Of Grace Petrie, Amythyst Kiah, Ferron, the Animal Slaves, and the 2024 Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Day One

Note: I will return to Grace Petrie later, but I think if you'll bear with me the backstory here will be of interest. As a token of faith, here's a photo of Grace and I, taken at the CD signing yesterday by Dave Bowes (thanks, Dave!). If you missed her set -- I shall not chasten you, as I realize some of us were still at work when she hit the stage -- but would like to emphasize that you have THREE MORE CHANCES to see her (and multi-instrumentalist accompanist Ben Moss) today and tomorrow; she's part of two workshops and serving as a 'tweener today between Iris DeMent and James Vincent McMorrow, and you should TAKE ADVANTAGE of the opportunity to catch her if you can. She's witty, personable, a hell of a songwriter (in the classic UK folksinger mode; hell, she even has a Richard Thompson cover in her repertoire), and there's a bunch of great songs that we did not hear yesterday that she'll no doubt do today and tomorrow (if I could be bold enough to predict, I'm guessing that at one of these shows, we'll get to hear "The House Always Wins" and that the 'tweener will involve something even more political, like "Meanwhile in Texas" -- that her folkie instincts will be to save her most timely and politically potent "message" songs for the largest audience. I could be wrong, but encourage her, if she's reading this, to not change her plans if it happens that I've guessed'em). 

Grace Petrie and Allan MacInnis by Dave Bowes

...but like I say, I'll come back to her. 

So last year, my favourite "discovery" at the folk festival was out, queer, politically-minded roots musician named Amythyst Kiah, whom I spoke to as part of a piece in Montecristo (with outtakes on my blog). Don't know if I mentioned it in either of those pieces, but I gave Kiah a gift: an album by Ferron -- NOT the one that I got Ferron to sign, which is a bit rare, but the more common Shadows on a Dime. Which actually also was signed by Ferron (though a bit weirdly, on the inner sleeve). 

              Interviewing Amythyst, by Ron Stewart

Ferron's signature is not all that hard to find out there. Of the half-dozen copies of Ferron albums that have passed through my hands over the years, three of them were purchased in a signed state (twice on the inner sleeve, in fact; what's that about, exactly? That's one of the questions I will ask Ferron if she ever assents to be interviewed!). I didn't actually get to talk to Ferron much last year, beyond asking her to sign my record and saying, "Stephen Nikleva says hi" -- Nikleva's first appearance on vinyl was on this album, Backed Up, a somewhat scarce private press job (more on which here). 

But I would hazard a guess that there is no place in the world where Ferron records are more ubiquitous than British Columbia. I see them frequently when thrifting, especially Testimony. Like Doug and the Slugs (or the Payolas or Trooper or Loverboy or a dozen other Vancouver bands), Ferron achieved enough fame in the 1980s, locally, that tons of people here bought those two records, beyond her core devotees; like all of those bands, as time progressed, many of her more idle fans gave those records away. I see Testimony, her big breakthrough, almost as often as I see Cognac and Bologna. 

But Shadows on a Dime seemed to be the album to give Kiah, as it has my second favourite Ferron song on it, "It Won't Take Long" -- which I regard as her masterpiece, even if its political scope and writerly ambition are almost grandiose; it's a "big" song, in the way that, I dunno, "The Times They Are a-Changin'" is a big song. But for personal reasons, I don't love it half as much as Ferron's less-well known "The Kid's Song," which you can hear here; it's a much more intimate, much smaller song, but captures a fascinating, formative moment, where (I think) Ferron's childhood self, who knows she is not like a lot of the other kids, but who has not quite come into her sexuality, takes inspiration and strength from an adult female artist and outsider with whom she crosses paths. It's kind of about the development of identity and opens out onto all sorts of questions about the influences adults have on kids.

...which is interesting to me, because, though I am not now nor have I ever been a queer female, I do have my own "inspirational queer female story." I don't even know who they were, but when I went to see the Cramps (with Slow opening!) back in 1986 -- I was 18 -- I was with friends, who arranged for us to stay with a female couple (I think) who worked on the anarchist magazine Open Road (I think) and lived in a house near Victoria and 33rd, the basement of which happened to be where the Animal Slaves jammed. 

