikTok UK. There’s also Pickup Music, a monthly membership artist-taught guitar education community built on showcasing the talents of a young Instagram community; In Session, a free six-day digital camp for women and nonbinary music producers of color from all levels and backgrounds; the influx of TikTok performances; Tiny Desk Home Concerts; and the many weekly IG live performances that we’ve flocked to in the absence of live music, such as Victoria Boyd of Infinity Song.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEuPNn2F7vo/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

“The guitar will always evolve with popular music,” says Sam Blakelock, founder of Pickup Music. “The problem is the way the guitar is often taught is stuck in the 1980s. Many online guitar courses are still dominated by old white men teaching classic rock. This doesn’t speak to young players and isn’t representative of the new community of guitarists.”

Pickup Music is just one example of how social media has changed the landscape of guitar education, by breaking out of the mold with a modern and inclusive guitar-based community with reflective teachers of all ages, genders, and race. “Bringing people together who are interested in similar styles of guitar and who are at the same stage of their learning journey is the key to reaching new levels as a player,” says Blakelock.

The Facts

Fender’s recent revival, as stated in the New York Time article, is accounted for by the following: in 2020, nearly 20 percent of beginner guitarists were under 24, 70 percent were under 45, and 45 percent identified as women.

“We’ve broken so many records,” Andy Mooney, chief executive of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, told the New York Times. “It will be the biggest year of sales volume in Fender history, record days of double-digit growth, e-commerce sales and beginner gear sales. I never would have thought we would be where we are today if you asked me back in March.”

This information, combined with Fender’s 2018 research that showed 19 percent of beginner’s identified as Black and 25 percent as Latinx (and what we can only imagine has increased since, with role models like H.E.R. and Willow breaking further into the mainstream) should act as a glaring indicator as to who the mainstream media should be passing the mic to. Any mainstream publication that addresses the death/rebirth of the guitar and fails to include the voices of women and younger generations is damaging not only to those voices, but to the sustainability of the industry at large. If mainstream media shapes the general population’s understanding of guitar and music culture, and mainstream media is not accurately representing that culture, then perhaps the guitar’s demise has just as much to do with the media’s negligence as it does with consumers.

Grasping onto a culture that simply doesn’t hold a future for the music industry anymore is detrimental on many levels. And as a result, if the question remains, “Is the guitar dying?” then the answer is yes: let the guitar, as the media has forced us to perceive it, fissile out. It’s time to let those who are being left out of the narrative—the major contributors to the guitar’s resurrection, thus lining the pockets of these major music companies—to lead the conversation, and to be recognized and uplifted for the imperative role they play in saving the industry.

In the first three Rolling Stone covers of 2020, more musicians were women of color (Lizzo, SZA, Megan Thee Stallion, Normani) than all of its covers combined from 2010 to 2015 (Rihanna, Whitney Houston, and Nicki Minaj).

This shift in representation hasn’t been swift so much as sudden: a whiplash undoing of mainstream publications presenting scattered gendered exceptionalism, packaged and sold under a slobbery male gaze as music journalism. Plenty of people have been calling it out (or mutely unsubscribing) for decades, but to little avail. However, over the last few years, a combination of capitalist survivalism and good old-fashioned public shame has jolted greasier-than-glossy magazines into accepting that short-term impulse buys for sexy covers can’t remedy the consequential reputation rot.

Plus, it wasn’t like the wrung-out “sex sells” strategy, with all its thin assumptions of who’s doing the buying and what they want, had actually been working. Over the course of a decade, Rolling Stone newsstand buys had slunk from 139k per issue in 2007 to 28k in 2017, surviving more on a few bouts of impressive political journalism than much else. In 2018, the new owner of Rolling Stone’s parent company announced that their goal for the publication was to be relevant to millennial consumers—a hell of an endeavor for a magazine that has been recycling Bob Dylan and The Beatles since its inaugural issue. Guitar World similarly changed its tune in 2016 when it announced an end to the annual bikini gear guide.

The corporate notion of appealing specifically to younger generations emerged in 1954, when Billboard announced that jukebox operators had been increasingly stocking R&B records to meet the demand of white teenagers who weren’t interested in the orchestral “popular music” that dealers had been pedaling in segregated shops. Fast forward more than 70 years and the business goal of remaining relevant to young buyers is increasingly intertwined with an expectation of respect for the web of identities musicians hold. While it’s unwise, if not difficult, to espouse an eagle-eye understanding of a phenomenon while living through it, it can feel at times like things are changing for the better.

However, change can be an elusive, slippery thing when touted imprecisely. Who are we including when we talk about how women are recognized, celebrated, or ignored? Who fits within that gendered category, and who do we consider entitled to recognition? Which voices count as “the media?” When we compare “right now” to “back then,” with which moment do we begin and how does our linear conception of time encompass the waxing and waning nature of progress?

This article is about how mainstream music publications have portrayed musicians who live outside of the cis male mold, because widespread visibility can have a powerful impact on our understanding of what is possible. As Oprah put it in a documentary about the Ed Sullivan Show’s impact: “You don’t understand what it’s like to be in a world where nobody looks like you. When I first saw Diana Ross looking glamorous and beautiful, it represented possibility and hope. It was life changing.” Achieving visibility and respect that fully reflects the contributions of a person or group to our culture is part of a systemic cycle of awareness, acceptance, and appreciation. Maddeningly, these cycles wax and wane without regard to the unity of our intersecting identities, which is why so few of the musicians discussed in this article are openly trans or nonbinary. To discuss how certain musicians have been talked about over the course of history is to be limited to those names that were uttered loudest to begin with. It is paramount, then, to distinguish between an analysis of what was and an analysis of what we have found. This is the latter.

And it started with Mamie Smith.

Early Blues Women and the Black Consumer, 1920s

Rock created the music publications we read today, R&B created rock, blues created R&B, and Mamie Smith made the blues a national sensation. In the summer of 1920, a small label called Okeh Records recorded Smith singing a rendition of Perry Bradford’s “Crazy Blues.” The record was an overnight sensation among Black working-class consumers, catalyzing a series of reactions by the record industry that would change popular culture forever. As Angela Davis pointed out in her book, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Smith’s success simultaneously led record companies to finally consider the tastes of Black consumers (while pigeonholing them into segregated buyer categories) and producing the music of Black women musicians. As blindly rooted in profit as these corporate labels’ reactions were, the ultimate impact was that rock ‘n’ roll and some of our biggest music icons’ signature sounds originated in Black communities—often Black women musicians, specifically. Because of Mamie Smith’s success, the country’s biggest record labels rushed to sign Black women musicians such as Ma Rainey, Memphis Minnie, Ethel Waters, Gladys Bentley, and Bessie Smith (no relation to Mamie Smith), who a teenaged Billie Holiday listened to before moving to Harlem and singing in the nightclub where Benny Goodman discovered her. The rest is history—or as Frank Sinatra put it in a 1958 interview with Ebony, “Lady Day [Billie Holiday] is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years.” Little could he know that, as was finally acknowledged in 2000 by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Holiday’s genealogy of sound extends to today.

At a time when white women’s orchestral pop music still held up marriage and heteronormative domesticity, these early blues recordings were the first instances of women singing to a national audience about independence, fluid sexuality, domestic violence, and working class struggle—phenomena that have often been mistakenly treated as inceptive when they later re-emerged in everything from the sexual revolution colliding with second-wave feminism to Madonna to the #MeToo movement.

Not only were the messages of early blues women revolutionary, but their popularity being based on the music they produced rather than their appearances was new too. Before records became an affordable way to listen to music, women’s musical successes and their ensuing coverage in the mainstream were tied to their visual performances on vaudeville stages.

________

The Influence of Tharpe and Thornton, 1930 – 1950s

The Second World War came and went, and temporary openings for women in factories (such as Gibson’s Kalamazoo Gals) as well as the mainstream music business along with it. When the war ended, government propaganda of women’s equality did too, leading to a spike in pop music as a vessel for messages of feminine domesticity. When the war ended in 1945—seven years after she packed an audience at New York’s Carnegie Hall—Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Strange Things Happening Every Day” made history as the first gospel song to cross over into popular appeal, while Doris Day’s “Sentimental Journey” topped the charts, marking the beginning of Day’s career as an “armed forces sweetheart.”

Sure, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was so popular that she played to a massive stadium 14 years before The Beatles’ Shea Stadium concert (popularly cited as the first such performance), but Variety’s white male writers couldn’t resist framing their kudos as being about a person “of considerable heft” whose music was “even for sophisticates.” The same drivel applied to Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, whose 1953 charts-topper “Hound Dog” rocked the musical landscape at #1 for seven straight weeks while she was subjected to vile physical comparisons and blatant respectability politics. Elvis may have idolized Tharpe, but he played right into the hands of industry executives looking to put a white man’s face on Tharpe’s and Thornton’s sound. Worse than Presley’s co-opted success was the white-washing of rock ‘n’ roll history it triggered. The British Invasion, as rock critic Kandia Crazy Horse would later point out, finished what Elvis had started. By 1970, Tharpe was described by one publication as “so rhythmically exciting that when she accompanies herself on guitar she might be a blacked-up Elvis in drag.”

Emergence of the Modern Rock Critic, 1960s

Considering how the 1960s birthed second-wave feminism, it’s impressive how dude-centric the emergence of modern rock journalism was. In fact, if there’s a moment from which you can directly trace the peak crudeness of mainstream music magazines, the mid-1960s might be your best bet. While the 1980s took the objectification of women to appalling heights, it was the 1960s emergence of the modern rock critic as well as gonzo journalism—which prided itself on making dumpster fires of professional ethics—and the left’s rejection of sexual mores that provided a rebranding opportunity for deeply entrenched misogyny in the music industry.

Even Rolling Stone had its exceptions, though, as any vessel of exceptionalism must. A few months before the magazine published its first issue in 1967, Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” hit #1 on Billboard’s charts. Taking a break from its worship of Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon, the second issue of Rolling Stone dedicated a full page to the Queen of Soul. “Let her do her things, after all, she’s the one with the talent,” the piece advised Franklin’s new producer before launching into a song-by-song analysis of Aretha Arrives (1967, Atlantic Records). The next year, the young music outlet published an eerie echo of Billboard’s 1923 acknowledgment of Bessie Smith’s triumphs: “In this day when groups and infrequent solo male artists dominate the music, the public interest and the charts, Aretha Franklin’s incredible commercial success is extraordinarily noteworthy.” Whether it was in Rolling Stone or The New York Times, Franklin got credit—and even though she made history when she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the mainstream media’s serious treatment of her talent was revolutionary 20 years prior too.

However, journalists still found ways to gender their coverage of Franklin, erase the women who came before her, or both. In 1968, The New York Times published one of their earliest articles about Franklin: “Establishing an identity through asserting the basic female emotions does not sound like a very original or interesting development for a pop singer—yet it is, in fact, almost without precedent in Miss Franklin’s tradition,” claimed white male writer Albert Goldman. “The old-timers like Bessie Smith or Ma Rainey (or Mahalia Jackson today) were massive matriarchs,” Goldman lazily stereotyped before turning to the woman-as-victim cliche of “the Billie Holidays or Dinah Washingtons [who] loved, suffered and learned resignation before they opened their mouths… Aretha’s woman may suffer, but her soul is whole and untrammeled by depression or abuse.”

Gonzo Journalism and the Male Gaze, 1970s

In hindsight, the 1969 Woodstock and Harlem Cultural festivals served as a perfect transition into the 1970s. Joan Baez and Janis Joplin were notable exceptions to Woodstock’s celebration of men in music, while Nina Simone and Mahalia Jackson headlined the 300,000-strong Harlem Cultural Festival weeks prior. Choice exceptionalism prevailed in both the festival circuit and mainstream media coverage, but it was also an era of milestones: the Filipino-American rock trio Fanny made waves on the Billboard charts, inspiring The Runaways, fronted by Joan Jett; Sylvia Robinson recorded her chart-topping “Sylvia” before founding Sugar Hill Records and bringing hip hop into the mainstream with her production of the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”; and Suzi Quatro became the first woman to reach rock star status for her bass playing. Not surprisingly, the media’s response was mixed.

In a 1974 article published in the influential and permanently-dated music magazine Creem, writer Robert “Robot” Hull seemed stuck between masturbating through his own words and acknowledging Suzi Quatro’s talent: “Suzi Quatro is a real cutie, rootie tootie, not sweet hog honey like Linda Ronstadt but a tight roller derby queen with juice and enuf krassiness to rank her right up there with the Sweet and Slade,” he drooled. Fittingly, Hull would go on to become a major rock critic and eventual producer of CD series’ like “Sounds of the ’70s.” Rolling Stone’s own coverage of Quatro later that same year was mild in comparison, but still ensured that any recognition came through a lens of male gaze, with the bassist propped onto the empty pedestal of “glittering sex queen” in one line and taken down in the next as “a short, trim woman from Detroit who moved to England after nine unsuccessful years in the American music business.” The New York Times couldn’t resist following the fad, with white male critic John Rockwell choosing to focus his coverage on his opinion that “Quatro dresses in leather jumpsuits and tries to project an image simultaneously aggressive, indifferent and raunchilly sexy.” The newspaper’s coverage of Fanny was equally stupid. “Going to see an all-girl rock group, one has to bring a mixture of condescension and paranoia,” wrote Mike Jahn, admitting the band was good before launching into time-tested cliches: implying they couldn’t move their amps, praising them for not being “Joni Mitchell-type cute,” and making sure the reader knew that this rock group wasn’t just a “pop choir.” Even with androgyny sweeping the mainstream musical landscape (with an apparent absence of acknowledgment of aesthetic contributions by non-cis musicians like Jayne County) this uninspired combination of visibility and ignorance continued into the 1980s.

The Rise of Independent Publications and Women Critics, 1980s – Now

“Annie Lennox began her life as a man two years ago,” reads the intro of choice for Rolling Stone’s 1983 cover story of Eurythmics’ newfound fame. In an act of truly gymnastic erasure, the piece recited Lennox’s explanation for her switch to an androgynous style as an anti-harassment strategy before concluding that “sexual speculation” at her recent concert “suddenly seemed irrelevant in the presence of such triumphant talent.” Nevermind the implication that abuse is reserved for those who are inadequate or that the musical ingenuity of other powerhouses from the era like Whitney Houston didn’t stave off the collective gnashing of teeth by arena crowds or magazines alike (Rolling Stone would wait until 1993 to publish a proper feature of Houston, promoting its unremarkable interview with a bright red splash of “Whitney Houston Gets Nasty” across its cover and another “Whitney Houston Gets Down and Dirty” for its headline).

As hip hop exploded and rock and pop kept morphing into a mind-numbing multiplicity of genres, music journalism was slow to evolve. The New York Times covered the beloved Grammy-award winning Selena for the first and only time before her death in its 1994 stereotype-laden coverage of a Mexican Independence Day party in New York City, while Rolling Stone didn’t even manage to mention her until late into 1995. Both publications treated TLC the same, ignoring the group except to insult them, even as they broke international records with CrazySexyCool (1994, LaFace and Arista Records) and shook the world with their famous call-out of the greed of the music industry in a 1996 Grammys press conference.

In the same way that TLC fought back against their management, the 1990s also ushered in a new generation of independent music publications founded and run by women who were sick of the mainstream press. Carla DeSantis Black founded Rockrgrl in 1995, publishing interviews and articles about bands like Sleater-Kinney and Tegan and Sara long before bigger publications took notice. Even before then, beginning in 1985, Lori Twersky published the zine Bitch: The Women’s Rock Mag with a Bite, a title that would live on in the separate pop culture magazine Bitch, founded by Andi Zeisler and Lisa Jervis in 1996.

All three of those influential publications were founded in California, so it’s fitting that San Francisco became a hub for women music journalists in the 1990s before their migration to the East Coast’s biggest publications. Evelyn McDonnell became SF Weekly’s music editor in 1992 and moved on to take the same job at the Village Voice in 1996, but not before overseeing an intern named Sia Michel. Before becoming today’s deputy culture editor at The New York Times, Michel was the first woman editor-in-chief of Spin, where Caryn Ganz climbed the music journalism ladder, eventually becoming deputy editor at Rolling Stone and then pop music critic at The New York Times. Ganz has joined other rock critics like the inimitable Jessica Hopper (who, true story, penned her first piece of music journalism because of lousy coverage of Babes in Toyland) in using her influence to sing the praises of acts ranging from Haim to Lizzo to Chastity Belt. And when Rolling Stone started 2020 out on the right note, it was women—Brittany Spanos followed by Emma Carmichael—whose writing dominated the centerfold features.

Our understanding of time may be linear, but cultural trajectories rarely are. The volume and tone of the mainstream media’s recognition of our communities has been a similarly fickle thing. To take their words and hold them up to the light isn’t an act of independence so much as accountability. We’ve always been here, taking music to new places, and we always will be. Or, as Mamie Smith sang in the song that started it all, “There’s a change in the ocean / Change in the deep blue sea… I’ll tell you folks, there ain’t no change in me.”

Howdy howdy, I’m Glenn Van Dyke and you’re deep in the She Shreds Curriculum Essentials For Your Home Recording Studio. I’m here to do my darndest to answer all of your pressing questions on the matter. Buckle up, because we have quite a bit to go over!

What blocks are you facing in your home recording setup?

Tangled chords
I buy these little velcro thingies. You can get them at your local hardware store, they come in packs of more than you’ll need, and they’re really cheap. I attach them to all of my cables, including those I bring to shows. Once you wrap your cable, you can attach the velcro really easily to keep it nice and neat and from unraveling in your bag or wherever you store your cables. When I’m in the middle of recording, I’ll leave part of the cable wrapped—usually the part that’s closest to where I’m plugging it in—so that I don’t have a bunch of lines strewn everywhere. Another thing you can do is throw a very loose knot on top—and I emphasize loose—if you don’t have any velcro. You want it to be loose because you don’t want to kink any of the cables inside the rubber shield. It will look like a pretzel, and will keep it from unraveling.
Finding products that align with iPads for quick demos
In our Essentials For Your Home Recording Studio guide, there’s a product called the iRIG 2 HD which is a wonderful tool that allows you to record straight into your iPad or phone.
Finding bigger, affordable plug-ins that pack a punch
There are a bunch of different plug-in companies: Waves offers bundles once in a while and there’s UAD, just to name a few. I would recommend following them on social media or subscribing to their newsletters—periodically they will do exclusive bundles throughout the year. Another really wonderful tool is a free subscription to Tape-Op, a creative-based engineering magazine. It has gear reviews, interviews with producers, and it’s geared towards a creative mind rather than super technical, although it does provide a lot of good technical info and recommendations.
Mic feedback
It sounds like you might have too hot of a preamp on the mic. Are you running your mic through an amp before you record it? Just watch the volumes. If you’re ever holding a mic and pointing it at the source of where it’s coming out, whether it’s the speaker or an amp, you’re gonna get lots of feedback. So if you’re playing or recording live, make sure you position yourself so the mic grill isn’t towards the same source its sound is coming from.
Motivation
I feel you. The creative brain and the engineering brain are [at odds]. It’s easy to get frustrated in the technical world to where you give up the inspiration to record what you have in your head. Keep your motivation, find what makes you happy and hold onto it. Try to make it as easy as possible: leave your setup up all the time, have a really easy routine that you get into—the more you do it, the easier it will be, and the less daunting it will seem.
Lack of money and knowledge
This gal [Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 USB] has a little sister [Focusrite Scarlett Solo] with one input on her, and she goes for $110 on Reverb right now. If you set aside $5 everyday for a month, you’ll have enough money to buy the little sister and a cable to go with it.

Lack of knowledge to set up a rig
I’m going to run you through a setup. So, we’ve got our interface with cables: a power cable and a USB cable…

1. Plug in the 12V DC power supply that came with your interface. It’s important to always use the power supply that comes with your interface. When talking about fundamental things that can go wrong, really it’s just power issues. You don’t need to know anything about it other than to use what is provided.
2. Now we have our USB that came with the interface. The square end goes into the back of your interface—you’ll see the USB symbol, plug it in there. Take the other end and plug it in to your computer.
3. Turn your interface on. Some have switches on the back, some on the front. When the light turns on, that means it’s working.
4. Plug your headphones into the jack on the interface. (Don’t forget to have an adapter, if needed.)
5. If you have monitors, you’ll go to the back of the interface and you’ll see monitor outputs. The language changes depending on what product you use; sometimes they’re called “main outs.” I would consult with the manual, but they’re usually sectioned off in a special area, and that’s where you plug in preferably gold-plated cables into your speakers—that’s where you’ll get the highest quality signal.
6. Open your DAW (I use Pro Tools). When you plug in your interface, your DAW mighty not automatically recognize the interface. To make sure you’re going to hear playback through your monitors, go to the Setup tab, and then Playback Engine. The playback engine is playing back with Pro Tools, which means the sound you’ll hear will be from your internal speakers. You’ll want to change that to your interface.. When you change the playback engine, it closes the session, saves it, and reopens it.
7. If you have the interface plugged in, and you make your tracks and can’t hear anything, odds are you need to change your playback engine. Different DAWs have different languages for these things, which is annoying, but it’s generally the same: Setup → Playback Engine. If it’s called something different, it’s only a Google search away.
8. You’ll notice all these pop-up windows asking about sample size. For the purpose of getting started, most of the time the default is what you want. As you continue with your recording, you’ll figure out the difference between the sample rates.
9. Now we’re going to make some tracks. Click on Tracks → New.
10. Check the inputs and outputs. Mic one will correlate to your first input, mic two your second, and so on. On this interface, there are mic and line options all along the front. So line 1–4 are going to be the same as mic 1–4. If you have more than four lines, there are additional line inputs on the back. Some practical uses for those additional lines are outboard gear or if you want to run your tracks into a pedal, you can route it all in the back.
11. Name every track on your DAW: vocal track, guitar track, etc. This way you’re not stuck down the line wondering what is what.
12. On every track header is an Input Monitoring button and Arm Record button. Click on the Input Monitoring (with the “I” icon”) to hear what you’re playing back. Click on the Record Arm button (with the dot that turns red when clicked) to enable recording on the track. When you’re ready to record, press Record and Play in the main toolbar.

Having one outlet but lots of gear to plug in
Get yourself a power strip with many outlets. The higher the joule rating, the better it is for protecting against surges.
Soundproofing
You can build a box around your amp using pillows and some cardboard to isolate it. That works if you’re trying to keep sound in or out. Just use what you have, and as you go, you’ll figure out what’s necessary to spend money on. You can take old pillows, blankets, or towels and build your own soundproofing.

Play Video

What is the most daunting thing about DIY audio engineering and production?

Learning how to use a DAW
It’s trial and error. Find a tutorial on YouTube or the internet—they exist for every DAW that’s around—and hold yourself to some sort of schedule in trying to learn it: give yourself exercises, pretend you’re in school. It doesn’t have to be super long; try dedicating 30 minutes a day to learning something new with your DAW. The more you practice, the smoother it will go.
Finding a clean slate to work on, too many buttons and knobs
I love buttons and knobs. It’s something that’s right there, you don’t have to dig through software to find the controls, but I do understand what you’re saying. Something that is helpful: if you look at a console or interface, there’s so many knobs per channel, but they all do the same thing. Once you learn one channel strip, all the rest are identical. If that’s something that really bothers you, they make interfaces that don’t have any knobs; they have a software that comes with it, and you go in the software and change the settings.

Recording drums
“You can go totally crazy with drum mic placement; you can put a ton of mics on the drums, which isn’t necessarily the best option all the time. I placed a three-mic set: on the kick, as an overhead, and on the snare.

- Kickdrum: I used a D112 AKG dynamic mic. If you’re only using one mic on the kick, I place it a little bit away, about a foot. It helps to capture more of the boom and punch that you want. If you put the kick mic inside the resident hole, you’re going to have to deal with some feedback, and you’ll have a much clickier sound because you’re gonna have all the attack from the beater.
- Overhead: I used a AEA N8 ribbon mic. I place it a little above the kick so you get a nice ambience, some nice room sound. I have it roughly over the snare, but also facing down toward the beater head so you will get some of the attack from the beater and kick drum as well. This is a figure 8 microphone, so you’ll capture the symbols, and it’s a ribbon so they will have a nice warmth to them.
- Snare: I snuck a SM57 right under the hi-hat. I have it pointed as close as I can get it without getting in the way of the drummer, and I have it pointed toward the center of the snare—that’s where you’re going to get the biggest crack.

I use this setup a lot. You can EQ it to sound really big, and you can even go as far as building another box around the kick drum to really isolate that sound.

