Gretchen Phillips | |
|---|---|
 Phillips in 2011 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 1963 (age 60–61) Galveston, Texas |
| Genres | Folk, riot grrrl |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar, banjo |
| Years active | 1981–present |
| Website | gretchen-phillips |
Gretchen Phillips (born 1963) is an American singer-songwriter known for her humorous and topical songs. Phillips has been openly gay throughout her life and her lesbianism has inspired much of her material. [1]
Phillips grew up in Houston. Her parents were musicians, and she played music from childhood. After graduating from the High School for Performing and Visual Arts, she decided move to Austin in 1981 to become a professional performer and was in a band with Sara Hickman. [2]
Phillips was a member in three influential area bands in the mid-eighties: the punk band Meat Joy [3] (with Jamie Lee Hendrix, Melissa Cobb Unit, John Hawkes [4] -under the name John Boy Perkins, and Tim Pierre Mateer), the rock band Girls in the Nose (with Pam Barger, Kay Turner, Joanna Labow, and Darcee Douglas), and the country/disco/rock/folk/pop band Two Nice Girls (with Pam Barger, Laurie Freelove, Meg Hentges, and Kathy Korniloff). Two Nice Girls attracted national attention with Phillips' song "I Spent My Last $10 (on Birth Control and Beer)" which satirized heterosexual relationships.
Since the break-up of Two Nice Girls, Phillips has been part of The Gretchen Phillips Experience (with Andy Loomis, Thor Harris, John Paul Keenon, and Jo Walston), Dusty Trails (with Josephine Wiggs and Vivian Trimble), Phillips & Driver (with David Driver), Lord Douglas Phillips (with Terri Lord and Darcee Douglas), and The Gretchen Phillips Ministries (with the Experience line-up), as well as performing as a solo artist.
Two Nice Girls won a GLAAD Media Award in 1991. Phillips was inducted into the Austin Chronicle Music Poll's Hall of Fame in 2001.
Phillips has been openly gay throughout her life and her lesbianism has inspired much of her material. [5] Phillips has generally resided in Austin, but has also lived in San Francisco and New York City.
An archive collected by Phillips, including items such as reviews and news articles, video recordings of her shows, and fan mail, is part of Cornell University Library's Human Sexuality Collection. [6]
Her name appears in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song "Hot Topic." [7]
| Authority control databases: Artists |
|---|
Lea DeLaria is an American comedian, actress, and jazz singer. She portrayed Carrie "Big Boo" Black on the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019). She also starred in the Broadway productions POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive in 2022 and the 2000 revival of The Rocky Horror Show. She was the first openly gay comic to appear on American television in a 1993 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show.
Queercore is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifically society's disapproval of the LGBT community. Queercore expresses itself in a DIY style through magazines, music, writing and film.
But I'm a Cheerleader is a 1999 American satirical teen romantic comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit in her feature directorial debut and written by Brian Wayne Peterson. Natasha Lyonne stars as Megan Bloomfield, a high school cheerleader whose parents send her to a residential in-patient conversion therapy camp to "cure" her lesbianism. At camp, Megan realizes that she is indeed a lesbian and, despite the "therapy", comes to embrace her sexuality. The supporting cast includes Clea DuVall, RuPaul, and Cathy Moriarty.
The Notorious Bettie Page is a 2005 American biographical drama film directed by Mary Harron. The screenplay by Harron and Guinevere Turner focuses on 1950s pinup and bondage model Bettie Page, portrayed by Gretchen Mol.
John Hawkes is an American actor. He is the recipient of two Independent Spirit Awards and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
The Tiptons Sax Quartet, previously known as The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet, is a jazz saxophone quartet from Seattle, Washington. The ensemble consists of five members. The Tiptons are an internationally renowned saxophone quartet with drums, celebrating over 30 years as a band. Amy Denio is joined by co-leader Jessica Lurie, Sue Orfield, Tina Richerson and Robert Kainar from Salzburg, Austria. The Tiptons' material ranges from micro-Big Band to Gospel, Bluegrass to Balkan, whimsical Chamber Jazz, and nocturnal Funk to Free Jazz Improvisation using saxophones, clarinet, their voices, drums, and inventive percussion to create a genre-busting ‘world soul’ sound. The band takes its name in honor of Billy Tipton, a 20th-century professional saxophonist and transgender man who upon his death was revealed to have been assigned female at birth.
Two Nice Girls were a self-styled "dyke rock" band from Austin, Texas, featuring singer-songwriter Gretchen Phillips. They were together from 1985 to 1992, releasing three albums on Rough Trade Records.
