NOT YOUR BOYS CLUB – Page 4 – not your boys club

FLOURISH FEST: INTERVIEW#5 – FROOTI TOOT-E

As part of the media coverage for FLOURISH (April 25-28), not your boys club will be having conversations with some of the folks that will be organizing, creating, and performing at the festival.

For the fifth instalment of this series, I spoke with Rachel / Tomato (she/her), Claire / Banana (she/her), and Lauren / Peach (she/her) from Frooti Toot-E (NB) – a project that started out as just a joke on instagram between these high school pals.

Photo by David Cheng

I *loved* the article that The Aquinian recently published that centers all ages programming at FLOURISH and interviews the youth that have been booked to perform or install art at the festival (Flatt, 2019). In this article, you were quoted saying that Frooti Toot-E started as a joke on instagram – could you let me, and the readers, in on this joke and the formation of the band?

Tomato: Well basically Peach and I took the course “Sound and Recording” this year at school. We got to make music using Logic Pro – basically a fancy expensive version of GarageBand. We found it really fun to make funny music and the joke kind of started with “oh my god, imagine if we started a band and it was just weird, funny music! imagine if we PERFORMED!”. We just thought it was funny until one day we said, “wait.. like.. we could easily do that, we just have to make an instagram and soundcloud. It’s grad year – why not!” and the band kind of took off from there.

You were also quoted saying that you had never intended to play a show, but then it “became something real”. How did this happen? Does Fredericton often embrace and centre youth in the music and arts community?

Tomato: No, we honestly never thought it’d be possible to perform live since most of our music is just us singing over a backing track we made ourselves, but our music teacher (shout-out to Mr. Webber!!) really encouraged us and gave us a way for this to happen which was incredible. Performing live has been super fun and I honestly am super grateful to Mr. Webber for helping us start that.

And yeah! I think Fredericton definitely has places where they encourage youth to be creative with music and other forms of art – the Charlotte Street Arts Center has been an awesome place for us personally and i know they do a lot of events to encourage youth to be creative. I think that’s awesome.

What can folks at FLOURISH fest expect from your set at shiftwork on Thursday, April 25th?

Banana: Well.. definitely something they probably haven’t seen before. Our sets are pretty unique but definitely playful and fun – the whole set has sort of a storyline to it which we think is cool. We hope people will like it!

I’ve seen and heard many folks (Jane Blanchard, Motherhood, The Aquinian) refer to Frooti Toot-E as fashion icons. Can you tell me about your aesthetic and why this is a critical part of your performance?

Peach: haha! The day jane said that about us we all freaked out !! Motherhood thinks we’re FASHION ICONS?!?

But yeah, fashion and style is something we really like to incorporate into our performances. Because we are all fruit, we make sure to dress in our fruit colours, so i’m dressed all in pink, Rachel (tomato) in red, and Claire (banana) in yellow.

We just like to have fun with our outfits and be as creative as possible when deciding what to wear to our shows. We’ve worn skirts from value village as shirts and full pastel wigs before – it changes every time!

What are some ways that you feel Frooti Toot-E is paving the way for other youth to take up space in music and arts communities? Do you have any advice for creative youth?

Tomato: I think because we’re so different from i guess “normal” or your typical form of music, it might encourage people and show them that they can make whatever they want. Although not everyone will like it (you can’t please everyone), there’s always going to be people who enjoy it .

This sound cheesy, but as long as you’re creating and having fun, that’s all that matters.

Banana: Yeah I agree. For advice, I’d say just be brave and try your hardest to create for yourself and not to please other people – it’s YOUR art, not theirs. Being creative is fun!

See Frooti Toot-E live on April 25th at FLOURISH Festival!