Listen to the drum recording playback and see some tweaking here: https://www.dropbox.com/home/She%20Shreds%20Curriculum?preview=20200817_151822+(1).mp4]

Do I need an interface?
Yes, you do. I hate to be the bearer of you have to spend some money, but you do. You can record with your computer mic, but I think you’ll quickly outgrow that and be unsatisfied with the results. You don’t need an interface if you want to stay analog and go straight to tape, but odds are eventually along the process you’re going to want to digitize somewhere.
Struggling with knowing when a mix is done/trusting my ears
A mix is never done. You can tweak it until the cows home, but eventually you have to make a choice. Tweaking doesn’t make it better, it makes it different. Once you get to a point where it sounds good to you, play it on different speakers. As long as nothing stands out to you, then that’s the litmus test that a mix is done—and part of that is trusting your ears. That takes a little bit of time to trust yourself, as with everything. Try bouncing your mixes with others, have someone you know and respect listen to your mix and have them give you their opinion. Do that until you feel like you’ve absorbed enough, or have done it enough to where you trust yourself to decide when a mix is done.
Knowing what to do once you have a song recorded
I understand the conundrum of putting in all the time, money, investing, and recording but not really having a proper outlet for your music. You don’t have to—you don’t have to justify wanting to make art by having it be a professional game that you play. It can just be for you if you enjoy doing it. If you want people to hear it, there are lots of ways to get your music out there in a DIY manner: DistroKid puts your songs on all the platforms. If you enjoy it, do it.
Using three phones with Voice Memos instead of microphones to mic up drums, bass, and guitar
While I do suggest investing in other microphones down the line, the compression in our phones is really incredible and works really well as drum overheads and mics in general. Eventually you’ll probably want to have a more varied sound as you get into recording. If it works for you forever and you’re just trying to make demos, have at it. If you’re recording all at the same time—three phones going at once—I’d say clap really loudly during recording and all of the phones should pick it up, that way you can hear the clap in all of the tracks and line them up. Give it some space before you start playing so when you export your files and bring them into your DAW, you’ll see that clap peak and can go ahead and line it up based on that. If you’re recording the tracks one at a time on the same phone, use a click track. It will make your life so much easier.
Applying EQ to different instruments, busses getting a good mix
It’s totally daunting—there’s thousands of frequencies in the spectrum. A general rule of thumb is you want to carve out different frequency places for where instruments naturally live. So your kick drum is going to take up your lower area, but maybe it takes more of your subs than your bass, and your bass takes up more of your low mids, or vice versa. You don’t want tracks to compete within your mix. A good mix is a balanced mix, and I’d define balanced as everything having its own pocket in terms of frequencies—you hear it all, nothing’s vying for attention.

Another thought, in terms of bussing in your mixes (and for anyone who doesn’t know what busing is, think about it like a bus: you‘re putting your signal on a bus with a few other signals and you’re sending it to somewhere): you’re not going to be bussing something to the same EQ. I wouldn’t really do that, but maybe some people do and maybe you have some trick that you like, but generally when I’m sending a signal on a bus I’m sending it to a reverb or a delay. If you’re bussing signals to the same EQ you’re going to run into the problem of your tracks sitting on top of each other. You want to spend some time carving out EQs for each of your tracks.

Trusting you’ve set up everything correctly and hitting record
You just have to jump off that cliff, my friend. If you didn’t set it up correctly, you’ll find out really quickly. I hope the brief tutorial above (Lack of knowledge to set up a rig) was helpful.
Troubleshooting when you’re in a flow
If you didn’t set everything up correctly, most of the time it’s something really simple and easy that you overlooked. I mentioned in “Chasing Sounds: A Microphone Tell-All” that a hot tip is to learn how to follow your signal’s path.

So, your signal is coming from a source—let’s say it’s coming from your guitar amp, there’s a mic in front of your guitar amp. The sound is going into the mic, coming into your interface, going into a track on your DAW, and then it’s coming out your speakers. Most of the time, there’s just something that didn’t get set up right within that flow. Sometimes you don’t have the right input or output selected. I would start with those really simple things, because oftentimes that’s what it is. Troubleshooting is never ideal, but learning how to follow your signal is the best way to keep your flow.

Getting clean vocals
That is going to be your microphone selection, and your compressor. You’re probably going to want to compress your voice… it’s a really common thing that happens in mixing. You can try it out on a couple of plugins; find something that works for you. Invest in a good compressor and a good condenser microphone. Oh, and a room that isn’t super noisy. Condenser mics pick up a lot of stuff; make sure you’re in a space that isn’t super loud.
Equipment selection
There’s an infinite amount of equipment in the world. I think I mentioned before, but I have a few favorite magazines: She Shreds, my local art and culture magazine, and Tape Op, a free subscription with really good gear reviews. I also wrote an article for the She Shreds Curriculum, “Essentials for your Home Recording Studio,” that was partnered with Reverb, who is also a really great resource. They have articles on their website that can help you make selections. Dive in!
Mastering an album/feeling like you need a professional
Send it off to the pros! Conceptually, mastering is a series of compressors and EQ. But mastering engineers, in my mind, are wizards and you should let them do their wizardry. If you want to be a mastering engineer, I would suggest talking to one of these wizards if you can catch one. It’s a really cool process, but if you’re mixing your record I would just send it off. That’s what I do.

Feeling like you need a professional… that’s real. Sometimes you want someone else to work on your project, to give it a stamp of approval in a certain way. I totally understand that. But recording, it doesn’t have to be the end all be all. You could just mess around with your demo in your studio to get a feel for what you want down the line. It could also save you time for when you do go to a professional studio because you’ve already played around with tones and have a more direct idea of what you want.

Procrastinating
One of my favorite mottos is KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Turn your WiFi off when on your computer; I’ve done that in crunch times and it’s really helpful.
Choosing a mic good for voice and acoustic
Get yourself a condenser microphone. I highly suggest taking a gander at the She Shreds Curriculum article I wrote, “Chasing Sounds: A Microphone Tell-All,” and absorbing it. There’s definitely a lot of information in there; I hope it doesn’t overwhelm. It’s meant to be looked over multiple times to give you a better understanding of different types of microphones, what they do, and their practical applications.
Not knowing where to start
It’s recording arts. It’s the same thing as writing a song or drawing a picture. You start with a line, or you start with a chord. You start with one input, you start with one microphone, you start with your voice memos. You start with whatever is comfortable for you at your own pace that doesn’t overwhelm you. You start with stuff that you can afford and move on up from there—or not. Maybe you decide you don’t want to be recording and you’d rather just play music. I think that ties into a lot of the concern of doing something fundamentally wrong. It’s tested out in experiment; there’s no right answer. You’re probably not going to electrocute yourself, just don’t open amps or mics if you don’t know what you’re doing. But if you’re just plugging in cables and pressing record, you can’t go wrong. You’ll figure it out as you go, and every mistake is a learning lesson. You might not get the sound you want, and you move the mic around. Or you try a different plugin in, you try a different effect. Have fun with it.

Virgo Season is the time of harvest. Even in 2020, seeds have been planted: reflection, patience, flexibility, and interconnection. We know now that our world is connected not only through fiberglass wires and photons, but through lived experiences and shared air. We are in this moment together, and we will only get out of this moment together.

Read through your Audioscopes for Cancer Season and take on an extra challenge with our audio tips.

ARIES (March 21 – April 19)

This pain in your side won’t let up simply because it’s time to move forward. You’re going to have to learn to move with this loss; pull your heavy heart out of the ground and replant it into the open cavity in your chest, where the wind has whistled through and cleared away the embers. This path won’t get any easier, but you’ll get better at holding yourself through it. You were made in order to live through these moments of chaos—it’s in these fires that your truth rings true. Now is the time to listen to the chords that string through your belly, pushing you up to standing, pushing forward and true.

Audio Challenge: Use your recent loss or challenge as inspiration. Write a song about it, sing it loud—acknowledging pain is the first step to healing.

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)

No one can tell you the way forward now. All the details are skewed in the shadow of the Full Moon announcing that now is the time where all things must change. You can take a few things along with you for the journey, the reminders of what home feels like so you can secure it again. But there will be no visiting the same pastures come next year—the crops will not grow in these changing winds. It’s time to make peace with what you know in your heart is true: you must leave this old place behind in order to find what rings true.

Audio Challenge: What chords and techniques do you rely on? Are they serving your growth, or stunting it? Consider writing a song on a new instrument—something new, unfamiliar—and see what comes to the surface.

GEMINI May 21 – June 20

Does securing a safe place to rest require a sacrifice? The price for comfort and stability needs to be balanced with the desires you know will not be put to rest, in this timeline or the next. The myth of cohesive global structure has been shattered by the blast of 2020 vision, but that doesn’t mean you’re not still holding on to the broken shards that are embedded so deep in your heart. Who’s to say finding home is uncalled for, or that there must be a time to lay down the dreamtime vision for a small fire, a warm bed, and a meal in the morning? Just this heart.

Audio Challenge: Evaluate the space in which you play your instrument or work on music. Are you comfortable there? Does it activate you? Is there anything that is no longer working for you? Create an environment that moves you.

CANCER (June 21 – July 22)

You can capture the ray of photons shining through the newly opened door if you can muster up the courage to declare yourself ready for the challenge. Where once there were broken promises and a potent dream left askew on the floor, now there is a ray of light beckoning you through. But in order to take this next step down the path you thought was closed but has been newly offered, you must make sure you’re ready for the trials ahead. What you have asked for is no easy task, no light walk through the woods. There are dangers on all sides now, which you must trust you have the capacity to meet. Will you take it?

Audio Challenge: What new musical paths have you been avoiding? What new challenges have you been putting off? Pick one and begin to explore it.

LEO (July 23 – August 22)

This is not the time to take yourself to task. It may be true that there have been blunders made in the past, and it may also be true that certain structures are built on changing sands instead of set in stone. But the time at hand is not made for putting nose to grindstone, working through the frustrations of the day with heavy hands and focused heart. The reigns need to loosen a bit on the chariot that carries your vision from this field to the next. It’s enough that you’ve been here this far, and that you see what more there is to come. Take a shower. Wash off the dirt and ashes from the long night. There will be opportunity for flight tomorrow.

Audio Challenge: Be easy on yourself this month. Instead of forcing yourself to write the record, EP, or song, take time to explore other ways of enjoying music: listen to your favorite record, polish your guitar, look into a new genre to explore, read the autobiography of a musician you admire—nurture your musical soul.

VIRGO (August 23 – September 22)

There may be unidentified whispers in the backroom, the hint of a secret not yet exposed but ready to hit the surface, a betrayal lurking around the corner. This doesn’t mean anything is actually shifting, except your own perception of it. Watch out for phantom enemies keeping you up at night and ghostly patterns of long distant past. You are celebrating another year—not in strife and competition, but in recognition of how far you have come. When your blood starts to boil over misheard words and crossed wires, slow down. Take a breath. You’re simply being reminded of what you’re already letting go.

Audio Challenge: Make three columns on a piece of paper, and write out the following lists: all you’ve accomplished in the last year, all that you’d like to accomplish by this time next year, and all you must let go off to reach your goals.

LIBRA (September 23 – October 22)

Yes, it may feel like time to open the doors to new energetic connections and let the air flow through your sails, pushing you across the sea to a new destination. Unfortunately, the weather is not here to accommodate your plans, and the destination may be no farther than the ends of this abandoned hall. There must be another way to find new inspiration in this house full of plans that lay unfulfilled, littering the floor with your unmet desire. Think back to a song you heard wafting through the garden before this chapter started—you’ve already met someone who can end this dreary wait for a change in seasons.

Audio Challenge: Put aside your current goals for a moment and revisit what inspired you to play music in the first place.

SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21)

You’ve been sowing the seeds that are needed for change in silence, knowing that by the end of the harvest you’ll find yourself in a different place. That time is here now, and so it’s time to carry through on the promises you made to yourself at the year’s onset. It doesn’t matter what fireballs may fly across the night sky now, what challenges still lay ahead. You must accept the time that you have been given for shifting, allowing the energy to carry you through to the next round.

Audio Challenge: Make a list of the plans you had set for yourself in 2020. Write out a list of alternative ways to accomplish them if this year has put a wrench in your journey.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21)

Yes, starting out in that new direction will be wise in this moment, as any opportunity to reach out and bring back some of that glow into your heart is immeasurably valuable. There are many ways to lose your way down the hidden valleys and plateaus of this time you have here to explore, but the one most difficult to come back from is losing the connection between your heart and your offering. Don’t let this be a time where you take an easy path in order to guarantee a future you know will not manifest. Take space. Allow the vibratory frequency of your unique vision to sing your heart open once again.

Audio Challenge: Think back to what made you gravitate toward music in the first place. Try to bring more of that into your life—both within music and your day-to-day.

CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)

It’s time to collect yourself now. The decisions have been made, the calls are done, and all there is to do is sit with the path you have put yourself on and see it all the way through. There are wide open fields of potential to contemplate, and many pieces of the puzzle that have fallen into place to create an unexpected picture that is, nonetheless, complete. You may need to quiet down the background noise and the endless sticky notes in order to find it. But it’s there—that feeling that you may just be finding home.

Audio Challenge: Lean into this moment, despite whether it was what you expected or not—the unexpected is often what brings you closer to the truth.

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)

There is something burning in the back of your chest that’s been held back so long it’s about to smolder through your ribs and burn through. If you don’t reach in there and pull out the fire bit by bit, truth by truth, word by word, then you’ll undoubtedly find yourself in a pit before the month is through. There may have been a time when bottling it up worked, a tried and true strategy for those who pay mind to what needs to be said (or not said) at any given appointed time. But 2020 will not give you that free license to play silent when you can feel the scream form in your throat. Say it. Before it takes you.

Audio Challenge: Set your truth free—whether through song, the written word, or plainly saying it outloud. Speak your truth.

PISCES (February 19 – March 20)

There is a single horse driving this race between you and your feelings of personal safety on this secluded beach at the midnight hour, when the dawn promises new challenges and this night isn’t long enough to resolve the ones that have already spun out: trust. Can you trust the direction this path is going? Or are you looking back over your shoulder, wondering where the lights have gone? It’s time to put the soles of your feet firmly on the ground and remember what gave you the strength to begin this journey in the first place—it wasn’t fear and it wasn’t doubt. It was trust.

Audio Challenge: What does trust mean to you? Do you trust those within your musical circle? And more importantly—do you trust yourself, and the path you’ve paved?

Even during the most trying of times, the struggle is not simply made in order to test the soul or suss out the strength of our backbones—it’s also a necessary process in order to usher in the new. The sweet songs of sorrow sung into the moonlight give way to praise for the morning rays of the rising sun. The new day is coming, its seeds already planted into the deepest folds of your sweet, soft heart. The courage of the Leo sun lies not in ignoring the dangers of what is to come, but in recognizing your own power to overcome them.

Read through your Audioscopes for Cancer Season and take on an extra challenge with our audio tips.

ARIES (March 21 – April 19)

Because there is no promised land at the end of this rainbow’s curve, because you don’t know if the sun will rise tomorrow, because it’s not certain whether your life today will be the one that stays or the one that was just a phase—reach out. Reach deep. Reach down into that belly pit and keep pushing through until you find the soft soil of that land buried inside of you. It is from this place that we need to hear your vision. It is from this place that you will be reborn.

Audioscopes Challenge: Reach deep into yourself, through the fear and insecurities, and make a list of all the musical endeavors you’ve ignored. Pick one and work on it this week.

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)

If you build from the ground up, setting each stone down with clear intention and focused vision on what will become, then there will be no thunderstorm, no clap of light, no earth-shaking tragedy or rivers of circumstance that can rattle this foundation from its core. You know what it is that you are building, and you know who it is that you are building it for. There really isn’t any time but here and right now to get started. Go.

Audioscopes Challenge: Set a timer for five minutes and write out every single music goal you’d like to accomplish in your lifetime. Then organize the goals under reasonable timelines: three months, a year, three years, a lifetime. Write out the steps needed to achieve each goal, set deadlines, and begin.

GEMINI May 21 – June 20

Just because there is a storm raging outside these windows does not mean you have to give in to the cold, dead promise of night. This is your time for divining the next steps on your path; tomorrow, when the sun rises, you will have ample opportunity for flight. Don’t mistake the long pause between breath in and breath out as a cause for concern. This is just the Earth breathing around you. Sync in.

Audioscopes Challenge: Consider meditating and focusing on the breath for at least 15 minutes before working on your next song or figuring out a new piece of gear.

CANCER (June 21 – July 22)

No, you are not standing on the precipice alone. You may only be able to hear the siren’s shriek curdling up your bones, reminding you of what has been lost, but just because the alarm keeps ringing doesn’t mean there’s more difficulty ahead. Let your heart rest now. Take a deep breath in, feeling the pull of your chords at the fingertips. There are others here, reminding you that were you to open your eyes, you’d realize you are here together. All you have to do is trust.

Audioscopes Challenge: Look into the music of your ancestors. Were they musicians? What kind of music did they listen to and/or play? Use what you find in your own creations.

LEO (July 23 – August 22)

Is this body a temple, a playground, a work site, or a cubicle? Did it perform the necessary movements and rituals to keep your energy balanced and clear? Do you feel your energy pulsing down from spinal cord to fingertips, your power doubled by its nimble form? There is only one who can play harmonies here, only one who can hold the tone of this moment and sustain it long enough for you to hear it. Pay attention now, she is speaking—not an enemy, not a tool, not another reason to find discrepancies between vision and manifestation of light.

Audioscopes Challenge: Consider creating a before and after ritual to your music process (finger or vocal exercises to warm up, deep breathing, a quick yoga session). If you already have a ritual, make any necessary adjustments that might be needed as you continue to tune into your body.

VIRGO (August 23 – September 22)

This is the last month of wandering through unknown cave passages, bumping up against the walls, listening for echoes to guide you. The sun is rising just outside the lip of the entrance, beams glaring down passages like strips of neon light showing the way out. Even now you can look up and notice the difference between midnight and twilight, the way the light changes when dawn is on the approach. You will have another tomorrow. You will have a new cycle burgeoning from this fall. The question now is: what will you bring to it?

Audioscopes Challenge: The next time you face writer’s block, do not give up—push through it. Take a 10 minute break and listen to music that excites you, read poetry that inspires you, and then pick up your instrument and see what comes out.

LIBRA (September 23 – October 22)

No situation is hopeless if those who are caught in the battle between circumstance and might keep a clear vision of the future they are manifesting and a resolve to see it burst through. You may have witnessed the end of an era, but does this mean you’ll bury the new one too? Will you lose sight of your gifts in the moment’s chaos, or will you hold tight to what you know is true, sound, centered, and resounding? It is up to you to feed this fire during the storm. It is up to you to feed the light.

Audioscopes Challenge: Think back to the way you approached music before live gigs were halted by the pandemic: What brought you joy? What gifts do you possess? Are your goals the same as they were before? Do not use the answers to harp on the ways you might be limited today, but rather how you can apply them during this new era.

SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21)

Love comes back and swings full way right into your chest, lighting up the areas that have been sleeping on the present, waiting for a brighter day to let the rays catch. But you cannot keep holding your breath, waiting for a better time to say what must be said, waiting for fair weather in order to make the journey. This is the new seasonal shift; this is the climate that will unfold. Your time to move is now—make your way across that bridge from circumstance to chance.

Audioscopes Challenge: Consider talking through the next steps of your music with a trusted loved one, no matter how underdeveloped or lofty they may seem.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21)

Does a condor look down at the ground below and question the plumes of air that keep its feathers in flight? Do not question the strength of your wings to keep you going when you’ve already decided the path you’re on. Now is the time to push through the butterflies in your belly and trust that you have aligned divine providence with vivid intention, cleared the pathway for travel, and caught that column of air that will carry you through. You’ve done this a hundred times, in a thousand different weather variations. Now is no different. You will carry this through.

Audioscopes Challenge: Make a list of your musical strengths and create affirmations for each one. Consider how your strengths can be used even more to further your goals. Say the affirmations outloud to yourself every time you practice or perform.

CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)

The only thing guaranteed on this journey is that you will face exactly what it is that you need to see in order to lose the ignorance that acts like a shield between you and who you are to become. The confrontation with the abyss of chance may seem too troublesome to have meaning, but it is in these moments, when the hair on the back of your neck rises, that the self you are becoming is revealed. Don’t stall the inevitable. You have no chance against this foe some have called destiny and others chance. You can face it.

Audioscopes Challenge: Lean into the moments that take you by surprise, the ones that may feel confrontational to who you thought you were. Stay present and see what is revealed about you and your music going forward.

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)

Who you commit your time to reveals as much about your journey as it does their ability to change it. Their merit becomes your merit, their karma becomes your karma, their difficulties become your difficulties, their gifts become your gifts. Will you enter into this next phase willingly, arms at the ready, hands intertwined? Do you know what you are taking on? Remember: no one can choose this for you, no one can separate this once it is done.

Audioscopes Challenge: Consider the musicians and bandmates you associate yourself with. Is it a mutually beneficial relationship? Do you receive as much as you give, and vice versa? Are they supporting the full and whole you?

PISCES (February 19 – March 20)

The only way to ensure order in the small slice of the world that is under your purview is to enact it yourself. Through the careful and diligent application of set rules and boundaries, protective measures and routine, you will set the wheels in motion that will deliver the results you seek. Not by chance or divine providence, but by sheer determination matched with commitment to your single goal: clarity. To see through the eye of the storm you need the grounding to stand on. Set yourself up.

Audioscopes Challenge: Map out the foundation of your creative process, including your goals, routine, intentions, and limits and boundaries.

TAKE A MOMENT TO REFLECT ON THIS: There was a time when the teen survivors of the predatory and abusive culture of Burger Records felt the warmth of a new day. They were accepted into a rock ‘n’ roll subculture that was separate from the world that often disapproved of them and offered little more than mainstream disappointments. They felt welcomed and visible, like they were truly a part of something, spending much of their time and money at Burger Records’ shop and shows—and this enthusiasm for a better world was used against them by the very adults they thought they could trust.

If you are far removed from your teen years, or from being immersed in a subculture, I ask you to scour the deepest corners of your memory to remember those first moments of feeling invigorated by a community that existed on the fringe and seemingly welcomed you as you were. The need for acceptance cracked wide open during our teenage years, a time when we were the most vulnerable in both our bodies and identities, learning how to navigate ourselves amidst traumatic incidents in our homes, high schools, and spaces with others who we looked up to. Discovering a music community that professed a progressive DIY culture in a world that demands conformity was often our one great hope. We stumbled toward the horizon, despite everything, and let a new rising sun welcome us in—another world shone possible in a boundless night…

When I was a scrappy teenager on Long Island, I leaned heavily into punk music. I learned how to play guitar at 13 in a town three miles shy of an official borough, ostracized by my classmates for being a lanky punk freak, longing for the days I could move to the city and meet people just like me. In 2000, I came across the ostensibly radical Long Island DIY punk scene, in which touring bands like Against Me! would drive east from their shows in New York City to play in our suburban basements, and local punk bands of young white men would use the mic to shout about feminism and change. In fact, our DIY scene was even written about in Newsday, and in 2001 a few friends even made a documentary about it—it was as if the sun burned only for us.

For a time, the Long Island DIY punk scene felt righteous, but the harm that befell women was consistently denied by the men in power. Our feelings of being unsafe were met with apathy—or even worse, laughter. When we called out big shit men with band clout for sexism or sexual assault, we were screamed at for being irrational liars. We were made to feel damaged and ungrateful, and we stayed steeped in its toxicity because it was all we had access to and all that we knew.

We were made to feel damaged and ungrateful, and we stayed steeped in its toxicity because it was all we had access to and all that we knew.

Eventually we left for college or the city, started our own bands, and created our own spaces that centered the voices of women within the larger Brooklyn music scene and beyond. The multiverse of social media had yet to exist, so addressing acts of assault by men in powerful bands often stayed local or had to be spread by word-of-mouth through the circuit of similar scenes throughout the country. (Let this question sink in: Did a single man who was accused of assault in this early 2000s music scene ever face any real accountability? I can’t say for certain, but my gut says absolutely not.)

Back then, in terms of punk and rock ‘n’ roll in New York, this scene was all that we had. There wasn’t yet a variety of independent DIY music scenes to subscribe to as there is today, and it felt so rare to be around young men who acted so radicalized, which made their failures and our silenced voices unbearable. Today, with the commodification of DIY music and radical ideologies, we’re seeing more spaces that cater to progressive politics and identities, and the men involved are essentially handed the tools to act as allies, and yet they are still failing us.

I am enraged, my insides set ablaze, when I think about how 20 years after my own initial experiences, women are still being harmed in these spaces—but even more so, how teenage girls are still being harmed by full-grown men. The accused affiliated with Burger Records presented a space for teens to congregate and engage with their favorite music and musicians, but behind closed doors they were like predators from a real life Brothers Grimm tale: the label used appealing rock music, merch that catered to a younger crowd, and all-ages shows to attract teens. They baited young hopefuls with a good time, often offering underaged girls drugs and alcohol before taking advantage of them.

The predatory and abusive treatment of women in alternative music spaces is not new, but the means by which we handle these situations certainly are. Today we are equipped with social media, which allows for survivors’ stories to be transmitted across the world, creating platforms for their voices and communities of support. We’re seeing this through Instagram pages like Lured by Burger Records, dedicated to sharing the stories of and supporting survivors of sexual predation by those involved with Burger Records; submissions_4la_musicians, offering space for LA survivors assaulted by musicians to have their voices heard and a resource for accessible therapy; and Clean Streets, which exists for survivors of the music industry at large to share their stories.

Women display immeasurable resilience in coming forward with their stories, and yet there is always backlash against the truth. Insidious comments that rally around the evils of “cancel culture” have been left on the social media pages of accused men associated with Burger Records, and let me make one thing clear: vocalizing our stories of sexual assault and predation is not a culture. It is one of the first steps toward healing from trauma and it is a response to rape culture, a sociological concept in which rape is normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality that terrorizes the bodies and minds of women, nonbinary, and trans people.

Vocalizing our stories of sexual assault and predation is not a culture. It is one of the first steps toward healing from trauma and it is a response to rape culture.

On the flip side, it’s never been easier for men to self-educate/address toxic masculinity and systemic sexism/misogyny through the resources afforded them via social media and the internet. And yet, no matter how many articles they read or political stances they claim in their own lives and/or music, some men absolutely refuse to put their words into practice or take accountability for their actions. Such detrimental behavior either traumatizes young women from later participation in music, or further activates them to seek out other communities or start their own.

My hope is that the women coming forward about their own trauma caused by Burger Records will experience the latter, and here is my emboldened offering: Twenty years later, most of the problematic yet highly esteemed men who were musicians and gatekeepers in the DIY scene of my youth are now completely irrelevant; the women, however, are now at the center of this industry. We are musicians gaining international attention, acclaimed music writers, and activists who are forever working towards change. We are a community that will last a lifetime.