Meat Puppets is the first album by American band the Meat Puppets, released in 1982. The album is unlike their later, better-known releases due to its hardcore punk sound.
Itty Bitty Titty Committee is a 2007 American comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit. It follows the political awakening of Anna, a young, mild-mannered lesbian woman who joins a radical feminist group. The film is produced by non-profit organization POWER UP.
Ann Weldy, better known by her pen name Ann Bannon, is an American author who, from 1957 to 1962, wrote six lesbian pulp fiction novels known as The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. The books' enduring popularity and impact on lesbian identity has earned her the title "Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction". Bannon was a young housewife trying to address her own issues of sexuality when she was inspired to write her first novel. Her subsequent books featured four characters who reappeared throughout the series, including her eponymous heroine, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the archetype of a butch lesbian. The majority of her characters mirrored people she knew, but their stories reflected a life she did not feel she was able to live. Despite her traditional upbringing and role in married life, her novels defied conventions for romance stories and depictions of lesbians by addressing complex homosexual relationships.
Lesbian portrayal in media is generally in relation to feminism, love and sexual relationships, marriage and parenting. Some writers have stated that lesbians have often been depicted as exploitative and unjustified plot devices. Common representations of lesbians in the media include butch or femme lesbians and lesbian parents. "Butch" lesbian comes from the idea of a lesbian expressing themselves as masculine by dressing masculine, behaving masculinely, or liking things that are deemed masculine, while "femme" lesbian comes from the idea of a lesbian expressing themselves as feminine by dressing feminine, behaving femininely, or liking things that are deemed feminine.
2 Nice Girls was the self-titled debut album of Two Nice Girls, released on Rough Trade Records in 1989. This album contains the track "I Spent My Last $10 " which gained the group some commercial success. The album also features the track "Sweet Jane " that combines The Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" with Joan Armatrading's "Love and Affection".
Like A Version is a 1990 EP from Two Nice Girls, the group's second release. The EP included a rerelease of the band's best-known song from its debut album, the satirical "I Spent My Last $10 ", and five covers. Joe Brown of The Washington Post praised the "quietly stunning, punningly titled EP," and Patty Gettelman of the Orlando Sentinel gave it a four-star review. Like a Version was named best Texas EP at the 1990-1991 Austin Music Awards.
Chloe Liked Olivia is the third and final album by Two Nice Girls, released on Rough Trade records in 1991. The label closed down and the band broke up shortly after this album was released. Chicago Tribune critic Dan Kening rated the album 3 stars for its "affecting, eye-opening music worth seeking out", while Mark Jenkins of The Washington Post thought it was "barely distinguishable from most other easy-listening adult-rock" and that the band had been "more fun when they're naughty."
The Tuna Helpers was an all-female American indie gothic psychedelic art folk rock band based in Austin, Texas from 2000–2007, noted for their elaborate puppetry in their stage shows and rich textures including diverse vocals, strings, trombone, and percussion. Its membership consisted of sisters Adrienne Sneed and Bethany Sneed, Stacy Meshbane on violin, and Khattie Quinones on drums.
A celesbian is a female celebrity known or reputed to be a lesbian and popular within the LGBT community, or a celebrity who claims to be a lesbian temporarily as a publicity stunt. Celesbianism as a Western media phenomenon came into vogue in 2008, when several female celebrities presented themselves as lesbians. The term was first used by New Yorkers Pam Franco and Susan Levine, a disk jockey. It was used in a full-page ad in a lesbian nightlife magazine, GO MAGAZINE. The ad was for the Mz Hip and Fit NY contest, the idea of Denise Cohen of Denco Designs & Events. The contest was a search for the hottest lesbian in the United States. The term celesbian was used for the celebrity lesbian judges.
Historically, the portrayal of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in media has been largely negative if not altogether absent, reflecting a general cultural intolerance of LGBT individuals; however, from the 1990s to present day, there has been an increase in the positive depictions of LGBT people, issues, and concerns within mainstream media in North America. The LGBT communities have taken an increasingly proactive stand in defining their own culture, with a primary goal of achieving an affirmative visibility in mainstream media. The positive portrayal or increased presence of the LGBT communities in media has served to increase acceptance and support for LGBT communities, establish LGBT communities as a norm, and provide information on the topic.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+(LGBTQ+)music is music that focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities as a product of the broad gay liberation movement.
Kay Turner is an artist and scholar working across disciplines including performance, writing, music, exhibition curation, and public and academic folklore. She is noted for her feminist writings and performances on subjects such as women’s home altars, fairy tale witches, and historical goddess figures. She co-founded “Girls in the Nose,” a lesbian feminist rock punk band that anticipated riot grrl.
