BERNIE BANKRUPT
(of Lesbians on Ecstasy) —
Lesbian Music, Dance Music,
Put ’em Together, What Do You Get!
by Sue Barrett
Lesbians on Ecstasy, a quartet from Montréal, makes “electronic music of the lesbian variety” and takes “inspiration from the lesbian back catalogue by referencing folk artists and punk bands alike, re-writing lesbian history for the dance floor”. Their song, ‘Bitchsy’, appeared in the 5th season of Queer as Folk (2005). Lesbians on Ecstasy’s most recent CD, We Know You Know, was inspired by women’s music of the 1970s, including Meg Christian’s 1974 album, I Know You Know, and the 1977 compilation album, Lesbian Concentrate (both on Olivia Records).
When and how did Lesbians on Ecstasy come to be formed?
We got together in 2003 — it was to be a one-time performance as part of a feminist electronic arts festival. It was more a visual arts festival, but then they added a music component to it and were looking for female artists to perform. We had done a few tracks as studio projects and they invited us to perform at the show. We played the one show — with the intention of just doing that show — but the response was just so good. From then on, we haven’t really stopped.
Why the name “Lesbians on Ecstasy”? And why the focus of music by or about lesbians?
We thought we were coming together for that one show! At the time when we first got together, there was a big mash-up scene and the electro crash scene was kicking. Samples and bits and pieces from popular music from different times, mainly from the ’80s — and we thought that it would be fun to make music from certain reference points but to do it for lesbian music — who else is going to mash-up the Indigo Girls or Melissa Etheridge?
We’ve been confronted with the name all the time. I think that the name maybe leads people to believe that the focus is a bit more extreme than it actually is. We take a lot of liberties with our own context, our own rules.
It’s so funny [about the name] because none of us really uses the word “lesbian”. We kinda did it in a way that was a little snarky to push people’s buttons!
Can you tell us about your personal musical background and the musical background of the other members of the band?
Lynne — our singer — the DJ — is the person who probably has the biggest connection to the kind of dance music scene where we are. She’s been playing out in clubs for a long time and like a lot of DJs she eventually wanted to dabble in production and make her own stuff. My background is more in performance in theatre, with a little bit of music. I never studied music or anything like that — I’m pretty self-taught. Veronique, our bass player, who has a long musical and performance background, is really into metal and mostly played metal guitar until she started playing bass with us.
How do you go about writing/arranging/re-arranging your music?
It’s really different for every song. We all take part in writing on some level, but every song is a different combo. We spend a lot of time just listening to music. The newest album, We Know You Know, is all from ’70s lesbian folk music and we spent a lot of time listening to Olivia Records recordings. People found tons of records and gave them to us. We try and find something — a little word or lyric or riff — that grabs us and then we start from that and basically write a whole new song using that little element. Sometimes we’ll start with a sound on the keyboard or specific kind of distortion — some kind of sound that might give us an idea. And sometimes we start more from melody or narrative. Every song has a bit of a different character and they all come together a bit differently.
How did We Know You Know come about?
Our first [self-titled] album was a lot of mainstream lesbian radio hits — Indigo Girls, k.d. lang, Melissa Etheridge — and we approached the concept with pretty broad strokes — lesbian music, dance music, put ’em together, what do you get!
We had a really good response to that album, but the questions that kept coming up, that people kept asking us were, “How are you going to stay together as a band? How much lesbian music is there?” And that struck me, and struck all of us, as an interesting question. I was like, “I dunno. How much lesbian music is there out there?”. The music we chose [on the first album] is the stuff that everyone knows. And then we started to dig a little deeper into more obscure music. We had fun discovering a lot of artists. And that’s what led us to decide to make another album from that pool of music.
When we played at Michigan [Womyn’s Music Festival in 2007], the reception was really good. And we met Cris Williamson and Teresa Trull — and that was exciting.
Apart from being music to dance to/listen to, your recordings also form something of a musical encyclopaedia (for example, the reference to “Miss Pope” in the ‘The Pleasure Principal’). To what extent do people get (or not get) the musical references/borrowings/in-jokes in your music?
I have a really hard time knowing. I think the thing that is funny is that we also reference a lot of popular dance music. So there are some people in the DJ music scene that get those references. There are people in the lesbian scene who get the lyrical content references. And I think there must be a few people out there that get all of it! Then we throw in some things like Tribe 8, L7, Cris Williamson, Benny Benassi, Lady Sovereign — there are references that cover a lot of different musical genres. And that’s because that’s our taste and it’s reflective of a lot of people’s taste — I think that people are open-minded about mixing things up. I don’t think it’s necessary to get all of the in-jokes, but I certainly like it when people actually pick up on them.
We play quite a bit in Europe — we’re actually more popular there than in North America — people maybe love dance music in Europe more than they do in the States and Canada. Most people in Europe think that we are writing lesbian content lyrics — they don’t necessarily know it comes from another source.
We find that people are going back and exploring the older music — especially the girls in the queer community. It’s pretty validating a lot of times for people to realise there is such a rich history of lesbian music and cultural production. I think it can be a pretty exciting thing to discover. And definitely we’ve had a lot of people tell us that they’ve never heard of some of these artists.
Carole Pope — she’s Canadian — was quite scandalous in her time. [Rough Trade’s song] ‘High School Confidential’ was censored off Canadian radio because she overtly talks about lesbian love. She was out in the ’80s and openly talked on MuchMusic about being a lesbian. It’s really good to keep in mind and to remember those kind of moments and to try to keep it in perspective in terms of how things develop politically. So, hopefully, we do a little bit of that project.
When did you become aware of performers singing songs about lesbian lives?