Today Burger Records announced that they would be folding the company, despite recent claims of a rebrand. This follows a slew of statements from affiliated artists—including Alice Bag and Bleached—cutting ties with the label. All of Burger Records’ social media accounts have been deactivated, they plan on removing all of their music from streaming platforms, and all of their artists own the rights to their own music and are free to reissue their records. The band Sloppy Jane has started a Google Doc of labels, managers, and lawyers who have offered to help women musicians once signed to Burger Records, and Lured by Burger Records continues to uphold the voices of the survivors.

It’s bewildering to see my own experience still reflected, all of these years later, through the women coming forward against Burger Records and through so many others. It’s a trauma that we share with all the women who existed before us, and those who will exist after. I wish I could say things have gotten better, but we literally just heard accounts of grown men grooming teenagers who simply wanted to play music, go to shows, and feel connected to others.

So, what does a true reckoning within the music industry look like? That’s a question I do not have a complete answer for. But what I do know is that these independent music scenes and entities—no matter what they preach—replicate miniature versions of the whole spectrum of systemic injustice in our country. While holding these men accountable is a critical action toward change, the toxic foundation on which our entire existence is built upon (i.e. capitalism) must be dismantled, and we’re seeing this work being carried out internationally through the Black Lives Matter and abolitionist movements. Within the music industry, organizations like Calling All Crows and those that promote bystander intervention are working towards supporting the safety of women, nonbinary, and trans people. Independent labels like Get Better Records, a queer/trans/artist-owned and operated label based in Los Angeles/Philadelphia/Brooklyn, work tirelessly under a heartening and radical no-music-industry-bullshit approach. And there are plenty of resources available to those dealing with sexual and predatory trauma right now, which Lured by Burger Records has begun to compile.

We’re embracing the momentum mobilized by the many generations and music scenes that came before us. Despite how dark the days may feel, it’s promising to see how social media and the internet have offered new avenues for women to hold space for each other and to come together in ways that I didn’t have access to as a teenager—we are certainly not alone. So I ask you to keep on stumbling toward the horizon, scream straight into it, and see what light shines back—you have decades worth of women here to support you.

Cancer is the sign of home, hearth, and happiness through interconnection with family and kin. For too many of us, the right to flourish in ancestral lands and recognize lineage and kinship has been stolen by those who decided that their personal profit was manifested by their own god, decreed by the color of their skin, and destined by hierarchical belief systems that privilege greed over grace. Now the ocean tides are rising, breaking through every blockage and barrier between reclamation and recompense, opening the channels for what has been stolen to be paid back tenfold.

But we, the beings made of carbon and heart, must prepare for the long ride down the rivers of circumstance in order to find the head, the source from which all direction flows. Rest is necessary, as is taking up the spear for battle. This will not be a battle won and lost in a night—this will be the initiation bell of a lifetime spent reckoning with the futures that have been lost. Read through your Audioscopes for Cancer Season and take on an extra challenge with the free, downloadable audio bytes created by Takiaya from Divide and Dissolve.

ARIES (March 21 – April 19)

These bonds are not meant to be broken. Even if the body fades, the touch is lost, the bright light of recognition is tarnished by the heavy burden of memory, this cord that connects your belly to their belly, your mind to their mind, your heart to their heart, remains unfettered: not in use, but not broken. Like an open telephone line at the end of a tin can for you to scream your heart into. Even as you wish to rise above the circumstance of contrary patterns mired in pugnacious thoughts, so too will you find, when you look behind you, each one of them dragging along, trailing behind like cans on a car, announcing, “Just married!” You, and your inherited patterns, as one.

Audio Challenge: Which patterns in your music writing are serving you? Which ones aren’t? Listen to the Aries audio byte on repeat, and see what it tells you about your patterns.

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)

This may be a time of harvest, when all the seeds you’ve planted spring up through the hardwood floor and manifest the gilded future you’ve been eyeing through your one-way mirror, foretelling the future at your door. The promised land unfolds before you, but already there is a small voice creaking beneath the planks of the floor, reminding you that today you have plenty, but tomorrow you may have none at all. What does it matter, the seesaw of circumstance, the roll of the die across the green felt of material reality that blankets the dance of microcosm universes manifesting at your door? Without a reason, there’s hardly a matter. Find it.

Audio Challenge: What is your reason for creating music? Try to recreate the Taurus audio byte with your own instruments and gear, and meditate on the reasons music calls to you.

GEMINI May 21 – June 20

All the spells in the world won’t do the good that is promised when you lay your desires at the foot of a loved one’s door. The altar is set, the spells cast, the crystals collected, and the guitar tuned—but there will be no time for a performance now, not if you haven’t spent a moment looking past the bridge of your own nose. There is someone here who needs your help, and you have the energy to spend. Funnel that fickle talent into the manifest future, created by mutual ascendance merged with love. You will do better now, as long as you don’t worry so much about where you are headed; look instead at where we are headed, together.

Audio Challenge: Consider the noise heard throughout the Gemini audio byte, then write a song that incorporates noise and/or feedback into its foundation. Let it act as the voice of another—what is it saying?

CANCER (June 21 – July 22)

There are certain lines of resonance you are born into that will never lose their power, and then there are certain lines of connection that you take on willingly and invest in, doubling their energetic influence in your realm. Those chosen connections have the power to renovate or destroy, transform or abandon, make right or wrong any moment of short time you share on this blue sphere deep in the sea of ocean black. You do not need to consecrate all connections, but there is little energy in this field for placating those you know cannot hold on to the end of the rope as you swing ever higher into the stratosphere. Choose wisely.

Audio Challenge: Which connections are furthering your music? Which are holding you back? Use the Cancer audio byte as a guide to write a farewell song to those you might need to release.

LEO (July 23 – August 22)

If you let yourself be guided not by the fear in the pit of your belly but by the spirits of your conscious past, then your willful actions will be blessed with resonance, tuned with emotional license, and pointed directly forward to the future. You will find your way out of this pit of self-denial and self-doubt, your conviction slicing through the myriad of voices like a gilded sword, finding that one chord that rings true. But actions born in trust come not from the mind that is fixated on a future goal, but from a heart that knows whatever reality must unfold in front of you will deliver you to the next harbor, from which your sails will be set free and your mind at ease. Listen.

Audio Challenge: Record a soundscape that uses space and bursts, like the Leo audio byte. Let the space be your conscious past and the bursts be the one chord that rings true for you right now.

VIRGO (August 23 – September 22)

These empty rooms you can claim as your own are filled with the glittering reminders of certain moments that have passed you by, leaving memories of the futures that could have been in their wake, gilded frames on the wall showing the places you’ve wished you’d been. But not today. This time the moon rises over your desire for a change, lighting a channel that will give you free rein. You’ll do well to take a boat and set out on it. This is the time to finally test the strength of your convictions against the tides. You know the way: seen half in twilight and half in dreamtime, but always sure. Follow it.

Audio Challenge: Write your truth in a riff or vocals over the Virgo audio byte. Follow your gut, and don’t let your need for order get in the way of your voice.

LIBRA (September 23 – October 22)

If the floorboards have been set down right, if the rooms are filled with love, if the people you’ve invited in can hold you down, and if there is ample room to grow, then this shall be a time when the moon shines through the windows and finds you ready to take flight. But if the ground feels shaky below you, if it feels like there are unknown motivations behind closed doors, if the wind cannot whistle through the windows, then the structure will creak and complain under the pressure of your weight as you try to take off—giving way instead of holding you up.

Audio Challenge: Open the windows, call in your muses, and stomp away on the effects pedals you’ve been neglecting. Regain your balance, let the ground support you, and use the tempo of the Libra audio byte as your guide.

SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21)

There will always be new slights to tally, new messages of grief and glory to record, new enemies to counter, and old enemies to keep the score. We could spend a lifetime, you and I, righting every wrong in every corner of this vast earth. But we’d miss the reason for the rhyme, we’d lose the opportunity of time spent climbing up this mountain, pushing the boulder of our own ignorance up its slopes, reaching the top in order to take in the majesty that exists beyond this limited view.

Audio Challenge: Listen to the buildup and breakdown of the Scorpio audio byte. Write a lead that feels challenging to you, and play it over and over again. Don’t let mistakes trip you up—accept them and move on.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21)

Yes, it feels like you’ve been losing for years now: the bag that held your hope, the armor that kept your heart warm, the hearth that lit your belly brightly, the network that held you close. But in this moment of chance and circumstance, there is magic hidden in each article you lose. Not in the past, piled up like gems that will never reach your hands, but in your pockets, restoring the energy you’d sent out to its rightful owner. Take this moment to feel it sink deeply into the crevice of your chest; you have been given more than you have lost, if you know how to recognize it.

Audio Challenge: Create an ambient song that depicts all that you’ve lost, and all that you’ve gained from those losses. Use the Sagittarius audio byte for inspiration.

CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)

It’s difficult to find a way through this pile of rocks weighing down on your chest, keeping you pinned to the floor, preventing you from finding little channels of air in a sea of pressure. But there is someone, right now, just outside these caves, trying to channel you out. This may be a task for two: one calling out into the dead of night, the other locating your voice beneath the rubble. But they won’t find you—not unless you make the call.

Audio Challenge: Who is it that you’d like to let into your inner sanctum of music writing? Think about why and how, and then reach out to them.

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)

There are channels to dig, seeds to plant, forests to clear, and rivers to enchant. The long list of The Work that needs to be done continues to grow, with every opportunity capitalized on, and every threat identified and strategized around for possible danger. But there is always more to add to the list. Every stone unturned offers a new possibility that must be assessed, every seed planted represents more work to be done to ensure its bloom. But behind it all—the endless tasks to be performed, the manifold care that must be taken at every turn—there is a bright moon dipping up over the horizon, just long enough to whisper of something more.

Audio Challenge: Write a to-do list of everything you need to do with music right now, and put it in order from high to low priority. If it seems like all work and no play, be sure to add fun rewards and activities after two or three to-dos are accomplished, like experimenting with sound or treating yourself to new or used gear.

PISCES (February 19 – March 20)

They are growing back now, these fields of resonance that you have carefully cultivated into fruition after the sudden loss. As the gate to the garden swings open and you’re finally able to step back into the love and comfort of those you hold dear, you recognize a new field—now emptied, ready to be seeded with the vision you have cultivated during these months of twilight, dreaming through the windows towards a horizon you know exists just beyond these doors. Don’t lose sight of it now, as the sun rises and your daily motions come back doubled because of the time spent away. You can step out beyond the confines of what you know, if you trust your vision to guide you through.

Audio Challenge: Create a course of action for the next steps of your music. The world has changed in some ways, and yet is completely the same in others—take that into consideration as you move forward, be easy with yourself.

The importance of creating community during these times of isolation

Community, within the context of Latinx identity, has been a powerful tool. It offers dialogue, social change, and most importantly, visibility. It’s a beautiful space where marginalized bodies can come together and create the most powerful connection. Community has been the reason why I personally have felt empowered to move forward in many of my endeavors—it is at the forefront of all the work I do. From creating Diana Diaz, an ethical clothing line that uses its platform to create space for POC, queer, and immigrant folks to running Solidarity For Sanctuary, an organization that uses music and the arts to stand in solidarity with the immigrant community; it has always been vital to understand that without community, change in any form is nearly impossible to obtain.

For all marginalized communities, the idea of coming together in safe spaces has been an important part of unifying and feeling empowered when we live in a society that often erases us from their narrative. This visibility has been most evident within the music scene, which has seen an uprise of emerging POC and queer artists. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen an insurgence of these artists taking over media outlets and music festivals that previously had been predominantly white men. To occupy spaces that were not meant for us was a beautiful feeling felt within all of us, and it was mostly felt when we would go to shows and celebrate together.

Music has historically been an important tool used within many social movements, creating voice, empowerment, and resistance for many oppressed communities. With our worlds being turned upside down overnight it has become apparent that music, now more than ever, is imperative in reinforcing community.

We’ve been taking our time thinking about this turn, and contemplating what would be the best way to move forward for us—the musicians and fans. We wanted to create something that would not only offer longevity, but entails a complete package of live concert elements. We wanted to ensure that the feeling and importance of community is not lost solely because we do not have a physical space to gather at currently.

The Alone At Last series aims to work with as many musicians and artists as possible to provide safe spaces where we as POC, queer, and marginalized folk can continue to work and create beautiful and important experiences. It’s a platform that has the intent to connect us, and allow all of us to grow together.

What Does This Look Like?

Alone At Last: a performance series capturing intimacy through isolation.

To ensure we continue with our mission to create community, our new series takes the essential voice brought forth by musicians and pairs them with creatives, such as directors and photographers, to create a visionary performance that captures the essence of a live show. The purpose of this series is not only to provide fans with an intimate experience, but to create a high quality experience that promotes a digital economy for music industry workers across varying mediums and fields.

San Cha x Shiny Kid

How have you been building, nurturing, and caring for yourself and/or your community despite the restrictions and barriers of everyday life since quarantine?

San Cha: Even with the lockdowns, I allow so much space for my ideas and dreams as well as allowing a lot of space for rest. Sometimes the restrictions and barriers are like riddles and challenges to me that I need to solve and they actually serve as a source of new inspiration. I’m no stranger to making things happen with very little, I’ve definitely created with so much less. Eating more of my own and my partners cooking, makes me feel so much more in tune with myself and makes my house feel more like a home. I’ve been talking to my mother and aunts in Mexico a lot more, and calling my friends as soon as I think of them.

Shiny Kid: I’ve been more gentle with myself and working towards releasing the need to feel busy, productive, and in control. I’ve been able to develop small rituals to perform throughout my day that allow me to feel fully present and integrated with my inner/outer worlds. I’ve been cooking and sharing recipes with friends, doing a daily tarot pull and meditation, learning to revive my pre-quarantine perm with oils and curl pins, and having weekly virtual hang sessions with my family. I’ve found this time very inspiring and have been prioritizing my art practice over everything, and that’s actually made me feel more grounded. I’ve been more open to collaborations and impromptu creating with others; it’s been really revitalizing to create without a fixed idea of what the project will evolve into.

What do some of those restrictions look like? What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced when trying to fulfill your job and/or share your art?

San Cha: I cannot have regular band rehearsals or record in groups, and that’s made me the most sad. I’ve had to rely on myself more for social media performances and dust off my guitar playing skills and find arrangements that are still interesting and fun to play by myself. I do find it more challenging to record and put out my own new music and organize myself enough to finish those projects.

Shiny Kid: The biggest restriction working in the realm of filmmaking is that production requires multiple people to work together in a shared space, and right now we are unable to gather in large groups. A lot of magick happens on set or on location when shooting a project, no matter the genre. Now, we need to rethink this model of filmmaking and find new ways of creating. It’s both scary and exciting, but usually good things come from the mixture of those two feelings. Personally, I’ve been rethinking the essence of filmmaking and how there are so many ways to approach it. I’ve been experimenting with some of my own personal films, but as for larger projects I continue to develop my ideas by writing and creating mood boards.

What were some of the in-person elements from either a live show or working with a team that you’ve been missing and hoping to bring to this project?

San Cha: I miss touching people, I miss not being worried if I’m passing a virus on to someone or the other way around. I also miss the loud music and the loud reactions from the audience, and them singing with me. I miss dancing around on a stage and losing my breath. In this project I was happy to showcase the intimate internal passion, the details in the looks, and to display the magic with a very focused intention.

Shiny Kid: Working with a crew to develop an idea and execute it in production is crucial to my practice. I approached this project as a way to experiment with ‘remote directing’ and providing my collaborators with the information and resources they needed to create the aesthetic we had in mind. I usually shoot a lot of my own work myself, but it was so wonderful collaborating with Prisk [Rios] as a DP [Director of Photography]. She really showed how thoughtful, creative, and capable she is in creating the images we sought to capture. By providing a framework for production and keeping our ‘set’ in line with how a normal set would run, we were able to get through our entire shot list and then some.

What did you expect from this process? How did it surprise you and how did it challenge you?

San Cha: I expected this to be a more intense and involved process. It was a little scary and challenging to trust the process, while not having Caitlin to physically direct and oversee, but we quickly overcame that challenge. Thankfully Caitlin communicated very clearly through email and FaceTime/Zoom calls. Having my partner (Prisk Rios) film me, and my drag mother (OLIMA) dress me, makes for a very intimate and uninhibited performance.

Shiny Kid: First of all, I was thrilled when asked to collaborate with San Cha on this project as we had all these plans to shoot a music video before quarantine. I was able to channel the creative energy I had while developing ideas for the music video into this performance piece. San Cha and I are both huge fans of telenovelas, and our goal was to bring that level of drama to this project. I wanted to create a concert experience for the viewer with dramatic lighting, costumes, engaging performances, and visuals. We tested our setups a few times before deciding on a lighting scheme and costume, which really helped us get in the right space for the performance.

The challenging aspect for me was letting go of control over every facet of production. I had a few creative suggestions for the camera work, but overall I trusted Prisk’s creative eye. I am so used to doing a lot of these things myself, but I’ve been slowly working on relinquishing control and allowing others to support me in my projects (and in life). This was a great way of testing myself, and I ended up falling in love with every frame we shot.

We had a few hiccups with staying virtually connected the entire time (Zoom, FaceTime), but we made it work. I was behind my laptop screen and Prisk set her phone up so I could see San Cha performing as we recorded. We moved seamlessly through each set up, with mini breaks in between for battery charging and snacks. In total it was five hours to shoot, but it really flew by. I was amazed at how much we did with so little!

The editing and color process came very natural to me—I love getting sucked into a performance and getting lost in the edit. I wanted it to feel dreamy and dramatic, supernatural and surreal, and I think with the combination of lighting, camera movement, and San Cha’s stage presence and voice, we created an at-home concert experience for all to enjoy during this time of isolation.

In February 2019, we published “50 Historic Black Women Guitarists and Bassists You Needs to Know” to showcase the influences that Black and Afro-identifying women musicians have had on music history. Since then, we’ve been consistently updating this list because we should constantly be celebrating the innovation, resilience, and talent of Black music communities.

For this particular list, we choose to focus on Black women guitarists and bassists whose careers started prior to 1999 to specifically showcase the legends—many of whom have unfortunately been overlooked, dismissed, or forgotten—who should be recognized as pillars of music history.

This list is not to be brushed off as just another list. Rather, it should be treated as a step taken towards exposing the truth. It’s for all of us who can’t count the names of Black women guitarists on one hand. It’s for the young Black girls aspiring to be musicians but seldom see a history that represents them. It’s to learn about our past and evolve into our future—and without Black history, we cannot accurately do so.

Below are 100 women—some of which you’ve heard about countless times, such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Elizabeth Cotten, and Barbara Lynn. Others were found in liner notes, vintage photos without names, and obscure websites deep within the internet. With your help, we hope this list can continue to grow. If you have names, videos, or pictures, please leave them in the comments below. And if you feel so inclined, please share this article and help distribute the names and lives of these incredible women.

1. Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915 – 1973) is often referred to as the “original soul sister” and “the mother of rock and roll” for too many good reasons to display at once. Among others, Tharpe was among the very first recording guitarists to incorporate heavy distortion on her tracks. Not only did Tharpe influence many recognizable names such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, but her unique style and ability to merge genres gave her an instrumental role in pushing music forward. In 1945, Tharpe’s single, “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” was the first gospel song to cross into popular music, reaching #2 on the Billboard charts.

2. Memphis Minnie

Even before Sister Rosetta Tharpe, it was guitarist/bassist/vocalist Memphis Minnie (1897 – 1973), born Lizzie Douglas, who picked up the torch to keep African American popular music raw and relevant between the 1920s and 1950s. Although more recognized for her impeccable voice, Memphis Minnie’s music helped shape the sound of modern pop music. Below are her best known tracks influenced by her original songs:

Memphis Minnie: 1929 “When the Levee Breaks”
Made famous by: Led Zeppelin

Memphis Minnie: 1930 “Bumble Bee” Made famous by: Muddy Waters

Memphis Minnie: “What’s the Matter with the Mill”
Made famous by: Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys

3. Beverly “Guitar” Watkins

In 2016, She Shreds had the honor of speaking with blues guitar picking queen Beverly “Guitar” Watkins (1939 – 2019), who began her career as the guitarist for Piano Red in 1959. Despite a long and self-described extremely difficult musical path, Watkins desired nothing more than to continue playing, writing, and performing.

She Shreds: Who introduced you to the blues?

Beverly Watkins: Well, it was born in me, from my ancestors. I had a granddaddy who was a banjo player. And then I had four aunties, called the Hayes Sisters—Aunt B., Aunt Ruth, Aunt Nell, and Aunt Margaret. They had a group back in them days and they would go to different churches down in Commerce and they would dress alike. Aunt B. played guitar, Aunt Ruth and Aunt Nell sang, and Aunt Margaret played piano. And my daddy, Lonnie Watkins, played the harmonica.

4. Peggy Jones

Peggy Jones (1940 – 2015), later known as Lady Bo, was an innovative and expressive guitarist. She was an original part of Bo Diddley’s sound from 1957 to 1962 and influential in her own songwriting and musical endeavors thereafter. Jones always displayed an enthusiastic willingness to experiment with guitars, effects, and sounds. Her enthusiasm for new guitar technologies helped balance out Diddley’s reliance on the cigar box guitar that made him famous, and allowed the band to evolve sonically over the course of time. Though she typically favored Gibson guitars, Lady Bo also played more experimental instruments such as the Roland guitar synthesizer and used their unique sounds in ways not often heard in rhythm and blues guitar.

5. Jessie Mae Hemphill

Jessie Mae Hemphill (1923 – 2016) was truly a great example of the “one woman band,” often performing live with a guitar and tambourine at once. Although guitar was Hemphill’s instrument of choice since age 7, she was also a skilled drummer and percussionist. Hemphill, whose mother, father, and three sisters were all musicians, would go on to be internationally recognized for her unique talent and technique.

6. Carline Ray

Born in Manhattan, Carline Ray (1925 – 2013) was an award-winning guitarist/bassist/pianist/singer who studied at Juilliard and earned her Master’s in composition. In 1946, Ray joined The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the “all girl jazz band” known best for being the first and arguably most important all-women contribution to the big band era. Her seven decade career spanned a variety of genres, often switching from various instruments. According to her daughter, Catherine Russell, Ray “always made a point of saying she wasn’t a female musician, she was a musician who happened to be female.” We couldn’t stand by her statement more.

7. Odetta

Odetta Holmes aka “Odetta” (1930 – 2008) is often referred to as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement” for her immense capability to reflect the passion and emotion of her community through works of jazz, folk, blues and beyond. As a result, she influenced some of the greatest names of the folk revival movement: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Janis Joplin all site Odetta as a major influence on their decision to sing and write they way they did. According to Time magazine, Rosa Parks was her #1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her “the queen of American folk music.” Bob Dylan was quoted saying, “The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta… I went out and traded my electric guitar and amplifier for an acoustical guitar.” Baez mentions that “Odetta was a goddess. Her passion moved me. I learned everything she sang.”

8. Artists Unknown

Photo by Roger da Silva sometime between 1953–1969

An image of these unknown women was taken by Roger da Silva for a series of photos taken between 1953 – 1969 meant to present a historical portrait of Senegal. As far as we know, the names and whereabouts of these women are unknown. The exhibit was featured and presented by XARITUFOTO—a nonprofit in Dakar with a mission to preserve African art as well as The Intensive Art Magazine (IAM)—”one of the first publications that focused exclusively on female African art, fashion, and design.”

9. Sylvia Robinson

Sylvia Vanderpool aka Sylvia Robinson is considered “The Mother of Hip-Hop” for being a record producer, record label executive, and founder/CEO of Sugar Hill Records—the label that produced hip hop’s very first top 40 single, “Rappers Delight,” by Sugarhill Gang. However, before becoming the mother of hip hop, Robinson obtained her production, writing, and managing skills as the guitarist and co-writer in Mickey and Sylvia, the duo who sold over 1 million records for their single “Love Is Strange” in 1957. But it doesn’t end there. In 1972, after being rejected by numerous outlets, Robinson recorded her debut solo album on her own, “Pillow Talk,” which became #1 on the R&B chart and crossing over to #3 on Billboard’s Top Hot 100.

Check out our 2019 article, “Sylvia Robinson’s Legacy as ‘The Mother of Hip Hop‘” for more information about the influence of Sylvia Robinson.

10. Etta Baker

Born Etta Lucille Reid (1913 – 2016), Etta Baker was a playing legend of the Piedmont blues for 90 years. Picking up her first guitar at the age of three, Baker’s father Boone Reid taught her how to play a six-string guitar, 12-string guitar, and five-string banjo. Her discography spans from 1956 – 2015, and even while birthing and raising nine kids, Baker was known to never once give up playing the Piedmont Blues.

11. Algia Mae Hinton

Algia Mae Hinton (1929 – 2018) was born in Johnston County, North Carolina and learned to play the guitar at nine years old. She was taught by her mother, who was an expert guitarist and singer, often seen performing at community gatherings. Her father was a dancer and taught her buck dancing and two step. Hinton was best recognized for her ability to merge buck dancing and Piedmont fingerpicking, often playing behind her head (as shown above) as she danced—a true pro. (Video Credit: Dust To Digital)

12. The Duchess

Norma Jean Wofford. Photographer unknown.

Norma Jean Wofford aka The Duchess (1938 – 2005) was the second guitarist in Bo Diddley’s band between 1962 and 1966. With her Gretsch Jupiter Thunderbird, she performed back up vocals, danced, and played rhythm guitar alongside Bo Diddley until calling it quits in 1966 to pursue raising a family.