Contribution by Nikki A Basset

SHOW: CUTIE (RIP) AT RADSTORM

Last night at Radstorm, punk heroes cutie said goodbye to their fans with a final show. It was both awesome and emotional and worthy of a poem so here we go:

Goodbye cutie, it’s been real
I love the way your music makes me feel

Halifax hardcore sure will miss you
I’m crying and I need a tissue

Matty, Johnny, B and Jess
cutie is just the best

Your energy is like no other
when I need a boost I listen to “brother”

In my eardrums you left a path of destruction
and a desire to seize the means of production

Ripping fast with strong aggression
you taught Halifax a lesson

Seeing you live was always fun
thanks so much for all you’ve done

This city won’t forget your name
this scene will never be the same

Thank you cutie!
Love, Stephanie Johns and Chris Murdoch

xoxo

FLOURISH FEST: INTERVIEW #3 – EVA GEORGE

As part of the media coverage for FLOURISH (April 25-28), not your boys club will be having conversations with some of the folks that will be organizing, creating, and performing at the festival.

For the third interview in this series, I spoke with one of the staff members at Charlotte Street Arts Centre (a FLOURISH venue), Eva George (she/they). With over ten years’ experience working at organizations that serve youth & community, she now oversees social development programming at CSAC. As part of this position, she is planning and organizing a music festival called FEST FORWARD that gives space to emerging musicians and their professional development. Outside of CSAC, Eva loans her time to planning and organizing two growing music festivals, Feels Good Follyfest and St. Andrews Paddlefest.

eva george

Photo by Julie Easley

For folks that are unfamiliar with Charlotte Street Arts Centre, can you first give me an overview of its role in the community?

Charlotte Street Arts Centre is a focal point of community based arts. We are unique in that we offer free programming to individuals and groups who might usually face financial barriers to accessing the arts. We also have two galleries and we are the home to a growing list of tenants who are rooted in the arts, for example NB Film Co-Op has been a long time resident as well as a number of artists and dancers who have studios in our building. Our newly renovated space and annex has given us physical accessibility with an elevator that services all levels of the building. We have a beautiful auditorium which has hosted many great performances.

I’m curious to know more about your position as ArtReach Program Manager – can you share with me what kind of programming you develop and offer through CSAC?

As ArtReach Program Manager I work with our community partners to go after funding opportunities so that we can offer them free arts based programming. We partner with The Multi-Cultural Association of Fredericton, The Boys & Girls Club, Evelyn Grove Manor, Fredericton Mental Health & Addictions as well as Youth in Transition to name a few. Our programming is very much based on the needs expressed by the communities we serve and we hire professional artists to facilitate our programs. Along with Penny from Motherhood and Jane Blanchard we created the very first Girls+ Rock Camp in New Brunswick which has since grown to Moncton and Saint John is planning their first camp as well.

In this position, as a board member at Youth in Transition, facilitator for Girls+ Rock Camp, and as a parent, I’m wondering if you can you speak to how important it is to offer art and music spaces that are accessible to youth?

Young people are really great at taking the lead and doing amazing things when adults step out of the way and give them space to do so. Our Girls+ Rock Camp really has been a highlight of my career in youth/community work. I have always been of the mind set that if you can’t see it, you won’t be it, so by giving Girls+ the opportunity to take centre stage through the support of our (wo)mentors from the local music community we are hopefully transforming the future of the music scene which historically has been overly dominated by men.

In speaking with Jane, the co-director of Flourish Festival, it is clear how important all-ages programming is to the festival. What are you feeling especially excited to host at CSAC during Flourish Festival this year?

We are super excited to host a Girls+ Rock Jam with some of the visiting bands on the Saturday afternoon of FLOURISH. I have a super big band crush on Motherhood so I am really pumped for their show here on Friday and we don’t get enough Jane Blanchard these days so I am really looking forward to that show on Saturday evening.

Contribution by Nikki A Basset

VIDEO PREMIERE: “BRUISE”BY WEARY

Weary’s debut music video for “Bruise”, the first single off their debut album Feeling Things (2017), was produced as part of the Nickel Independent Film Festival Music Video Incubator Project. Under the mentorship of Lian Morrison, frontwoman and first time filmmaker Kate Lahey co-directed the video.