Jane Siberry — who is also Canadian — was probably the first. She had a song, ‘Mimi on the Beach’, which was on MuchMusic — it got a lot of play, but it was also a little bit scandalous. I was quite young at the time and I understood that there was something scandalous her singing about another woman — maybe at the time I didn’t realise why and later came to realise that.
How important is it for performers to perform music about lesbian lives, including dance music?
It’s a bit of a tricky question. And over the course of the years that we’ve been together as a band, we’ve gone through different moments about how we feel about that. I think no matter what you’re singing about as a lesbian or whoever you are, when you’re performing, whatever you’re singing about is representative of your life, whether it’s veiled or overt. For me, I really get excited just seeing people expressing themselves in ways that is honest to them.
The people who make culture, the people who are on the radio, the people who get on TV — they have access to being known as someone who is writing about the world — and it’s that access that is limited to a certain group of people. I feel that’s where culture gets really homogenous — all the same kinda people — indie rock white dudes with beards singing with veiled political references. And that’s when I get disappointed because it’s only one perspective. So to me it’s exciting to see different kinds of people singing about different kinds of lives. For our band, because of the name and because of the content, it sometimes becomes so limiting — people who are outside the lesbian scene sometimes assume that it’s music about lesbian lives and that’s all it is. We’ve all learned that there can be universality in anyone’s experience and that people can relate to people’s lives from really different contexts and cultures. It is a very disappointing thing that people can’t see past that. And that’s been a challenge as a band.
What seems to make people more receptive or less receptive to songs about lesbians?
Unfortunately, it depends on who we are talking about. I do think that something like The L Word has really tapped into a way of making lesbian lives acceptable — but that’s kinda by making it glossy and beautiful and wealthy. Once you fit into mainstream conventions about how something is supposed to look or sound, people accept it a lot more easily. So if you have really high production values or the music fits into certain pop styles, people will hear the content more easily. But the reality or the details of what’s really going on in people’s lives gets a little bit squashed under that.
As a performer, what has been your experience of homophobia?
It’s been a lot less than you might think! For better, for worse, as we go through life — when we’re travelling with the band, or even in my life in Montréal now — the tag “lesbian” is pretty hard to avoid — it’s something we wear on our sleeves all the time. Given that, we’ve experienced a lot less negative reaction than we ever would have expected. Critically what I find is that people can’t imagine that we can be having fun with this or being silly or sly. There’s still a real strong perception of lesbians that is very first degree — like everything means exactly what it says, that there’s no nuance, that there’s no subtlety — that’s a stereotyping, more than homophobia — but it does manifest in a general dismissal of that part of culture. Feminism and that type of political project feels really unpopular right now and that comes through. But in terms of blatant homophobia towards us, nothing really stands out. We played in Poland and that was definitely a bit challenging. And a couple places we been it’s been pretty obviously not accepted, but then people seem to warm up to us pretty quick.
What are some of the issues faced by performers, particularly performers who don’t hear their voices represented in mainstream culture?
The music industry is going through enormous change now and the changes in technology and other things mean that being an independent musician has changed. The Internet has, to a certain extent, helped people get out music that maybe wouldn’t have been heard as much. But if you want to be involved in the industry on any level — like touring, performing, where you need some level of support — that pool has definitely shrunk a lot — it’s really difficult to find booking agents and managers. I can’t even think of one feminist or queer record label or booker in North America that has enough resources to help a band actually make a career. And you need that level of institutional support somewhere along the way.
Although obviously the politics would have to be in a different place than they were, I would love to see a similar project to Olivia Records happening to help people get out there and to make a living. There are so many great artists at the moment — in Canada and in Europe as well — who are on the verge of throwing in the towel because they just can’t any longer sit in front of the computer taking care of bookings and stuff all the time. They want to make music. The Internet provides a bit of a false promise in a way — it’s a great, great tool, it’s so awesome and it means that you can be so independent, but being that independent takes so much work. So I feel that it’s a double-edge sword. I sometimes think about Olivia Records and how much networking they were able to do pre-Internet and maybe that’s a smarter way to do it. Maybe we should abandon the Internet and go back to other ways of networking that are a bit more immediate. Olivia had great strategies — they would send sticker bombs in towns where others were coming through and had a really strong network of coffee houses and book stores where people would play and people could stay. And they built a really human network for people to utilize without the Internet.
What advice do you have for emerging performers?
Sometimes people, especially when they first start recording, end up spending a lot more money than they can afford. I think that starting small, building your base, then working up from that is the best way to do it. And doing lots of shows and performing all the time is how you build a really good foundation, build a really good connection with your audience.
What has Lesbians on Ecstasy been doing over the past year? And what’s coming up in the next year?
This last year was all about our latest album, We Know You Know, and we’ve just finished a European tour. We are playing a few shows over the winter months and then we’re going back to Europe in April. We are also hoping to do another album — it will probably still be dance music — but it might be a side-project that we do under another name just for fun!
Discography
- Lesbians on Ecstasy (2004)
- Giggles in the Dark (Lesbians on Ecstasy Remixes) (2005)
- We Know You Know (2007)
More Info
http://lezziesonx.com
www.myspace.com/lezziesonx
BERNIE BANKRUPT (Lesbians on Ecstasy) was interviewed as part of the article, ‘Out There, Every Day: Singing of the Lives of Lesbians, Dykes, Queers, Gay Women…’. Read the article and other interviews (Madeline Davis, Skim, Gretchen Phillips (Girls in the Nose; Two Nice Girls), Ripley Caine, Nedra Johnson, Ferron, God-des (God-des and She) and June Millington).
SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. She witnessed “the incident” at a Cris Williamson/Tret Fure/Judy Small concert that prompted Judy to write a coda for the song, ‘Lesbian Chic’.
© 2008
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