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Thank you to our honored guests and amazing artists.
ARTISTS & SPEAKERS TIP JAR!
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Artist Bios
Taylor Alxndr is an Atlanta social activist, community organizer, entertainer, drag queen, and founder of the LGBTQ non-profit “Southern Fried Queer Pride”.
Apollo Flowerchild is an NYC-based indie-folk multi-instrumentalist. They have been writing music for the last 8 years and has developed their sound to cover complexity, with a sense of soulful beauty. Their voice is like spring after a long winter, holding the pain and soul of the cold while, gently emerging from the frost the promise of a softer warmer tomorrow.
Black Magic: A Tribute to Carlos Santana was a tribute band based in Tucson, Arizona in the mid-2010s. Black Magic was a side project of the popular classic rock cover band Too Much Information (tmi-band.net). TMI was founded in 2005 by transgender artists Jennifer Lopez, Sandra Starling, and Michael Woodward. The band quickly grew in both size and popularity and was twice nominated for Best Cover Band by the Tucson Weekly TAMMIE Awards. Over the years, TMI has welcomed a variety of 2SLGBTQ and allied members.
Black Magic first took the stage in 2013, fronted by lead guitarist, David Perez, with Woodward on lead vocals. Rounding out the tribute band were Lopez on rhythm guitar and vocals, Starling on bass, Joe Cruz on congas, Re’ Reed on timbales, Eric Westfall on keyboards, and Bill Piacenza on drums. You can watch more Black Magic videos on their YouTube channel. Although the group no longer performs the Santana tribute shows, TMI remains popular in Tucson today. For booking information, visit https://www.facebook.com/tmi.band.az/
Marx Cassity (they/them) – https://marxcassity.com
Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer artist Marx Cassity (Osage/Kaw) delivers inspired synth-driven electronic rock songs with Native nuances that speak to overcoming hardship through resilience, in connection to nature, humor, love, compassion, spirituality, and heritage. Guided by spirit, ancestors, and on a mission to help people embrace their identity, Cassity is constantly exploring and evolving as an artist and a person. Called “a songwriter to be reckoned with” by No Depression, they’ve recently added an X to their given name, Marca, in honor of gender diversity which has existed throughout all of history.
Cassity is an enrolled citizen of the Osage Nation, with Kaw, Saponi, Susquehannock, as well as French, Scottish-Irish, Irish, English, and German heritage. They are named for their Osage Congressman grandfather Mark Freeman, Jr. and grew up on the Osage reservation on the land of their great-grandmother, original allottee Grace Lessert Freeman who taught them a love of playing piano. Drawn to the instrument from a very young age, they ended up studying classical piano all the way to college, playing french horn in their high school band, while surviving closeted queerness in the bible belt in the era of the AIDS Crisis by spinning vinyl records of artists such as Queen, Pat Benatar, Eurythmics, David Bowie, and Prince.
Happily labeled a tomboy in the 1970s, Cassity ran around barefoot in the dirt, recording the sounds of thunder on a cassette tape recorder. However, coming out as queer in the late 1980s didn’t go as well, leading them to drop out of music school to become a nurse in the AIDS crisis, and ultimately a trauma therapist specializing in Native and 2SLGBTQ+ resilience.
During the pandemic lockdown, Cassity was working as a trauma therapist for Native American and LGBTQ+ clients when they read that 33% of Native American LGBTQ+ youth attempted suicide in 2020. While initially stunned by that number, it ended up serving as inspiration for their forthcoming album 2Sacred. Having been one of those youth, Marx wanted to share their story to help people feel less alone and more confident in authentically expressing who they are. “After hearing that disturbing statistic, my mission for creating this project was born: If I can make art that even one queer or trans person hears, or sees, and they stay alive and love themselves and their identity more because of it, mission accomplished.”
The result is Cassity’s fourth studio album, 2Sacred a collection of 10 songs. The album was funded by two Native American non-profits , the NDN Collective Radical Imagination grant, as well as the Osage Nation Foundation artist grant. The album explores themes of what it means to be Two-Spirit – a LGBTQ+ person with Native American heritage – and one who has learned to love and accept themselves and pursue art as an act of devotion and decolonization. For this highly vulnerable material Marx Cassity was grateful and proud to work with Wolf Carr for vocal production at The Hallowed Halls Studio alongside engineer Justin Phelps who created an environment of safety and groundedness, both as solid allies to a Native American/ Indigiqueer artist.
Eve Parker Finley is a noted Montreal multi-instrumentalist, comedian, and new media artist. Braiding a dense and deliberate web of indie pop stylings, string arrangements, and classical naturalism, Finley has been a mainstay in the Montreal independent scene for nearly a decade. Her work has been featured on CBC, Exclaim!, Xtra, Recording Arts Canada, and other outlets. She is also a rising voice in the Canadian comedy landscape, host and creator of Ten Minute Topline with CBC Music, and Symposium Director at POP Montreal.
