Women in Vermont Rock Part Two

by George Sand

Thus continues the saga of Women in Vermont Rock. Do you remember the first installment (see Good Citizen #2, Spring 1995.) The second phase of this ongoing dialogue will lead us directly into the questions left for us at the end of the first, as well it should. If you recall, we were introduced to Pamela Polston, lead vocalist for The Donetz, who now edits and publishes Seven Days. We met Peg Tassey-Ayer, who led the way for women in rock in Peg Tassey and Proud of It, and continues to rock in The Velvet Ovum Band. Diane Horstmeyer and Steph Pappas spoke to us, and speak to us daily, with electric and acoustic guitars and poetry. Diane wrote the music for Miss Bliss and Augusta Furnace. Steph played in Miss Bliss and other bands and now blazes her own fiery trail. (Did you see Quivver at Toast in July? Then you saw Carol Deficianci, who was also in Miss Bliss. Is this starting to come together?) Suzanne Schmidt used to play in Virginia and Wolves, and now writes and plays in a blues band. She gave us the perspective from behind the drum set. We visited these women separately, for the most part, but they're interviews were published together- like one huge conversation. Now  our universe is expanding. Enter Mary Fifield. You may remember her voice from Pictures on the Ceiling. She now writes and sings in Daydream Gorilla, based out of San Francisco. You can hear her band on Split Records #5.

MARY: Let’s see, I played violin when I was young. I played in the UVM orchestra- very badly- I was in the Vermont Youth Orchestra. I sang in chorus, in choir, I sang in madrigal groups. I used to hitchhike in Vermont. I would go into different places and just sing and get jobs that way. I played guitar and sang. I haven’t done that for years and that’s a very terrifying thing to do, when I think about it now. I played in the Fiddler’s Contest… so I have lots of influences; I like all kinds of music.

GEORGE: Who are your influences? 

MARY: I really love gospel singing, and I thought Bobbie Gentry was great. I think K.D. Lang is incredible, Melissa Etheridge is incredible, Michelle Shocked. I love Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush on 'Don't Give Up.' I love North African music .. Laurie Anderson... Clannad.

DIANE: Bowie, The Velvet Underground, John Cale. A lot of what influences me is like bird songs...Tom Waits- he's a great performer.

STEPH: How about some women? The old girls... Bessie Smith.

DIANE: I like all that stuff, but I didn't listen to it a lot.

STEPH: They didn't play them a lot. You had to catch them on all those weird radio shows.

DIANE: Ellen MacIlwaine, Wendy O'Williams, also Hendrix live shows, Bonnie Raitt, a couple of female rockers down in the city who never made it, and Ella Fitzgerald.

STEPH: I would have to say that the guys I'm going to mention have influenced my playing only in the one way that they were always what was on the radio... and I did like them, but they are not what made up my mind to get the sound that I get today: Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull... and the women really have given me the push and the influence to go ahead and play the guitar. I'd say, okay, I see them doing it so I know I can do it... all the old blues girls: Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Odetta. They were singing about how their man left them all the time, but the voices and the emotional energy they put into their music... Janis Joplin, and later on Joan Armatrading, and Ellen McIlwain. 

PAMELA: Definitely Patti Smith, Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads. I like the way she was and the fact that she played bass.

PEG: Definitely as a kid I was influenced, absolutely fascinated by Janis Joplin. And the next fascination was and still is John Lennon. He is an amazing writer. When I think about who I listened to a lot as a kid... Sly Stone, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and I listen to a lot of Prince.

SUZANNE: Well, there was Karen Carpenter, who didn't turn out to be such a great role model, as we all know. As drummers.... Carmine Appice... he was pretty amazing. He would do a lot of solo drumming and writing and other stuff people don't expect drummers to do. Buddy Rich. It was hard to find role models just because there were no women drummers. And there really aren't a lot of good women drummers. Actually my own grandmother was probably the biggest influence. She is a pianist and she was completely supportive of anything I wanted to do and was a very strong character in my life.

PAMELA: The fact that there are women in their twenties or mid-teens that think, "Of course it's okay for me to do this" is a direct outcome of what the women who came before them fought for.

SUZANNE: If you are the person who crashes through the barrier, you may not necessarily be the one who gets the farthest. There is a price for making a statement.

GEORGE: That makes it all feel like it's bigger than just you... that you are playing a part in something.

SUZANNE: I think you are. I think anytime a woman gets up on stage before, every time you do that, you are making a statement about what you can and what we can do, and that we are part of the people on this planet. We are here and, yes, we are like your wives and your mothers and your sisters and your fellow musicians, and we've been there for hundreds of years. It's very exciting.

