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Not just a Phase

Indie queer music festival back for fourth installment next weekend

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Phasefest’s internal manifesto could be “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The queer indie music festival, the only one of its kind in Washington, is back next weekend for its fourth installment at Phase 1, the S.E. D.C. bar that started it.

Angela Lombardi, Phasefest founder and manager of Phase 1, says it can be a bit tricky balancing the lineup each year between bands that went over well in previous years versus wanting to provide a space for new bands.

“We never want it to feel like the same old festival,” Lombardi, a lesbian, says during a phone call from the airport where she just flew back from Greece this week. “I think we have about eight acts that have played here before. Some, of course, we bring back every year.”

This year’s lineup sounds appropriately eclectic. On Sept. 25, the band Men will headline. JD from Le Tigre, Tayisha Busay, Shondes, Rad Pony, Clinical Trials, Mitten, Renny Sanz, Tiik w/ Guts, Erin Brown and Candi Hearts will also perform sets. On Sept. 24, Hunter Valentine, Jen Urban and the Box, the Pushovers, Mzery Loves Company, the Athen’s Boys Choir, Lost Boi’s and Terrance Williams will play. And on Sept. 23, Wicked Jezebel will headline with Melissa Li, Kit Yan, Jenny Grind, Nikki Smith and Alex Voegele also performing sets.

Sexual orientations and genders are ambiguous with some of the bands. Most are lesbian or have lesbian members but male and trans musicians have played Phasefest before. Phase 1 is a lesbian bar but Lombardi prefers the more-inclusive word “queer” for the fest.

And it’s obvious talking to Lombardi she’s as excited about hearing the bands as anyone.

“This year we’re focusing more on indie queer music,” she says. “There are a bunch of new and exciting acts as well as people who’ve played before. Men are just amazing. And JD from Le Tigre is an alt radical queer band from the past. There’ll be lots of awesome stuff.”

She’s especially excited about Hunter Valentine, a Phase veteran who played at last year’s fest for the first time and also at Phase’s (the bar) 40th anniversary party in February.

“They’re our headliner for Friday and it’s been so exciting to watch them,” Lombardi says. “They’ve really grown by leaps and bounds and they’re just gathering more steam by the minute.”

Hunter Valentine’s lead singer, Kiyomi McCloskey, who doesn’t want to get into specifics but says her band is “definitely queer,” says Phase offers a unique experience on the touring circuit.

“We’ve played a lot of different Prides and OutFest, but Phase has its own vibe,” she says during a phone chat from Brooklyn where the Canadian-based band splits its time. “The staff is just great there and it’s like this little family. It’s very inviting and you can tell they really put their heart and soul into the festival.”

Lombardi says she was ill-equipped to handle Phase’s wildly successful first year but now has the event mastered. It typically attracts about 800 attendees over its three days, a figure she hopes to see bump up to about 1,000 this year.

All the events happen at Phase 1. The bar’s back patio area is converted into an are for queer artists and crafters to set up their wares. Lombardi says all the proceeds go to pay the bands and to run the festival.

“They’re the only ones making money,” she says. “We’re just putting the money back into queer music.”

So in this day and age when it seems almost chic for artists and singers to be vague about their sexual orientation, why have a queer-specific musical festival?

“It’s 100 percent important,” she says. “If you love the arts and music, why not support queer music? We’re trying to offer a totally safe space for these performers.”

Phasefest 2010

Sept. 23-25

Tickets — weekend pass available for $40; Tickets for Thursday (starts at 7 p.m.) are $10 and will be sold at the door; tickets for Sept. 24 (7 p.m.) are $15 and available online; Tickets for Saturday (6 p.m.) are $20 and available here.

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Music & Concerts

Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule

Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1

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Writer Gregg Shapiro with Jill Sobule in 2000. (Photo courtesy Shapiro)

I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.

Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).

Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.

With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.

Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”

That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.

While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.

Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.

On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.

Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.

When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.

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Music & Concerts

Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’

Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.

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Singer Tom Goss is back. (Photo by Dusti Cunningham)

Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co. 

Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.

For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.

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Music & Concerts

Kylie brings ‘Tension’ tour to D.C.

Performance on Tuesday at Capital One Arena

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Kylie Minogue visits D.C. on Tuesday.

Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.

The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”

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