Lena is a mutli-instrumentalist and artist based in Charlotte, NC.
Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble (STANCE): By building a community of trans and nonbinary singers, we aim to foster an environment where changing voices are authentically embraced. Our vision is an inclusive and accessible singing community where intersecting identities are centered at all levels of the organization. Through our music, both singers and audiences are encouraged to find embodiment and connect to our full selves, physical and emotional.
SuperKnova is a transgender artist who makes soulful, indie pop. An instrumental virtuoso, she blends dreamy guitar with electronic drums and synths to create a sound that feels instantly familiar yet excitingly fresh.
Her heart-felt lyrics and catchy hooks have led to features on Showtime’s Work In Progress, Epic Games Fortnite, Sephora, MTV and Spotify’s editorial playlists.
A talented multi-instrumentalist, she produces and records all of her own music and builds many of her songs live on-stage through looping and live instruments.
She performs both locally and nationally and is currently working on her next album.
Lyrics
Marx Cassity
How Long
(©Marx Cassity 2023)
Reservation highway in the midnight hour
Flicker of the headlights I’m losing my power
Storm clouds move across a full moon light
Hate speech echoing eclipse my life
Watch out for the deer as you go home
It’s fight flight fight flight freeze or fawn
How much longer can I go on
My grandmother’s road is all I’ve ever known
How long
A thousand stars behind the neon lights
A thousand heart breaks beat beat as I
Drive into this city at night
City at night city at night
I miss my mother I miss my home,
Red earth hill in the thunderstorms
And the heart beat drum heart beat drum
Heart beat drum heart beat drum
In the club where the fire water flows
Love is a battlefield
Over the rainbow
Cigarette fog laser lights
On this dirty dance floor I’m going to dance dance
To save my life for one more night
Save my life for one more night
How long…
Ooooo how long (repeats)
Can I get a witness.
Can anybody see this
Numbed by the genocide
Blinded by the colonized
But the thunder and the lighting
The thunder and lighting lighting lightning
Is gonna light up light up light
So rise up child you are here for a reason
For a reason
Rise up child you’re here for a reason
Heather Hills
“get dun”
[hook]:
Girl, I pump, FAB
Walk the AVE
Anything they wanted you can tell em’ I had
Walk past in the bitch you can tell em’ stay mad
I push, no “oops” or “my bad”
Niggas don’t want none
I step it set to GET DUN
Crew pull up in a whip, them hoes gonna trip when they see how hard I come
Bitches don’t want none
We get down then we GET DUN
We be sittin’ high class, steady puffin’ that gas, all puffs no pass, haters don’t get one
Bitches don’t want none
GET DUN
Oh girl, I just serve
Peep the nerve
Get down then we GET DUN
[verse 1]:
Treat it like a first date
Throw on the paint, brush out the mink
The lashes to blink, lip nude kinda pink
Bitch been on the brink, what these niggas think?
My crew click the walk down the AVEY
Been asking hoes what they bout to do
And they’ve yet to speak, can’t say I’m surprised
The envy that you can’t disguise
I call em all out, look right in they eyes
The realness that fake hoes despise
But yes I still rise, ain’t got shit to prove this
High understanding, know what the truth is
Can’t say they love it so they allude
Since all are not and some inconclusive
My presence makes them sick to they thumbs
Run to make tweets, run to flap gums
The queen don’t got time and ya’ll some beat bums
She gone to make bread you hoes should get some
Out with them men, you hoes should get one
A TGIRL that’s just as sharp as they come!
Niggas ain’t shit and they run to make crumbs
Wanna talk shit? Heather get em beat dumb
Make you wanna get down when you feeling that drum
Better take it to the floor and GET DUN
[hook]
[verse 2]:
Fuck these other hoes feelings, sis!
Stormy weather when it’s Heather being the interest
Yeah, they mad when they be seeing Heather be that bitch
Cause they know she got the shit to make em hit that twist
That 360, trippy, golden coated
Bars got these wack bitches overloaded
Magician secret they’ll be no disclosing
Still the meanest, can’t be no opponent
Sickening out the 732, flow so east coast girl, they bout to beat who?
That’s Jersey that you gettin’ into, long weave on the beach by the sea, that too, that WHEW!
Oh yes, Miss Thing show where she from
Better hit the blunt till’ it’s burnin that lung
Yeah, my rhymes so tight that they stiff and get swung
Bound to pick a little shit so the bell will get rung
This bad ass bitch, someone bound to get sprung
All this fucking liqour yeah we bout’ to get numb
I think fast, toss the bag , get in that stance if them bitches too mad
That’s so sad, wrap the trash, take it to the room and watch ya nigga get glad
Heels click clack, down the path, all me no repeat, can you tell em beat that?