Exploring the connections between personal trauma and resource extraction, healing and land relations, this video archives the messy entanglement of personal and political harm. Relations to land, self and movement are sites of healing as the video takes the viewer for a walk along the rugged terrain of Newfoundland’s treacherous cliffside. “Bruise” reminds us that tenderness can be an act of resistance.

I know that playing music, and navigating the music industry, is something that is still quite new to you, so I am curious about how you also felt as a first time filmmaker. What was this experience like for you? Were there any challenges or barriers that surprised you?

I feel really fortunate to have had a really similar experience. Because this was part of the Nickel Independent Film Festival Music Video Incubator, I worked under the mentorship of Lian Morrison, who is a really smart, easy going filmmaker here in St. John’s. Lian was really encouraging of experimentation, doing things your own way, not needing a bunch of gear to make cool stuff, trying different things and just having fun and finding inspiration in your own vision. From shooting to editing and all the little tricks in between, I feel like I got a really incredible crash course. I think because I’m a lifelong student – I just thrive in learning environments. I love learning from other people, I love seeing folks who are really passionate about and good at their work. I love working with people who are so excited to share that passion and inspiration with others, who don’t hoard their knowledge or let their ego get in the way or uphold exclusivity hierarchies. I’m really grateful to have Lian as that person for me with this video, and I’ve been really grateful to have women like Joanna Barker as my mentor and support in music.

Through knowing you, and all your work, it’s hard for me to imagine that everything isn’t always thoughtful and intentional. Can you share with me your relationship to the colour orange and why it seems to reveal itself in all things Weary?

Orange became a really important colour to me throughout the making of “Feeling Things”. I was navigating grief and loss, but also healing and my sense of belonging to home, Newfoundland. When you spend time on this land, you see orange everywhere: ties signalling property lines, oil rigs and buoys, etc. For me, orange came to demarcate sites of construction, extraction, and sometimes emergency. I felt a huge connection between the emotional wounds of trauma and the wounds this land sustains from colonialism and environmental exploitation/extraction. I felt that orange signalled the weird paradox of trauma feeling both hypervisible and completely invisible.

And while I felt kinship and shared experience with the land in this way, orange also taught me that healing and hurting are really complicated, messy entangled processes. Orange also reminded me of the fishing flies and bobbers I used trouting with my grandfather as a kid, the orange vest my nan wore in a picture of her hunting, or the ties that signal paths and trap lines. So the relationship between me, my memories, land and trauma are also all tied up in healing, family, survival and resilience.

Could you elaborate more on the importance of walking alongside Newfoundlands treacherous cliffside for this video, this song, and your feelings behind writing it?

For the same reasons, it was really important for me to braid together myself, orange and this land in a slow and meditative way. Walking is a really important part of my nan’s life that was passed to my mom and to me. Berry picking along trails is a really special practice for me. Being with the ocean is a really special practice for me. I feel small and connected to the bigger picture of my life, my family and the universe. Feeling small and connected is a comforting, healing way for me. Walking in the wilderness makes me feel grounded and rooted and connected and safe. I wanted the video to feel slow and big and quiet and meditative. I wanted to capture the prayer of walking with your memories, your ancestors and your wounds.

I want to comment on how deep this messy entanglement between personal and political is and how well you illustrate this through lyrics that do not offer any distinction between the two. I’m thinking a lot about healing and resilience, especially with the song title “Bruise”, and how this looks both personally and politically for you. Do you feel like there is a deep entanglement here, too?

Absolutely! I think I like to intentionally sort of just make things for myself that make sense for me and resonate with my experiences. Healing and resilience are the crux of the album — “Bruise” was the first single because I feel like it really speaks to anger and hurt, but also to resilience and survival. For me, both personally and politically, healing and resilience has been really messy and confusing. It’s been non-linear and complicated and about a whole lot more than me. The title of the album is also meant to speak to the abundance of feelings that course through and the paradoxical oscillations of anger and rage, numbness and isolation, joy and resistance, relief and security that might rise and fall. This was also a way of holding and validating all these contradictory moods and reactions for myself and for others. I tried to be empathetic.