13. Elizabeth Cotten

Elizabeth Cotten (1893 – 1987) is the true definition of innovation. Born in in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Cotten began teaching herself to play banjo at the age of eight. As a teenager and domestic worker, Cotten saved up $3.75 for a Sears guitar and began teaching herself to play left-handed. What resulted was her very own signature technique: she would take the right-handed guitar and turn it upside down, playing the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb—a technique known now as “Cotten Picking.” Her most recognized song is “Freight Train.”

14. Linda Martell

While there’s not very much information on Linda Martell (born Thelma Bynem in 1941), she was an American Country singer and guitarist. She became the first African American woman to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, but soon thereafter abandoned her career to raise a family.

15. Cora Fluker

Little information floats around the internet about Cora Fluker. Born in Livingston, Alabama around 1920, she grew up sharecropping with her family and was nearly beaten to death after trying to run away at the age of nine. It seems that shortly thereafter, Fluker’s life took a shift into a deep dedication to preaching. As a young girl, she built her own guitar and began writing and singing songs in the church. Fluker performed in churches and at the occasional festival until her death. You can now hear some of her songs on Spotify.

16. Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill. Photo by Shareif Ziyadat/FilmMagic.

You might know Lauryn Hill from the Fugees and her award-winning solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill—but do you know what Lauryn Hill does live? She composes, she conducts her band, she sings and raps, and she plays an extremely fierce nylon guitar all at the same time.

17. Rosa Lee Hill

“Born 25 September 1910, Como, Mississippi, USA, d. 22 October 1968, Senatobia, Mississippi, USA. The daughter of Sid Hemphill, Rosa Lee Hill grew up in a musical family, playing a broad repertoire for both whites and blacks. Her recordings are confined to blues, which she sang ‘from my mouth, and not from the heart’, feeling them to be incompatible with her religious faith. Her blues are typical of Panola County, where she spent her whole life: accompanied by a droning guitar, her songs have an inward-looking, brooding feel, comparable to those of Mississippi Fred McDowell. Hill and her husband were sharecroppers and lived in dire poverty, particularly towards the end of their lives, when their house burned down and they had to move into a tumbledown shack.” (Caption Cred: allmusic.com)

18. Joan Armatrading

Joan Armatrading was born in Basseterre, Saint Kitts Britain on December 9th, 1950. Her recording career spans 40 years and she began as a self taught guitarist at the age of 14. At 15, after dropping out of school to support her family, she lost her first job after taking her guitar to work and playing it during tea breaks. She would later become a world-renowned singer songwriter/guitarist nominated for three Grammy Awards, 2 Brit Awards, and receive an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection.

For more information, check out our 2020 feature, “The Righteousness of Joan Armatrading.”

19. Barbara Lynn

Born Barbara Lynn Ozen in Beaumont, Texas on January 16, 1942, Lynn is known as the “Lefty Queen of R&B” for being a lefty guitarist and expert R&B composer. She first began playing the piano as a youngster before switching to guitar. Still a teenager, Lynn began performing at local clubs after winning many high school talent shows, and soon was recognized by singer Joe Barry. Shortly after, Lynn headed to New Orleans to cut her first 12-song LP, comprised of 10 original songs (unusual for an African American woman at the time), including the most well known of them all, “You’ll Lose A Good Thing.” She toured with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Al Green, Carla Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, and B.B. King, and was covered by the Rolling Stones and Ottis Redding. In the 1970s, Lynn retired to take care of her family after not being satisfied with how she was represented by her label, Atlantic Records. Twenty years later, she began writing and touring, and continues to do so to this day.

20. Band Unknown

Photo by Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images.

One of the many images that speak to the prominence of Black women instrumentalists unsung. PS: That Silvertone guitar though.

21. Gail Ann Dorsey

Gail Anne Dorsey is a longtime musician best known for her work as the bassist for David Bowie between 1995 until his death in 2016, as well as her songwriting, bass, and touring work with Tears for Fears from 1993 to 1996. Dorsey’s career is long and packed, but it all started with a guitar at the age of nine. Although she picked up the bass at 14, she didn’t consider herself a bassist until the age of 20, which then became her main instrument as a solo and session player. Among many other accomplishments, Dorsey has recorded, performed, and written with the likes of Lenny Kravitz, Bryan Ferry, Boy George, the Indigo Girls, Gwen Stefani, Charlie Watts, Seal, Gang of Four, and many more.

22. Stella Bass

Stella Bass. Photo by Waring Abbott/Getty Images.

Stella Bass was a member of the horn rock band IsIs, named after the Egyptian Goddess. (Horn rock was a genre that developed in the late 1960s fusing jazz, improve, funk, rock and blues.) IsIs was the fifth all-women band to sign to a major label, and one of the few (if not only) signed to a major label at the time with an openly gay woman. It’s tough to find info on Stella herself and the career she led before and after the band; however, IsIs was a legendary band for their time—opening for the likes of Kiss, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and The Beach Boys.

23. Artist Unknown

Taken during the Civil Rights Movement .

24. Flora Molton

Born in Louisa County, Virginia (1908 – 1990), Flora Molton was a gospel singing slide guitarist who made a name for herself busking on the corner of 7th Street NW and F Street NW streets in Washington, DC. Due to being born partially blind, she was often unable to find employment and therefore continued busking, performing at local venues and even toured Europe until just a few months before her death at 82 years old. Morton wrote what she called “spiritual and truth music,” and according to a plaque dedicated to her in Louisa County, she picked up the slide guitar by seeing it played with a knife at a community party—a technique she adopted herself later on.

25. Willa Mae Buckner

Willa Mae Buckner. Photographer unknown.

Willa Mae Buckner (1922 – 2000) is truly one of the most fascinating stories we’ve encountered yet. Born in Augusta, Georgia, Buckner was a fearless woman who taught herself piano at age 21 and picked up the guitar at 35. She was known for many different lives: she knew seven languages, traveled with her own circus/snake show, was a guitar slinging burlesque dancer, and “settled down” by owning 28 snakes at the end of her life. From an interview in Living Blues Magazine, April 1993: “I sang just regular kind of blues that they were singing out there. I used to do risqué, dirty songs. I started playing piano when I was 21, then I switched over to guitar when I was about 35. There was three of us. We used to get together with our instruments. One of us played Hawaiian guitar, the other one played straight.”

26. Precious Bryant

“Precious Bryant was born on January 4, 1942, in Talbot County, the third of nine children, and was a country blues singer and finger style guitarist of the Piedmont Tradition. As a young girl she sang with her sisters in their Baptist church. Her family was musical, and she learned to play guitar at a very early age, becoming proficient by age nine. Her father then taught her to play bottleneck guitar, and eventually her uncle and mentor, blues musician George Henry Bussey, presented her with an instrument of her own, a Silvertone from Sears and Roebuck. Bryant dropped out of high school in the eleventh grade and in 1965 got married. She soon began performing whenever possible, accepting tips in her guitar. Bryant’s repertoire evolved from traditional songs to include original arrangements and compositions.” (Caption Credit: Terminus Records)

27. Marylin Scott

Marylin Scott/Mary Deloach. Photographer unknown.

Marylin Scott/Mary Deloach had two stage names: the former for her gospel church recordings, and the latter for her R&B arrangements—the two genres generally steering clear for one another in the 1950s. Although composing under similar genres and gaining similar notoriety as Sister Rosetta Tharpe at the time, little is known about Marylin Scott besides having a recording career between 1943 – 1953, in which she recorded guitars and vocals in blues and gospel style.

28. Barbara Jordan

Born in Houston, Texas Barbara Jordan (1936 – 1996) was an incredible leader of the Civil Rights Movement, a politician, and an educator who enjoyed playing guitar as a hobby. Despite facing segregation laws and attitudes in all facets of her career, Jordan maintained the first in many categories, including being the first Black politician elected to the Texas Senate since 1883, and the first Black Southern woman elected to the US House of Representatives—the first woman in her own right to represent Texas in the House.

29. Sister O.M Terrell

Sister O.M. Terrell, born Ola Mae Terrell (1911 – 2006), was an Atlanta native who experienced a salvation experience at age 11 while attending a Holiness Movement tent revival. By the Great Depression, she had become a blues-minded street musician who used her talents to evangelize passers-by, singing original compositions such as “God’s Little Birds.”

30. Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman is one of the most recognizable voices of contemporary folk pop, with hits so memorable that her lyrics remain in the lexicon of anyone who lived through the late 1980s and 1990s. At a time when hair metal and synth-pop dominated the airwaves, Chapman brought the minimalist traditions of the singer-songwriter to the Bush era, offering an unfiltered and sobering social critique that resonated around the world. Chapman is often credited with having revived the singer-songwriter style in mainstream music all together, paving the way for a long string of folk singers who gained mainstream success throughout the 1990s.

Signed to Elektra Records in 1987, her self-titled debut album in 1988 sold over 20 million records worldwide. A long time anti-apartheid activist, she was invited to perform her hit “Fast Car” at Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday tribute, which raised money for children’s’ causes and for South Africa’s Anti-Apartheid Movement. In addition to multi-platinum record sales, Grammy Awards, and her history of social activism, Chapman’s mainstream visibility as a queer woman of color in the 1980s and 1990s can not be overlooked as a significant legacy. From all of us to Tracy—THANK YOU!!

31. Bea Booze

Bea Booze (1912 – 1986), often referred to as “Wee Bea Booze,” was an R&B and jazz singer popular in the 1940s for her interpretation of Ma Rainey’s song “See See Rider Blues,” which went to number one in 1943 on the US Billboard R&B Chart. Immersed in the rich musical culture of Harlem, she channeled the influences of singers such as Lil Green while recording for Decca Records. “See See Rider Blues” has continued to take on a life of its own, becoming a staple of blues performers such as Ella Fitzgerald, LaVern Baker, and Lead Belly, eventually picked up by many white performers such as Peggy Lee, Elvis, Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, and the Grateful Dead.

32. Meshell Ndegeocello

Both a young legend and an active contemporary artist, Meshell Ndegeocello’s debut album, Plantation Lullabies, was released in 1993 and is credited with helping ignite the neo-soul movement of the 1990s. A bassist, songwriter, and rapper, her career has featured collaborations and recordings with Chaka Khan, Herbie Hancock, Madonna, John Mellencamp, The Rolling Stones, Basement Jaxx, Alanis Morrissette, Zap Mama, and Ibeyi, to name a few. Part of Ndegeocello’s legacy is her reverence to other former legends, having recorded a full album in tribute to Nina Simone in 2012, as well as having created a theatrical production in homage to James Baldwin’s book, The Fire Next Time. The musical, Can I Get a Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin, debuted in 2016 and featured fellow guitarist and #43 on this list, Toshi Reagon.

33. Felicia Collins

Felicia Collins is best known as the lead guitarist for the house band on Late Night With David Letterman, known as the CBS Orchestra. Also a vocalist and percussionist, she has toured and recorded since the 1980s with artists such as Nile Rodgers, Al Jarreau, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Vonda Shepard, George Clinton, P-Funk, and the Thompson Twins. In 2018, Collins performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, appearing onstage with Brittany Howard, Questlove, and Paul Shaffer. Previously, she had provided guitar for Marie and Rosetta, a theatrical production about the lives of Sister Rosetta Tharpe and gospel singer Marie Knight.

34. Debora Coleman

Deborah Coleman (1956 – 2018) was a lead blues guitarist and singer-songwriter born in Virginia. Raised in a musical family, she picked up the guitar at age eight and went on to play in various rock and R&B bands when she was 15. In 1993, Coleman took first place at the Charleston Blues Festival’s National Amateur Talent Search. As a result, she was able to record her debut album, Talkin’ A Stand, which was released in 1994 with New Moon Records in North Carolina.

35. Charity Bailey

Charity Alberta Bailey (1904 – 1978) was a singer, educator, TV host, and pioneer in the field of children’s music. She wrote songbooks arranged on guitar and piano, and developed curriculums that used classical music and folk music from around the world to teach music to children. Bailey studied at Julliard and Dalcroze before becoming Director of Music at the Little Red School House in New York City.

36. The Thornton Sisters

The Thornton Sisters appeared on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour twice during the 1950s. Their dad enrolled the sisters into music lessons and soon after, they became regular performers on college campuses, often performing as the the backup instrumental group for R&B concerts. These performances were also a way for the family to save for medical school tuition for their daughters. The Thornton Sisters sound transitioned from jazz to R&B as the times changed.

37. Joyce Rooks of The Dinettes

Joyce Rooks (left), in one of her other bands, The Cockpits, circa 1978. Photo by Edie Maitland.

Joyce Rooks played guitar and vocals in rock band The Dinettes from 1979 – 1980. Right before, in 1978, she had been in the band The Cockpits (seen above), which eventually morphed into The Dinettes and had a few member changes.

38. Queen Oladunni Decency

Serifatu Oladunni Oduguwa, also known by her stagenames Queen Oladunni Decency and Mummy Juju, was one of the most popular musicians of the Yoruba jùjú genre (Nigerian popular music from traditional Yoruba percussion). Queen Oladunni Decency fronted the Unity Orchestra as a singer and guitarist.

39. Klymaxx

Formed in 1979 in LA by producer/drummer Bernadette Cooper, Klymaxx was a R&B/Pop band whose members included Cheryl Cooley (guitar), Lynn Malsby (keyboard), Lorena Porter Shelby (vocals/bass), Joyce “Fenderella” Irby (vocals/bass), and Robbin Grider (guitar/synthesizers) in Klymaxx Their 1984 album, Meeting In the Ladies Room, went platinum in the United States.

40. Sarah McLawler & The Syncoettes

Sarah McLawler (1926 – 2017) formed an all-women instrumental group, Sarah McLawler & The Syncoettes, in Chicago in the 1940s right before the rock ‘n’ roll era took off. The Syncoettes were a four piece, with McLawler (piano), Lula Roberts (saxophone), Hetty Roberts (drums), and Vi Wilson (bass). They became the house band for Chicago’s Club Savoy for a short time and released a handful of records during the 1950s.

41. International Sweethearts of Rhythm

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was one of the first racially integrated all-women swing bands that gained popularity during the WWII era. The group toured extensively throughout the states and abroad with the USO, performing on the Armed Forces radio and playing top venues across the country. The Jim Crow laws, racism, and sexism made traveling dangerous and difficult for the band to be taken seriously as musicians. Carline Ray was a guitarist in the group and can be seen in the above video.

42. Janice-Marie Johnson

Janice-Marie Johnson was a founding member and the bassist/vocalist of the recording act A Taste of Honey, formed in 1971. The group’s main genre was disco with a few songs that were chart toppers in both R&B and pop, including “Boogie Oogie Oogie.” Johnson picked up the bass while she was in college and played shows with A Taste of Honey all along Southern California and on military bases. The group won a Grammy in 1978 for Best New Artist.

43. Toshi Reagon

Toshi Reagon has been active as a folk, blues, R&B, country, gospel, rock, and funk musician since 1978. As a queer artist and activist, Reagan was raised by musician parents who were social activists during the civil rights movement and part of The Freedom Singers group. She has performed and shared stages with the likes of Lenny Kravitz, Elvis Costello, and Ani DiFranco. Reagon’s most recent musical endeavor was Parable of the Sower: The Opera, adapted from Octavia E. Butler’s post-apocalyptic novel of the same name.

44. PMS

PMS (Pre-Metal Syndrome) was the first all-Black female metal band formed in the early 1990s by guitarist Suzanne Thomas. PMS defied what it means to be a Black woman performing heavy metal music in a scene that is often dominated by heteronormative, white cis males. PMS is featured in Laina Dawes 2012 book, What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal.

45. Nothembi Mkhwebane

Considered the Queen of Ndebele (a language spoken by 1.6 million people in South Africa) music, and a national icon, Nothembi Mkhwebane is widely considered to have brought the Ndebele language to the world stage. A prolific multi-instrumentalist, Mkhwebane composes on guitar and traditional instruments, and her songs often feature uplifting hand claps, intricate guitar riffs, and music shakers.

Recommended listening: Zimani Balibalele (1998)

46. Tu Nokwe

Hailing from South Africa, Tu Nokwe taught herself to play guitar as a young woman. She eventually landed a spot at the Manhattan School of Music and went on to perform around the world. Nokwe’s work has detectable funk and pop influences, but her adept guitar playing and soprano voice create a style that is uniquely her own.

Recommended listening: “African Child” (1999)

47. Victoria Spivey

Born in Houston, TX, Victoria Spivey (1906 – 1976) was an American blues singer and songwriter whose career began in the family string band and later got into show business and Vaudeville theater. In 1951, Spivey decided to retire from show business, but just about a decade later, in 1962, she formed her own record company, Spivey Records, upon which she returned to recording and performing music.

48. Queen Sylvia Embry

Queen Sylvia Embry (1941 – 1992) was born in Arkansas. As a kid, she was trained on piano by her grandmother. By the time she was 19, Embry moved to Memphis, followed by Chicago, to pursue music. In Chicago she fell in love with the bass and started working with Lefty Dizz. She soon became known as one of Chicago’s leading blues bassists. By 1983, Queen Sylvia went out on her own and released her debut solo record, Midnight (Evidence).

49. Melba Jewell of Fabulous PJs

L–R: Melba and Patricia Jewell, Patti-Jo Patriquin. 1965. Photo from Guelph Museums.

Melba Jewell (1934 – date unknown) and her sibling Pat formed the Fabulous PJs and released one album together while residing in Guelph, Ontario. The Jewell’s were one of many families local to the area that used their musical talents to combat racism and to empower the Black youth of the time.

50. Las Chicas Del Can

Las Chicas Del Can was the first all-women merengue group from the Dominican Republic with a rotating cast of Dominican and Afro-Dominican singers and musicians throughout their career. Founded in 1981, they performed a number of hits throughout the 1980s, and a great number of their singles and albums achieved gold and/or platinum status. Las Chicas Del Can toured around the world and Europe, including Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Puerto Rico, the United States, Holland, and more.

51. Tracy Wormworth

Tracy Wormworth began her career as the bassist for new wave band the Waitresses until their breakup in 1984. She went on to record and tour with the B52s, starting around 1990, and officially became a band member in 2017. Wormworth was once part of the house band on The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and she’s toured with Cyndi Lauper, Sting, Joan Osborne, and more.

52. ESG

Hailing from the South Bronx, ESG was formed by the Scroggins sisters in 1978. The iconic no-wave funk band wrote the most sampled song of all time, “UFO,” which has been referenced by everyone from Grime Mob, to Wu Tang Clan, to indie rockers Liars. Deborah and Renee Scroggins both played bass in different iterations of the band—starting out on vocals, Renee took over bass duties when Deborah left the band in 1987. Renee still performs as ESG, with her daughter Nicole and son Nicholas.

Read our feature with Renee Scroggins, “40 Years of Dancing: In Conversation with Renee Scroggins of ESG.”

53. Rhonda Smith

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwxIpFbFmAF/

“Here name is Rhonda and she is funky.” – Prince

Canadian bassist Rhonda Smith worked with Prince for almost a decade, having been introduced to him by world famous drummer Sheila E, whom Smith met while at a music convention in Germany. She’s also performed with Chaka Khan, Beyonce, Erykah Badu, Patti Labelle, Little Richard, George Clinton, and many more. In 2000, Smith released, Intellipop, marking her first album as a soloist, followed by RS2 in 2006.

52. Debra Killings

Debra Killings has offered her vocals and bass playing to some of the most iconic artists of the 1990s, including TLC, Monica, and OutKast. In 2003, the Atlanta-born bassist released her debut solo album, a gospel LP entitled Surrender. She has also played bass for BET’s “Black Girls Rock” all-star band.

53. Leslie Langston

Originally from Newport, RI, Leslie Langston played bass in two of Tanya Donelly’s 1990s alternative rock bands, Throwing Muses and Belly. Langston’s driving bass and incredible tone was an asset in enhancing the shifting tempos of Donelly’s writing, adding an additional layer of spasmodic catchiness.

54. Debbie Smith

British guitarist and bass player Debbie Smith was in a variety of British rock bands in the 1990s, including Echobelly, Nightnurse, Snowpony, Bows, Ye Nuns, and SPC ECO. Today, she performs as a DJ and plays guitar with the bands Blindness and The London Dirthole Company.

55. Starr Cullars

Raised and trained in Philadelphia and New York, bassist Starr Cullars was the only woman musician in George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic. She was introduced to George Clinton by Prince, whom she had auditioned for, and toured with P-Funk for many years. She was also featured as a TV celebrity on VH1’s “Rock N Roll Fantasy Camp 2” and was called the “Queen of Rock” by Paul Stanley (of Kiss) and Mark Hudson (producer). Today, Cullars performs with her own groups, including the hard rock band The SCC.

56. Monnette Sudler

Jazz guitarist Monnette Sudler started playing when she was just 15 years old. Born in 1952 and raised in Philadelphia, she started taking lessons at the Wharton Center, and eventually went on to study at Berklee School of Music in the 1970s and at Temple University in the 1980s. Early in her career, she performed with Sounds of Liberation, a group who used their music to help spark social activism, with a tremendous impact on the African American and jazz community in Philadelphia. From 1977 through 2009, Sudler recorded eight jazz albums and has performed with a variety of musicians.

57. Laura Love

Known for her folk and Afro-Celtic songs, guitarist Laura Love did not find the path to a musical career easy. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, her mother’s mental health took a devastating toll on her childhood, and her jazz musician father, Preston Love, was not present for much of her youth. Love began performing at 16 years, singing for prisoners at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. She eventually relocated to Seattle, WA, where she was a member of the 1980s rock groups Boom Boom G.I. and Venus Envy. She has released 12 albums since 1990, and in 2004 she published her memoir, You Ain’t Got No Easter Clothes, with an accompanying album of the same name.

58. India.Arie

R&B singer-songwriter India.Arie has won four Grammy Awards out of 23 nominations to date, including Best R&B Album in 2003 for Voyage to India. Since 2001, she’s released seven studio albums, and has written soulful, political-driven songs such as 2006’s “I Am Not My Hair” and 2016’s “Breathe,” which was inspired by Black Lives Matter and Eric Garner’s last words.

59. Valerie Turner

Blues guitarist and vocalist Valerie Turner is an incredible player and resource of Piedmont blues, a style characterized by fingerpicking with an alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern that supports a syncopated melody while the treble strings are generally picked with the fore-finger. Musicians such as Elizabeth Cotten, Memphis Minnie, and Etta Baker are known for playing in this style, and Turner and her husband often play as a duo called Piedmont Blūz. She has released two albums, authored and edited the book, Piedmont Style Country Blues Guitar Basics, and was inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame (along with her husband and their duo, each separately) in 2018.

60. Kim Clarke

New Yorker and jazz bassist Kim Clarke is most notably known for touring with the late Joe Henderson Quartet throughout Europe in 1986. She toured with numerous groups across the world over the years, playing both acoustic and electric bass. Clarke has also worked as an educator, bringing the history of dance and jazz to numerous schools in the New York area, as well as collaborating on a jazz study program (with pianist Bertha Hope through the Jazz Foundation of America) geared to mentor Bronx high school girls.

Fun fact: In 1963, Clarke’s mother brought her to the March on Washington, where she watched Martin Luther King deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech.

61. Geeshie Wiley

Few details about the life of Geeshie Wiley (1908 – 1950) can be confirmed, but the country blues singer and guitarist has left a legacy regardless. Writer John Jeremiah Sullivan published a New York Times feature about Wiley and her recording partner Elvie Thomas, collecting facts about the two women from musicologist and folklorist Mack McCormick. Wiley recorded six known songs during her life, all released on Paramount Records during 1930-1931, and the song “Last Kind Words” has been covered by numerous artists.

62. Elvie “L.V.” Thomas

As mentioned above, Elvie “L.V.” Thomas (1891-1979) is often noted as Geeshie Wiley’s recording partner, but the Texas blues guitarist also wrote some of those initial songs. In 1930, she recorded two songs issued by Paramount Records, “Motherless Child Blues” and “Over to My House,” on which Wiley played second guitar. The two recorded the duet “Pick Poor Robin Clean” for Paramount in 1931, and Thomas also backed Wiley on guitar for three other tracks from these sessions, including “Last Kind Words,” “Skinny Leg Blues,” and “Eagles on a Half.” In her later years, Thomas sang in Mount Pleasant Baptist Church choir in a suburb outside of Houston.

63. Sippie Wallace

Sippie Wallace grew up in a music family, and she followed her brothers around, moving from Houston to New Orleans to Chicago, where she eventually signed a contract with Okeh Records in 1923. For about 40 years, Wallace quit recording and performed as a singer and organist with the Leland Baptist Church in Detroit, until she was coaxed to make a comeback in 1966, resulting in the recording of two albums, Women Be Wise and Sing the Blues. These recordings inspired Bonnie Raitt to take up singing and playing the blues in the late 1960s, and even recorded covers of Wallace’s “Women Be Wise” and “I’m Mighty Tight Woman” on her self-titled debut album in 1971. The two women toured and recorded together in the 1970s and 1980s, and Wallace continued to record on her own as well. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1982 and was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993.

64. Ella Jenkins

Born in 1924, educator and children’s musician Ella Jenkins has been dubbed as the “The First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song.” She got her start in the 1950s while working as a YMCA program director for teens, performing international folk and traditional songs that she learned through her neighborhood in Chicago, as well as songs she had written. For the last 50 years, Jenkins has toured her songs for school assemblies across the United States with a focus on passing on cultural knowledge, released over 60 albums for children (including 1995’s Multicultural Children’s Songs, the most popular Smithsonian Folkways release), appeared on numerous children’s television programs, and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.