[hook]
SuperKnova
Islands
I can’t seem
To get my head right
Fuck me
I’m in the fog without a head light
Jelly head
December eyelids
I spent all night
Thinking about what you did
Islands
Islands
Spent all night thinking about what you did
I wanna throw away
My body
Start all over
Slip into my 40’s
Plastic Ferraris
Feel the rain drops fall over my body
Islands
Islands
See pop shows near New York
Get tickets as low as $440
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Santa Fe
SuperKnova
Vapor Trails
SuperKnova
Splendor Dysphoria
SuperKnova
Hey yay ay
Yea ha hey
Yea ha hey
Hey yay ay
Yea ha hey
Yea ha hey
Your sweet lies
Are butterflies
I keep ‘em in a jar
So they stay alive
Draw a line
In my hand
Trace out all these feelings
I don’t understand
Forty spades in my body
I don’t understand
Tracе out all these feelings that are in my hand
Islands
Prеss all of these feelings there right in my hand
Islands
Stop me in my tracks, Tiananmen
Islands
Make me feel like I see him again
Islands
Trace out all these feelings I don’t understand
Lara Americo
The Truman Show
(Verse 1)
The truman show
Is where im living
The truman show
Is what i believe in
Where the rich
Control your life
I do not care
What happens to me
Behind the scenes
You become clay
But you can become
More than they say
chorus
It can happen at anytime
We can change the world
and throw our cash away
I might be a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
And one day we’ll be dead anyway
Verse 1
The truman show
Is not where im living
Im on a boat
Im seeing the stars
The rich are not all that smart
Theyre just really lucky
They have one heart just like you
But at least you use yours
Black Magic (feat. Michael Woodard)
Sensitive Kind
(Music and lyrics by JJ Cale)
Don’t take her for granted, she had a hard time
Don’t misunderstand her or play with her mind
Treat her so gently, it will pay you in time
You’ve gotta know she’s the sensitive kind
Tell her you love her each and every night
You will discover she will treat you right
If you believe, I know you will find
There ain’t nothin’ like the sensitive kind
She gets so lonely waitin’ for you
You are the only thing to help her through
Don’t take her for granted, she has a hard time
You got to know she’s the sensitive kind
You got to know she’s the sensitive kind
Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble (STANCE)
Our Phoenix
Music by Mari Esabel Valverde, Lyrics by Amir Rabiyah
My Dear Beautiful People,
Each time you are broken,
I break, I break,
I break a little more
then un-break,
I am piecing myself back together
with the care of a potter’s hands
I clay phoenix
I feel the heat
of our resurrections burning
to glaze our skin into glow
my fire and my kiln
are these words, this space
the intimate threads
of our connection
I envision us going on
to eclipse, building,
bigger, bigger, bigger
more luminous
so bright
My beautiful people
our breaking is our making
Let us dream towards
what we want
beyond survival
Let us dream towards loving ourselves
over and over again
My beautiful people
I can taste our honeyed victory
My beautiful people
our dangerous sweetness
is our rebellion
SuperKnova
Goals
[Verse 1:]
I’m fitting in
Like a bright green ambulance
I hold it in
Like softcore violence
Cuz I want it
I want it bad
I want it
For you to see me
I’m making strides
Towards my goals
Breathe away every last
Bit of my soul
With my heart in my hands
Blood in my throat
A hundred panic attacks
About to explode
But I’m making strides
[Chorus:]
Goals
Goals
I’m making strides
Goals
Goals
I’m making strides
See pop shows near New York
Get tickets as low as $440
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Splendor Dysphoria
SuperKnova
TEXAS HOLD ’EM
Beyoncé
16 CARRIAGES
Beyoncé
[Verse 2:]
Voices out of phase
I can’t hear whatcha saying
Fight through the pain
Until the feelings go away
Cuz I want it
I’ve seen it before
I want it
I’m ready for more
I’m making strides
Towards my goals
Breathe away every last
Bit of my soul
With my heart in my hands
Blood in my throat
A hundred panic attacks
About to explode
But I’m making strides
[Chorus:]
Goals
Goals
I’m making strides
Goals
Goals
[Bridge:]
I’m making strides
Towards my goals_
(I’m making strides)
Brеathe away every last
(Towards my go-oh-oals)
Bit of my soul
With my hеart in my hands
Blood in my throat
(Blood in my throat)
A hundred panic attacks
(Yea-ee-yea-eh, yea-ee-yea!)