Though I never got to see the Animal Slaves live, I knew who they were, either had or would have their record Dog Eat Dog -- which you see thrifting vastly less often than Ferron records, note -- and was very excited to eavesdrop on a kitchen table conversation they were having (Elizabeth and Rachel were doing singsong, Seussian rhymes around "I like dykes;" Ross was there too). And then I got introduced to them! My friend warned me not to mistake bassist Rachel Melas for a man -- she had very hairy legs* and a butch demeanor -- but if memory serves, I knew full well who Rachel was. I would chat with Elizabeth Fischer many times over the following years, and she even came to a New Model Army show that Dave Bowes and I conspired to put on, but that afternoon was the only time I encountered Melas.

What I'm realizing now (but didn't at the time) was that all of these things, epiphenomena to the main point of the stay in Vancouver (which was all about seeing the Cramps and Slow) were vastly more important in terms of formative experiences, than seeing the Cramps was. My memories of the stay in that house are far more vivid and plentiful than those of that concert, which are mostly lost to fog: besides peeking in on the Animal Slaves' roundtable, they also included going through a box of records owned by the couple whose house it was, and offering to trade them something for their copy of the Minutemen's The Punch Line, which surely was a first pressing, with a weirdly-textured "matte" cover (I forget what they got off me in exchange but remember that they were amused that I was excited by the Minutemen). I remember, too, after the show, having the sweat acquired from the mosh pit licked off me by (I think) eight kittens, who climbed up on top of me on the couch and found sweaty spots (none of them private or gross, note - we're talking arms and legs and belly and so forth, wherever they could find an exposed spot). And the next morning, I remember everyone agreeing that I was one hell of a loud snorer for a young man! 

It may also be that that trip was the first time I talked to a trans person. They were some months into their two-year wait for gender reassignment surgery, and being required to live as a female, while still physically registering mostly as male. I remember talking to them about that requirement, thinking it seemed kind of cruel and unusual that the waiting period was so long; if they were sure they wanted to be female -- and they seemed to have no doubt in the matter -- making them live as female for that long without all the medical and surgical support they could receive seemed unfair, like they were being stranded in limbo between genders, and no doubt being exposed to a ton of bigotry and weirdness as a result. I said a dumb thing myself, in fact, as part of this conversation: I wince to recall observing at one point that they "seemed like a nice guy," though I was apologetic as I said it, not just clumsily sticking my foot in my mouth or trying to be insensitive, meaning something like "you do not yet seem female to me, but you seem like a nice person," which I hope is how it came across -- it did kind of fit with the rest of the conversation and was followed by my wishing them luck in their journey. Like I say, I was a kid -- and a kid from a small, homophobic town, at that, where any queer leanings I may have had as a young man had been literally beaten out of me ("scared straight," so to speak). I had no idea before then that anyone could or would get their gender re-assigned. I hope things worked out! They weren't much older than I was, maybe in their early 20s, so they'd probably be in their 60s now, presumably entirely comfortable in their femininity -- if they survived societal homophobia, HIV, and/or didn't kill themselves in despair that they would ever arrive at a place where things felt normal... 

Anyhow, the Cramps show was small beans by comparison to all the above. It was the personal encounters of that weekend that actually were life-changing. People like Lux and Poison Ivy were larger than life, exceptional, too big to count as actual inspirations. The people I met that weekend, and my interactions with them, were all vastly more influential, vastly more personal, vastly more individual-to-me; there are hundreds of thousands of people who have seen the Cramps, but the stuff around that weekend had a lot more to do with shaping me, letting me know that there was more than one way to be a person. I don't always get being a person right, but some of what I know about how to do that started that weekend...  

I had been thinking that maybe I would ask Grace Petrie about some of the bands that influenced her -- if she has connections to earlier British folk music, since so much of what she does seems steeped in traditional folksong, but also if she has connections to punk... but now I'm actually thinking, based on the above, that I'm going to play her Ferron's "The Kid's Song" and ask her about her own formative PERSONAL experiences, as well -- if there were people she met who helped her be okay with her identity, all of which could of course, be tied in to her song "Black Tie," off Queer As Folk, which for me was the high point of Petrie's set yesterday, as well as being off the only CD she had for sale in the merch area (but take heart, Vancouver: more merch is on the way!). 

