Look out Las Vegas!

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We are having a blast this season making new friends on the road. You may have seen us at the NYC Feminist Zine Fest a couple weeks back.

Our final tour stop this season is the SGCI Printmakers Conference taking place April 4-7, 2018. We’ll be speaking on a panel about empowering activism via printmaking. Cheers to celebrating women of color who love all things metal, punk and alternative.

Live posts from Las Vegas on Instagram #yolo

Check our VICE feature Here.

Check out our best #Metal picks on Spotify

Free Shipping @ Etsy Shop

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NYC Feminist Zine Fest @ Barnard 3/7/18

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Catch us tabling at the next NYC Feminist Zine Fest this March 😀
We’ll have new merch, zines, coloring books and stickers. (Gonna hide our own wallet to keep us from buying all the other cool things women have been making this season, lol.) I’m gonna go broke for sure!
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Saturday, March 7, 2015
12 – 6 PM
James Room, 4th Floor Barnard Hall
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“The Feminist Zine Fest showcases the work of artists and zine makers of all genders who identify on the feminist spectrum, and whose politics are reflected in their work. For the second consecutive year, Barnard proudly hosts the zine fest, welcoming approximately 40 zine-makers eager to share their work. Home of the renowned Barnard Zine Library, the College is the ideal site to feature some of the boldest, most original and creative examples of micropublishing. The event is coordinated by Barnard’s zine librarian Jenna Freedman, Jordan Alam ’13, and other zine makers, including Feminist Zine Fest cofounder Elvis Bakaitis, author and artist of the Homos in Herstory minicomics series. Free tables are available to zine-makers interested in exhibiting their work” https://feministzinefestnyc.wordpress.com/

Photo Apr 05, 8 07 47 PM

#blkgrlswurld, Risograph prints, 2017

BlkGrl Book Tour Recap

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I’ve been a zinester since 2014, toting my lil hand made books around to DIY events. We table and vend with fellow artists, often feeling like Lucy with her Psychiatric Help Stand, sharing with any who will listen the content of our books with passion and understanding. Some folks really don’t understand it, while some really do. It’s a great space to share what you truly love, because somebody out there, even if its only 2-3 people, cares just as much about talking avocados as you do.

psych-supp-peanuts1c

Events on the tour:
Paper Jazz Fest, Brooklyn NYC
Betty Zine Fest, Newark NJ
Boston Art Book Fair, Boston MA
Not Just A Boys Club Fest, Teaneck NJ
Punx of Color 4, Brooklyn NYC

The BlkGrl book tour was my first attempt at following a dedicated schedule of events in locations outside of Manhattan, to help spread the #Blkgrlswurld message as far outside of NYC as possible. Black girls love metal and punk rock too! It challenged me to create a traveling system to affordably leave the city and arrive at any venue with a pop up shop out of a single bag I could carry on my own. (This is NYC, I don’t have a car ok?) Traveling on buses, trains and taxis to these other places tested my dedication to the project. Was I willing to get up at 6am for my zines? Here are some things I learned about being on the road with our lil books.

Punx of Color are everywhere.

Here at #Blkgrlswurld we aren’t always a certain an event or venue we attend is appropriate for our project. When tabling events like the Boston Art Book Fair, this became a critical question. Our $3 coloring books standing next to $75 high quality art catalogs? Likely a sign that our intended audience wont be strolling through this event. But they did anyway. There was not much diversity at that fair, but when a few Black youth did stop by we had great conversations about music and a few sales. Never underestimate who will take interest in your work.

Some people will never understand us, and that’s ok.

We stepped into new spaces and venues – that means local audiences are new to our work and what we’re about. Metal is not a widely understood musical form, so that alone was confusing to some along with the layer of being femme and Black. *Shrugs* All of these adventures help me determine what events to do next year.

Taking a stand empowers those around you.

Our focus has always been on young folks between ages 17-25 with little pocket money, that are curious about new music. Especially if they identify as outsiders, geeks or weirdos. That will always be the community we represent and sharing with these kids a safe space to express themselves can save lives.