About to explode
I’m making strides
[Chorus:]
Goals
Goals
I’m making strides
Goals
Goals
I’m making strides
Goals
Goals
I’m making strides
Goals
Goals
I’m making strides
Taylor Alxndr
Big Cities
Am I gonna die here?
I haven’t been outside the city in months
Was I suppose to thrive here?
Like everybody else, I’ve been on the hunt
Back a few years ago, everything felt so new
Street names I didn’t know
Strangers and all of their blues
Took time to get around this up-n-on-the-go town
Future shining so bright
Lit by the stars in the eyes
Of everyone with a dream and the grit and the drive
It’s only the way to survive
And then, the city calls your name
It’s all that you know
It’s all that you need
Big City’s gonna run me down
Big City, cannot hide
But I know I’m gonna run this town
If I make it out alive!
Somedays I cannot find the city I once knew
Tracing it back
Summers and shows ago
Torn down like rock, paper, shoot
It’s hard to forget
Where did the magic go?
Tell me, was it all a dream?
I shake my head, noBig city, big development
Can’t erase history
And then, the city calls your name
It’s all that you know
It’s all that you need
Big City’s gonna run me down
Big City, cannot hide
But I know I’m gonna run this town
If I make it out alive!
Big City, can you hear that sound?
It’s working me to overdrive
Big City, gonna run me down
In this city I’m alive
Did you trade stars for the lights?
I heard they burn all the same
Escape from bigoted fights)
The best always live to tell
Show yourself who you are?
A different face every day
Will it get you far?
So far and still so far!
What if they raise your rent?
They’ll never own me
Sell all your time, money spent?
It’s worth the risk in the end
Working yourself to the bone
This place was built with them
You’ll never be alone!
Big City’s gonna run me down
Big City, cannot hide
But I know I’m gonna run this town
If I make it out alive!
Big City, can you hear that sound?
It’s working me to overdrive
Big City, gonna run me down
In this city I’m alive
Big City’s gonna run me down
Big City, cannot hide
But I know I’m gonna run this town
If I make it out alive!
Big City, can you hear that sound?
It’s working me to overdrive
Big City, gonna run me down
In this city I’m alive
Taylor Alxndr
Romeo
Romeo
Where did you go, after the show?
We were going to hang out
Romeo
With your tilted smile
Won’t you stay a while?
There’s so much more that I wanna know
Hey Romeo!
And if you should walk away from me
And all the thoughts you’re feeling
Don’t be ashamed of the unknown
Hey Romeo! Oh!
Romeo doesn’t know how to love
But he’s everything I’m dreaming of
Just stay here, with no fear
My Romeo! My Romeo! Oh!
Oh, my Romeo
Has got a wandering eye
How I wish to be a fly
On his bedroom walls
Hey Romeo!
Why won’t you admit, that you’re afraid to commit?
You run to where you are called (You are called x4)
And if you should walk away from me
And all the thoughts you’re feeling
Don’t be ashamed of the unknown
Hey Romeo! Oh!
Romeo doesn’t know how to love
But he’s everything I’m dreaming of
Just stay here, with no fear
My Romeo! My Romeo! Oh!
Why can’t you tell it straight to me?
I can understand
You’re too busy caught up, trying to prove that you’re a man
R-O-M-E-O (x3)
My Romeo! My Romeo! Oh!
R-O-M-E-O (x3)
My Romeo! My Romeo! Oh!
Romeo doesn’t know how to love
But he’s everything I’m dreaming of
Just stay here, with no fear
My Romeo! My Romeo! Oh!
Romeo’s gotta stick to the plan
He’s too busy tryna be a man
Just stay here, with no fear
My Romeo! My Romeo! Oh!
R-O-M-E-O (x3), My, my, my Romeo! (x3)
My Romeo! My Romeo! Oh!
R-O-M-E-O (x3), My, my, my Romeo! (x3)
My Romeo! My Romeo! Oh!
Eve Finely Parker
Fall Into Me
Fall into me
Fall into me
Fall into me
Fall into me
They don’t care about you
They don’t care about me
So why should I
Follow the rules?
Written by men
With blood on their hands
Don’t you wanna feel good?
Don’t you wanna be free?
So let me show you what we can if we
Fall into the dark
Just come fall with me
Come and fall with me
Just come fall with me
Just come fall with me
I know you need the space
So go to her
Tell her everything that makes you feel unsafe
Why do I sing if I’m still ashamed?
Will I be safe if I don’t behave?
What if I hurt you by bringing her here?
By God don’t you see how I need her?
To feel no fear
Fall into me
Fall into me
Fall into me
Fall into me
Eve Finley Parker
Icarus
Fly until you run until you
feel the wind in your heart
just to see how far
you can go
alone dreams of love becoming
more than we are
you fly until you
feel the wind in your hair
how high will you go
before the sun
Never leave us alone
Oh fly alone