THE BIG SHE-BANG V
SATURDAY, AUGUST 14TH, 2010
11AM-10PM

@ CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH
129 RUSSELL STREET, LOWER LEVEL
GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN 11222

Please join us as we anticipate a bunch of really great participants this year, as always.

If you have yet to get in touch about doing a workshop, speaking on a panel, playing music, performing spoken word, tabling, showing your artwork, volunteering, or participating in any way, PLEASE DO! Keep in mind, we can always use more volunteers.

CLICK HERE for the call out for participation! (Or see below).

Back in April, I had the pleasure of interviewing Daniela Capistrano, Jane-of-all-trades and founding member of the POC Zine Project for an online publication I edit called RE/VISIONIST. As if I hadn’t loved POC Zine Project and Daniela’s mission enough, I learned even more about her/their rich history of activism through the interview. Recently, at the screening of Afro-Punk we co-hosted with POC Zine Project, Daniela debuted her new zine, BAD MEXICAN!! #1.

Bad Mexican is about Daniela’s family, upbringing, and how her history affects her life now. She gracefully touches on issues like abuse, racism, and being a woman of color with white privilege – all while maintaining her sense of humor. She brings her own experience to the table and sprinkles each story with advice gleaned from her life. Her advice is both for us as individual people and as witnesses within a racist culture. Bad Mexican is in the lineage of perzines by women of color that are at once personal yet have larger implications for the ways we view history and the world around us.

I really love the way that Daniela incorporates family, history (personal and political), and her own life into one telling document; it is a reminder that these experiences are not separate, that in actuality, they are really fluid.

Bad Mexican is available for purchase directly from the author. Daniela is capping this release at 100 copies, so get yours while it’s hot at her Etsy store!

1. The Doula Project is recruiting! The Doula Project is an NYC-based organization that provides free compassionate care and emotional, physical, and informational support to people across the spectrum of pregnancy. Applications are due June 1, 2010. Click here to apply!

2. The Last Internationale is looking for a bass player. From Edgey: I’m writing to ask you if you know any bassists who would like to join our band. We’re a radical, female-fronted garage rock/blues/punk/folk band… the garage rock/punk stuff in unreleased, in case you get confused when you listen to our songs.

We are thrilled to announce our first collaboration and co-sponsored event with POC Zine Project: a screening of Afro-Punk. This is the first event we’ve booked since The Big She-Bang IV last August and we couldn’t be more excited. The good folks at Book Thug Nation will be hosting us and there will be snacks provided by POC Zine Project. As part of their mission, they’ll be distributing free zines by POC zinesters, too! We hope to have folks stay after the film is over for a discussion about why we chose to screen the film and any general reactions or interactions from fellow community members & audience participants. You can RSVP to the Facebook event here.

SUNDAY, MAY 30 at BOOKTHUG NATION
100 N. 3rd St., Brooklyn // 7pm // FREE
For the Birds Collective & POC Zine Project present a screening of AFRO-PUNK

From the website: Afro-Punk, a 66-minute documentary, explores race identity within the punk scene. More than your everyday, Behind the Music or typical “black history month” documentary this film tackles the hard questions, such as issues of loneliness, exile, inter-racial dating and black power. We follow the lives of four people who have dedicated themselves to the punk rock lifestyle. They find themselves in conflicting situations, living the dual life of a person of color in a mostly white community.

The style of the documentary inter-cuts interviews from scores of black punk rockers from all over the nation with scenes from our four protagonists’ lives. They come from different regions, generations, genders, and sexual preferences but their stories are amazingly similar.

Afro-Punk features performances by Bad Brains, Tamar Kali, Cipher, and Ten Grand. It also contains exclusive interviews by members of Fishbone, 247- spyz, Dead Kennedys, Candiria, Orange 9mm and TV on the Radio to name a few.

www.afropunk.com
www.forthebirdscollective.org
www.poczineproject.org

I recently received an e-mail from the lovely folks organizing Ladyfest Bellingham in Washington State. Jenn asks:

Are there any rad bands in your neck of the woods who are planning West Coast tours for the summer?  Ladyfest is going to be June 17-20, and we’d love to get some touring bands from outside of the NW onto our line-up.  If you hear of anything, could you pass the word along for us?  Our contact info is:

ladyfestbham@gmail.com
http://ladyfestbham.tumblr.com
ladyfestbham.org
myspace.com/ladyfestbham

So if any of you are in aforementioned rad bands that are planning on touring in June, get in touch at the above links! And of course, please spread the word.

For the Birds member Lauren has recently built us a Big Cartel store! Hopefully this will make it easier folks to order compilations from us. There is a link in the distro section as well. Right now our stock consists of FTB-001 through FTB-003: The Big She-Bang, Gimme Cooties, and Best of the Nest. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

Us here at For the Birds HQ have made a decision to be more present in the internet world. At the moment, the majority of us are in grad school, in touring bands, or just busy with other projects, and we decided this would be a good way to remain constantly active. So let’s get this thing going!

First, happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! Racialicious posted a great collection of his quotes earlier today.

Lots of our work in For the Birds has to do with queering social spaces, specifically, spaces that are assumed to be safe or “queer” in some way already. I am constantly wondering what is going on nationally and internationally with queer and/or girl-made music or movements: where is our riot grrrl? Why does riot grrrl seem to be so ghettoized in punk history? Lately, I’ve been turned on to some really rad blogs documenting riot grrrl and queercore music or movements that have happened in the past but are also happening currently. Here are my recommendations:

Stacy Konkiel a.k.a. “SISSY SOULPONY” from the Bay Area has a virtual How To for queercore & riot grrrl called SOUL PONIES. She covers current news about riot grrrl happenings as well as posting mp3s of both current bands and older bands that may or may not be extinct. Here’s an excerpt from the SOUL PONIES manifesta:

Because independent record labels are dying off and are being sold to megacorporations more and more often;

Because queer independent record labels, by their “niche” nature, are especially susceptible to closing;

Because we often lose the work of amazing LGBTQ artists to the dollar discount bin of the used record store when queer record labels go under;

Because we wish to preserve the legacies of important riot grrrl and queercore musicians for present and future generations to appreciate their work…

Young Creature is a self-proclaimed blog focused on exposing and supporting Queer musicians, artists, filmmakers, writers, troublemakers, and earth shakers.

If you can think of more, please comment here and let us know what’s up!