Tag: Thanksgiving

#IndigenousWomenRock: 5+ Contemporary Artists You Should Know

How many Native women have you supported today?

If the answer is none, think about why that might be. Do you interact with Indigenous populations? Are you spending time and energy learning about Native organizations and movements?

If Indigenous women aren’t popping up in your timeline or on your street, it isn’t because they don’t exist; rather, the lives of Native Americans, particularly Native American women, are specifically overlooked by institutions of power, including media outlets, health organizations, universities, and more. But whether we are looking or not, Native Women are living and creating in the current day. Contemporary Indigenous art is filled with innovative women making work worth watching, reading, and listening to.

Whether you are spending today with family or friends, take some time to invest in the lives of Indigenous women by viewing, sharing, and paying for their art. Aren’t sure where to start? Check out our list of five contemporary Native American artists to watch below.

Raye Zaragoza

Zaragoza released her debut album in June of this year, but she’s been playing and writing music since childhood. Fight For You is a breezy eight-track collection, brilliantly highlighted by Zaragoza’s clear, relaxed voice. The album’s content is deeply impacted by Zaragoza’s multi-ethnic and national background, as well as the Native Peoples’ fight for clean water and against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Of the album, Zaragoza says: “My goal with this album is to inspire people to fight for what they believe in. Our voices can be heard – we just have to choose to use them!” A portion of the album’s proceeds will be donated to Indigenous rights organizations.

Miracle Dolls

Twin sisters Dani and Dezy are based in Southern California, but they regularly tour the country to mentor youth through the Native American Youth Music Program, which they founded. The two strive to bring guitars to every Native American reservation, alleviating the pressures of historical trauma on Native youth by providing a creative outlet. Their recent video “Sweet Grass / Water is Life,” influenced by the impacts of oil pipelines on their Hidatsa Waterbuster Clan community, was screened at the 42nd American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.

Princess Nokia

Destiny Frasqueri, known as Princess Nokia, recently went viral when she was filmed throwing soup at an aggressive man shouting slurs in a New York subway car. But Frasqueri’s advocacy work goes far beyond subway intervention. Outside of her work in the studio, Frasqueri heads “Smart Girl Club,” a collective which seeks to provide safe space for and encourage collaboration between women of color, through the lens of “urban feminism.” Her first studio album, 1992 Deluxe, reflects this message of informed and inclusive feminism: tracks like “Brujas” highlight Frasqueri’s connection with her Afro-Indigenous family and their traditions, while breakout hit “Tomboy” centers her experiences as a New York youth. 1992 Deluxe, which was released in September of this year, is already making year-end lists, and for good reason.

Samantha Crain

Crain’s 2017 album, You Had Me At Goodbye, is decadently instrumental: confessional and emotionally compromising music which devastates at the same time that it uplifts. Next time you feel like treating yourself to a good cry without, you know, having to listen to Sufjan Stevens, take a trip through Crain’s oeuvre. Crain is barely 30, but You Had Me At Goodbye is her fifth full-length album; after recording music for more than ten years, her album notes state that she “wanted to have some fun.” Though You Had Me At Goodbye isn’t exactly dance music, there’s a noticeable level of play within the artist’s enigmatic lyrics and sound choices.

Laura Ortman

An accomplished composer of independent film scores, Ortman’s own music is visceral and compelling, drawing on her skill as a classical musician as well as a love of experimental sound composition. She’s a prolific artist, with 22 releases on bandcamp alone, as well as a number of prestigious awards under her belt, but manages to make each release pleasantly surprising. Her latest album, My Soul Remainer, was released in June of this year.

And because the “Americas” extend north of the border as well, here are a few Canadian artists I can’t stop listening to.

Tanya Tagaq

Tagaq has been making waves since winning the Polaris Prize with her 2014 album, Animism. Her latest, Retribution, is breathtaking. It’s the type of album you listen to once, and then send to everyone else you know.