In the final moments of the video, you gaze at your audience as you sing the lyrics “you don’t seem to see me”. What is the lasting impact or impression that you are trying to leave?

I think for me this lyric and this shot are again tied into the paradoxical duality of hypervisibility and invisibility of trauma. For me this was a political call, but also a personal act of resistance. Sort of a way to challenge ideas of viewership and access, and to confront the audience with my own power and gaze. There was something important about denying the audience my face throughout the video, about controlling that dynamic and claiming ownership. Keeping things vague and messy, like my connection to orange and land, is a way for me to control what ideas, feelings, memories, and relationships I get to keep sacred and private. It’s also a way to allow others to just feel that affective vibe of a slow walk along the ocean, without projecting all of my own experiences onto it so heavy handedly, I think it lets others’ bring what they need to that process. I like open ended, human lines like “I don’t want to love you anymore”. I think there’s just a lot of room there, I want that space to be an invitation. “You don’t seem to see me” is also a way of saying “I see you”.

Bruise Still 3

Photo by Kate Lahey and Lian Morrison

See Weary live:

April 27th – bloom fest w/ Property @ Thunder & Lightning, Sackville, NB.

April 28th – FLOURISH Festival @ The Capital Complex, Fredericton, NB.

May 1st – w/ Property @ Menz and Mollyz, Halifax, NS.

May 3rd – East Coast Music Awards, Charlottetown, PEI.

Contribution by Nikki A Basset and Kate Lahey

FLOURISH FEST: INTERVIEW #2 – TERRE WA

As part of the media coverage for FLOURISH (April 25-28), not your boys club will be having conversations with some of the folks that will be organizing, creating, and performing at the festival.

For the second interview of the series, I spoke with Indigo (she/they), Erin (she/her), and Emily (she/her) from Fredericton’s own, Terre Wa.

Indigo Rain Poirier (synth/drum machine) is an electronic musician recently awarded “artist of the year” for their solo project, Wangled Teb. Erin Goodine (synth) is an interdisciplinary artist, collaborator, and designer new to improvised electronic music. Emily Kennedy (cello) is a cellist, improviser, and collaborator active in genre-crossing projects with poets, textile artists, and dancers.

Together, Terre Wa is a powerful synthesis of these diverse backgrounds in visual arts and classical, experimental, and electronic music. Their improvised sets can abruptly turn from heart-wrenchingly beautiful to dark, intense, and menancing.

Photo by Emily Kennedy

How did Terre Wa form and how long have you been creating and playing music together?

Indigo: Terre Wa originally kind of grew out of a project Erin, her sister Robin, and myself were organizing called Sunday Music Spa. Sunday Music Spa is an ambient jam session for women and non-binary people where we set up a bunch of synths/drum machines, encourage people to bring their own instruments if they want or to use ours, and relax and make noise together in a soothing, supportive environment. Sometimes we make tea. It’s great. We had been hosting these sessions periodically for about a year or so, I think? Anyway, after awhile of performing together in that space, Erin and I ended up playing a set at Reads (god rest its soul) along with New Hermitage and Northern Apparatus, and then we decided we wanted to keep performing together and asked Emily to join us not long after.

Erin: Yeah, I think we had been doing Sunday Music Spa for around a year by that time. Sunday Music Spa came out of the need for a space that welcomed experimentation from people who were not musicians. I’ve always been interested in synthesizers and experimental music, but it always felt so daunting to learn how to play that type of music myself. After having that space to learn more about synthesizers and the time to experiment, Indigo was so generous to invite me to play a set at Reads with them even though I didn’t have much experience. It was the first time I had ever played music in front of an audience, but it was really encouraging and we got really good feedback from that first show. Once Emily joined us we became Terre Wa and everything came together so well.