DIANE: My feeling locally here in Burlington is that the guys in the scene have respect for women. I don't think they have that sex discrimination thing. The guys are pretty open- even more so than in New York.

GEORGE: So would you consider the music you write to be political, personal, geared toward anyone in particular?

DIANE: My stuff is getting more political.

PEG: I would never on purpose try and write about something I don't know about. What I know about is what I'm feeling. That's what I know about best. The songs I write are really personal and that becomes very political.

GEORGE: The personal is the political. 

STEPH: Just being a woman standing up there on stage is pretty political. That's why I don't like to use a lot of political words in my music. But when I played one night with The Fags and Madelines, some people said that was pretty political- what I did at the end of the show. I do this thing about how "Those flying saucers you see are really how lesbians got here on Earth and if anyone wants to experience what it's like to be a lesbian to come forward and touch fingers."

GEORGE (to Peg): What was it like to go through the decision to perform with body painting? (On September 13, 1991, just before the club Border closed its doors, Peg performed three songs from her show And Proud of It with a painting on her body.) Was there a specific event that led to it?

PEG: It's been written about a lot, and if I could find a way to articulate what's important about it to me - why it happened - that would be great, because to me, up until I gave birth it was probably the biggest, most emotional action I'd ever taken. I thought a lot about it. I spent a long time writing for myself while I was doing it so that I could be really clear. It was very important to me that it didn't seem to be exhibitionist or exploitative. The Nea thing was a big motivator at that point in time, and just wanting to do something that was interesting, artistic and challenging, that was a really big part of it. My friend painted a beautiful painting on me. My belly was a big bowl and there was a woman coming out of it. It sort of camouflaged my nakedness because there was so much paint on me.

GEORGE: Did you get much feedback about the show?

PEG: I remember there was a woman who said she felt like everyone in the entire room felt connected at that moment, because everyone could feel what it must be like to be naked in front of that many people. The place was really packed. The thing that was great for me was that there was not one single icky feeling. It was amazing to me what an incredibly supportive, wonderful, beautiful feeling came from it on that night.

DIANE: I think that if it got into the papers that we were getting more political, the women's community would come out more.

SUZANNE: I think that the women's community can be a very hard community to infiltrate. In some ways that is a good thing because it's a strong community and there is a lot of support for women. I like being a part of that. I think at times it's also difficult in that they're selective. When Virginia and the Wolves first started out we thought we were going to get the support that we felt like we wanted to get. There were a lot of reasons why that didn't work. Most of us didn't like the music we were playing (Virginia did have roughly two sets of originals, but primarily they were a cover band), but I think it's not true that because you're a woman, the community is going to accept you, which is hard but is also really good. I don't want to be supported just because I'm a woman. I want people to come see our band because they like to dance to us or they think we're good.

(Note from George: it is important at this point to remember that these interviews occurred at different times. The interactive dialogue is an illusion we agreed upon in the first issue.)

DIANE: People don't turn out to see each other, from what I've seen, because they go to a lot of different shows. At each show I see different people. And this is the same way used to be in New York. Each group had its own following. It wasn't a big club scene, and I don't understand why not.

GEORGE: Sometimes I feel as though people in Burlington go out to support local music to the exclusion of out-of-town bands, which seems very unusual.

MARY: I have communicated to other groups that I really like their bands, and what I like about them, but it's very hard to go out. It's hard to get excited about playing in Burlington because the audience is so small and your friends can only come to see you so many times, but my experience in town has been basically positive.

GEORGE: What has your experience been like in a band, as a woman? Have you had to learn to be assertive?

MARY: Absolutely. I was a much sweeter, kinder, more passive person earlier. I can say as a general dynamic that I am the communicator in the band, and I have in the past, in other bands had to engage the band. In just getting older, I've realized the need to get rid of the little girl stuff-  wanting to be nice and please everybody. Although you never completely escape what you were brought up with, so I definitely have had to learn to give my opinion. I want the song to go this way. Often the stuff that we start out with is good, I'm talking about subtleties. On the other hand, nobody tells me how to sing.

STEPH: Just like any other job, just like being the cook and the cafe or being a truck driver... any job you're in, I think women have to prove themselves.

DIANE: I think it takes women longer, too, because you have to be able to find your presence to be a performer. It's hard for a young woman in her twenties to get up on stage because you have to evolve to a certain point where you can do it. You've got to grow into it. It's easier, I think, for guys to get rebellious and to have a stage presence.

STEPH: It's already happening for them.

DIANE: And men have other men rockers to see. There are not that many women rockers, so it takes you a while to get up the confidence to do it.

MARY: Things have changed, but I would say that girls need to consolidate their confidence and their belief in themselves because society in general has not really supported women's personhood as much as women as pretty things... it's still pervasive.  

