This is my love letter to all the queer musicians out there, making art and kicking ass. If there's an artist you think I should know about, please let me know, I love new music! (I also reblog/post on general queer and trans stuff, as well as some more personal things, hope that's all right).
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Heartcore: Trans* Love Week 2012
The Trans* Love week Tranifesto
Trans* Love Week is an attempt to (re)shape and (re)frame the discourse around trans identities from one of negativity to one of pride, positivity, and acceptance. It is a week of celebrating who we are, our experiences, our journeys, and our communities.
When I say, “I love being trans*” I mean I am committed to remaining positive about myself and my community in the face of great opposition. It’s no secret that trans* people experience a significant amount of emotional and physical violence on a daily basis. We experience a lot of hurt form other people and some that is self-inflicted. Thus, trans* people and their allies need to actively cultivate a community where self-care and positive thinking is the norm. We must learn to say, “I love my trans* self”, while acknowledging that society has placed a large amount of value on cis/non-trans identities, experiences, and bodies and although this oppression shapes the lives of trans* people, we are still worthy. I do not dislike being trans. I, in fact, love it. But I do dislike living in a cissexist/cisgenderist society.
The Legalize Trans* team would like trans* folks and their allies to join us in creating a more positive dialogue by submitting their stories, graphic art, poems, and videos about tran* love to orders@legalizetrans.com by February 6th. Their are no guidelines because we want people to be creative, just keep it positive! All videos, art, poetry, etc. will be featured on the Legalize Trans* tumblr and facebook during Trans* Love Week on February 7-14, 2012 and should not be submitted without permission from those featured.
Much love,
Asher
Founder, Legalize Trans*
Why is pop music the only art form that still inspires such arrantly stupid discussion? The debates that surround authenticity have no relationship to popular music as it’s been practiced for more than a century. Artists write material, alone or with assistance, revise it, and then present a final work created with the help of professionals who are trained for specific and relevant production tasks. This makes popular music similar to film, television, visual art, books, dance, and related areas like food and fashion. And yet no movie review begins, “Meryl Streep, despite not being a Prime Minister, is reasonably convincing in ‘The Iron Lady.’
Lana Del Rey’s Image on “Born to Die” : The New Yorker
(via judyxberman)
SFJ is on the money, per usj. Andthe other question to ask: why are female artists the only ones who inspire such “discussion”, or “authenticity” “discussions” where sexism is masked as discernment? I am literally counting the hours until the long thing I wrote about her/this for SPIN comes out. Spoiler alert: I did the homework no one else was interested in doing. Ze End.
(via tinyluckygenius)
Much love to Jessica, one of our favorite thinkers, but I think it’s perfectly okay to insist on authenticity in music, insofar as a privileging of authenticity remains one of the few ways that actual class-based critiques of corporate hegemony and consumerism become admissible in pop discourse. We look for authentic stuff, because we want to get behind people who are on the right team. We want the broccoli that’s labeled “organic and local” not to be pesticide covered and shipped in from Chile. That’s okay, even as our notions of authenticity might be confused, conflicted, sometimes contradictory.
It’s true that sexism plays a role, in how we talk about it though. I’d love to see Owl City, for example endure the kind of scrutiny that Ms Del Rey has, and I wish Ms Del Rey’s critics didn’t stoop to misogyny. Still that doesn’t mean that pointing out that fake, manufactured, phony stuff is fake, manufactured, phony necessarily has any element of sexism.
(We have nothing to say about Lana Del Rey, except that it sucks that she stole people’s super 8 footage and passed it off as her own work. Listened to 30 seconds and got very bored, moved on.)
Sara Quin- Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart (Alicia Keys Cover)
I WOULD LIKE TO START A SUPPORT GROUP/DISCUSSION GROUP FOR QUEER/TRANS PEOPLE OF COLOR WHO DATE OR HAVE CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH WHITE QUEERS. or generally want to talk about their experiences w/ white queer people?
there are lots of white queer people who i hold very near and dear to my heart. my best friend/platonic life partner, my girlfriend, and many of the queer people who i am closest to are white. my mom is also white and is kind of queer. i think they all identify and work on being anti-racist white people but there are still, obviously, plenty of instances where i feel alienated and/or silenced by the unintentional affects of their whiteness/white privilege. it is not uncommon that i am in a space where everyone is queer and/or trans, and i am the only person of color. i think right now i have lots of things i need to explore regarding WHITE QUEERS and my experiences with them. i would like to do this with other QTPOC folk. is anyone interested in starting a private facebook group, for starters? does anyone have any recommendations for other ways this group could happen?
please signal boost! <3
this also should include queer and trans people of color who have white family members, such as queer people of color who were transracially adopted or come from a mixed race family.
signal boosting
signal boosting— this doesn’t apply to me but i think it may apply to some of my followers
Also, not applicable to me, but for those out there who may be interested, check it out.
Class Actress - Bienvenue
Kaia Wilson’s has a Kickstarter for her new album!
Thank you to knotsewtrashy for the heads up, because I hadn’t heard anything about this.
So. Kaia Wilson is making a new album. And we all love Kaia Wilson, right? Right. She needs to raise $1,700-ish dollars in 22 days to do it. Also, the video features her playing guitar with some goats, so check out the page just for that.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/345277866/kaia-wilson-makes-her-best-solo-album?ref=category
Seriously, what are you waiting for? Check that shit out!
Graft ENT, “The Anthem.” Features an excellent use of Slimer sweatshirt (also, a pretty kick ass song).
Graft ENT, “6ft 7ft.”
I love the beat on this.
Graft ENT, from London, with “Woo Riddim.”
Graft ENT was recently featured on the second episode of Yo! LGBT Raps, and they have a free mixtape, The Initiation, available for free download over at their soundcloud. I’m gonna do some spamming of their stuff, because it’s pretty damn good.
