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Phantom Magick

~ Phantom of the Opera and/as Liberation Gothic love magic!

Phantom Magick

Category Archives: Art

My Music Finally Launched – Spirit And Voice!

21 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art, Uncategorized

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"Phantom of the Opera", ChristoPagan, music, Phanship, spirituality

So it finally happened! LOL I know, it seemed like it might never. But yep, I’ve finally got my music re-launched! The delay was caused by trying to work out the most accessible way to post videos of me doing my music online that can then be easily shared. And to my surprise, after quite a bit of trial and error, I ended up going with old-fashioned YouTube! It’s not perfect by any means, and honestly at first I didn’t think it would work for me. But I found Vimeo not that accessible either, and ultimately YouTube ended up being easier to post to and share from – which surprised me! And I was ultimately able to get it to give me a channel name that I like, and allow me to make sure I’m signed in properly and not accidentally in one of my other Google accounts, both of which were problems when I first started exploring it.

So now that that’s all sorted out, welcome to my new YouTube channel – Spirit And Voice! And it’s not only the new home for my music. Recall a while ago I mentioned really wanting to find a space to start sharing my spirituality? Well, I’ve decided to use the channel for that as well. Which makes sense, because my spirituality and my music are deeply intertwined! So the channel will be a blend of music posts and posts where I share the work in progress that is my Phantom-centred ChristoPagan spiritual practice. You can check it out at the link below!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3l3r0mI033oE36uoXpUsOA

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy that and find the stuff I post there interesting. Uh, and I hope this works! I’m trying posting by email for the first time because the new WordPress post-editor has some accessibility issues that are driving me up the wall! So let’s hope this works as a work-around.

And of course, blessed Winter Solstice to everyone, belated happy Chanukah, and merry Christmas!!

 

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Announcing a new project – Creature Of Darkness!! #Zine #PhantomoftheOpera

06 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"creative writing", "Creature Of Darkness", "Liberation Phanship", "Phantom of the Opera", activism, arts, creativity, Phantom, Zine

So once again it’s been ages since I’ve posted here. LOL I get so busy doing stuff that I don’t find time to write about it! And I’ve shifted a lot of the analysis stuff that I used to do here to my podcast, and to the new project I’ll soon be launching!

So after feeling excluded from zine culture for a lot of years because of its seeming like another hyper-visual idiom that would have a lot of barriers to me as a Blind person, I finally, recently, got inspired to do my own zine! I was inspired by the amazing zines written and produced by Clementine Morrigan https://www.clementinemorrigan.com, in particular their zines Fucking Magic and Trauma Magic. They’re both life-writing zines in which Clementine shares their own journey of recovery and coming into magical and political consciousness. And they’re really powerful and beautiful! Clementine also, to my eternal gratitude, makes a point of making them accessible. They’re heavy on text, and she makes sure the pdfs are screen-reader friendly. Which finally made me feel welcome in the world of zining!

So, as I said, Clementine’s work inspired me to start a zine of my own. Because, I really like the format they use! And I feel like I feel like it’s the write idiom in which to share my own journey of and reflections on coming into politicized, magical Phanship. Because, while I’ve shared some of that in my academic writing and certainly plan to continue doing so, academic writing has certain limitations. You can’t always get as personal, as speculative – as “what if…?”. You can’t often talk about magic and spirituality except as social processes, and you generally have to present a critical analysis. Whereas, in a zine format like Clementine’s, you don’t necessarily have to present a critical analysis. You certainly can, but you don’t have to. And it also gets around the other limitations of academic writing.

The first zine I’m starting, then, is called Creature Of Darkness after the line “Pitiful creature of darkness, what kind of life have you known? God, give me courage to show you you are not alone!” from the Final Lair in Phantom. It’s part Phanzine, part perzine, and part on-going, evolving manifesto. It’s a search for self and community through sharing my own journey as a Disabled, Gender-fluid, Queerish, ChristoPagan medical/educational-industrial complex surviver Phan. And I hope it’ll help others the way Clementine’s work has helped me – by providing a space where those on similar/intersecting/parallel journeys can feel heard/seen and know they’re/you’re not alone, and by sharing the healing tools and insights that have been so helpful and powerful for me! I hope to launch it some time this month, both on my Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/phantomfemme – and on Lulu Press. Though, I also think I might make some of the first issues available here, too, for free just to help get the thing going. I’m still figuring out the cover-art, though, so I’m not sure exactly when that will happen. So watch this space!!

Also watch my Patreon, though. Because, I might also release some excerpts from the first issue there as teasers. They’ll be available at the cheapest tier, though, and there may be some freebies as well! So keep an eye/ear out for that soon.