Petrie explained by way of introducing that song that she knew from a very young age that she would be the kind of woman she is, but that it took her a very long time not to be ashamed of this fact -- I think that was the word she used (this also may have been said some of that before she performed "Pride," also on that album). She got us to sing along with her during one line, telling the audience to respond, after "the images that fucked ya" with, "were a patriarchal structure," which surely has to count as one of the most ungainly call-and-response folksong lyrics in human history (but was fun to do). She said something like, "If you sing it loud enough, I'm pretty sure that the patriarchy will fall today, so it's up to you and how badly you want it!" It was fun to see a bearded young hippie-lookin' guy (I remember him in tie-dye but I may be wrong) dancing to the right of the stage, mouthing every lyric, knowing the song by heart. I also will recall when hearing the song in the future that Petrie didn't just sing the line about how "Trans lives matter," but punched the air and shouted it, getting some cheers from a few other audience members. 

This all would have been, of course, more meaningful, more powerful, if I'd ever actually followed through on my early queer impulses (I have flirted with a couple of guys in my life, and there is one time not mentioned in that Xtra article I linked where I would have and could have actually slept with a dude, if he'd been into it; I suggested we go up to his room, in fact, but he had a busy day the next day, or such... sure he did...). Mostly I'm a contented straight guy! But I'm "inwardly queer" enough in some respects that "Black Tie," in which Petrie writes a postcard to her unhappy grade 11 self to reassure her that everything would be okay, has moments that make my eyes fill with tears.

Speaking of which I also do want to ask her if the line, "You won't grow out of it/ You will find the clothes that fit" was in any way inspired by Pere Ubu? Because Petrie is only 37: I shudder to realize that while I was 18 in 1986, and still having formative, identity-shaping experiences, she was 18 in... fucking 2005? Jesus. I cannot say if Ubu is on her radar. I chatted with her long enough to know that she does not know the music of Ferron, and to tell her that a) I wanted to interview her and b) give HER a copy of Ferron's Shadows on a Dime, as well. 

Actually, I got a pretty good laugh out of her, there -- I told her I'd given a copy of the album to Amythyst, whom (it turned out) Petrie actually knows, and that I might just start a tradition, here: when lesbian folksingers come to the folk festival, I'll give them a Ferron record! (It was funnier how I said it but I can't do it justice.

random geese from yesterday

I have no paying home for a piece on Petrie, at the moment, so I might not hold her up for so very long, but even if I don't get to talk to her at any length, I'm sure looking forward to seeing her perform again. A few other Grace Petrie notes, for those curious:

• The first syllable of her name rhymes with "Beat," not "Bet." (She said it once during her set!).
• The songs she did yesterday included "The Best Country in the World" and "King and Country" off her newest album, which I sure hope is the one that has yet to arrive. 
• She also did "Storm to Weather" and "No Woman Ever Wants to Be a Muse" off Connectivity, her previous album and the first one to get attention, we gather, in North America; I won't say no to it, either, if it pops up at the booth. Her intro to that latter song was very, very funny (and quite confessional). She's as good a storyteller as she is a singer.
• ...and she ended on a driving song, about mistakenly figuring she would travel by car between gigs in BC, which confession apparently always gets a good laugh here; turns out that song is "Northbound," and it's also on Queer as Folk, which, like I say, *is* at the Festival merch booth.  

That's the end of my report from festival day one. I caught bits of a couple of the other acts, but also had to visit the media booth, chat with a few friends, and survey the merch). I didn't stick around for the Maori rave, but zipped off to the Princeton to catch Doug Andrew, actually (and didn't stick around for much of that -- long enough for dinner with Erika and a single set of music). I'll do a better job today of catching a wider range of artists: INCLUDING GRACE PETRIE, twice. And once tomorrow.

I wouldn't miss it, if I were you. See you there? 

*Re: Rachel Melas, I noticed, by the way, that Petrie's legs were pretty hairy, too, but it doesn't show up in the pictures!