April 9, 2003

by Mike Hughes

Ladyfest Lansing returns this week for four X-chromosome-packed days

The second Ladyfest Lansing begins Thursday, bringing waves of musical variety.

One moment has the strident Alix Olson. Another has the sunny Carmen Electra Paradise.

One has Tracy Moll drumming for Sissy, which is a glam-rock band. Another has her drumming for Cockblock, which is not.

One has Mary Lou Lord, bringing rich experience. She has discovered Shawn Colvin, dated Kurt Cobain and feuded with Courtney Love; her work has ranged from subways to Sony.

Another has Hailey Wojcik, whose experiences are more limited. This spring, she'll graduate from DeWitt High School.

"We were very impressed by her," said Latricia Horstman, 23, the event's co-founder. "She just came in and blew people away."

Wojcik, 17, may symbolize an event that is still young but bears immense promise.

Nationally, the Ladyfest idea began in Olympia, Wash., where music is taken seriously.

"People would sit and listen," said Lord, who once lived in Olympia. "At first, I thought they didn't like me. Then I realized: 'This isn't a bar. They're paying attention!' "

The Ladyfest idea was basic:

A festival fills the stage with female solo acts and with female or mixed groups.

"It covers a big range," said Paradise, 23, who sings and plays acoustic guitar. "Last year, they put me between two punk bands."

Last year's Ladyfest Lansing drew total attendance estimated at 600 and made $1,000 for two charities, Council Against Domestic Assault and the Rebel Girls Music Project.

Its audience was mainly young and female, Horstman said, but not exclusively. "We'd be doing a head count and say, 'A group of five guys just walked in.' "

Some concerts filled the stage and the audience. Then there was the open-mike show.

"Usually, you get to do two songs at open mike, three if you're lucky," Wojcik said.

She arrived with her guitar, waited - and was told that she was the only performer. "It was a nice surprise," Wojcik said.

Wojcik is, in a way, a music veteran. She cut her first CD at 14, her second at 16; she's working on her third now, adding more electric-guitar work and production polish.

She's in a new generation of musical women, taking control.

"I see a lot of women guitar players, a lot of women doing their own labels," Lord said. "They've had some other people to look up to."

Not long ago, women rarely did the specialties - guitar, drums, production work - at rock's core.

"I wanted to play the drums in school," said Moll, 25. "My parents wanted me to play something more girly; I played the clarinet."

She bought a drum set three years ago, dawdled awhile and then let loose. Now she drums for two groups that will be at Ladyfest; they're thorough opposites.

Cockblock is an Ypsilanti group of three women. "It's more garage rock," Moll said.

Sissy has two women, two men (one in drag) and glamorous costumes. Moll is billed as Tringo Bam-Bam, complete with a fur-lined drum set that was featured in Modern Drummer magazine.

Yes, one woman can leap from grunge to glamour. Anything is possible; the trick was convincing the record people.

"I had one guy tell me he only had two females at the label," said Vivian George, who is in her 30s. "He said a male will sit for a male act, but won't for a female."

Then everything changed.

"When I heard Sheryl Crow, I got excited," George said. "Then Alanis Morrissette came and I thought, 'All right!' "

The rush included Tracy Chapman, Shawn Colvin, Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, India.Arie, Norah Jones and more. The emphasis shifted to songwriting and musicianship.

To some generations, this marks a big leap forward. To Wojcik, it's only a first step.

"For women, there's a certain type that's acceptable now," she said. "There's the dance-pop type, the cutesy little songwriter type. But if you don't fit the criteria, if you aren't the right body type, the door is still closed."

At Ladyfest this weekend, the doors are open. That includes the doors to two Old Town spots (Spiral and Creole), plus Mac's Bar.

Women will rock and rage one moment, sing softly the next. It will be a busy week.

Backstage

Here are glimpses of some of the key Ladyfest Lansing performers, starting with three headliners:

Mary Lou Lord

She's from: Salem, Mass., the town once known for witch trials. She moved away - to Boston, London and Washington state - but now is back in Salem. "The whole new-age thing has set in," she said. "It's kind of touristy now."

Her start: Studying music production in London, Lord found a favorite spot. "I'd hang out at the subway and see all the free (music) shows." Then a friend asked her to keep an eye on his guitar. She strummed and sang a little and people gave her money. "I learned all the long Willie-and-Nellie-are-shipwrecked songs, because I didn't know any chord changes."

