Twitter and the people on it were teaching me a lot about the importance of representation, where people of different races, genders, orientations and abilities are seen and heard.
That became an influence on the music I listened to fairly early, though with varying results.
Not all of them will make it obviously into this retrospective. There were the posts on women rocking and Black women rocking, and there will be another post on Stevie Wonder (one man, but a man with an enormous catalog).
There will not be specific posts on my attempts to listen to artists of Asian and Latinx descent (both terribly inefficient terms), but they will show some presence in the section on bands 401 - 500 and the segment on punk. (I have pretty much worked out which topics will be covered now, even though I am still going over old reviews.) My attempts there have not been coherent enough to create separate topics from them, and the same is true as I start to seek out more disabled artists and queer artists.
A lot of what I have found is good, but after a while of searching, there often comes a point where they start finding you. You know enough people making recommendations, or you are reading enough material, or listening to enough similar artists, that the connections start being made more easily.
I am much further ahead with Black and Native American musicians. That makes sense, I started sooner with regular reading, even before I was on Twitter. I started observing both history months in 2010.
At the time I was focusing on reading history, but then you find that there are still people here (should be obvious, sometimes isn't), and they are writing books about now, and they are making music now.
If I go back and forth between Indian, Indigenous, First Nations, and Native American, don't mind me. Different people prefer different words, and that is even more so because I have a lot of Canadians on the list.
My first review of a Native American artist was Bunky Echo-Hawk, who is also a visual artist. In fact I can't find any of his music links anymore, because he is focusing more on the canvas art. However, that I knew of him at all happened because my sisters and I saw an exhibit of his work at the Field Museum in Chicago.
I reviewed him in April 2014, but then I started making a point of finding more Indigenous artists to review in November. I found artists I liked a lot, and artists whose work was personally meaningful, and artists who made me think, often all in the same person.
If Bunky Echo-Hawk's art was not limited to music, he was not unique there. I have read books and poetry by some of the musicians, and others have done beading and carving.
As I started having more reviews under my belt, it occurred to me that I could have a November where not only all of the reviews but also all of the daily songs were by Native American artists. I started looking to see if anyone previously reviewed had new music out, and found almost everyone was at Standing Rock. I had cared before, but then it felt that much more personal.
This year, I am going to do the full month in November. I will also make a playlist bringing in may songs and artists. It is about the only way that I can handle limiting it to seven songs now.
I know there is more to come, and I am excited for that.
Songs for the week:
“You've Got To
Run (Spirit Of The Wind) by Buffy Sainte-Marie and Tanya Tagaq -- A big reason to choose this one was that with so many choices and only seven songs, I have to appreciate the two-fer. But also, it's Buffy! Some of my earliest memories are of her on Sesame Street, and her mouthbow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5zb0WTSLsY
“Clash Of The
Clans” by Snotty Nose Rez Kids -- I like Snotty Nose Rez Kids for their humor and theatricality. It feels more like early rap to me, before it got all gangster (maybe with some overlap), including skits on the albums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4UersvGsIs
“Mehcinut” by
Jeremy Dutcher -- He has a lot of beautiful music, imbued with a spirit of holiness. This one, though, captivates me so much, that I probably do not take in his other music enough. Some songs do that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pDRpDjrBZE
"Walk Alone" by LightningCloud -- RedCloud was one of my favorite reviews, but by the time I did it, he and his girlfriend, Crystle Lightning, and he had teamed up to form LightningCloud. I love all their iterations, but chose this one because the pandemic has made poverty and homelessness worse, and we need to work on that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxrfna843jY
“Anti-Social”
by Frank Waln -- Waln was one of my earlier reviews, but this video is brand new, uploaded on March 11th. I think it fits with the times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ27V2CbP70
“Lonely With
You” by Tracy Bone -- There is so little country that I like, that I am impressed with Bone that she makes me like her so much. This is probably my favorite of her songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GajkiYW8Bqc
“Don't Forget
About Me” by Michael Bucher -- Just a reminder that we can and need to do a lot better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dldfHWso2Q
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