65. Victoria Iruemi

Nigerian guitarist Victoria Iruemi was a highlife pioneer. She left her training as a seamstress to pursue mastering the guitar in the 1950s, and eventually joined one of the most popular bands in Lagos, the Cool Cats, started by Victor Olaiya in 1954. During one of their shows, Iruemi was noticed by the proprietor of the Lagos Roadhouse Hotel, who invited her to front the nine-piece Roadhouse Dance Band, making her Nigeria’s first woman bandleader. Despite having faced harsh criticism as a woman and disappearing from music in the 1960s, Iruemi inspired other Nigerian women to pick up instruments and form all-women bands.

67. Gloria Bell

Myrtle Young and Her Rays L to R: Gloria Bell, Hettie Smith, Regina Albright, Willene Barton, Myrtle Young. Credit: Charles “Teenie” Harris

Gloria Bell was the bassist of Myrtle Young and her Rays of Rhythm, an all-women band started and led by Myrtle Young on saxophone, Hetty Smith on drums, Regina Albright on piano, and Willene Barton on tenor saxophone. The band originated in the early 1950s, and was the precursor to the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the first integrated all-women’s band in the United States.

68. Lucille Dixon

Born in Harlem, Lucille Dixon (1923 – 2004) was a jazz double bassist who started her studies in high school, performing with the All City High School Orchestra and the National Youth Administration Orchestra. She studied at Brooklyn College, as well as with Frederick Zimmerman of the New York Philharmonic, and went on to perform in the International Sweethearts of Rhythm and the Earl Hines jazz band. In 1946, she started the Lucille Dixon Orchestra, which performed until 1960. In 1964, Dixon joined a group of other Black musicians to form the Symphony of the New World, the first racially integrated orchestra in the United States.

69. Marion Hayden

In 1964, Detroit jazz bassist Marion Hayden began playing when she was just 12 years old. She has been involved in countless ensembles throughout her career, including Straight Ahead and the all-female group Venus, performing and recording with jazz legends, and releasing her own work, including her solo album Visions. She is currently on the faculty in Michigan’s Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisational Studies.

70. Shanta Nurullah

Shanta Nurullah brings together the sitar, the Indian classical instrument, with jazz. She founded Sitarsys, a Spiritual Jazz ensemble, in addition to co-founding Sojourner and Samana, playing with Nicole Mitchell, Dee Alexander, and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). She also plays bass, piano, and many other instruments, as well as being an award-winning storyteller. Last year, She Shreds chatted with Nurullah on what drew her to the sitar and the connection she’s grown with the instrument.

71. Edna M. Smith

While Edna M. Smith (1924 – date unknown) was a phenomenal bassist, performing primarily in the 1940s and 1950s with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the Vi Burnside Orchestra, and the Edna Smith Trio, her major contribution to music was that of an educator. During the 1950s and 1960s, Smith studied at the Manhattan School of Music and Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City. She went on to teach in the public school system, and from 1961 to 1967 she lived in Africa and worked as a lecturer at the University of Nigeria. She contributed to numerous articles, journals, and TV and radio programs on the subject of African and Afro-American Music.

72. Violet “Vi” Wilson

Vi Wilson on the double bass. Photo by Paul Ressler.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Violet “Vi” Wilson was a bassist, pianist, vocalist, and (wait for it) master barber. She played briefly with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm and Frances Grey’s Queens of Swing, as well as other important women’s groups that came through LA. From 1976 to 1977 she sang with Interdenomination Choir, who toured Israel, Jordan, and more. In 1996, Wilson spoke with music professor and author D. Antoinette Handy, sharing that, “Women musicians should be given more credit for the contribution they have given to the music world.”

73. Laura Ella Dukes aka Little Laura Dukes

Laura Ella Dukes (1907 – 1992), sometimes referred to as Little Laura Dukes (due to her height of 4’7”) was an American blues singer and mandolin, banjo, and ukulele player in Memphis, Tennessee from the 1920s to the 1980s. From the late 1950s, Dukes mainly performed in Dixieland groups, and in 1972 she recorded tracks that were first released on the Italian albums, Blues Oggi and Tennessee Blues Vol.1. She continued to perform in clubs in Memphis in the 1980s.

74. Van Zula Carter Hunt

Born in Somerville, Tennessee, Van Zula Carter Hunt (1901 – 1995) was a guitarist who made a name for herself in the 1910s. She moved to Memphis, where she traveled with numerous groups, including Barnum and Bailey’s and her own group Madame Hunt’s Traveling Show. She played with local blues artists, including Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie, recorded a number of songs, and played with the Beale Street Jug Band.

75. Manou Gallo

Manou N’Guessan Gallo is a West African bassist, born on the Ivory Coast in 1972. Her playing style incorporates the rich heritage of her origin, the Djiboi tribe, and her musical career led her to the legendary world music band Zap Mama. In 2009, Gallo won the MAMA Award (MTV Africa) as the “best artist,” and in 2013 Forbes Africa named her the only women among the “Top 10 Best African Bassists.” Her latest album, Afro Groove Queen, released in 2018, was produced by Booty Collins.

76. Faith Pillow

In 1963, at just nine years old, Louisville-based Faith Pillow (1954 – 2003) was given her first guitar by her mother. The jazz guitarist and singer spent some time performing in her hometown, but in the early 1970s she moved to Cincinnati to join Dee Felice’s jazz quartet, with whom she toured the United States and Caribbean. In the late 1970s, Pillow moved to Chicago to begin her songwriter career, and in 1981 she released her debut self-titled album. She eventually left Chicago, settling in Los Angeles and then Amsterdam, and released three additional albums: Sanity (1995), and Run in the Sunshine (1996), and Amsterdam (2001).

77. Darlene Moreno

Darlene Moreno is best known for being the only woman guitarist to perform with the “Maestro of Love” Barry White. She began touring and recording with the Grammy-winning musician in 1995, joining the Love Unlimited Orchestra for over seven years. She went on to work with other notable musicians including Gerald Albright, who she performed with for six years. In 2015, Moreno suffered a traumatic head injury, and little information about her recovery and career has been publicized since.

78. Cassandra Wilson

Born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1955, jazz musician Cassandra Wilson’s love for music stemmed from her parents—her mother was a retired elementary school teacher who loved Motown, and her father a jazz bassist. She was a founder of M-Base, a collective of Black Brooklyn musicians in the 1980s, who focused on new sounds, improvisation, and creative expression. Since 1987, Wilson has released 19 solo albums and won numerous awards, including a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance (1997, New Moon Daughter), Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album (2009, Loverly), and BET Soul Train Award for Best Traditional Jazz Album (2001, Silver Pony).

79. Chaka Khan

Yvette Marie Stevens, better known by her stage name Chaka Khan, is a 10-time Grammy Award-winner who performs under multiple genres, but is best known as the “Queen of Funk.” In the early 1970s, Khan started out her career as lead vocalist of Rufus, but eventually went on to pursue her solo career, releasing 12 albums starting with Chaka in 1978. She’s been nominated for induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame twice, has performed with some of the most celebrated musicians, and in 2019 she released, Hello Happiness, her first album of original music in 12 years.

80. Maggie Aghomo

There’s very little information about and no recordings or photos of Nigerian guitarist Maggie Aghomo, who performed with the all-women band the Originators. She was a pioneer of highlife, and also performed rumba and pop music. The Originators were a result of the dream of Victoria Iruemi (#65 on this list), who hoped to inspire Nigerian women to pick up instruments so that she could lead an all-women band. While Iruemi never had the chance to perform in a band of all women, she did inspire Aghomo and many more to do such.

81. Divinity Roxx

Active since 1993, Divinity Roxx is best known for her work with Beyoncé from 2006 to 2011. She is a bassist, composer, and so much more. With Beyoncé, Roxx has done some incredible things on bass and as musical director, including appearing in two Beyoncé videos (“Irreplaceable” and “Green Light”), performing at The White House for President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, and performing on the Grammy’s and other awards and television shows. She’s recorded three solo albums: 2003’s Ain’t No Other Way, 2012’s The Roxx Boxx Experience, and 2016’s Impossible.

82. Madina N’Diaye

Madina N’Diaye is known for being the first Malian woman to perform with the kora on stage. One of the most symbolic instruments in the Malian musical heritage, traditionally reserved for men, the kora is a 21-string plucked harp made from a gourd. N’Diaye began her professional career with the instrument in 1990, helped by the world’s greatest kora player, Toumani Diabaté. N’Diaya went on to perform with African-influenced French band, Lo’Jo, and then formed her own group in 2000. Despite losing her eyesight in 2002, N’Diaye persevered: She went on to tour France and Europe, and released her first solo album in 2004, followed by Bimogow in 2011.

83. Wahu

Rosemary Wahu Kagwi, known by her stage name Wahu, is a Kenyan singer-songwriter. Born in Nairobi in 1980 and originally a fashion model, actress, and entrepreneur, Wahu began performing with the guitar in late 1999. Her first single, “Niangalie, was released in 2000, and she went on to become the inaugural recipient of the MTV Africa Music Awards 2008 for Best Female Artist category, and has won a plethora of other music awards in her career.

84. Ruthie Foster

Born in 1964 in Gause, Texas, blues and folk musician Ruthie Foster began her career in gospel. She went on to study music and audio engineering, followed by joining the Navy and singing for the Navy band, Pride, which solidified her love for performing. After leaving the service, Foster signed a contract with Atlantic Records and moved to New York City to pursue a career as a professional musician. Since 1997, Foster has released 10 albums and received numerous awards and nominations, including three Grammy nominations for Best Blues Album.

85. Coot Grant

Coot Grant (1893 – 1970) was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and was a blues vocalist and guitarist from the 1910s through the early 1930s. She is most well-known for her duo with her second husband, Wesley Wilson. The couple wrote over 400 songs during their career, performed and recorded with Louis Armstrong, and wrote the two songs made famous by Bessie Smith, “Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer” and “Take Me for a Buggy Ride.”

86. Eileen Chance

While there’s very little information available about Eileen Chance, she was best known for her bass playing with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Vi Burnside’s all-women orchestra, and Tiny Davis’s Hell-Divers. In a 1953 issue of Jet Magazine, it was mentioned that Chance was “excited about returning to Trinidad to marry a rich plantation owner she met when the band played there recently.” However, a 1962 issue states that Chance embarked on a six-month tour of Sweden with an unnamed all-woman jazz group.

87. Josie Bush

Josie Bush was born in Florence, Mississippi. She learned how to play guitar from an uncle known as “Red” and she married Willie Brown, one of the pioneer musicians of the Delta blues genre and an influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. However, it’s been claimed by musicologist David Evans that Bush was probably just as good as her husband, and that she even taught her husband many songs.

88. Nora Lee King

Born as Elenore Kingston (1909 – 1995), the singer-songwriter and bassist went under a number of aliases, including Lenore King, Lenore Kinsey, Lola King, Susan King, Susan Lenore King, Nora Lee Lucie, and Nora Lee King Lucie. She recorded with Mary Lou Williams in the 1940s, and her 1950s and 1960s records were accompanied by her husband, guitarist Lawrence Lucie. King owned her own music publishing company, Kinlu Music, and in the early 1960s she and her husband started Toy Records. In the 1980s, the couple started a cable channel from their home in Manhattan that taught viewers how to play guitar, and they toured Europe and America with The Harlem Blues & Jazz Band.

89. Florence G. Joplin

Mother of notable composer and pianist Scott Joplin (often called the “King of Ragtime”), Florence G. Joplin (1841 – 1881) was a singer and banjo player. After her husband, Giles, left Joplin for another woman and, in turn, to care for her six children on her own in Texarkana, Arkansas, she struggled to support her family through domestic work. However, it was noted by biographer Susan Curtis that Joplin’s support and introductory music education for Scott was a large reason for the couples separation and Scott’s success.

90. Anna Mae Winburn

Most known for directing the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Anna Mae Winburn (1913 – 1999) was a jazz vocalist, bandleader, and guitarist. Born in Port Royal, Tennessee, she moved with her family to Kokomo, Indiana, where she performed in various clubs under the name Anita Door. She then moved to Nebraska, where she played guitar for a variety of bands led by Red Perkins. Winburn was the leader of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm from 1941 through 1949.

91. Yvonne Plummer

Yvonne Plummer (1919 – 2013) was born in Brighton, England, and started her musical career with the bagpipes. Arriving in the United States in 1935, Plummer worked at Piney Woods, an African American boarding school in Mississippi where the International Sweethearts of Rhythm was formed, from 1939 to 1942, occasionally performing on saxophone and guitar with the Swinging Rays of Rhythm.

92. Olivia Sophie L’ange Porter Shipp

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Olivia Porter (1880 – 1980) learned how to play bass in 1917 after she moved to New York City to join her older sister, May, to pursue a career as a musician. By the late 1920s, Porter has started her own band, the Jazz Mines, and went on to establish the Negro Women’s Orchestral and Civic Association.

93. Sona Jobarteh

Born in The Gambia of West Africa, Sona Jobarteh is carrying on her family’s musical legacy that dates back 700 years. She was born into one of the five principal Griot families from West Africa, and is the first woman kora player to come from a Griot family as, traditionally, the kora is passed down from father to son. Jobarteh gave her first performance when she was only four years old at London’s Jazz Cafe.

Read our 2018 feature on Jobarteh here.

94. Elizabeth Foster

The often unrecognized sister of jazz bassist George “Pops” Foster, Elizabeth Foster performed on mandolin, violin, and bass with The Foster Trio, a late-nineteenth-century family band that performed quadrilles, polkas, and rags in Donaldsonville, Louisiana.

95. Adelaide Louise Hall

A major performer in the Harlem Renaissance, Adelaide Louise Hall (1901 – 1993) was born in Brooklyn and relocated to London in 1938. She pioneered scat singing, is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s first jazz singers, and was the first female vocalist to sing and record with Duke Ellington. Hall entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2003 as the world’s most enduring recording artist having released material over eight consecutive decades. She played guitar and ukulele, and performed at the 1933 World Fair in Chicago, where she was referred to as “the darling girl with the guitar and the mellifluent voice” by the Pittsburgh Courier.

96. Esther Mae Scott

Blues singer and guitarist Esther Mae Scott (1893 – 1979) was never recognized as widely as her contemporaries, including Gertrude “Ma” Rainey and Bessie Smith. She learned how to play guitar at eight years old, and left home at 14 to join the vaudeville group W.S. Wolcott’s Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Scott eventually gave up music to become a maid, but revived her performing career when she moved to Washington, DC in 1958. She performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and released her only album, Mama Ain’t Nobody’s Fool at 78 years old in 1971, which included the backup vocals of the not-yet-famous Emmylou Harris.

97. Mattie Delaney

Mattie Delaney (1905 – date unknown) was a Delta blues singer and guitarist active during the 1930s. Aside from her two sole recordings on Vocalion Records, “Down the Big Road Blues” (covered by Lucinda Williams) and “Tallahatchie River Blues,” there’s very few confirmed facts about Delaney’s life.

98. Mother McCollum

Often billed as the “Sanctified Singer with Guitar,” there is little information available about the Mississippi-born Mother McCollum, aside from her six known blues/gospel recordings from the 1930s: “Jesus is My Air-O-Plane,” “Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!” “You Can’t Hide,” “Oh Lord I’m Your Child,” “When I Take My Vacation in Heaven,” and “I Want to See Him.”

99. Gail Muldrow

Born in San Francisco in 1955, guitarist Gail Muldrow started her career by performing on Sly Stone’s 1975 album, High On You. She performed with Graham Central Station for two years and is featured on the 1977 album Now Do U Wanta Dance. Muldrow also played with Prince, Chaka Kahn, and more. In 2003 Gail finally released her debut album, Cleen Spirit, followed by four additional solo albums through 2007.

100. LuLu Jackson

LuLu Jackson was a blues singer and guitarist in the 1920s. She recorded a few songs for Vocalion Records in 1928, including “Careless Love Blues,” and “You’re Going to Leave the Old Home, Jim!”

101. Barbara Roy Gaskins

Barbara Roy is a vocalist/guitarist/songwriter who is known most prominently for founding the 1970s disco supergroup Ecstasy, Passion and Pain. She started her career performing with niece Brenda Gaskins under the name Barbara and Brenda in the 1960s, and went on to play guitar with Inez and Charlie Foxx. In 1973, Ecstasy, Passion and Pain was formed, releasing a string of hit singles including “Ask Me,” which was written by Roy. After the group disbanded, Roy signed as a solo act to RCA records, releasing the chart-topping, “Gotta See You Tonight.”

102. Sharon “SharBaby” Newport

Most well known as “SharBaby,” blues guitarist Sharon Newport first learned to play when she was 12 years old, inspired by her gospel-singing father. At 14, she joined her first touring band, Checkmates Part 2, and went on to form her own band, The Soul Sensations, a year later. In the early 2000s, she formed SharBaby and the Rhythm Blues Band in Alabama, releasing four albums and touring across the US and Europe. In 2012, Newport was awarded a “Master of Blues” certificate with the Blues Hall of Fame, and she currently works with the Alabama Blues Project, a non-profit effort to preserve blues through interactive programming and education.

103. Bernice Rothchild

Very little information can be found on Bernice Rothchild; however, we’ve found that she played upright bass in Vi Burnside’s All-Stars and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. We believe she is shown in the top right of the photo above.

104. Doña María Martínez

Born in Havana in 1835, Doña María Martínez was a singer and guitarist most prominently known in Spain, France, and the United Kingdom. She studied music at the Madrid Royal Conservatory, paying her way by teaching guitar lessons. She went on to impress Queen Isabella II of Spain, and in the 1850s performed to prestigious audiences in Paris and London, including Her Majesty’s Theatre. Believed to be one of the first Black musicians who performed for wealthy white crowds in Europe and the UK in the 19th-century, very little has been written about Martínez. She was often compared to that of white contemporaries Jenny Lind and Maria Malibran, resulting in the nickname, “The Black Malibran.”

105. Emma Daniels

Emma Daniels was a singer and guitarist most well known for Two Gospel Keys, her 1940s gospel duo with Mother Sally Jones on vocals and tambourine. They recorded few songs, including “I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore” and “You’ve Got To Move.”

106. Lizz Chisholm

Born and raised in Queens, New York, Lizz Chisholm (also known by her solo moniker, Double Z) is a vocalist, bass player, and multi-instrumentalist who has toured with Grand Master, Melle Mel and the Furious Five, and Run DMC. She is one of the first women bass players to perform in hip-hop, and has dubbed herself as “the very first live hip-hop bass player… EVER!” She’s written music for TV and film, and has performed with the funk group The Jack Sass Band for over 30 years.

107. Kat Dyson

Kat Dyson has performed with some of the most profound legends in music history, including Prince, Cyndi Lauper, Sheila E, Big Mama Thornton, Odetta, and plenty more. She is best known for her work with Prince as a guitarist/vocalist in the New Power Generation and is featured on albums Emancipation, The Truth, and Newpower Soul. Before joining Prince, Dyson was a contributing guitarist and vocalist on Cyndi Lauper’s multi-platinum greatest hits album, 12 Deadly Cyns, along with Sisters of Avalon, At Last and The Body Acoustic, and she continues to perform with Lauper today.

108. Evi Edna Ogholi

Evi-Edna Ogholi is often credited as Nigeria’s first woman reggae musician who permanently changed the genre’s landscape, but her story is widely unknown. Ogholi is a master guitarist who is known for singing in her Isoko dialect, and from 1987 through 1990 Ogholi released six albums (three of which went platinum), wrote one of Nigeria’s most famous songs to date, “Happy Birthday,” and permanently changed the landscape of Nigerian reggae.

Learn more about Evi-Edna Ogholi in our 2020 feature, “The Unsung History of Evi-Edna Ogholi, Nigeria’s Queen of Reggae.”

109. Gaye Adegbalola

Gaye Adebalola is many things: activist, teacher, photographer, and accomplished blues guitarist. Musically, she is best known for founding Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women, a three-woman blues ensemble active from 1987 to 2009 that won a Blues Music Award (best original song) for “Middle Aged Blues Boogie,” written by Adegbalola. She went on to work as a solo artist, releasing her 1999 debut solo album, Bitter Sweet Blues, followed by three more studio albums, including 2019’s The Griot. In 2018, she won the Kristin Lems’ “Social Change Through Music” Award at the National Women’s Music Festival. Outside of music, from 1966 to 1970, she was involved in New York’s Black Power Movement, and in 2011 she was named an OUTstanding Virginian by Equality Virginia for her LGBTQA+ activism. As of 2020, she continues to serve as Vice President and works on the Political Action Committee of her local NAACP chapter.

110. Mary Cutrufello

Mary Cutrufello has been a mainstay in the Americana scene for over 30 years. Bouncing from city to city—Connecticut to Houston to St. Paul—she fuses heartland rock with Texas twang. She’s performed on The Tonight Show and Austin City Limits, toured in all 50 states and several European countries, and has released five studio albums, including 2014’s Telecaster-driven, Faithless World.

111. Paula Larke

In her own words, Paula Larke can be described most accurately as a “story-teller / gatherer.” A dramatist, writer, educator, and musician for over 25 years, Larke has performed nationally, presenting chants, songs, and spirituals from Tuskegee, Alabama; the Georgia Sea Islands; the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains; and the Piedmont Plateau region of North Carolina. She has also worked on and off Broadway, founded Voices in the Treetops, and has been described as “a modern-day djali (village chronicler in West Africa), carrying the personal stories of ordinary people to the altar of life for benediction and forgiveness.”

112. Oneida James-Rebeccu

Bassist and vocalist Oneida James-Rebeccu has toured the world and performed with the likes of Lenny Kravitz and Joe Cocker. Today, she continues performing her own music with the Oneida James Band, and teaches at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, focusing primarily on the many aspects of groove. In 2005, she wrote the bass guitar instruction book, Groove Mastery: the Bassist’s Guide to Groove.

113. Pamela Means

Acclaimed singer-songwriter, jazz musician, and activist Pamela Means received her first guitar at 14, just after her mother died of cancer. Music became her main means of expression, and remains so today. Fronting many varied outfits (solo, Pamela Means and the Reparations, Pamela Means Jazz Project), she has released 10 albums to dates and has shared stages with Pete Seeger, Neil Young, Joan Baez, Violent Femmes, and more. Ani Difranco once said to Means, “You’ve got such a deep, deep groove, I can’t get out. And, I wouldn’t want to.”

114. Brenda Lee Jones

One half of the duo Dean and Jean with Welton Young, Brenda Lee Jones (later known as Brenda Melson) was a singer, songwriter, and guitarist/bassist. The band was active from 1958 to 1966, and while little is known about Jones after Dean and Jean, it has been noted that she recorded a solo album, Try Jesus (Morada) in 1983.

115. Cheryl Cooley

Best known as the guitarist for legendary R&B outfit Klymaxx, Cheryl Cooley began learning guitar at the age of 11. She studied music composition, orchestration, and arrangements at her Los Angeles high school, earned a college degree in commercial music, and in 1979 she joined Klymaxx.

116. Cookie McGee

Dallas blues guitarist Cookie McGee started playing guitar at 5 years old, learning from her blues legend neighbor and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Freddie King. She started her career as a backup musician and bandleader, but frustrations with the music industry and personal obligations kept her in and out of music. In the 1990s she made a comeback, releasing the albums Right Place (JSP Records, 1998) and One Way Ticket (Wolf Records, 2010).

117. Felice Rosser

Felice Rosser is a singer, songwriter, bassist, actress, and writer born in Detroit and currently living in New York. In the past, she has played in the all-women reggae band Sistren, as well as with artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Ari Up of the Slits. She currently leads the band Faith.

117. Hazel Payne

After the departure of Carlita Dorhan, Hazel Payne joined disco-soul group A Taste of Honey on guitar in 1979. The group became a duo in 1980, featuring Payne and Janice-Marie Johnson, but Payne left the group in 1983 and became an international stage actress. The duo reunited in 2004 for the first time in 20 years.

118. Joyce “Fenderella” Irby

As a teenager, Joyce Irby could be found performing bass outside concerts on the loading dock, which is where George Clinton found her and resulted in her signing on with his P-Funk crew as “Fenderella.” She went on to sign a record deal with Motown in 1989, followed by joining Klymaxx as the original lead singer and bass player on three of Klymaxx’s four biggest records. She went on to found Diva One Productions, with which she signed and published a number of up-and-coming artists, including scoring a top 5 Billboard hit as a co-writer with the Fat Joe/Chris Brown song, “Another Round,” in 2012.

119. KJ Denhert

Born and raised in New York City, KJ Denhert is an acclaimed singer-songwriter who has been performing for over 40 years. She toured the world with Connecticut-based all-women band Fire, founded Mother Cyclone Records (through which she released her debut solo album), and started the music collective The NY Unit. She earned seven Independent Music Awards, and has maintained a 20-year residency at Manhattan’s 55 Bar.

120. Melanie DeMore

Accomplished songwriter, composer, choral conductor, and educator Melanie DeMore has traveled the world with her music. She was a founding member of the Grammy-nominated vocal ensemble Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, and has shared the stage with Gloria Steinem, Odetta, Pete Seeger, Ani DiFranco, and more. She released her debut solo album, Share My Song, in 1993 and In the Mother House in 2012. She has also developed a number of vocal and educational music workshops for children and adults.

121. Rev. Rabia

Rev. Rabia has been performing for over 30 years. Born in the Bay Area, she learned how to play guitar at the age 14. She performed as a singer-songwriter as well as a backup singer with Afrobeat band Bole Bantu, but it wasn’t until she met mentors Robert Lowery and Virgil Thrasher that she found her musical direction. She has since performed at several festivals in California, toured southern Italy with Sonny Rhodes, opened for the late J.J. Cale, and released three albums—2000s Never Too Late (with Thrasher), 2015’s Future Blues, and 2020’s Ol’ Guitar.

