Bird of Paradise: Bidding Adieu to the Phoenix

Will of Imperial Teen/Hey Willpower with new band Psychic Friend at Little Victory's welcome home show in June

The show I organized at the Phoenix for this year's Pride was, no fooling, absolutely the most fun I've ever had in my life.  Everyone was so brilliant, so excited, so totally pumped on the experience I was quite literally overcome, fighting back tears that were threatening to make an ass out of me.  I'm all for emotional honesty but I draw the line at crying in public because you can't believe your own good fortune.  Smile for fuck's sake, I thought, This is your life and you get to live it.

Horoscope playing Gay Rage/Gay Magic III, Pride Sunday '11

Including the farewell show Sunday Little Victory played the Phoenix maybe 5 or 6 times.  It seemed like a lot at the time and now it seems like not nearly enough.  It's gone too soon from our lives, this miracle.  I don't mean to exaggerate: It was a total miracle for me to have a venue that was not only bullshit-free and totally supportive but 100% gay all the time.  Such a big deal.  Such a major thing to see disappear after only a year.

Isabel of Household at Courage My Love

The Phoenix gave me the confidence to put together shows and have faith that people would show up for them.  Putting those shows on gave me the opportunity to shine a light on my friends' projects, to play with at least one of my musical heroes and to realize how special and exciting the people I surround myself with are.  The audiences at those shows gave me a renewed faith, inspiring me to believe that this sense of community I'd grown up with that I thought we'd all maybe outgrown did exist and could succeed.  

B0DY H1GH at Sunday's ONCE MORE WITH FEELING show

Though people frequently find this hard to believe I am actually quite shy as a performer.  Anything you see or hear me do onstage is almost exclusively the result of nervous energy.  All my life I've wanted to write songs and sing in a band but before Sunday I've rarely enjoyed it so completely.  When I took the stage at the end of Skeleton Head's set to sing with Leo on the Pet Shop Boys' "What Have I Done to Deserve This" I could feel myself enjoying myself.  This was a really big deal for me.  When Little Victory came to the end of our set I realized that the Phoenix, in all of these incredible ways, had given me something phoenixes normally save for themselves: A rebirth.  I'll miss you, old girl.

Sing Them Blues, White Girl

How does one describe a dream?  Such is my dilemma trying to write about this Making Friendz record, Social Life.  Leading lady Friend Tami Hart and I were roommates and best girlfriends for the larger part of the time this thing has been a thing.  Her onetime bandmate and my current Little Victory co-conspirator Daniel Erickson has been my best friend and occasional musical partner for years.  They are no longer together as a duo, although he is featured on this record, and as someone who is so close to both of them I'm finding it difficult to express myself in regard to this thing that they created.

This is the is the sound of two people I love as much as anything coming together and coming apart.  Listening to it, I am gripped by a tension I wasn't quite prepared for.  Every beat and melody is a memory, every note a reminder of a time in my life both magical and awkward.  I remember being at so many shows watching the two of them performing these songs and seeing the crowd loving them so much.  This was before I had a band of my own and I wished I could trade places with them, live inside these songs and trade energies with a room as easily as they seemed to.  Maybe it wasn't as easy as it looked.  For whatever reason (it's their story to tell or not tell) Making Friendz is now Tami's alone.

Dreams are a private phenomenon that can only be experienced by human beings individually.   One can rarely remember them completely much less fully describe their magic or their mayhem to others.  I feel very close to this record and though I had nothing to do with its creation, very proud as well.  I'm glad to have it as a memento, a monument in some ways, to such an important time in my life.  Articulating a particular place in my heart, it is a testament to the powers of the people I surround myself with.  I wish I could bring all of you inside my head to hear it the way I do.  It is beautiful and exciting and a little bit sad, just as it should be.  It reminds me that finding the truth is never as important as looking for it.