GEORGE: It seems like change moves more slowly for performers because there is that image thing going on.

MARY: I have fights with myself. I used to be very worried about being under the influence of trying to make myself pretty. I usually would wear things that would cover my whole self up, but at this point I'm sort of like, "Oh, I don't care." Now I plaster it on like war paint, and it's more for me. This is a prop. I'm aware of its device, and as a device it's what actors and performers do. As long as you're aware of what it is...

PAMELA: (Perforning) was very exciting and very liberating for me because I've always been kind of reserved. I'm not really demonstrative, and I turned into something different on stage. It's kind of like acting.

GEORGE: What kind of advice would you give to a young woman who wants to play rock and roll?

PEG: I feel uncomfortable giving advice as a general thing. If you and I were just talking, and you asked me something specific, it would be different, but everybody is different. I guess I should take it as a compliment to be asked, because of the experience I've had in music, but to just dole out advice to every female who wants to play takes away her individuality and assumes she wants advice.

MARY: I was talking to a young woman musician recently. My advice to her as an incredibly talented singer (was to) write her own music. That's something I didn't do. I've been working collaboratively, but I'll be 90 when I write my first song. I said, “Do your own music, don't give up any instrument that you play, don't let the men with the instruments run the whole show. You're going to get a lot of attention, and you're going to have to handle it. Don't be distracted- get your work done. Communicate honestly and openly with the confidence in yourself that you don't have to be available for other people's insecurities.” Everybody has their own experience, that is undoubtedly true, but from my experience I don't think things have changed that much for girls. They are still much more pressure to be nice, and you just have to look at small kids to see the dynamic already in progress.

PEG: Go for it! Don't let being female get in the way or Define who you have to be. Don't be reactionary. I think some, especially all female bands, come across like they have to be really tough to compensate for being girls. That's not necessarily true to who they are, either. I think that if it's really coming from your heart, and you've got the drive to perform and / or have a message for people, go for it!

DIANE: Save all those poems, save everything. If you're embarrassed by your material, just put it away, because down the road you'll want it here. Keep going, because your voice keeps changing. Practice....

STEPH: Never shut your mouth, girl, and just keep on yacking, as much and as long as you can.

DIANE: And don't try to overcome the nerves. Just be well rehearsed and get up on stage and the nerves will power the performance. If you don't have the nerves, you're not show people. If you're too confident, you need to take a vacation and get scared again. Don't worry about the nerves, and get up on stage any way you can. 

PEG: Dug Nap once told me, "Don't take the edge off (with beer), put the edge into the music." When I've got that nervous edge, I push harder and sing stronger.

STEPH: Take up space, hog up the stage, you're the boss, and be wild! That's what I would say.

George Sand is a Vermont musician who plays bass in an alternative band. She started this conversation in Good Citizen #2. 

When I Sing (Ode to Music and Motherhood) 

By Peg Tassey-Ayer 1995

You can't understand, can you?

And I shouldn't expect you to...And if I say 

this out loud it's as if I still wish you would-- 

In your dark, smoky world, painted black 

to imitate angst

volume cranked to 9 1/2

hamsters on a treadmill, running nowhere

looking for nothing.

I have dipped my toes in that world 

more than a few times

And I have always wanted to get home to where the garden is.

Now.... I am here, and I am happy--but can you see me like a cow in a rocking chair

Being drained till I'm pale and tired--rocking and rocking...

My sense of myself swirling down that drain and being thrust back up at me, changed forever.

I AM FOOD NOW.

The music used to be the food and I cut it up

Like a pie and gave pieces to hungry people and

Saved a little for myself

Now... I damn food and I can't fuck up

If I do it will be the most awful thing

This is real, this is so real and so big and in the most scary way so beautiful.

Everything has dimension.

My heart just jumps out and beats in colors.

And... even though my body is torn and unrecognizable

Even though my back is sagging and

Even though my hair is falling out in clumps and my legs hurt

I find myself dancing pirouettes in the living room and laughing SO LOUD

And nowadays when I sing it is to comfort her

to see her smile

to send her off to dreamland

Nowadays when I sing it doesn't have to be perfect

for she accepts me as I am

she remembers my voice from inside the big round aquarium.

And nowadays, when I sing, I am singing for Love

I love to sing 

I am singing for Love 

and...there was nothing left to prove

Peg Tassey-Ayer is a member of the Velvet Ovum Band and has been a part of the Vermont music scene for many years through her self-released recordings and as leader of the highly influential Peg Tassey and Proud of It. She and her husband Trevor are the proud parents of a beautiful girl named Audrey Sunshine.