Sonia Eidse

Eidse’s bandcamp describes her music as “mellow alt-pop,” but frankly, I don’t find anything about her voice to be mellow. Her self-titled EP, released in 2016, is dreamy; with each note stretched as far as possible, Eidse’s vocal performance lands like a silk parachute, or a slow-rolling fog.

Iskwé

On The Fight Within, released earlier this month, Iskwé pairs modulating vocals with lush, electronic beats. Dissect it or dance to it–Iskwé’s music is moving, both in its content and message, and in the music’s heavy, visceral sway.

ONLY NOISE: Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving is a controversial holiday with a wretched color scheme. The Hallmark credo of thankfulness is thin when stretched against this country’s historical relationship with Native Americans. The shirking of materialism is undercut when Black Friday rolls around. To many, Thanksgiving is merely a day to get tanked, watch college football, and shout about politics with Uncle Larry.

Holidays are hard for me. I’m not religious, my family lives 3,000 miles away, and if I did live closer to them, I’d have to decide which half to celebrate with. I don’t like the premise of most holidays either – the fact that we need a nationally ordained day to eat a meal together and be thankful has cynical implications – as if we aren’t thankful for the food we share together the remaining days of the calendar year. As you know, I could easily play the curmudgeon and pick these things apart to forever, but there is one thing Thanksgiving has going for itself that I just can’t knock: the food!

A delicious meal is a delicious meal, and I’m thankful for all of them, but Thanksgiving dinner is a particularly iconic spread of dishes only Americans can understand – like, say, canned cranberry sauce and mini marshmallow encrusted sweet potatoes. The Turkey Day smorgasbord is vast and overwhelming; gluttonous and nap inducing. In fact, it is so immense that I’ve put together a soundtrack to help us waddle through each course.

The Turkey

We don’t call it “Turkey Day” for nothin.’ You don’t have to hang your kids hand-traced paper turkey art on your fridge each year for nothin’ either. The turkey is the main event on Thanksgiving, and whether you’re the one butchering it, cooking it, or simply eating it, the big bird that goes “gobble gobble” is going to affect your life this week. So why not give the poor bird a song? “Stuffy Turkey” by Thelonious Monk is a great place to start – a classy jazz number to score the bird’s arrival, all glazed and brown and stuffed. Follow it up with the frantic “Turkey Chase” by Bob Dylan as you and your family members squabble over precious dark meat morsels. And finally, blast Butthole Surfers’ “Turkey and Dressing,” which will provide the necessary aggression to finish your plate of food, and weather Uncle Larry’s xenophobic rants.

Stuffing

When Peaches sings, “I see you sittin’ and stuffin’ your face/Why don’t you stuff me up?” on 2003’s “Stuff Me Up,” she is clearly personifying the Turkey in your kitchen, begging to be filled with breadcrumb dressing, aka “stuffing.”

See also: “Stuffy Turkey.”

Mashed Potatoes

What would Thanksgiving be without a vat of butter sodden mashed potatoes? Just another Thursday, that’s what. There are a lot of songs that pay tribute to the “mashed potato,” referring to the wildly popular 1960s dance move. Rufus Thomas’ “Mashed Potatoes,” however, is a tune that rightfully exalts potatoes in their many forms, be they “French fried potatoes” or the titular, macerated kind. For purists, The Ventures’ ode to the side dish, “Mashed Potato Time” has but two lyrics: “Mashed” and “Potatoes.”

Gravy

It appears that Dee Dee Sharp’s “Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes)” may be a grotesque sexual innuendo, but at least it’s spot on for Thanksgiving Dinner. Like Sharp, we likely won’t get through the evening without shouting, “C’mon baby/I want some gravy!”

Rock n’ roll has been good to gravy, as there are countless songs that reference the rightful sidekick to turkey and mashed potatoes. Gravy grooves range from the instructional (Paul Kelly’s “How To Make Gravy”), traditional (George Benson’s “Giblet Gravy”), and of course, the addictive (“Nicotine & Gravy” by Beck).