122. Shelley Doty

Guitarist Shelley Doty may best be known for founding the popular West Coast band Jambay, but she’s gone on to do plenty more since they disbanded in 1996. She currently fronts her band Shelley Doty X-tet, and also often performs solo acoustic these days. She has played and recorded with Bonfire Madigan (Kill Rock Stars), and was featured in the March 2008 issue of the renowned Guitar Player Magazine.

123. Veronika Jackson

Acoustic folk blues guitarist, banjo player, and historian Veronika Jackson was inspired by artists such as Odetta, Dolly Parton, and Joan Baez as a child growing up in St. Petersburg, Florida. She grew up to create her own unique sound, combining R&B, acoustic folk, and Piedmont-style guitar picking. She released her debut album, Hat Check, in 2000, and her most recent album, The Woman I Am, in 2019. As a folk blues historian, she teaches workshops that focus on the early 1900’s – 1960 and uses her live performance to illustrate the roots and history of African American folk blues.

124. Thomasina Winslow

Daughter of Tom Winslow, folk singer and former member of Pete Seeger’s band, Thomasina Winslow was born with music in her veins—as a toddler she was a music prodigy, and sang back-up on her two of her father’s album as well as performed with her family band, The Winslows. The blues and gospel singer-songwriter went on to perform solo, as well as with numerous bands, and released the solo album, RETURN, in 2020. She is the owner of Winslow Productions and teaches music and performing arts in upstate New York.

125. Leni Ashmore Sorenson

Musically, Leni Ashmore Sorenson is best known for her involvement in the all-women folk band The Womenfolk, in which she played guitar. Active from 1963 to 1966, The Womenfolk started in Los Angeles, and during their five years recorded five albums for RCA Victor and toured North American and the UK. More recently, their hit song, “Little Boxes” was featured in the HBO show Weeds. These days, Sorenson is a historian and homesteader.

126. Suzanne “Minnie” Thomas

Suzanne “Minnie” Thomas (1955 – 2011) founded and joined some of the most pivotal music outfits that transformed the music industry for Black women. In the 1990s, she founded PMS (Pre-Metal Syndrome, and #44 on this list), the first all-Black women metal band. In 1996, she joined the all-women dance duo A Taste of Honey, after founder Janice-Marie Johnson reformed the group after her split with co-founder Hazel Payne. Thomas also fronted her own band, Suzanne and the Blues Church, who released The Cost of Love in 2011.

127. Betty Lomax

Very little is known about the life of Betty Lomax. She performed on guitar with the Negro Women’s Orchestral and Civic Association (founded by Olivia Sophie L’ange Porter Shipp, #92 on this list) in New York City during the late 1920s and early 1930s.

128. Pat Wilder

Blues guitarist and vocalist Pat Wilder has spent the past 30 years performing in a series of funk, rock, and blues bands around the Bay Area, including with Bobbie Webb, Billy Dunn, Curtis Lawson, Zakiya Hooker, Luther Tucker, and more. In 2015 she released the album, Alive.

129. Alice and Fanny Wiley

Sisters Alice and Fanny Wiley played, respectively, string bass and guitar in their family band, The Wiley String Band, based out of South Carolina. Aside from this meager information found in the book, Black Women in American Bands and Orchestras, by D. A. Handy, little else is known about the sisters or the band.

130. Clara Monteith Holland

Clara Monteith Holland, daughter of classical guitarist Justin Holland, was an accomplished pianist and guitarist in the late 1800s. Little else is known about her life, but her father, aside from being an esteemed guitarist, was also a music teacher, community leader, and civil rights activist who worked to help slaves escape through on the Underground Railroad.

On her debut solo album, Reef Walker, Rosa Bordallo weaves in her experience emigrating from Guam to New York City, and her Chamoru roots.

Throughout her life and career, Rosa Bordallo has been grappling with a myriad of existential questions that come with emigrating from one’s homeland: Where is home to me now? How can I contribute to my homeland while being so far away? Will I ever belong anywhere? These are questions whose answers, like the tides of her beloved country, the Pacific Island of Guam, change with the passing of time.

After emigrating to New York City from the Mariana Islands Archipelago, these questions have become central to Bordallo’s work as a solo musician. As part of the CHamoru indigenous community on her native island, creating music has also played an integral part in dealing with complicated intergenerational traumas that come with almost 500 years of colonization and displacement, while also finding ways to tell the stories of her relationship with her community and honoring her ancestors.

Bordallo’s first solo album, Reef Walker, distills her experiences in a fresh, new way by intermingling stories from her childhood upbringing with observational tales of the lives of others in a metropolis like New York. Bordallo manages to touch upon themes that are as personal as they are universal: loss, devastation, transcendence, and, ultimately, hope. With fuzzed out guitars, baroque instruments, a punk attitude, and heart wrenching emotionality, Bordallo is finally telling her story in her own words.

You emigrated from Guam to New York City when you were 19 years old. How have you dealt with that distance from your homeland, and how has that shaped your identity as part of a diaspora?

My senior year of high school I found out I was pregnant and decided to keep the baby because my mom and my dad were both supportive. The father of my baby was also supportive. I was torn because I had already gotten accepted to NYU to study film, but I made the decision to keep my baby knowing that it would be raised by an entire family. I took a year off to have my baby, and made sure that my mom was a primary caretaker as well. And then I came here. For the next four years, the entire time I was in college, my son was being raised by my parents.

After I graduated, [my son] moved here and I raised him. So, this entire experience has been the central driving force. I knew that I wanted to raise my son here, which meant that coming out of college, I needed to find work. I wanted to put down roots. My son just started college himself, so this is a point that I’ve been working towards. I knew that I would raise my son first, and then after that I would have more flexibility to pursue music or try other things out. So, dealing with that, I’ve tried to put all my focus on surviving in New York, because it’s such an expensive city. So I haven’t gotten to fly back home very often. It’s been every few years, and it really became hard in the last 10 years.

I question why I’m here all the time, because I’m spending all this time and effort to be here when I could be back in Guam, not only spending time with my family, but contributing to life there. It hasn’t been easy, but I also understand that there’s a lot of universality to my experience, and that there’s a lot of people, especially my generation, who are experiencing this— leaving their homes for opportunities elsewhere.

Reef Walker is your first solo album under your own name, and it’s a very personal work inspired by all of your life experiences. What was the lyric writing process?

For this album, I started to write songs that were stories of what I was observing in life and that weren’t necessarily personal to me. So, a song like “Hoarders of New York” is more about me observing how, because it’s such an expensive city and there are a lot of middle and working class people, it’s a wheel of fortune. You just feel like on any given day you could lose it all, and one disorder that arises from that is hoarding. The song itself doesn’t really talk about the practice of hoarding, but I think it expresses the emotional truth behind it.

There’s elements where I try to paint a picture. But sometimes I write lyrics that don’t have a story and they just pop into my head. I’m just trying to identify the emotional truth behind what I’m feeling from the music.

This album was also inspired by the recent deaths of your father and grandfather. How did writing Reef Walker help you through the grieving process?

Making music is therapeutic for me. I have a therapist and try to advocate for people with mental illness, but music is just one form of therapy. I’m also a person who is not very emotional in real life. I try to keep that very well hidden. Not so much my emotions, but when I’m really feeling, observing, thinking; these are all my private thoughts and I am mostly an introvert. So, music is a way to access a side of myself that is not accessible to other people.

Throughout Reef Walker, you move through psych rock, folk, and even a little post-punk. Part of this comes from your collaborations with producer Duane Lauginiger. Can you tell us about the process of recording the album?

A big reason why this album exists in the way that it exists is because I found Duane Lauginiger’s work. He has his own band called Birds, and they’re a psych rock, garage rock band. I reached out to Duane because I found his music online and I really liked the sound, and then I realized it was recorded here in Brooklyn, in a place called Time Castle. And then I found out that Time Castle is his label, and he had been recording bands in his house. So, it was super DIY, and that’s really what I look for. When we made “To Mariana,” for example, it was his idea to use these kind of baroque instruments. Duane will come to the song, he’ll have all these ideas at once, and it’s just a matter of letting him do his thing, and follow the path of inspiration.

Can you tell us about the gear that you used to record the album?

The album was recorded at three locations: Time Castle, a private residence in Piermont, NY, and a converted church in Craryville, NY. I played my guitar, a 1970s Univox Hi-Flier Phase 4 and others provided by Duane. He also used a 1965 Silvertone Epiphone ET-270, a 1960s Harmony Stratotone, and a 1960s Eko 400. Our guitarist, Donn Denniston, used a 1992 Mexican Fender Telecaster modified with Rio Grande Dirty Harry pickups and a Bigsby vibrato unit, among other gear.

Two of your grungiest songs, “Sleight of Hand” and “Citadel,” are both about love and different types of deception. Can you tell us more about what was going through your head when writing those songs?

When I started writing “Sleight of Hand,” I used to deliver it in a bluesy way. I wanted it to be deliberately sparse, and just guitar the entire way. There’s actually a song that inspired me, PJ Harvey’s “Ecstasy.” It’s a really stripped down rock song and it’s all about her voice; it becomes this instrument that is just strange and unique. So, while I was writing this song, I think that’s what inspired the lyrics. I wanted something kind of sexy and real, but what I found afterwards is that “Sleight of Hand” works both ways. At first I wrote it thinking that I could talk about a guy that is an unreliable person; the sleight of hand is the trick that they do when they just want to drop off the face of the Earth and not deal with you. Then I thought, well, I’m singing the song, and sleight of hand is also the singer’s trick. It didn’t occur to me until later that it’s fitting. By the end of the song, I’m saying that you’re gone because I want you gone. I can do a magic trick, too. So, that’s just me appreciating the ambiguity of lyrics.

“Citadel” was a much more angry song. It started from a mood and an emotion. As I was teasing out the song, I realized that this is really my frustration at the systems that oppress us. I was mad at the 2008 financial crisis. I think if there’s any specific topic that inspired that song, that’s what was on my mind at the time. It was so bad, and thinking about it 10 years later, nothing has been really done. If anything, it’s gotten worse. That’s where that anger started, but this is a criticism of so much. It’s not just this particular crisis, it’s this entire system. Now, when I sing the song, I think about settler colonialism, about the history of genocide that this country is built on.

The last song on your album, “See You in the Afterlife (No Longer Set Apart by Language),” contains lyrics in CHamoru Fino’håya. How important was it to you to include the language of your elders and your ancestors?

Music is my response to trauma and hardship. A lot of my trauma is intergenerational, and that’s just the experience of, it’s safe to say, all indigenous people. We all have this experience of trying to deal with traumas that are personal, but [also] trying to come to terms with trauma that has been passed [down] by previous generations. I like that that is the end of the song, and then it goes into the next one, which is me singing to my homeland, and to the memory of it. It’s a circular thing, and I think it’s interesting because if you’re an average Westerner, you hear an album and there’s a beginning and an end. Just the concept of it being circular is already subverting that idea. I like to subvert the convention of something a bit, of things you just take for granted. For me, my album never ends. It’s circular, and you’re supposed to hear it over and over.

From learning how to play lead guitar to what the world needs now, Melissa Etheridge spoke with She Shreds ahead of her LA show on November 16th.

What can I say—Melissa Etheridge fueled a very specific and special part of my younger years as a burgeoning songwriter and very confused adolescent. During a time when I was struggling to find strength in both my voice and identity, Etheridge came through mainstream radio with hits like, “I’m the Only One,” “The Way I Do,” and of course, the queer anthem that spans generations since it’s 1993 release, “Come to My Window.”

Since the release of her self-titled debut album in 1988, Etheridge’s commanding voice and unparalleled songwriting has earned her numerous awards, including two Grammys for Best Rock Vocal Performance for songs “Ain’t It Heavy” (1993) and “Come to my Window” (1995). She also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “I Need to Wake Up” that she wrote for the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Amongst other accolades, she won the Gibson Guitar Award for Best Rock Guitarist in 2001, received an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree from Berklee College of Music in 2006, and received her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007.

Across the board, Etheridge is a passionate and hopeful icon—including both personal and political accomplishments, too. From coming out publicly as a lesbian in 1993, followed by the release of the confessional album, Yes I Am, to being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and making a return to the stage to perform at the 2005 Grammy Awards while bald from chemotherapy, Etheridge has always spoke her truth. And with the release of her latest album, The Medicine Show, she continues to do so by addressing the 2016 election, the pain that followed, and the collective need for healing.

Ahead of her LA show this week at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, I spoke with Etheridge about learning how to play leads, her love for vintage guitars, and what the world needs now.

During the last 10 years, you’ve been working on playing guitar leads, including all the leads on The Medicine Show. In an interview with Guitar Player, you mentioned that you had held back from learning. Why do you think you held back for so long?

When I first started, I had a great guitar teacher in Leavenworth [Kansas]. He was this jazz guy, and he started teaching me some interesting stuff at the end of high school, because I felt like I needed to know more—I was gonna go to Berklee College of Music where I would major in guitar. In 1979 at Berklee, I was one of two female guitar players there. The classroom had 60 guitar players, and I kind of felt lost. And then I got a job down at the seafood restaurant, where I would play five nights a week, four hours a night, and I would make $50. And so I dropped out of Berklee. I was playing solo from 1979 to 1988, and there’s not a whole lot of opportunities to wail on a good guitar lead. I really leaned heavily on my acoustic, and my 12-string because it filled everything up and was more percussive. So when I got to the first album [self-titled], we recorded it as a trio—just me, the bass player, and drummer—and we had all the tracks, but it was like, “Okay, we should put some leads in there.” I was scared, and we called in Waddy Wachtel. And then when I put my first band together—John Shanks is my guitar player, [who is] another outstanding guitar player. So I settled into the rhythm and enjoyed it. I just had these amazing guitar players, and I thought, “Well, I kind of missed the boat on lead guitar.”

And then I went out on a solo tour in 2009 and started using a looper. I laid down a little drum track, and a little guitar, and then by myself I would pick up some leads. I was solo, I could work on it. So by the time I got back in with a band, around 2010, I was like, “I’m gonna step out and do more solos.” And that’s when Pete Thorn, another great guitar player who was playing lead in my band then, started teaching me. He’s got a great website and YouTube channel, and he really put me in the right direction with pedals, technique, guitars… So that’s when I said, “All right, I’m going to go all in on this.” And now I’m the lead guitar player! [Laughs.]

So having the Medicine Show be your first album you play all the leads on, what was that like for you?

Coming into it, I had done enough on the last three or four albums. I had really inserted myself here and there, and so I felt very confident. And John Shanks produced this one—and there’s a lot of his guitars on there—but everytime it came to a solo, I’d look at him and go, “Nope! I’m playing it!” [Laughs.] He helped me with the sounds, but I said, “These are all mine, I’m taking these solos.”

What is your go-to guitar when writing and working out ideas? And what are your preferred guitars for recording and performing?

Don’t I love these questions! At home, when I write, I enjoy playing on acoustic guitar. I’ve got a beautiful mid-’60s Gibson Hummingbird—it’s got that lovely thin neck. I have a ‘64 J45 that has a deep sound that I love writing with. Sometimes I’ll pick out an old guitar just to shake up the inspiration. And sometimes I’ll buy a guitar and say, “Ah, there’s a couple of songs in there.” And once you start getting into vintage guitar world, it’s hard to get out. [Laughs.] I went down that hole, and I have some amazing guitars that I really, really, really love. I’ve got a ‘75 blonde Fender Starcaster, and it’s just one of my favorites. I keep it at home, I don’t really tour with it, because it’s a little fragile.

On the road, early ‘80s guitars are some of my favorites. My Les Paul custom—that never lets me down, it’s such a perfect concert guitar. I sort of take a guitar, get the best sound out of it, and then I use that guitar just for that sound. So I have about… [laughs] 10 guitars out on the road. I’ve got a ‘79 Gibson 347, a ‘79 Jaguar, an early ’80s Chet Atkins Country Gentleman, and then I’ve got a Jerry Jones 12-string from the mid-’90s that he made for me. It’s ridiculously consistent. When I still want that 12-string jangle, but I want electric, I’ll pick that up—it never lets me down.

You said something about seeing guitars at shops and knowing they have some songs in them for you. It’s so interesting to think of a guitar having a personality that way, as if you can hear the potential songs by just holding it.

Years ago, I was in New York City at Matt Umanov vintage guitars, and he had this—I think it was a ‘56—Gibson cutaway, and it’s just a little old guitar that looked like it had been loved and played. I touched it, and just felt, well, so many songs from This Is Me and 4th Street Feeling were written on that guitar, because it felt so inspirational. I don’t know, something about guitars… I feel inspired by them.

What’s the one pedal you don’t think you could live without?

I’d say the Suhr Koko boost. I put it on every single guitar I have because it just boosts the part that gives you muscle—it cuts through. It’s one of those pedals that you don’t know that it’s there, but when it’s gone you miss it.

What other gear do you feel is essential to your recent touring?

When I first started playing lead guitar 10 years ago and up until about two or three years ago, I used Suhr amps. I had two of them, and a pedal board that was growing and growing—[laughs] you know how that is. And I did that for a while, and it worked, but the thing that frustrated me was that it sounded completely different at every gig, and we had to dial it in every night. My sound crew would say, “Have you heard of fractal?” And we ended up doing a couple of gigs in Alaska about three years ago, and it was so painful that they looked at me and said, “Look, you really need to look in fractal.”

Can you explain what fractal is?

[Fractal Audio] digitizes every single amplifier, and also pedals sounds, but instead of just making it digital with no dynamics to it, it’s live. [The Axe-Fx III] is a pedalboard, it’s a rack, it’s a computer, and there’s no amplifiers or pedals—it’s all in the board. I’ve dialed in pedals to how I want them to sound, I have a different amplifier for every guitar. To the purest, it’s like, “Nooo!” But I’m like, “Yes.” In the studio, no—but on the road, night after night, it has made such a difference, and we’re able to really dial it in. It solved so many problems.

Let’s switch gears a bit here—The Medicine Show is very much about 2016, the election, and events that followed. There’s an undercurrent of a need for healing, which music lends itself so well to. I’m wondering what other art you turn to when you’re in need of some healing?

I get a lot of healing from reading books. I just think that the written word is so important for our minds, to open up to other possibilities and be inspired. And of course, other music. I love that there’s so much music out nowadays, you can’t even keep track of it all. Like Maggie Rogers, and these new young women coming out now… King Princess—what the hell?! I love this attitude that they all have, this sort of, “Oh no, I got this.” I feel like they’re all my little evil spawns. [Laughs.]

We’re seeing so much of that right now, and it’s incredible—especially the LGBTQ presence lately, more than ever. What are your feelings on when you started to where the music industry is at right now?

The fact that you can have an out artist—whether it’s a man or a woman—have a hit song… It’s just another color in their crayon box; it doesn’t define them. Some really go all the way—girls singing about girls—and I’m like, “Woo! You go!” It still crosses all the boundaries, everybody likes it. Just because there was a girl singing about a guy didn’t mean I didn’t like the song. It just works both ways now, and I love that.

To me, rock ‘n’ roll was always that insightful edge. That’s why I had always felt, “Wow, I’m so rock ‘n’ roll because I’m gay.” And that’s where it is now, and I dig that.

When you look back on your career, from 1988 until now, what feels like one of the most formative moments?

It depends on how I look at it. Personally, it was when I had cancer—that really changed me. But as an artist, probably playing my MTV Unplugged that Bruce Springsteen came out and played with me. Getting to perform with your idol, someone who’s inspired you so much… It put me in a place where [I thought], “Well, I’ve arrived. And I better start acting like I’ve arrived.”

As somebody who is very vocal about politics and activism, what do you think this country needs now more than ever?

We need to understand and stop fearing each other so much. It’s that fear of each other that have led us down some really dark roads. And really understand that as human beings, we all want the same thing—we really do—and this thought that there isn’t enough, and we have to keep it away from someone else who’s different. The best thing you could do is put yourself in a situation that is uncomfortable, and start to see everyone’s the same. We laugh, we cry, we love.

Since the 2013 debut of It’s Alive, there’s been nothing but excitement and anticipation for what La Luz will do next.

The years in between have taken La Luz through foreign cities in weird bars during tours that have helped shape them into the rock icons that they’ve become. Their contagious sense of humor, impeccable talent and genuine sincerity is what magnetizes these four to one another, and what captivates thousands of fans all over the world.

The first day I met La Luz was in June of 2013. We were at my house in Portland, OR for an interview which would be published two months later in the third issue of She Shreds. For some reason we thought meeting at eight A.M was a good idea. First off, if you’re in a band don’t ever schedule anything before 10 A.M., but to make this long story short, we were all delirious and half awake talking about Elvis over mimosas and migas (I mustered up the energy to cook breakfast and am now convinced that that’s the real reason we’re still friends). We ate picnic style in the park, laughed about things I’m sure weren’t that funny, made small talk about tour and said goodbye after taking a group photo in front of their van. The experience was just how you’re imagining it: awkward but amusing and comforting.

Just over two years later, sitting in the green room of the Wonder Ballroom with Marian, Lena, Shana and Alice, I couldn’t help but get sentimental. We began our conversation by reminiscing on the past and talking about how dreamy it would be to have Angel Olsen as your personal photographer, then moved on to reflecting on the past three years and getting stoked for the future.

She Shreds: Let me just start out with the question, how long had you been a band when we met?

Marian Li-Pino: That would’ve been two years ago, right?

Alice Sandahl: It’s fun to think about it. It’s crazy to me that that was just two years ago. It feels like so much longer. And thinking about how we became friends i never thought we’d be like—

Marian:—I’m so glad that happened. That we became friends.

Marian: This whole article should be about how happy we are that we all became friends [laughs]. It would’ve been a year by that point. When we met you.

One year?

Marian: About. We’d been a band almost one year when we went on that tour. More like 8 months.

I remember learning about y’all and being like “oh my god,” and then hearing and seeing “La Luz” everywhere. There was just so much excitement. At the time that you all started what were you thinking? What were your goals, what was your line of vision like? If you could write a letter to yourselves now, two years ago, what would it include?

Marian: I think at least for me, I really wanted to tour Europe. I remember that and I think I personally just wanted to be playing to more people and touring a bunch.

Alice: That’s probably the same letter that I’d have. Touring places like Europe—out of the country and bigger crowds.

Shana Cleveland: One of my big goals was just to meet and play with a lot of the bands that I liked because I felt like I didn’t have a lot of friends that liked the same kind of music that I liked. You guys didn’t even really. [Laughs]

Marian: Then we saw the light.

NICE ONE!

All: [Laugh]

Shana: But I could just never find people that I could go to shows with, and I really wanted to be playing…like I wanted to play music that people could dance to. I saw Ty [Segall] play and I was just like, “I want to play shows where I can play with bands like that!” Not just like, “I want to play with Ty,” you know?

Yeah.

Shana: And Shannon and the Clams. It was like, “I want to play shows like this.” And I never thought—I mean, I’m not going to say that I never thought that I would play shows with those people because secretly I did. I was like, “I want to start this band and probably I’ll get to actually meet these people!” [Laughs]

And then I figured that we probably would, you know? Because I was like “I think people will really want to hear this band.” It’s a way better band than I could’ve imagined because in my imagination I didn’t have all of these amazing musicians involved. [Laughs]

I don’t know, it’s weird how much being focused and single-minded—you can really kind of get what you want. I feel like even though your guys’ goals are different than mine, it’s like we can all kind of get things that we want because we put so much energy and brainpower into it.

Marian: Now that you’re mentioning it, I remember wanting to play in a band that was really exciting live and had the stage presence that was really fun to play with and had funny banter and was like—

Shana:—and just having fun.

Marian: Yeah, over time I feel like definitely that was our goal but it was harder with other band mates sometimes, especially when we didn’t know what we were doing.

Shana: It’s weird how many people don’t know how to have fun.

Marian: Yeah. [Laughs] I think that’s been a huge thing that’s happened where it’s like “Oh my god I’d always dreamt of being in a band like this.” I didn’t think my band would be crowd surfing while playing their instruments or just having so much fun.

Do you think that if you didn’t have that accelerated attention, at that time where maybe it was the most necessary at the very beginning, you know, would it have been different? Would you have felt differently?

Lena: I think it forces you to take more risks. I mean me, personally, anyway. Since I’ve been in the band I’ve been watching the shows, the audience members, everything just grow. The attention keeps getting bigger and bigger and it kind of forces you to just go a little bit further.

Marian: It just seems like you can feel the energy that’s out there and then you’re like, “Whoa they want to do something, you can feel it.” Especially L.A. Oh my god. Yeah, they’re crazy. We should be crazy. If people weren’t reacting that way I feel like it’d be different. It’d be totally different. They definitely helped us get here.

Shana: I mean, yeah we totally feed off of the audience. I don’t know, you feel that they’re excited and it makes it more exciting.

Alice: Right. It’s hard to even like, search for a memory of a show where I haven’t felt a big surge of energy.

Alice & Shana: There’s very few shows.

Marian: That’s true.

That’s pretty amazing.

Lena: It’s almost easier to pick out the shitty ones, because there are so few.

Marian: I feel like Shana especially will come up with—she came up with this little train and then last night she was like, “We should have them soul-train but crowd surf soul-train.” So they just made an aisle of crowd surfers and it totally worked. It’s also nice to have the audience do—or want to do—whatever you’re asking them to do. And then you’re like “You trust us!”

Shana: “We love you!”

Do you ever wonder like, “Why do they trust us so much?”

All: [Laugh]

Alice: We were looking at each other like, “I can’t believe it. Oh my god, it’s working!”

Marian: And it was really orderly and it worked really well.