I encourage everyone to start a zine, a blog, a fan club. Every time an awkward Black girl who doesn’t feel like she belongs any damn where stumbles across an artwork or photograph of women who look just like her, I feel a little better. Let’s all strive to create content that represents who we are and make sure its accessible. As I sat at these events with my little table, I met a number of fans this way. Women who had been searching for something to relate to, and see themselves in. Some that found us had already collected our items at previous events or online – they continue to comeback because of community. We are out here, together at shows, festivals and record fairs.

I fucking love Metal.

From Boston to New Jersey we did our best to keep our schedule loose, giving us a chance to meet more people and explore the visited cities. But the true connection to all these stops became the metal music blasting out of my headphones. At one point I wondered, is this really what I’m about? Hells yeah! Leaping off a megabus in platform towering boots, chewing bubble gum in band tees and dark glasses while the music blasts on in my ears. My favorite albums energized me to keep going, to keep traveling and to keep celebrating this scene and the women who support it. We know we don blend it with the people around us and that’s ok. I know where to go to spend time with my peeps, hopefully our books help that happen too.

giphy

Supporting Relief Efforts in Puerto Rico

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I’ve been struggling to find an organization on the ground in Puerto Rico that I can trust with actually helping victims in real time. Over the past few years we have seen failed relief projects from international non profits like the Red Cross; black and brown bodies lost in Haiti and New Orleans because of poor leadership and the mismanagement of funds. When I donate I want to make sure the cash doesn’t get chipped off into some millionaire’s pocket.

I’ve finally found an organization that is vouched for by Ms. Cruz, the Mayor of San Juan Puerto Rico who has been in the trenches since the beginning. Operation Blessing has come up often during her interviews about first responders and in the video below she confirms it. Let’s all continue to donate goods, services and funding to the local orgs on the island and other teams that are really trying to make an impact down there.

Furthermore, its important that we check on the checks we write, lets not lose sight of these relief programs 6 months from now. We should all try to check in and see if organizations are making an impact and how we can continue to help.

More details on supporting Operation Blessing > https://www.ob.org/disaster-relief/

#Blkgrlswurld featured in Tom Tom Magazine :D

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Yassss! Tom Tom is a magazine for female drummers and musicians, and we’ve been featured in their 31st issue! It’s based in NYC and it does so much great work inspiring women musicians and kicking serious ass in the rock scene. We are so honored they took an interest in our Black Girls Dreaming Coloring Book and chose to feature a review of that work by writer, Lola Johnson. Thank you Tom Tom Mag 😀

You can order their latest issue Online HERE

Print versions are available across the nation in shops like Barnes and Nobel. Check out more of the funky femme talent they’ve been dishing at http://tomtommag.com/

BlkGrl Book Tour

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Paper Jazz Small Press Fest @ Silent Barn, Sept. 30. Bushwick, NYC. Details

Boston Center for the Arts, Art Book Fair. Preview Party on Friday, October 20 2017, and is open to the public Saturday and Sunday, October 21 and 22. Details

Betty Zine Fest at Paul Robeson Galleries in Express Newark from 11am-4pm on October 7th, 2017. Newark, NJ. Details

Not just A Boys Club fest. November 4th, 2017 at Mexicali Live in Teaneck, NJ. Details

SGC International Conference 2018, which will take place between April 4 – 8 in Las Vegas, Nevada.  https://sgcinternational.org/conference/lasvegas/

LWT Summit 2017

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Oh yes, that’s right- Lesbians, Queers and Allies gathered in NYC this September to share and celebrate our passion for technology innovation and professional development.

These are a great moments to bask in the hundreds of women pushing to shatter the glass ceiling towards true equality with their male counterparts in the workplace. We love the work we do and its amazing to be exposed to companies out there taking a pledge to be more inclusive in their hiring standards, office culture and benefits practices.