Sweet Potatoes

The idiosyncratic orange cousin of russet potatoes, sweet potatoes come in many forms. Baked whole, sliced au gratin, glazed, and of course: mashed and smothered in tiny marshmallows. In the music world, sweet potatoes seem to have as much clout – and erotic overtones – as gravy. As Lonnie Johnson sings in the searing “Sweet Potato Blues,” “If you want sweet potatoes/Bake it in my pan.” For a less raunchy take, check out Pete Seeger’s family-friendly “Soon As We All Cook Sweet Potatoes.”

Green Bean Casserole

There is an unjust deficit of green bean songs on the Internet, and even fewer that mention the congealed, Turkey Day staple we refer to as Green Bean Casserole. What I have found in the musical spirit of hericots verts has been pretty dismal. Especially “Green Beans,” a warbled electro cut that slanders its namesake ingredient by repeating, “I don’t like green beans” through a vocoder too many times. The most practical application of this song would be as a punishment for children who don’t eat their vegetables. Weary parents of picky eaters should make them listen to it fifty times in a row.

Cranberry Sauce

If you thought there weren’t enough songs about green beans, then you’ll be horrified by the dearth of cranberry sauce ditties. Such a peculiar condiment deserves to be memorialized in song. Alas, the closest we can get to an aural rendering of that red, gelatinous cylinder is ‘90s Irish alt-group The Cranberries. Their catalogue may be pretty food-reference-free, but songs like “Ode To My Family” and “No Need To Argue” fit perfectly with the relatives-around-the-table theme of Turkey Day. And who could forget “Linger” – the band’s biggest hit, which could very well reference the relentless food coma that looms post-feast.

Pumpkin Pie

Last, but certainly not least in our festive meal is dessert. Though different tribes may take their coffee with a variety of sweets, pumpkin pie is the poster pudding for Thanksgiving. It is also (much like mashed potatoes, gravy, and sweet potatoes before) a euphemism for genitalia. Look no further than The California Honeydrops’ ditty “Pumpkin Pie” (off of the subtly titled Spreadin’ Honey LP), which begs in a brazenly possessive manner, “Won’t you save all your pumpkin pie just for me, girl?” A similar winking nastiness can be found in Bob Dylan’s 1969 number “Country Pie,” which nods to pies of pumpkin, and many other flavors. Let’s just pretend these songs really are about pie for one night, what do ya say? Your family will thank you for it.

PLAYING DETROIT: 10 Questions With Frontier Ruckus

1437419063265Frontier Ruckus‘ Matthew Milia has a lot to be thankful for. For starters, Ryan Adams sent him an email about anticipating ”smoking a jay” and listening to the new recordings and they scored former Wilco drummer, Ken Coomer, as producer and percussionist on their 2016 release recorded in Nashville earlier this year. Formed in 2003, Frontier Ruckus has built a reputation on pairing vividly raw and pleasantly long winded imagery with lush pop arrangements. Each song paints portraits of memories, dreams, and personally important geographical landmarks. Just a year after the release of their fourth album, Sitcom Afterlife, Milia and gang — David Jones (banjo, electric banjo), Zach Nichols (musical saw, trumpet, alto horn, meodica, keys) and Anna Burch (bass, vocals) — return home to close out a short tour. They play tonight at Marble Bar in Detroit on the tail of the announcement of the completion of their fifth LP. I caught up with Milia to discuss tour, Thanksgiving, and the tao of Frasier Crane.

1. What’s the best part about touring? Any good stories from this latest trip?

I turned 30 on this last trip, in Houston, and it felt kind of heavy. Some fans made me a homemade cake and presented it to me onstage between songs with candles lit, which the rest of the band was in on, and everyone sang me “Happy Birthday.” I’ve been touring for most of my adult life so it felt natural to be away for it—if anything I just felt an immense gratitude to be able to still be doing what I want to be doing at this stage of life.