Recording career: She's spent most of her career on such independent labels as Kill Rock Stars. Still, she also had one song mocking friends who only listen to indies. "There's a sort of snobbery to that," she said. Lord had a deal with a Sony label; when the CD came in 1998, however, she had withdrawn from touring to have her daughter.

Famous folks: Early on, Lord said, she championed Shawn Colvin and dated Kurt Cobain. (Courtney Love, Cobain's widow, disputed that, sparking an online feud.) More recently, she was talking up Elliott Smith, her opening act. "I kind of felt like Joan Baez, saying, 'Won't anyone notice little Bobby (Dylan) here?' " Then Smith had six songs in the film "Good Will Hunting," including an Oscar nomination for "Miss Misery"; Lord's next stardom prospect is Rachael Davis, a Lansing native who grew up in Cadillac.

Catch her: Saturday, at Creole Gallery. Her workshop on cover songs - "Finding Your Voice in Someone Else's Songs" - is 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.; she headlines the 7:30 p.m. show.

Emm Gryner

Recommendation: "She's just an amazing singer-songwriter," said local singer Carmen Paradise. Others agree. She won a Canadian songwriting award in 1996; when David Bowie heard her music, he hired her to play keyboards and sing backup on his tour.

She's from: She grew up in a forest, almost literally. It was the Ontario town of Forest (population 2,800), where her parents had a newspaper.

Musical start: The only radio stations near Forest played easy-listening tunes, and her parents were into Willie Nelson and Los Lobos. Gryner has gone far beyond that, including Asian influences - her mother is Filipino - and indie rock. She formed Dead Daisy Records in 1996, before signing with Mercury.

Detour: In 2001, her "Girl Versions" album took songs by Ozzy Osbourne, Nick Cave, Fugazi and others, turning them into ballads.

Catch her: At the Creole Gallery show, 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Alix Olson

Recommendation: "I respect her politics a lot," said Haley Wojcik, the DeWitt singer. "She's very witty, very intelligent." Others echo that praise of Olson as a poet and performance artist. One writer, Alison Bechdel, called her "a red-hot, fire-bellied, feminism-spewin' volcano. Plus, she rhymes."

She's from: The New York poetry scene. She won a national writing championship.

Familiar turf: Olson headlined the first Ladyfest Lansing and also did a Michigan State university concert.

Catch her: Again headlining the final show, 6 p.m. Sunday, Spiral, $10.

And more

Snapshots of some other Ladyfest performers:

Vivian George grew up in Detroit but moved to Toronto, where she does movies (acting and stunt work) by day and music by night. She was runner-up for the award as Toronto's best musician - an honor that previously went to Nelly Furtado, Emm Gryner and Alanis Morrissette. She also quotes "some guy in a bar" for this endorsement: "You are like Cohen and Dylan, if they were chicks." (Creole, 7:30 p.m. Saturday)

Ditz is a bar band in a city (Milwaukee) that knows bars. "We're a nuts-and-bolts rock band," said the bass player, simply known as Nora. All of the women have day jobs - Nora is an artist for the Milwaukee Public Museum - but approach music with a full-time intensity. The first guitarist, for instance, left to work with Kid Rock. The band's name is tongue-in-cheek. "It was a compromise," Nora said. "Our tagline is 'stupid good rock 'n' roll.' " (Mac's Bar, 11 p.m. Friday)

Cockblock and Sissy are two bands from the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area. "They're very different," said Tracy Mall. "One (Sissy) is very glam-rock and the other is just a straight-ahead rock band." She's the drummer in both. (Mac's Bar, Cockblock on Friday and Sissy on Saturday; shows start at 11 p.m..)

Carmen Electra Paradise moved from Detroit to Lansing four years ago. By day, she's a hairstylist; by night, she's a popular singer-songwriter. "It's going great," she said. "I can fill my schedule with only shows from Lansing." (Creole, 7:30 p.m. Friday)

Haley Wojcik is working on her third CD now, a good start for someone who's still in high school. She graduates from DeWitt this spring, then expects to start at Western Michigan University or Michigan State University. After that comes the University of Wisconsin - "I really love it there" - or somewhere in California. Then the world. (Creole, 7:30 p.m. Thursday).

Contact Mike Hughes at 377-1156 or mhughes@lsj.com.