Shana: I feel like, and I don’t know if this is true, but I feel like part of it is maybe that we’re not intimidating to people. Like, our whole thing is Luzers, you know?

All: [Laugh]

Alice: I don’t think our stage presence is intimidating either.

Marian: You know how sometimes you’re chill but people are afraid of you and you don’t realize it?

Shana: But we’re goofy. [Laughs] That’s like an age-old thing, where you’re talking about those bands in New York who are all trying to out cool each other. That’s like a thing with bands—that a lot of them are really trying to seem cool and that’s just not what we’re doing.

Marian: Right.

Shana: We’re Luzers.

All: [Laugh]

Marian: Yeah, we’re like anti-cool.

Shana: It’s like, “It’s ok I’m not going to look like a dork in this situation.” I hope that it’s a welcoming environment.

Alice: I think you’re right.

Shana: That’s what I always want. Every time I go to a show and it’s like [the band playing] is having the least fun show ever because they’re all afraid to dance and everyone is afraid to do something weird—or if they do it’s to just to be seen doing something weird, you know? It’s like an oppressive environment [laughs]. So, I don’t know, I mean I hope that we create something that feels safe for everybody.

After three years of touring and crossing things off of your initial goal list, do you all have new ones?

Marian: Well, now I want to go to Australia and I want to play bigger venues.

Alice: Yeah, I feel like it’s been kind of cool to watch that goals change through the years.

Marian: Yeah, you just keep reaching. I just can’t believe it keeps happening.

Alice: I feel like in the beginning we all sat down and were like “Where is the end goal?” But it keeps on moving up. I think I sort of feel, from a business standpoint, that I’d like to see us start to be even more financially lucrative for our livelihood.

Marian: Totally. Shana, what’re your new goals because you’ve like, met and hung out with and are friends with all of these people that you were influenced by and now what?

All: [Laugh]

Shana: I really can’t think of any others.

Lena: Maybe Macklemore or something.

Shana: He’s great but he’s not a really inspiring figure to me, personally.

Lena: Kurt Vile?

Shana: Nah, Kurt Vile is cool, but no.

All: [Laugh]

Shana: I mean to me it’d be like Ty and Shannon, really. I think that those are like, my two musical idols as far as rock goes.

Marian: It’s so amazing how nice they’ve been.

Shana: I mean my goals are mostly, you know, I just want us to keep putting out records and keep getting bigger would be nice.

Marian: I mean, why not?

Shana: I don’t want you people to be dirt-poor. I’d want to be comfortable.

For me seeing you all grow—and specifically during the Ty and La Luz tour that I was part of—and looking back at these videos it’s like…that tour was really special to me because I feel like you all somehow let loose—you started crowd surfing, you became more confident, I don’t know what it was but there’s something about that time that seemed significant.

Marian: Yeah, I agree. I absolutely felt that. I think it was like really inspiring to play for huge, more excited crowds—playing for Of Montreal’s crowds is definitely different than playing for Ty’s crowds. But then there’s also a hand in [Ty Segall’s] general energy. It was like he wanted us to go a little nuts and I think we wanted to go nuts.

That’s cool.

All: [Laugh]

Marian: Did you cry at all watching the videos?

Haha—no, I was more like “Wow, you can really see the growth in a band through these videos.”

Alice: That’s so cool.

For me knowing that that was your first crowd surf, or knowing that was the first time you all played to 1,000 people…it’s just crazy because that’s the difference between La Luz then and La Luz now—it’s just a totally different experience live. I was wondering if you all felt the same way and if that was something that was important—for you all to make sure that people know that you’ve evolved.

Alice: Yeah, I think that’s hard to really articulate but [this album] definitely feels a little bit more mature.

Lena: I think maybe the goal for the band in the beginning was like you were saying, was to have fun on stage and to just be this approachable thing and as the first record was played out with touring and we were developing new material and working with Ty and going on tour with Ty it was kind of like, okay we can really embody that and turn that into the next record and capture that energy of the last year into something that’s permanent now, and then who knows how that’s going to grow.

Marian: I kind of did feel like a different energy going into the first album than going into the second album. I felt more secure in who we were as a band and in what we’d done and who we were and what our presence was like. I felt more intention with the second record. Whereas the first we were kind of still new.

Shana: I don’t totally feel like the Ty tour was a total game changer for me personally. It was definitely a really great experience and one that I treasure [Laughs] but I feel like just all the tours leading up to that had that effect on me. Even with our tour with Entrance Band. I was really inspired by a lot of what they did and like, I’ve had a lot of experiences and just like growing to that point and getting more confident over the years. That tour was great because it was big venues and rowdy crowds and we realized that we could do that. That was definitely a big one, but to me it doesn’t really stand out as like we were a different band before. I feel like it was kind of part of the direction that we were going in.

Fabi: Just part of your growth…

Shana: Yeah.

So, when I talked to you about the album three months ago, you were saying that the lyrical content came from multiple experiences. Did anything in the past few tours change the energy or the idea behind any of those songs?

Shana: You mean, did I write them with one thing in mind and then once we played them they became something else in my mind?

Yeah

Shana: No, I don’t think so. Not lyrical content.

Cool.

All: [Laugh]

Shana: From when I’m writing them in my room and from when the band plays them it’s like they grow and change, but not lyrically so much.

Lena: It’s like when you read a book and then you see the movie and then you’re like “Oh, that’s not what I was expecting but that’s someone else’s view on it.”

**You know, my favorite song is “With Davey”. [*Laughs***]

Marian:—you fucking love that song!

I love that song!

All: [Laugh]

Marian: When we were recording it, Ty kept rewinding this one part and it killed Davey a little bit for us.

Lena: Just for you.

Shana: It’s still my favorite song.

Marian: Really? I thought…I know someone else was like “Oh my god, I can’t listen to Davey for a little while.”

**Well I imagine this little monster going through alleys and you all being like, [whispers] “Should we do this?”**

All: [Laugh]

Like, “Should we follow him?” And the little monster being like “Yeah, come on.” And then you all follow him and end up in this weird place.

Alice: You should write all of our music videos from now on.

Lena: Can you write and direct the videos for our entire album?

Marian: Oh, that would be rad!

All: [Laugh]

Were there any points in the process of creating Weirdo Shrine where you felt sort of overwhelmed by people’s expectations?

Shana: It was more like a thing that I was supposed to be feeling than what I actually felt. I’ve always been 100% confident in what this band can do. That kind of attitude is what gets us far. We all feel that. I mean, I think we all feel that way. But it’s almost voices saying like, “You know, you probably should be nervous about this.” [Laughs]

Alice: I mean there is a pressure on the sophomore album, you know? But once we started recording—well even in the writing process—I was like “This shit is going to rule.”

Shana: I was definitely at one point like, “I don’t know if this album has as many hits as the last album.” Because the first album had “Call Me In The Day” and “Sure As Spring” and people really liked those songs. Then I was trying to think of what the hits were on this one and I feel really—I couldn’t really see any obvious hits but then when I listened to it I was just like “This is clearly a better record than the first record.”

Marian: I feel like it’s definitely stronger and I’ve definitely oscillated over—like I had kind of a journey with this record because I’m such a perfectionist as a drummer and Ty is like “There’s no time to really be a perfectionist with tape.” And so that was really hard to deal with. But when I had time to step away from it and come back to it and listen to the old album, I think this album has way more hits, personally. It could be because we’ve played the other songs so much. That’s the thing, it’s really hard for me to tell. Where it’s like “oh, I love this because it feels fresh and it’s exciting and it’s fast and it’s catchy,” and not to say that the old album isn’t but it’s just like, we’ve been playing them for years [laughs]. So, I have no idea.

Shana: Perspective is everything with your own material. You have to be able to force yourself to wonder what someone who is not me thinks—it’s so easy to just focus on like “Ugh.” I feel that way with watching videos of us or something.

Marian: Right. Yeah because you know that we’ve practiced a million times and then when something is not quite right it drives you crazy, but actually over time I’ve had a bunch of our songs come up on my iPod and every time I end up just listening to the whole album and I’m like “Oh, I really like that. I like how the album flows. It’s cool.”

What are merch cuts? Why should I care? What can I do? What’s next?

Since the inception of Rock ‘N Roll, the music industry in the United States has been building itself from the awareness that there is big financial potential in music. A lot of industry norms that artists are fighting against today such as label ownership of an artist’s music, and unfair contracts and percentage distribution, originated with the rise of major labels in the 70s and 80s. Throughout the years performers from TLC, to Nina Simone, and Taylor Swift have taken to the public about how unjust these systems are in replenishing the artist(s) who created and/or performed the music. It’s common for mid to high level labels to not only own the artist’s music masters (the recording of your song) but take up to 90% of net sales on royalties. Even the most commonly used platforms for streaming music such as Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube are paying bands less than half a penny for each stream. Therefore, to make $1 on YouTube the artist would need 1,500 streams. This disparity has in turn led artists to focus on increasing their social media presence and content delivery in hopes that it will result in a royalty check or a brand sponsorship. When a musician is in the developing stages of their career, they are often the songwriter, the creative director, the designer, the marketing team, the content creator, the promoter, and the logistics operator. Sometimes even requesting invested labor from their community.

I bring all of this up not to send a bolt of existential crisis down your back, but to put into perspective why a venue or promoter then taking a 30% cut of merch (on top of taxes) feels like the last straw for many touring artists across genres. As fun as it sounds to seemingly be getting paid to travel and do what you love—that’s the glamorization of it anyway—touring is extremely grueling work that often leaves even the highest paid artists deprived and depleted.

In the last 15 years, I’ve gotten to tour and play venues around the United States in a wide range of styles. From DIY punk bookings and sleeping on dirty floors, to being a hired touring guitarist with Sleater-Kinney traveling on a tour bus, and most recently getting to support Sylvan Esso on their No Rules Sandy tour with my own band Reyna Tropical. Alongside being a touring musician for almost half my life, I’ve also gotten the chance to speak with hundreds of artists as the editor in chief of She Shreds Media. If artists like Santigold and Little Simz, who would be considered high level independent artists, are canceling tours due to financial unviability and exhaustion, imagine what bands at earlier stages of their careers are dealing with.

Frankly put, the music industry is outdated. Today we are battling a decades old system founded by capitalist driven white men who literally built their foundations off the backs of Black, Brown and Indigenous musicians.

Excerpt from Under African Skies (Zaire, 1988) Congolese Rumba Documentary, Soukous, Ndombolo, Sebene, Champeta

So within this context, a venue and/or promoter taking a percentage of merchandise sales they had nothing to do with seems on par, although it makes no sense. Over the decades, we’ve gotten used to undervaluing and extracting from artists, brushing it off by saying “it’s just how it is”. The topic of merch cuts is the starting point for the many issues that we need to shift in the music industry. But first, let’s get to know what exactly is happening.

What are merch cuts?

According to American Economic Liberties Project, in 2022 touring made up 95% of an artists’ income, a lot of which is dependent on merch sales.

Merch cuts are when a venue and/or promoter take a percentage of merch sales from the band or artist performing that night. Both the venue and/or promoter can impose them but ultimately the venue has the power to say no. Typically, they can be as low as 10% and as high as 40%, not including the additional tax deduction of up to 10% in select cities, 5% credit card fees and any tips made.

For some bands, these venue fees can also be in addition to percentages due to managers or lawyers ranging from 5% – 20%. At a 30% venue cut + 8% taxes + 15% management fees—that leaves the artist with 43% of gross profits, before deducting the expenses it took to design and create the merch.

Unsurprisingly, bands are now fighting against them saying that it’s morally unethical seeing as neither the venue or promoter have anything to do with the production of a band’s merchandise.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxVUrG_uhqf/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

A couple of weeks ago, while on tour with Gillian Welch, Tomberlinn made a post that described why she wouldn’t be able to sell merch at their show in Virginia, hosted by the venue Wolf Trap. She described that doing so would have meant a 41% cut of “soft merch” such as shirts and tote bags, and therefore needing to charge $60 to the audience that night. This conversation resurfaced an issue that has been on the table since it became common practice in the 80s. The speculation is that merch cuts were introduced to offset lack of liquor sales during all ages or straight edge shows in New York and Los Angeles. Once word spread that this was becoming a lucrative revenue source for venues, it began to be nationally implemented. Naturally, it has become a point of tension between the venue and artist that gained national attention in 2018 through the metal scene, then again in 2020 when Live Nation announced new merch cuts and artists cancellation fees amidst the COVID pandemic, and again in 2022 when UMAW (United Musicians of Allied Workers) called for a ban on all merch cuts. This issue has since become dormant in the public eye until now.

Why Should I Care?

Although this might seem small, it’s something that every aspiring touring musician and music fan alike should be aware of and invested in. Merch cuts are one of the many things affecting the ways that artists and audiences interface. Reminiscent of the backlash Ticketmaster (who’s owned by Live Nation) has been facing for their obscenely high ticket fees, such is the case when we’re unable to sell our own merch or forced to charge upwards of $50 for a shirt, making it inaccessible for a lot of working class folks to support the music they love.

While promoters and venues argue that this long standing tradition helps offset financial losses from shows that don’t do so well, keeps their production running, and even assists with venue maintenance and staff payroll, it puts the added pressure on the whole touring team and dilutes fan experience in a segment of the industry that strictly relies on audience connection to ensure future tours. It forces the practice of offering low quality goods at high prices and extracts from what could otherwise be an unforgettable experience for both audience and artist.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxf4nmmOthM/

“If all the venues continue this, it’s just going to lower merch sales and make the merchandise sold at shows not worth the price,” says Orion. “A lot of bands will say they then deserve a cut of the bar’s alcohol sales in exchange, but I believe these should be separate; the venue sells the alcohol, so they keep the money from those sales, the merch money stays with the band and the ticket money should go to the promoter.” – Jason Netherton, formerly of Dying Fetus and presently of Misery Index for WhiskeyRiff.com

Financially, the margin for what an artist actually gets to take home continues to get smaller and smaller. While shows and touring are the most lucrative source of income for bands, it still takes a team of managers, bookers, crew, and label support to make it happen, all of whom are taking a cut as well. Strategically, an artist can only tour so much before saturating their markets. This means that whatever money is made on a grueling 6-week tour is what an artist has to live off of until the next tour (usually the next year) or hope for a slew of high paying one-off shows.

For up and coming acts, it’s rare to make money on tour. If given the chance to support a high profile band and play to a bigger audience, the industry guarantee for a supporting act can be as low as $250 a night. I know this because I’ve had to do it. In these cases, the only hope for breaking even is merch sales.

Inevitably, the costs that venues and/or promoters are not willing to take on themselves trickle down to the artist, which trickles down to details such as raising ticket prices, fees, and turning a $20 shirt into a $60 shirt.

Live Nation Announces Ending Merch Cuts From 77 Venues

On September 26th, 2023 Live Nation, one of the largest promotional companies for music entertainment in the world, announced the On The Road Again artist program in partnership with Willie Nelson that would:

End merch cuts across 77 of their club-sized venues across the United States
Offer artists playing these venues $1,500 in touring expenses including gas and hotels
Offer unspecified bonuses to crew members (not specified whether that is crew specific to each venue or traveling with the band)
Contribute $5 Million to the Crew Nation fund founded by Live Nation during the pandemic to provide global relief for crew members

Images from Live Nation’s website

While on the surface this seems to be an amazing step towards a direction that provides care and support for artists on the road, and at the very least an example for other promoters and venues implementing merch cuts today, it’s also important to keep in mind Live Nation’s history and position within the rest of the industry.

Over the last decade, Live Nation has been under repeated scrutiny and even lawsuits for their growing monopolization of every corner of the music industry—owning 338 venues worldwide, managing over 400 bands including acts such as U2 and Madonna, and in 2010 merging with one of the highest selling ticketing platforms, Ticketmaster. With that in mind here are just a few of the higher profile cases they’re involved in:

2020: Live Nation declares new merch cuts at venues, and rewrites performer contracts requiring bands to pay double their performance fee to Live Nation for canceled shows, including cancellations associated with COVID.
2022: Live Nation accused of shutting out venues that don’t use ticketmaster
2023: Biden Calls for Limits on Ticket Fees for Concerts and Sporting Events From Tickrtmaster

To put all of this into perspective, a critical analysis written about Live Nation explains that there are four segments that build the bridge between artists and fans: Artist — Management — Show Promotion — Venue Operation – Ticketing – Fans. Live Nation holds over 50% of shares within each segment. Meaning that while they maintain the most control over venue ownership, ticket sales and artist management, their lack of competitors strengthens their ability to implement any rules they want at any point. This is especially critical to keep an eye on, because as a seller and buyer of music, Live Nation gives us no other choice but to play by the rules that they impose.

What Can I Do?

While this is not the first time the industry has presented the case of whether or not merch cuts are morally wrong, it is the first time this topic has gained such national discourse. Artists from Willie Nelson to Laura Jane Grace, and all throughout the community of independent artists, are sharing their experiences dealing with merch cuts on the road.

Here are 4 ways that artists, fans, and venues can keep this conversation moving and make a difference:

Add your venue: UMAW launches #MyMerchCampaign,166 venues sign on to give artists 100% of merch sales
Sign the petition: Laura Jane Grace creates petition to end merch cuts worldwide for artists and fans
Download and post: Free badge download declaring that your venue let’s the artist keep 100% of merch sales
Add your experience: A spreadsheet to keep venues accountable. Artists and bands can add which venues take merch cuts and how much.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cu4tZSiOSYB/?img_index=1

Almost five months into the film industry’s strike over issues including job security, fair pay and regulating the use of artificial intelligence, it bears the question “what about the music industry?” How can fans and artists work together to create a level of transparency that reduces the dependency that we end up having on corporate stakeholders, and the ways that they dictate how we experience music? At the very least, if the audience is going to be paying up to triple the price of a shirt, how can we ensure that 100% of that money is actually going towards supporting the artist? My hope is that these questions propel us—regardless of our proximity to music—towards a more equitable exchange for both fans and artists alike. One that invites equity, not extraction. We will continue to keep an eye on how this issue develops and any further resolutions that are presented.

She Shreds Media was born from the intersection of music, identity, culture, and activism, coming to a head when I first learned about punk—the riot grrrl version. From the moment I picked up my first electric guitar at nine-years-old, I knew that an instrument meant more than just making sound. Some musicians want to be technical masters of the guitar, while others, like myself, want to be proficient in wielding the power a guitar has to create cultural movements.

My first insight into this potential was learning about the riot grrrl movement of the 90s—a cultural phenomenon that gained international attention and is credited with establishing a new musical foundation for women and punk in general. As the founder of She Shreds Media and host of OPB’s Starting A Riot, my fascination with music history is deeply rooted in three core aspects of my identity: being queer, being a woman, and being Mexican. Within that spectrum, I find myself searching for the stories, names, and photos of queer, indigenous, Black, gender-expansive, and trans musicians whose work was undoubtedly influential, yet often absent from the conversation.

As you’ll come to learn in Starting A Riot, riot grrrl was fierce in its goal of empowering women to imagine themselves outside of social and political expectations, but flawed in its consideration of intersectional politics that involved race and class. So, it makes sense that when my curiosity for Indigenous and Black musical influences grew, my relationship with riot grrrl could only go so far before it left me behind. It wasn’t until I agreed to dive into the research for this podcast that I uncovered more about the BIPOC side of this groundbreaking movement.

In Starting A Riot, we tell the history of riot grrrl: why it started in the Pacific Northwest and what its lasting impact has been. We focus on the stories often overlooked in the retelling of riot grrrl history, hearing from people on the margins, people who felt left out, and the people who insisted on being part of the conversation anyway.

Listen to the podcast on all streaming platforms here, and then dive deeper with my top 15 picks of underrated books, bands, zines, and artists that were influential to and inspired by riot grrrl.

Fanny: The Right To Rock (Movie)

Featured as one of the first musicians you’ll meet in episode 1 of Starting A Riot, June Millington, alongside her sister Jean Millington, are the founders of the Filipina-American, all-femme psych band, Fanny. If you’ve been following She Shreds then you already know we’re obsessed with this band. Fanny was sonically, culturally, and politically groundbreaking as well as the first all-women (not to mention, POC-fronted) rock group to achieve commercial success. It’s my personal opinion that if it weren’t for Fanny, and other similar groups challenging social norms as women musicians, then the path for a movement like riot grrrl would not have reached as far as it did. Listen to June Millington in Episode 1 of Starting a Riot: “They Are Our Revenge.”

How to Make a Zine (Free PDF) by Sarah Shay Mirk (Zine)

During their time as online editor for Bitch Media, I had the honor of working with and learning from Sarah Shay Mirk. Their experience spans over a decade of writing as a journalist for Portland Weekly, to becoming a published author with illustrations and comics featured in The New Yorker, NPR and beyond. If after listening to episode 3 you’re ready to start your own zine, check out Mirk’s free DIY zine tutorial. Not only is it extremely cute but easy to follow and fun!

Emily’s Sassy Lime (Band)

Most people will point out that Emily’s Sassy Lime, is in fact, a palindrome, which is cool and all. However, as an acronym, their name forms E.S.L, which, as someone whose second language is English, resonated with me a lot more. Sisters Wendy and Amy Yao, alongside their friend Emily Ryan, formed what might have been the only all-femme, all asian-american punk band in the riot grrrl movement. They often connect the DIY ethos of the movement to the experience of being brought up in an immigrant household, which, as we discuss in episode 6, I think is exactly why we continue to see many BIPOC youth inspired by riot grrrl culture today.

Shotgun Seamstress (Zine & Book)

Shotgun Seamstress is a zine turned book by and for Black punks that started in 2006 by Osa Atoe. I actually found out about Osa going to house shows in Portland, OR circa 2010. I was 18 and saw her band, the New Bloods, play at what I think was then called the Dekum Manor house. Being able to learn about punk through Osa’s eyes, and who she interviewed for Shotgun Seamstress, was life changing and formative to my own work today. I truly believe that Shotgun Seamstress should be considered one of the most important and essential bodies of work to come out of riot grrrl and zine culture.

Bratmobile & Heavens To Betsy 7’ (Music)

In 1992, Olympia-based label, K records, released a split 7’ inch with Bratmobile and Heaven’s To Betsy—both of which are often hailed as two foundational bands of riot grrrl. This record holds a particularly special place in my heart because it was my introduction to punk via The Girls Rock Camp in Portland, OR circa 2007. In Episode 2 we talk with Sleater-Kinney guitarist and songwriter, Corin Tucker, about starting Heaven’s To Betsy and how that empowered her to keep making music. Turns out her music would go on to do the exact same for me! If you’re new to riot grrrl, let this 7’ be an introduction.

Jigsaw (Zine)

We bring up Tobi Vail and her zine, Jigsaw, often throughout the podcast. Founded in 1988, Jigsaw was one of the first riot grrrl zines that called for girls and women to pick up their instruments and start bands. As the drummer and co-founder of Bikini Kill, Tobi Vail held political and social conversations about music, subculture, and a lot of the women musicians she loved. In a way, Jigsaw feels like the liver of riot grrrl and possibly one of the first representations of a women music critic. It took concepts that were normalized in the mainstream—like what it means to be in a band or what it means to be a “real” musician—and analyzed their patriarchal and capitalist roots. And, almost always, bringing us back to the urgency of why we need to start our own subcultures. One of my favorite excerpts (a must-read that still holds true today, in my opinion) is from Jigsaw edition #3 titled ‘Ape Must Not Kill Ape’.

Girls to the Front: The True Story of the riot grrrl Revolution by Sara Marcus (Book)

In Starting A Riot, it’s evident that we want to tell a version of riot grrrl from a different perspective. It’s important, however, to still be acquainted with the history of this movement—from the bands, artists, and activists that named and organized it. If you Google “riot grrrl,” there are probably hundreds of essays, books, podcasts, zines, and articles that will give you some insight into what it was like to watch Bikini Kill play in a basement. But in my opinion, Girls to the Front: The True Story of the riot grrrl Revolution by Sara Marcus is as close as it gets to the energetic, chaotic, fierce yet flawed moment that it was.

GUNK by Ramdasha Bickceem (Zine)

In a 2015 article about Black women in riot grrrl, Vice Magazine dubbed Ramdasha Bikceem, “riot grrrl’s Black Friend.” In a collection of riot grrrl ephemera curated by NYU’s Lisa Darms, along with other archived zines and documents spanning the years from 1989 to 1996, Bikceem’s zine Gunk stood out as one of the few documents addressing the Black feminist experience. Whether or not Bikceem was the only Black riot grrrl during the Movement’s formative years is hard to say (although highly unlikely), They are, however, an extremely important voice in helping us understand the discourse (or lack therefore) around race at the time. Watch a short clip of Bikceem performing at the 1992 riot grrrl Conference held in Washington, DC.

Sista Grrrl Riots (Collective)

Dubbed “The Feminist Mother of Afro-Punk,” Sista Grrrl Riots was a response to the absence of Black visibility in riot grrrl. Although short lived, these New York-based showcases organized by Tamar Kali-Brown, Simi Stone, Honeychild Coleman, and Maya Sokora gave Black women an opportunity to be in the punk community together, without restriction. Below is an excerpt from the first Sista Grrrl Riot event flier:

“If you bore passing witness to this night, you might have casually referred to Brown, Glick, Stone, and Coleman as riot grrrls, if you didn’t know any better. They were girls. They were angry. They were tired of playing shitty gigs and taking a backseat to the boys. But these women would scoff at the thought of designating themselves “riot grrrls,” or just plain correct you. “You had riot grrrl,” Brown explained, “and this was a Sista Grrrl’s Riot.”