2. When you’re on the road, what do you miss most about Detroit? 

There’s something comforting about geographical orientation. What I love most about Detroit is that it just happens to be the place where I’ve best memorized how all the roads map out and connect — the intricacies locked away within the metropolis. There’s kind of a thrilling novelty to the pure dislocation of tour at first. But a few weeks in, you wish you knew your surroundings more innately without consulting Yelp.

3. It’s been just over a year since the release of Sitcom Afterlife. What’s been the biggest change in Frontier Ruckus from then to now? 

Anna is playing bass guitar again! For the first time since her departure, right after Deadmalls and Nightfalls came out in 2010. It creates a nice heightened energy on stage. We’re five albums in now, and with each album it just seems to crystalize the overall feeling of the band, and diminishes distracting anxiety. People at shows have this greater context to see things in. The characters in the songs all interact. The band’s narrative grounding just feels sturdier and a bit more substantial, without being too self-aggrandizing about it.

4. You’ve described yourself as a verbose lyricist. What are some of your favorite words or imageries? 

Early on I really like mixing biblical or religious imagery with sexuality. I think 13 years of pent up Catholic schooling will do that. These days, in a more balanced way, I think I’m still locked into the almost obsessive and systematic image-cataloguing of banal domestic suburban household objects and scenery that I fell into during Eternity of Dimming. I love detailing the unfolding of great familial drama in front of a static backdrop of living rooms and dads’ home offices.

5. You have a background in poetry. How is the writing process different for you when writing lyrics versus poetry? 

Well I rhyme in song which I never ever allow myself to do in poems. So I rhyme like hell in song. The more complex or internal or multi-word the rhyme the better.  And then there’s the chordal and melodic component which inevitably influences the language and meter of lyrics. I like to juxtapose in opposites. So if the chords sound happy I’ll tend to evoke an unsettling memory or something that challenges my emotional comfort, and vice versa. With poetry it’s all about language and much more conversational.

6. Could you describe Frontier Ruckus’ aesthetic via a memory that best encapsulates it? 

One time I was riding in the back seat of the car with my mother and grandmother. For some reason I was wearing roller blades. The only other thing in the back seat was my grandmother’s oxygen tank. We were stopped at a light and my curiosity led me to twist the knobs until it rattled and hissed and I got so freaked out that I swung the car door open and jumped out, slipping on my roller blade wheels in the path of oncoming traffic. My mom swung her door open which signaled to the cars to screech to a halt. That mixture of a comforting situation turning erratically panicked is what I think the band is about.

7. You just finished recording your fifth LP in Nashville, slated to release next year. What does it sound like? If it were a thanksgiving food what would it likely be?

It was the first album we’ve done outside of Michigan and our first with a producer — Ken Coomer (Wilco’s original drummer), who also drummed on the whole record. It’s definitely got more of a polished baroque pop vibe, with string parts and mellotron, etc. But where Sitcom Afterlife was sort of a one-off break-up album dealing with the bitterness of a specific situation, I think this album returns to the more universal themes of our earlier records that tried to portray the sorrow and loss inherent to notions of family, home, and memory, but through a sense of beauty and complex appreciation.

It would be a slice of pumpkin pie mingling with a bit of creamed onions from a reused plate.

 

8. What inevitable awkward family interaction are you dreading/looking forward to this Thanksgiving? 

Just the perennial explanation of what being in a band is like, and what sort of accomplishments the band achieved since the last briefing. I’m blessed with a super supportive family though. Still one always feel obliged to qualify things in relatable terms.

9. What does the ideal 2016 look like for the band? 

Our aforementioned fifth album will be coming out at some point! Lots of touring and a few trips to Europe I’m sure. Collaborating with rad artists on music videos. I’ll be compiling another collection of poems I hope, along with some short fiction.

10. What character of Frasier are you and why?

Definitely Frasier. I’d be lying if I didn’t desperately relate to his misguided narcissism colliding with crippling insecurity.

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