St. Vincent is playing the Halifax Jazz Festival on July 7. This is a huge fucking deal. Here’s why:
1. St. Vincent is a woman named Annie Clark. She is a woman. (Read up
on her here, in Devon Maloney’s excellent Village Voice story “The Bulletproof Altar of St. Vincent.”) Halifax—historically, but especially lately—has huge problems putting women on stages (like, so does everybody, Coachella has never touched 25 percent boobs in its entire existence) and there is no movement amongst the powers that be to do anything about it. (I wrote about some specifics a year ago; 2013’s Canada Day, Natal Day and Georges Island lineups were equally dismal. Stay for the comments btw.)
I am on the board of the Halifax Pop Explosion, which has good years and bad years with respect to representation. I also have access to the budget and what bands cost, and a lot of big female artists—your Yeah Yeah Yeahs, your Sleigh Bellses, your Haims—are simply beyond the financial scope of the
festival. However:
2. St. Vincent is the biggest indie female artist currently performing. Clark has just released her fourth in a run of consistently excellent albums—there’s one with David Byrne too, the horntastic Love This Giant—is currently touring the United States, landing magazine covers, appearing on Portlandia and due in Europe and Australia before she even gets here.
Her art-rock is deft and challenging, subverting gender expectations while she jams out awesome pop music. She is vital, right this second. She’s not the Backstreet Boys playing the Metro Centre this spring or Blondie at the Casino (a show I loved, that took place in 2009). I don’t know what it will cost the Jazz Fest to bring her here, but I guarantee it’s not cheap, and it’s a notable and laudable move that the rest of Halifax promoters should consider a challenge.
3. St. Vincent is a wonderful singer, an evocative lyricist and incredible guitar player. Her current touring show is choreographed and scripted down to the last piece of banter. Halifax women need to see this, a world-renowned indie-rock artist presenting her art on a large stage, holding up a vision that’s wholly hers, and then they need to go home knowing they can do it too.
This is a huge fucking deal.
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2014.
Great. Now I really want to go.
You should invite the band “TEEN”. Teeny Lieberson and her sisters are from Halifax. If your not familiar with them they are an all female group now located in Brooklyn and are about to release a brand new album. You should check them out.
I’m sorry to hear that Feist doesn’t count. Because I think she does as a world renowned indie rock artist. Oh and she is playing Halifax this month.
Feist is in between records and has been here a dozen times. It’s not a matter of people “counting,” it’s a matter of vitality.
I’m pretty sure Feist’s been here as Feist fewer than a dozen times, and I also don’t know what “vitality” means in this context (cultural relevance? opposite of sluggishly touring your back-cat to make mortgage payments?).
I am also beyond excited for the St. Vincent show, but I don’t know that you need to sit on the board of HPX and have access to the budgets and numbers to appreciate the fact that this is an A-lister playing a B-market. If you are unacquainted, just go out and buy the album and get addicted immediately. 🙂
Forget about Halifax women – everyone needs to see this show! St. Vincent’s a phenomenal artist and musician
Yeah, she’s cool and all. But it’s kind of the opposite of jazz…
How about having woman as a headliner who’s got the skills to improvise?
After all, it is ostensibly a jazz festival.
This is so tightly choreographed. And improvisation is the key ingredient, and something that it has in common with other genres that it relates to. But this sort of indie rock doesn’t seem to have any of that.
How about Esmerelda Spalding? Or Norah Jones? Or Diana Krall? Or Sharon Jones?
Indie rock artists headlining a jazz festival is kind of silly, in my opinion. Doesn’t matter how cool.
Haven’t we already got a really good indie rock festival?
As a feminist, I find it offensive that we should be excited for St. Vincent because she’s a woman. I’m excited for St. Vincent because her music is incredible and deserves way more recognition than she’s had, not because of what’s between her legs. The reason why Halifax hasn’t seen an equal amount of women to men ratios is because the music industry is a mans game. Coachella has had all of the female musicians that you listed because they had all released successful albums during the corresponding year. Not because they needed to fill their female quota. Please stop giving feminism a bad name.
Can we talk about the fact that the writer of this article works for a weekly newspaper that consistently showcases a full page american apparel advertisement on the back? I don’t know what this newspapers message is. To stand outside a backstreet boys concert and burn my bra, or get a mini skirt and bend over to show what’s in between my legs.
I don’t understand what’s so phenomenal about a white woman coming to Jazz Fest. If this was about a black female headliner then I could understand all the hub-bub and an article dedicated to her. Since Jazz is made from a black experience and has become very white over the past how many decades, I don’t see how St. Vincent performing is really anything ‘so important’ for jazz. Yes, she’s a great talent, but, ‘so important’? I don’t think so. Call me when HPX is interested in doing the same.
Hmm…
Furthermore, when did jazz or any other art be about “you can do it too?”
Sure, that’s at the core of punk, and maybe rock and roll, but it’s certainly not a universal qualifier for artistic worthyness.
Does the author really think that when men see Herbie Hancock or Prince or some other virtuoso that they go home and think that “they can do that too?”
More likely, if they are musicians, they (unfortunately) think about throwing in the towel.
AGREE! This is a huge fucking deal. Gender is irrelevant (although truth be told, this was a year of female domination at SXSW IMO)
1) Her four albums each get better. Not so sure about the David Byrne one though.
2) She is fucking amazing live and can produce unbelievable sounds from a guitar.
3) Amazing that the Jazz Fest (not sure why!) nabbed her, when Halifax Pop Explosion mainly brings in B and C level indie bands.
I too, am hopeful this will put HFX POP X on notice to step up their game!
saw TEEN play at SXSW before Speedy Ortiz & Cloud Nothings and thought they were very good. Didn’t realize they were Haligonians
Cloud Nothings! Should I see Speedy at NXNE?
AS for Speedy Ortiz, I wasn’t familiar with their music before seeing them, but they were well reviewed on Pitchfork etc and on a lot of lists of bands to see at SX14. They sounded great as a group except that Sadie was having trouble with the pickup on her microphone 🙁 So vocals were lost. I would definitely check them out again.