Link

Evolution of a Race Riot by Mimi Thi Nguyen (Zine)

Evolution of a Race Riot by Mimi Thi Nguyen was amongst the most important zines for BIPOC punks to find home in riot grrrl. It’s a resource that to this day is still cited within the discussion of People of Color in Punk. During a time when zines were one of the only sources for alternative media, having a space dedicated to the arts, culture music, and experience of punks living outside of what is already supposed to be a space for the unheard was in many ways a life line. While this formative body of work is often unmentioned in the conversation of riot grrrl, it is one that surely influenced many POC punks today.

Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk (Book)

What we know today as the Pacific Northwest is the stolen territory of the Coast Salish people—a number of tribes who have been co-existing with this land for time immemorial. What I consider one of the biggest missing links in the oral history of riot grrrl is acknowledgment of the original people of that land between so called Portland, OR, Olympia and Seattle, WA. With so much culturally rich energy being shared between these cities in the 90s, not once had I heard from the perspective of an Indigenous punk femme until I read Sasha LaPointe’s Red Paint. Listen to LaPointe speak on riot grrrl in episode 4 of Starting a Riot.

IPRC: Portland, OR (Place)

The Independent Publish Resource Center (IPRC) is one of my favorite places in Portland, OR and one of the first spaces I frequented when I moved here in 2010. For a monthly subscription of $10/month or $100/year you get access to a letterpress studio, screen printing facilities, workshops, printing/copy/scanning machines, computers updated with the Adobe creative suite and so much more! This place is literally heaven for any self-publishing, artistic mind. It feels like it came straight for a riot grrrl dream.

What Are You Doing Here? A Black Women’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal by Laina Dawes (Book)

In Laina Dawes’ What Are You Doing Here? A Black Women’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal we get to uncover an entire world of unsung women in a genre that is stereotypically aggressively male. This book gives incredible insight into the duality of Metal music as an expressive yet exclusive medium while learning about historic moments for Black women in the genre. A highly recommended read!

KAOS 89.3 FM “Community, not Commercial” (Radio Station)

KAOS 89.3 FM is an Olympia staple best known as the radio station that gave voice to the Riot Grrls who attended Evergreen University. It’s fiercely independent, and quirky just like you’d expect a radio station that’s been around since 1973 to be! Whether or not you’re based in Olympia, WA you can access the live feed online and if you’re ever in the area you can even take a tour of the station and volunteer.

Junior High Los Angeles (Place)

With so many of the original riot grrrls and new generations of Riot Punks naturally migrating towards Los Angeles and New York, I felt it was important to include a safe space in LA for BIPOC and Queer artists to be in community and express themselves. I’ve been following Junior High LA for years now and love their curation of panels, workshops, exhibits, shows and community events. Although Los Angeles is not our focal point in this podcast (Olympia, and the PNW is) riot grrrls influence can be felt on an international level and for me one of the most exciting aspects of it is how artists are building from aspects of its blueprint today. Checkout Junior High’s calendar and catch a class this week!

Nestled between the skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta, GA, it felt other-worldly to enter into a wave of warm energy as we opened the doors of the W hotel—reminiscent of a familiarity found only in the comfort of your own home. Excitement and openness filled the room as those attending Femme House’s Takeover Tour prepared themselves to dive deep into a two-hour course on the “Basics of Ableton Live.” Hosted by Christina Horn, an experienced producer and Ableton Certified Trainer, it was a breath of fresh air to approach a topic as technical as navigating your DAW with the awareness of how magical the beginner’s mind can really be, all while being reminded that at the end of the day it’s all about having fun.

Femme House celebrates curiosity from the controller, allowing a level of magic to shine through in an industry that has historically upheld perfection and patriarchal violence. The Takeover Tour is a new initiative created by Femme House to provide access to music industry education while inviting the spirit and undefined energy of dancing the night away at the club. Since 2019, the non-profit has built roots connecting regional and international communities with a seemingly simple goal in mind: to foster more equitable opportunities for women and gender-expansive individuals in music. As a musician and movement organizer myself, it’s not often to come into contact with an organization that invites the freedom to just play around and push knobs. Through this sense of safety and community, experienced within the skill-shares, gear swaps, and panels hosted by a spectrum of talented producers and DJs, it becomes apparent that access, opportunities, and space are the pillars of Femme House’s mission.

“I realized that we had something really powerful on our hands when people were coming to us to find that community and building communities within this, you know, in a really uncertain time of upheaval” — Lauren Spalding, co-founder of Femme House

Led by their vision for creating a more equitable industry as a whole, workshops such as Intro to Ableton Live and Building Your Beats are offered at a sliding scale tier system with free access for womxn of color—a step towards access and inclusivity that is unfortunately few and far between. In 2021, they teamed up with Alicia Keys’ non-profit She is the Music and We Are Moving The Needle to co-create She is the Producer, a six-week intensive that gives participants hands-on industry experience, as well as the gear to support them on their creative journey. As their last cohort saw incredible success serving over 3,000 creators from over 1,400 cities and 77 countries, She is the Producer II is making a comeback in April of 2022.

During a time when connecting in physical spaces is being re-imagined, Femme House’s mission to host hands-on educational experiences has been a long time dream for co-founders LP Giobbi & Lauren Spalding. With support from Ableton, we had the chance to catch up with them and talk about their manifestations, dreams, and promises to keep open spaces available for femmes and gender expansive people.

She Shreds: Can you tell us about the foundations of Femme House?

Lauren: Me and LP have been friends for well over a decade, done a lot of drinking together and a lot of dreaming together. We just have been having conversations over the past, you know, 12 years about how to make an impact and how to create an industry. All of our conversations always came back to creating an industry that we were proud to be a part of.

LP: Yeah, as Lauren said there, we used to do my favorite thing, something that we call ‘roof topping.’ We would go there before we went out in the night and have real deep heart to heart conversations. It was the most beautiful, best friend shit ever. The idea of Femme House was sort of born throughout those rooftops.

How has the Femme House community impacted your orginization?

Lauren: I realized that we had something really powerful on our hands when people were coming to us to find that community, and building communities within this, you know, in a really uncertain time of upheaval where all of a sudden, we were feeling scared and ungrounded. The fact that we could be quite literally a safe space for people to come and connect with other people. This shit is different. A lot of our community comes to us and says, ‘Ay yo Femme House has changed my life. I just started throwing a party while DJing, with my friends, because I learned how to DJ.’

How do y’all see Femme House interested in challenging those things that y’all talking about, the boys club and continuing to create those spaces? Also what does a long term collective abundance look like, whether that’s through funding, creating space, or opportunities?

Lauren: You know, this started out as education and visual representation. Now we’ve got some wind under ourselves and have brand partners looking at us and interested in what we’re doing. But basically, it’s almost a replication of what the boys do, right? You have to ID to go get ID’d. Why the fuck do you have to do that? How the fuck do you have 500 people on the lineup and 13 fucking women. That doesn’t make any sense. Like, why the fuck is LP playing a festival and walking around the entire week-and-a-half of the festival and not seeing another woman backstage?

Such a fan of all this knowledge and skill-share that y’all do. I mean definitely the roots of feminism is skill-share so can you give me just an overview of your current programs?

Lauren: Yeah, I’ll let LP talk about the nerdy shit.

LP: [laughs] We do free monthly workshops, and those are all in Zoom. They cover everything from mini concepts to drum programming to sound design to, loading a MIDI track and an audio track in Ableton. Everything is done in Ableton. We also just launched our DJ courses, which turns out there was a lot of demand for that, which was really, really cool. Mary Droppinz is our lead educator on the DJ courses, and Mini Bear is our lead educator on the Ableton production courses.

Lauren: Last year, we started tip-toeing into a mentorship and professional development base, which is something that’s close to my heart and so we have a bit of programming called Backstage Pass, where we basically have a fireside chat with executives, mostly women and women of color behind the scenes. We also created Pass The Mic to just basically be like, here’s the keys of the platform, showcase whatever you want and we will amplify it.

How did the BIPOC scholarships get started?

Lauren: Yeah, that was one of the levers that we decided to pull when we had a look at the community. How can we make this actually diverse, right? I always think of what I had in mind when we started this was Suzi Analogue, who’s one of the most brilliant creators of our time. It’s not enough to be dope. But, you have to have a stamp that says you’re dope from people that aren’t necessarily going to understand what it is that you do.

How has The Takeover Tour been going?

LP: It’s been so exciting to be in person because you never know. Do other people care about what these things are? Is this empowering to them? You build and they will come and that’s been so fucking unbelievable. It’s more inspiring than the DJ set. We’ve always really originally dreamt this concept up to be an in-person thing. The one thing the pandemic allowed was for our community to grow way outside of L.A. and internationally through She Is the Producer. Seeing those groups form in real life [makes me] want to keep doing this. The Takeover Tour concept will roll up, hopefully, yearly.

What do you hope that your students will walk away with when they leave a Femme House workshop?

Lauren: Oh, LP this is you baby!

LP: TO FEEL EMPOWERED [hands waving in the air]! The goal for these Intro to Ableton workshops is to walk out able to start your own musical journey.

What are y’all dreaming and manifesting for the future for Femme house?

Lauren: We’re sort of manifesting being gatekeepers. And you know, gatekeepers have a dirty connotation—a well earned dirty connotation. If you’re standing at a gate and your job is to close it, that also means that your job is eventually to open it.

In the current digital era, there are many worlds in which we observe, perceive, and obtain access to every detail of someone else’s life. In fact, we have grown so familiar with this practice that we willingly convince ourselves that strangers on the internet are an important part of our daily lives. And actually, maybe they are? It’s possible that during a time in which we feel the systems created to guide us are actually failing us, we’re turning to each other for inspiration, motivation, and education. In the history of music, this is a cycle that we’ve experienced many times over.

Arguably created in the mid 70s, Punk was born for this exact purpose: coming together to disrupt, to voice change, and to inspire a new way of life outside of the systems that we’re born into through capitalism. Although built on vastly opposite values, the underground music and social media landscapes are survived by the need for people to connect. What I may offer is missing in these scenarios of culture (music), vs. connection (social media), vs. capitalism (business) is balance—not only embodying it, but understanding, studying, and living it. So, what is the balance between being a part of the current systems and actively aiming to incite change within them?

“What’s hard about loving punk music, being a part of any sub set of punk culture, we’re trying to spread this word somehow, whether that be anti-capitalism or whether that be fucking anything,” says Hayley Williams, the singer-songwriter, beloved member of Paramore, and co-founder of Good Dye Young, when asked about the tension between selling something as a business, and offering something as a community member.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be a mother, but to be some sort of a caretaker, you have to know it’s part of the job to not know all the answers, and to be able to admit that I think is powerful. So for me, whether it’s been Paramore, whether it’s been Good Dye Young, certainly, there’s a lot of missteps just as there have been a lot of good moments. It’s just like you’re not human without those mistakes, those flaws. And you’re not a great leader if you can’t be like, ‘Yeah. Shit, I didn’t mean to do that.’ Or, ‘Okay. We did this this time and it didn’t work the way we thought, so let’s try it this way.’ That’s the burden of leadership, is that you’re going to go the wrong way sometimes and you’ve got to turn around.”

Ironically enough, almost to the point of humor, this is exactly what Williams had to face three weeks after our conversation occurred. On November 1st, a Good Dye Young employee was called out for turning to their personal Twitter account to make jokes that accused the Brazilian Paramore fan base of hacking into the company’s social media accounts—a generalization that perpetuates harmful stereotypes. It makes sense that, for a company whose mission practices community first, many people were surprised and hurt by this. Like Williams said, you’re not always going to have the answers and you will make mistakes, what she might not have known when we spoke—and possibly the only silver lining to what is everyone’s worst digital nightmare—is that the weight is in your actions, not only your words. Amidst recording Paramore’s sixth studio album, we spoke in length with Williams and her team about what those action items look like, and in the end we got to witness the words, emotions, and dedication to protecting her community.

The thing is, there’s no written manual titled what to do when you fuck up on the internet because until now the power has never been so vocally on the people, while simultaneously so emotionally immersed by the business. It’s just simply not how capitalism intended it to be. And so what do you do? When do you care? When do you move on and how do you juggle the multiplicity of it all?

“It takes a really long time to build a business. So I’m totally fine with us making a few mistakes and growing and learning. And then again, me being able to have moments where I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m going to let this go a little bit more and see how it blossoms without me or with me standing back a little further.’ Like, I would love for business people to talk about that more because I just am like, ‘There’s no right way.’ It’s the same as any relationship, right? They don’t give you a manual for it. You just sort of have to go by feel and I’m more of a gut person.”

Dare I say that in 2021 punk is not dead, but it does look radically different. In one way, it’s the merging and coexisting of two worlds, both using one another to transform each other from the inside out. What I perceived through my own digital, and sonic immersion of Williams is that being punk in 2021 isn’t only to scream your anger, but also to face it in silence, tenderness, care, and a strategic understanding of yourself and your abilities to give back to this world. What I confirmed in this interview while speaking with Williams about these various worlds, is that it is possible to utilize the tools of capitalism to advance culture and connection, but not without experimenting with the rules, accepting mistakes, and acknowledging the boundaries and expectations within yourself.

This summer I had the honor of being invited by Good Dye Young to participate in their first ever music and hair dye campaign collaboration: METALHEADS. In speaking with Williams, I realized my own experience with hair dye, at six years-old, was also my first experience experimenting with the boundaries of our ability to express ourselves within a capitalist-fronted system.

“Part of the reason why I was excited to be in the METALHEADS campaign was because I have this memory with hair dye from when I was a kid, very specifically dying my hair. And going to school and getting kicked out for it. Looking back, I feel like that was one of those key moments where I realized that I was anti-system, and I was six. I was like, ‘Fuck them.’ And I kept dying my hair. But it is that. It is, I think for a lot of people, the introduction to ‘Oh, you’re different. You want to exist in a different world.’ ”

Founded in 2016, Brian O’Conner and Hayley Williams created Good Dye Young, a hair dye company with the intention of ‘break[ing] down that wall of just being a company’ while promoting ‘community around self expression.’

“This is the first time that we’ve really been able to dig into music and culture in this way, which is a world that I’m very personally connected to and professionally connected to,” says Williams while discussing the concept behind METALHEADS.

“Now, I feel like the two can stand alone. That took five years to be able to get there. I don’t get people who aren’t super emotional about their business, because for me, if I didn’t have an emotional tie to both sides, I really don’t think I would have a compass. I just wouldn’t be able to follow that gut feeling that says, ‘Okay, keep Paramore separate. Keep music separate from Good Dye Young.’ And then one day wake up and be like, ‘It’s okay for me to get off of social media and just trust and believe that they’re going to be, both these entities, are going to be fine without me talking into it all the time publicly.”

Following the release of METALHEADS, and just one day after her official break up with social media, Williams and I sat down to talk about creating balance between music and business, while reimagining those structures through a lens of community, culture, and change.

“It’s not about standing out. It’s about what you stand for. And I think no matter where you come from, there’s a reason to disrupt something. At the end of the day, only you know your cause and what you wake up to every morning and what that tension feels like, and how you’re the only person that knows how to move in it because you’re you, but it’s exciting.”

— Hayley Williams

Hayley Williams: Hi! I’m in a white abyss.

Fabi Reyna: You are!!

HW: It’s so weird, there’s nothing here.

FR: You’re just like, in a cloud.

HW: It looks like one of those shots with the Disney people where they’re like [signals wand motion].

FR: It’s incredible.

[Watch the interview here]

Leo season is about magnetism, connection, and the individual expression of selfhood that empowers your bold heart. Seek out what brings you joy. There may be a lot of voices and opinions about how to spend this time, but in the end there’s only you: your voice, your opinion, and your heart’s content.

ARIES (March 21 – April 19)

I cultivate a chosen family who I trust to guide my process.

The last year has been too difficult to choose anything but the small happinesses you’re able to secure. Celebrate reconnection with loved ones on the Full Moon on July 23rd, and use that energy to set plans in motion at the New Moon on August 8th. What about those connections support your full expression? Be intentional with your love. Cultivate a strong circle of people you trust to guide your process—then let that full self flourish into what’s to come.

Audio Challenge: Take stock of your gear. What’s no longer serving your sound? What’s slowing you down? What needs to be updated in order to further your process? Reach out to a trusted gear head for suggestions.

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)

I notice the opportunities that present themselves and act on them wisely.

You’ve been cultivating the seeds of projects that are now ready to manifest. This is the time to bring them to fruition, to release a new song, to work on your social media game, and to generally take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves during this auspicious time. You can count on the connections and contracts you create to hold firm, especially after August 19th when Uranus goes retrograde. No more surprises here—just personal growth. Own it.

Audio Challenge: Post a new song, announce your new musical endeavor, create visual art to accompany whatever it is you have to share with the world this month.

GEMINI May 21 – June 20

I have the power and agency to create change in my life in order to invite new energy.

The time has come to invite open horizons that expand your vision. It’s ok to feel frustrated by the continuing confinement and repetition, and it may be time to do something about it. The Full Moon on July 23rd will inspire you to travel—if not geographically, then mentally at the very least. It’s time to make plans for the future, and the best time to do that will be the New Moon on August 8th. Open the release valve and let some of that frustration go. You have the capacity to invite change now.

Audio Challenge: Feeling stuck in your musical routine? We dare you to explore genres you’ve never attempted before.

CANCER (June 21 – July 22)

There is nothing more important than my own belief in my power.

You’re the arbiter of your own power, and the ultimate decider of your fate. The Full Moon on July 23rd will bring forward something that is ready to be released during this period; a belief or narrative about your self-worth is ready to be let go. You don’t need to hold yourself back anymore, and with the New Moon on August 8th you can make a commitment to yourself only: be true.

Audio Challenge: What outdated belief or narrative about your music needs to be released? Rewrite it through song.

LEO (July 23 – August 22)

I pay special attention to the connections in my life that shape my energetic expression, carefully choosing who I want to become by choosing who I connect with.

You give a lot of power to those who you bring into your chosen circle. The Full Moons on July 23rd and August 22nd, which open and close your season, both center your personal and professional partnerships. If there is an adjustment to be made in your relationships in order to cultivate more freedom of expression, now is the time to do it.

Audio Challenge: Is there a relationship in your life that is inhibiting your musical voice? Use this month to center those who encourage and celebrate your expression.

VIRGO (August 23 – September 22)

In order to express my energy with intention, I must develop clarity of purpose.

You were not brought here to serve the purposes of others. The Full Moon on July 23rd will highlight any challenges that need to be addressed in your daily routine and the impact on your health. This will be the time to take in information so you can make some course corrections come the New Moon on August 8th. The key will be to reorient your practice so it is better aligned with your purpose. Take some time to reach clarity on this issue, so you can direct your energy with intention moving forward.

Audio Challenge: Focus on your musical purpose. Spend time alone, use guided meditation, reflect on your routine, and listen to your inner light.

LIBRA (September 23 – October 22)

I break free of self-imposed restrictions in order to ground my power.

You cannot continue to make compromises with your own vision in order to please others. The Full Moon on June 23rd will bring forward new visions of creative projects that you can dedicate your energy to, but only if you make the conscious decision to choose your own path above those ascribed by others. It’s time to choose whose voice you’ll listen to: your own, or those of people you think you need approval from.

Audio Challenge: Isolate your own voice from the static noise that surrounds you. Separate yourself from the expectations of industry and peers—give full attention to your own vision.

SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21)

I am not required to repeat the patterns and behaviors of my past.

The same agency you can exercise in defining your chosen family grants you the ability to choose what expectations you respond to and what you will leave behind. The Full Moon on July 23rd may bring an unconscious expectation to the surface, which a family member may expect you to fulfill. You will have until the New Moon on August 8th to decide how you will respond. Choose to show up with the same powerful commitment that you expect from others, or not at all.

Audio Challenge: Reflect on the musical expectations others attribute to you and determine if they are reasonable—or rather, if you are willing and able to commit to them.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21)

I trust my heart to lead me, and my mind to make changes as needed.

The best laid plans need to account for change. The inevitable re-hashing of your vision for the future is not a reflection of your lack of clarity, but rather an accurate response to the changing landscape of our time. Pay attention to the information presented by the Full Moon on July 23rd and make the necessary changes in order to account for the shift by the New Moon on August 8th. This is a time of expansion, not retraction—trust your heart to lead you, and trust your mind to make changes accordingly.

Audio Challenge: In what ways has your musical vision shifted compared to this time last year? Are there more changes to be made? Are you still holding your most true vision at the center?

CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)

My value is not defined by the outcome of my endeavors, but by the strength of my commitment to myself in the process.

Exaltation and loss come hand in hand to remind you that the peaks and valleys of your life are expressions held in universal balance. Take note of the memories you gravitate towards on the Full Moon of July 23rd—these are moments of challenge to your self-worth that are ready to be released. The New Moon on August 8th will give you the opportunity to redefine how you measure your success—not only by the achievements you’re able to grasp, but by the courage with which you face the past.

Audio Challenge: What detrimental visions of success are you still holding onto? Redefine what success means to you—be sure it aligns with your self-worth, and move forward with courage.

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)

I can only give as much of my energy as I am able to replenish on my own.

The Full Moon lands in Aquarius twice this month, and with it the desire to focus on your own projects and energy over what others expect of you in return. But even as the focal point turns to you and your power, the New Moon on August 8th will ask you to renew your commitments to those relationships that give you the strength to move forward. Take the powerful emotional drives of this month with the recognition that they are a reflection of the balance in reciprocity between you and those you love.

Audio Challenge: Take a look at your monthly calendar and notice if there’s an imbalance between time spent on your own projects and time spent on others. Try your best to create harmony between the two.

PISCES (February 19 – March 20)

I have the agency to act from my source of power once I choose to listen to it without fear or doubt.

The power of your intuition is only fully uncovered once you learn the difference between fear and insight. With two Full Moons landing in your 12th house of the subconscious this month, be wary of the many voices of fear that may inhabit your dreams and wandering reveries. Dedicate this time to clearing out doubt instead. The New Moon on August 8th asks you to commit to a new energetic practice: make this month about clearing out house.

Audio Challenge: Keep a running list of fears as they arise. Write them in a notebook or on your phone’s memo app. For each one, write out a courageous counterpart.

“In Development” is a new series highlighting contemporary voices revolutionizing vintage genres. Shout out to @marshallamps_uk for partnering with us this season.

Winning Prize

Death to the Guitar Hero

Shifting Culture and Community

The Facts

Mamie Smith (1891–1946)“The Queen of the Blues”

Elizabeth Cotten (1893-1987)“The Mother of Folk”

Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915 – 1973) “The Godmother of Rock N Roll”

Sylvia Robinson (1935 – 2011)“The Mother of Hip Hop”

Beverly “Guitar” Watkins (1939 – 2019)“Queen of the Blues Guitar”

Lady Bo aka Peggy Jones (1940 – 2015)“Queen Mother of Guitar”

Barbara Lynn 1942 – Present“Mother of R&B Guitar”

Early Blues Women and the Black Consumer, 1920s

________

The Influence of Tharpe and Thornton, 1930 – 1950s

Emergence of the Modern Rock Critic, 1960s

Gonzo Journalism and the Male Gaze, 1970s

The Rise of Independent Publications and Women Critics, 1980s – Now

Table of Contents

What blocks are you facing in your home recording setup?

Tangled chords

Finding products that align with iPads for quick demos

Finding bigger, affordable plug-ins that pack a punch

Mic feedback

Motivation

Lack of money and knowledge

Lack of knowledge to set up a rig

Having one outlet but lots of gear to plug in

Soundproofing

What is the most daunting thing about DIY audio engineering and production?

Learning how to use a DAW

Finding a clean slate to work on, too many buttons and knobs

Recording drums

Do I need an interface?

Struggling with knowing when a mix is done/trusting my ears

Knowing what to do once you have a song recorded

Using three phones with Voice Memos instead of microphones to mic up drums, bass, and guitar

Applying EQ to different instruments, busses getting a good mix

Trusting you’ve set up everything correctly and hitting record

Troubleshooting when you’re in a flow

Getting clean vocals

Equipment selection

Mastering an album/feeling like you need a professional

Procrastinating

Choosing a mic good for voice and acoustic

Not knowing where to start

Where to Begin?

Transformative Tips

Part 1: Let’s Get Started

Part 1, Phrases 1

Part 1, Phrase 2

Part 1, Phrase 3

Part 1, Phrase 4

Part 1, Phrase 5

ARIES (March 21 – April 19)

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)

GEMINI May 21 – June 20

CANCER (June 21 – July 22)

LEO (July 23 – August 22)

VIRGO (August 23 – September 22)

LIBRA (September 23 – October 22)

SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21)

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21)

CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)

PISCES (February 19 – March 20)

ARIES (March 21 – April 19)

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)

GEMINI May 21 – June 20

CANCER (June 21 – July 22)

LEO (July 23 – August 22)

VIRGO (August 23 – September 22)

LIBRA (September 23 – October 22)

SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21)

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21)

CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)

PISCES (February 19 – March 20)

We were made to feel damaged and ungrateful, and we stayed steeped in its toxicity because it was all we had access to and all that we knew.

Vocalizing our stories of sexual assault and predation is not a culture. It is one of the first steps toward healing from trauma and it is a response to rape culture.

Mamie Smith (1891–1946)
“The Queen of the Blues”

Elizabeth Cotten (1893-1987)
“The Mother of Folk”

Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915 – 1973)
“The Godmother of Rock N Roll”

Sylvia Robinson (1935 – 2011)
“The Mother of Hip Hop”

Beverly “Guitar” Watkins (1939 – 2019)
“Queen of the Blues Guitar”

Lady Bo aka Peggy Jones (1940 – 2015)
“Queen Mother of Guitar”

Barbara Lynn 1942 – Present
“Mother of R&B Guitar”