Cyan Bannister is the founder of Zivity – an egalitarian pay-site for edgy models and performers – and she’s also the sexy geek from the MC Chris video about nerd girls. Now she’s made it to the apex of Violet Blue’s list of 2009′s Top Sexy Geeks.
You can see the complete list here, and the MC Chris video below.
Not only do get to see a great holiday performance by Melissa Etheridge on The View, but we also get to see her pummel Elizabeth Hasselbeck around the bike racks for Hasselbeck’s misleading statements about marriage equality and California’s recent Prop. H8.
It’s the perfect match-up: your down-to-earth college beer-drinking buddy vs. the chirpy self-righteous sorority chick everyone hoped would trip in her high heels and fall.
It’s been three long years since the Indigo Girls have released a studio album. Now the duo is starting their own label, IG Recordings, which will release their new 2-CD album, Poseidon And The Bitter Bug, due out in March. The new cd set will be will be distributed through Vanguard Records.
Emily Saliers and Amy Ray have played together as the Indigo Girls for more than two decades. Recording releases have become less frequent as each of them has pursued independent projects.
In a statement in a press release, Emily Saliers says, “For a band like us, it might feel inauthentic if we tried to branch out in some crazy way musically. That’s why Amy makes solo records, so she can do her own thing outside of what we do together.”
Amy Ray started the excellent Daemon Records which supports a growing roster of feisty small bands, as well as distributing her solo work. Saliers ventured into the restaurant business. She’s currently co-owner of the haute Southern Watershed.
Ray has long chafed at the strictures of the major labels and had this to say about the new project: “I feel a great sense of freedom in finally being rid of the major-label world. It’s been a burden for a while for me. I felt an honesty and sincerity making Poseidon, because I fully believe in independence.”
Yesterday I received an email from Ingrid Elizabeth of the ever-so-lovely acoustic duo Coyote Grace. She wanted to remind all of us that November is Trans Awareness Month, and that she and Joe Stevens (the other half of the duo) will be performing on the Transgender Day of Remembrance at University of Nebraska – Omaha. They’ll appear with Namoli Brennet.
I consider myself particularly spoiled because Coyote Grace recently moved to my neck of the woods. They’re smart, charming, socially relevant, and best of all, dance-able. As they’re becoming more well known, they still favor us with small local shows.
With a biography that begins “Girl meets Girl. Girl becomes Boy. Girl and Boy become a band. Meet Coyote Grace.” You know you can expect something different. Their sound is a swingy blend of Americana roots music with jazz-baby overtones. Ingrid Elizabeth plays the upright bass (that’s a lovely sentence to say out loud, btw) and Joe Stevens plays the guitar. They both sing and write songs. You can sample their music here.
I recently had the opportunity to spend an hour or so locked up in a radio recording booth with these two, and I came away impressed with their warmth, humor, brains, musical ability, and – yes – grace. They’re hard-working musicians who are quickly establishing a place for themselves, having opened for the Indigo Girls, and toured with Melissa Ferrick
But they also impressed me as incredibly brave young souls; two people who have no inclination to shy away from questions about their early lesbian relationship and Joe’s transition from female to male. Indeed, they address it in song, and are as eager to share and educate as they are to entertain.
Here’s a video of Coyote Grace opening for Melissa Ferrick late last month in Milwaukee, singing one of their signature songs, “A Guy Named Joe,” about Joe’s transition.
Could there be a better pair to share the honor of GPG Centerfold during Trans Awareness Month?
(And with a special shoutout to the SF Bay Area: Coyote Grace will appear this Sunday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. at the ever-so-queer-friendly and decidedly down-scale Black Cat in Penngrove. I hope to see you there!)
After a post about butch girls getting glammed up, there was an exchange in the comments following the post about how infrequent it is to see butch women in the mainstream media. The sightings of a butch in her natural state are far and few between. My votes went to Martina Navratilova and Alison Bechdel.
Since the criteria was “mainstream media” I didn’t list some awesome warrior performers most widely known in women’s and LGBT circles like Ferron and Phranc.
To bring it full circle, here’s Phranc, singing her famous song “Martina”. Enjoy!
Set your ear buds aside: There are new ways to hear and feel your music.
You see, we have two ways of hearing. In simple terms, one method is the result of sound waves being sensed by our ear drums. The other method is conductive – the sensors in our hearing system pick up on vibrations in our bone, primarily our skull.
Two companies are making alternative ways of listening to your iPod though conductive hearing. One of the new headsets conducts sound through the bones of your skull, another through the cartilage of your outer ear. Read more about both of these methods in a story in the NY Times.
But if that’s not enough to set you abuzz, consider investing in the OhMiBod, a music-powered vibrating sex toy that will sync your personal rhythms to your iPod.
The next morning was a little surreal. I awoke in Santa Barbara to the sound of gulls and what the poet Mary Oliver would call the “pale pink morning light”. It took me a moment to remember where I was, how I had gotten there, and where I was headed. Continue reading →
We’d always talked about taking a road trip, you and I. But it seemed that one thing after another conspired to get in the way.
I had commitments, you had business trips, there were holidays, family birthdays, walls to be painted, projects to be completed, and piles of work to be done.
So when our house of tarot cards came tumbling down despite the best of predictions, I decided to take fate into my own hands and hit Route 66, all by my lonesome. Continue reading →
We danced through the first CD and continued to hold each other while a second one started.
The sun had begun its late-afternoon descent and strong light was slanting through the front shutters. Pretty soon it would be time to start a fire. Continue reading →
Cyan Bannister