Emily: Yeah, I went to that first show at Reads, and it was awesome! I was so stoked on it, I was was pretty tickled when they asked me if I wanted to jam, and then that was that. I’ve always enjoyed electronic music, and Terre Wa has been an awesome project to just explore how a good old wooden cello can fit in and mix with that kind of soundscape.

What can people typically expect from a Terre Wa set? Specifically at Flourish?

Erin: I guess it’s hard to say what to expect because it’s so different every time! Since all of our performances are improvised, we don’t necessarily know what it’s going to sound like going into a set. We did start to notice that the spaces we’ve performed in have really influenced the sound, like bar venues tend to be louder and more intense, while outdoor areas and quieter venues build up slower and are more relaxed. We will be creating an outdoor sound installation at Flourish this year as well as performing, so that will definitely influence the sound.

It seems that, outside of playing music together as Terre Wa, you are all very active in the music and arts community. I was hoping you could all offer some insight and perspective on the community there for folks not living, working, and creating in Fredericton.

Emily: Fredericton is a pretty special little arts community. I’m from New Brunswick, but I had lived in Ontario for seven years or so before deciding to move back home. It was really eye opening coming back – there are just so many supportive and hard working artists and musicians here. I think when I left, I felt the classic “grass is always greener” need to get away from where I was from, to go someplace larger. It feels even more special now to see how much of a gem this place is. There is this very grass roots, do-it-yourself culture here. People aren’t afraid to just start something, whether it’s a musical project or a festival. When you see that all around you, it’s inspiring. You realize that you can do that as well.

What does Flourish Festival mean for each of you?

Erin: Flourish always feels like such a nice celebration. Friends come back to town, the weather gets warmer. I’ve seen some of my favorite shows at Flourish, not only because of the amazing musicians and artists, but also for the space it creates.

Emily: Yes! Flourish is the best way to send off winter – a weekend jam packed with great music, art and pals.

Erin, can you specifically talk about your involvement with the arts and the collaborative textile poster that you worked on for Flourish?

Erin: Yes! I primarily work as a graphic designer by day, and had the opportunity to collaborate with my sister Robin Goodine and Emily Blair on the Flourish Fest poster. They created a textile piece in Montreal and I designed a poster around it. I’m also an interdisciplinary artist and have contributed artwork and installations for Flourish Fest in the past and have been involved in many collaborative art projects in Fredericton with the Shiftwork Collective and Connexion ARC. I’ve had some really great opportunities to collaborate with many amazing artists and musicians over the years. I also recently collaborated with Emma Hassencahl-Perley and Emilie Grace Lavoie on a curatorial project at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery that will be open during Flourish Festival this year.

Indigo, I know that you also play solo under the name Wangled Teb. Through this project, I saw that you will be offering a free workshop at The Charlotte Street Arts Centre Auditorium that will empower folks to use Ableton Live. Can you share what folks can expect of this workshop?

Yes! I’m going to talk about some basic terms that people should be familiar with when mixing, some general techniques for EQ and compression, a brief explanation of subtractive/analog synthesizers, and how I use Ableton for live performance. I might also go a bit deeper into how I approach writing a piece if there’s time.

What are each of you most excited for during this years Flourish Festival outside of your involvement(s)?

Indigo: Definitely excited to see Property again. I saw them play at Reads (god rest its soul) last year and they were AWESOME. Also that whole lineup for the Shiftwork show on Friday looks great!!

Erin: I’m excited to see Indigo and Emily’s other projects Wangled Teb and Pallmer! I’m also looking forward to seeing Carinae again. I saw them for the first time at last years Quality Block Party in Saint John, and they were amazing!

Emily: Yes, all of the above! And I can’t wait to see Thanya Iyer (and everything on Friday..), and the Flourish Gallery Crawl – – should be a lot of fun!

Terre Wa plays Flourish Festival on Saturday, April 27th at The Charlotte Street Arts Centre Auditorium (all ages / doors at 530 / $15)

Contribution by Nikki A Basset