Women in tech fields continue to deal with so much resistance and sexism from society and we still have a lot of work to do for women of color as well. Each of us have experienced being belittled, laughed at or denied opportunities we qualified for, simply on the premise of gender and/or race. (That goes for universities and corporations participating in daily microaggressions.) It’s important to come together as peers and allies to uncover where and how these barriers continue to be systemic, and also how queer women of color can continue to navigate the industry with strength and courage. We are not afraid of being ‘the only one’, but it shouldn’t be that way in years to come. We are not afraid to take maternity leave at the height of our careers, but we shouldn’t be penalized for that choice. We are engineers, entrepreneurs and inventors who deserve respect.

I was pretty tired during this even and wasnt able to network as much as I’d planned. it was still refreshing to see us all combing through the NYU School of Law building to discuss our future in the industry. One peice of advice that stood out to me is how critical it is for women to ASK. Ask for that raise, ask for the promotion, ask for opportunity. Too often folks think working hard with your head down will eventually be rewarded, but I’ve rarely witnessed success from this. Your managers need to know you want more and care about growing with the company, its not always obvious. Show them HOW you can take the company’s goals to the next level.

Also, soft skills are critical to leadership growth. As important as it may seem to know the latest coding language or where machine learning is headed, nothing beats the ability to influence a team of peers. Building relationships and trust with clients and colleagues is so important and a known weak point for many young professionals. This is a world where the computer programmer has to market products and interface with clients. So practice!

This year’s event had some great talks, including conversations with:

Megan Smith and Pearl Means of Standing Rock Initiative

Megan Smith luncheon discussing Tech leadership

LWT Breakout Sessions about pushing your career forward as LGBTQA+ professional

Stacey Abrams, candidate for Gov of Georgia

Jenna Wortham and Lydia Polgreen talk journalism and leading your career

Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas Take Mariner to New Heights

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I don’t recall exactly how I uncovered the album Mariner last year, a long distance collaboration between Swedish post-metal band Cult of Luna and local NYC vocalist, Julie Christmas.

What I do remember is this seemingly brief album of 60 minutes transporting me to an ethereal wonderland of shadow shapes and misadventure. Across five tracks we heard the intense range of Cult of Luna as instrumentalists and post-metal doomsayers. At its most aggressive moments Julie directed her voice across the ether in a spin of minor keys, hushed breathes and chants. Mariner is unafraid. It explores layered rhythms and echoed riffs, it builds tension between heavy and soft vocals, calling away and calling forth so many musical elements.

In the first weeks of the album’s release the artists spoke often of the project being a chance creation, Cult9_blkgrllimited by distance and full of doubt that touring the collab would ever be possible for personal reasons.

This really was my favorite album of 2016, so when they finally announced a live performance of the album in the States, I knew I’d be there, right up front, ears ready for transcendence. 😀

Closing out the six stop tour at NYC’s Gramercy Theater, I heard many in the crowd whisper, “It sounds Exactly like the record, she sounds perfect! It’s perfect!” like, duh- the best thing about metal is most bands staying authentic to live capability.

The performance of Mariner was flawless. The NYC crowd was a on the older side of things, less interested in crowd surfing or moshing- with a substantial audience of women present for Julie Christmas awesomeness. Musicians so often are in their own head and its great to find a band able to pull you into a world they’ve crafted together, a place that could burn on without them it’s so strong in its narrative sound.

Cult6_blkgrl

When I discovered Julie’s talents through the deep scourge of YouTube recordings of Brooklyn punk shows, I knew I’d found something special. I’ve been working on my own music for a couple years now, struggling to find a style of singing aggressive enough for metal. But with a soft toned voice with high pitch, I can lose my voice after a couple hours of speaking loudly. Femme vocalists of the heaviest metal each have original sounds, knowing we can’t always growl an scream the way men do, we find other ways to project our voices. When I heard Julie’s shrill voice so similar to mine, I knew she was doing it right. The only other artist I’ve found with an equally strong high pitch voice is Valerie June, a bluegrass badass from Tennessee.

The second best part of seeing this performance was watching how she projected each song. Women in the heavy scene remain few and far between, its still validating to find others crafting a space that proves we can do this. That we are just as good as any dude in a death metal band, just as heavy – maybe heavier. \m/