Ghosts & Shadows – She Makes War Music, ramblings and recommendations

bit of a rant / aim’s women in music night / pj harvey / juliana hatfield :::

Firstly: insurance companies - grrrrrr! 17 working days after my claim was accepted and I am still the one calling them. Every day. As soon as this claim is sorted out I will be waving Music Guard byebye and heading to Hiscox, highly recommended by a director friend of mine.

This is why there is no sign of a warriorgrrl remix on the Let This Be microsite, by the way. Grrrrrr again.

Aside from such bureaucratic timewasting this week has been great. On Wednesday night I attended the Association of Independent Music's Women In Music and Entertainment night at Cargo, the highlight of which was seeing Geoff Travis and Jeanette Lee of Rough Trade chatting to AIM's Alison Wenham on stage about their partnership. I got all excited and went up to Jeanette afterwards gushing a little and thrusting a card in to her hand. I do hope she looks me up.

I got a turn on the mic, too. We were discussing sexism in the music business and after my recent experiences at the hands of women, and knowing there were a number of A&R ladies in the room I asked Geoff and Jeanette if they were aware of sexism in other areas of the biz than just the labels. The collective gasp in the room when I told my little story (naming no names, because for some reason I am still *that* professional) made me feel a lot less alone, and speaking to some people afterwards it was obvious they'd never realised there was a reason you don't get many women in session bands beyond there not being as many women playing in the first place.

I'd never been to an event like that, where the potential to meet someone 'useful' was so great. I've never liked the idea of working a room, assessing who's the most important and ignoring other people in favour of sidling up to them. I value the conversations I had with a couple of music management students (lovely girls) just as much as the one I had with the A&R woman from Domino Records. Plus the chances of the students staying in touch with me is way higher.

I was struck by a little speech a woman in the row ahead of me gave to the room about how we can all create our own space in this business and how the traditional industry had no control over that. I'm really glad she gave me her card after she heard my sacking story because I looked her up when I got home and wow - it was only Gaynor O'Flynn, BFI Award winning director, musician and artist. Check her out, she does some very interesting things.

Last night I was supposed to go and see Amanda Palmer's new musical project Evelyn Evelyn at Koko but decided to stay at home and write interview questions for Juliana Hatfield instead (for a music blog called Tuned-Out) - the EE show was switched to being an AFP solo show due to the volcano keeping her bandmate in the States and I wasn't bothered about seeing MAdM support either. Some artists are better in theory than in reality.

This lady I would *kill* to see play live again (saw her at Brixton Academy on the Stories From The City tour):

Anywayyyyy...rant complete. I spent last night in indie heaven listening to Juliana Hatfield albums and researching good questions for her. Did you know she published a memoir in 2008? I didn't, but have rectified this by ordering it. Her fantastic new acoustic album is out now, composed, arranged, performed, produced, engineered and mixed by herself. How appropriate for a woman so accomplished to make an intimate acoustic album with no obstructions whatsoever between her and the listener.

I can't find much of her recent work on YouTube but came across this lovely live performance of famous track "Spin The Bottle" - the song that featured on the Reality Bites soundtrack. Enjoy the video and make sure you visit her website...