 

I’m also planning, at some point, to launch a project in which I sahre my thoughts and practice of Phantom and Phanship as a ChristoPagan spiritual path.  But I haven’t decided yet whether to do that as another zine or a new podcast.  There are pros and cons either way!  As some of you will recall, I started sharing some of that as a blog project earlier this year, in fact. But, A, a blog didn’t quite feel right for it, and B, I found I just couldn’t keep up with that much writing and posting on top of everything else I’m working on!  And I’m not sure yet whether a new podcast or a zine would make that more manageable and be the format best suited to the topic.  And I have no idea when that project might happen, so definitely watch this and my other spaces for updates!

 

Anyway, that’s what’s coming up in the near future.  And as you can imagine, I’m really excited about it!  And of course, I hope you’ll all really enjoy my upcoming projects and find them useful as well.

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My Music Finally Rebooted At Last!

10 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"Open Tuning", arts, creativity, music, performing

So I mentioned (quite a while ago now) that I was planning to reboot my music after doing a good deal of rethinking. And I finally have! It took a while, though, both to get things set back up, and because I was looking for the right occasion to relaunch. And this past Saturday, June 6 2020, seemed like an excellent time to do so!

As you’ll perhaps recall, I’ve performed several times in the Toronto Open Tuning Festival. Well, this year, for obvious reasons, the festival was held online rather than live. Plus, of course, it’s the start of Pride month. So this seemed to me like a perfect opportunity to launch the reboot of my music with my contribution to the online Open Tuning! (See the embed above. And do let me know if it works!)

I’m essentially relaunching my music online, then, because, that’s the most accessible way for me to share it. Don’t get me wrong, I love performing live when I’m able to! But I’ve found that, between my fluctuating “spoons” and challenges with getting around, I’m not able to nearly as often as I’d like. Not to mention, I’m not able to perform live nearly as often as necessary to pursue a music career seriously. Thankfully, though, there’s the magic of the internet! And there, I can share both my original songs and covers whenever I’m able and publicize them on social media. So check out my new Vimeo channel called Spirit and Voice!

Granted, I’m not sure how often I’ll be posting music there. It depends on my “spoons” and how my music is balancing with everything else I’m working on. Plus, because I only have semi-fine motor control, it can take me a long time to learn and master new accompaniments even when they’re relatively simple. But I’m really looking forward to sharing my music in a way that’s relatively accessible for me!

That said, though, as a Blind musician, sharing my music in a video idiom is a bit of a challenge. In honesty, I have no idea what my videos look like, or if they’ve come out anything like the way I intended! LOL So if they seem to lack polish, that’s why. Though, hopefully I’ll get better at it with practice! So I’ll also be sharing my music on my Soundcloud for good measure. Though, again, I don’t know how often I’ll be able to do that.

I’m also relaunching my music as a largely acoustic undertaking this time. Not that I won’t plug in sometimes! But after thinking about it a lot, playing a live instrument feels more authentic to me than the fake, computer-generated band accompaniments I used to use. Not that I’m committed to remaining a solo act for life, though! I would love to play with other musicians in the future when I find the right ones and have the chops. But playing with other actual musicians feels different to me than playing with a fake, virtual band! Playing with other musicians involves A, actual playing of real instruments, and B, actual sharing of making music with other people. And that feels more in line with my values than using technology to fake it.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy my music! I’m certainly going to really enjoy finally being able to share it. Because, as much as I enjoy writing and doing my podcast, music is really my first love. That’s where the real magic is for me!

P.S.

Uh, yes, I did say the name of my own channel wrong in the video. LOL Oops! That’s what I get for not checking my own details before filming and posting. But the correct name is, in fact, Spirit and Voice. My bad!

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Music Reboot: Or How The Climate Crisis Completely Changed My Orientation!

26 Thursday Dec 2019

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art, politics

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"climate crisis", "ecological crisis", activism, Art, creativity, music, politics, reboot

So once again I haven’t posted in ages! Have been insanely busy! There was of course the great move this past summer, God am I glad that’s over with, then from there I’ve just been trying to keep up with school and my podcast. Oh yeah, and there’s been a bunch of climate organizing too, because I kind of jumped in to take point on accessibility for our two big climate marches this fall. Although, mercifully more so for the first march than the second one, by which point the other organizers were able to take what had been done for the first march and run with it. Which was great, because by then it was the last, and thus craziest, month of term! LOL So yeah, things have been rather hectic around here, thus my neglecting this site. Oops!!

Anyway, I figured the start of the new year was a good time to post again. And on that note, happy New Year everyone!!

Anyhow, as some of you will recall, back when I started this site, I was really trying to get up and going as a musician. But that kind of died on the vine, partly for some access-related reasons, but partly for some other reasons. Or rather, now that I think about it, my original music being thwarted by lack of access gave me an opportunity to re-examine things and reflect. Back when I started, I was really into symphonic metal, so that was the kind of music I wanted to make. But over the past bunch of years, I’ve really moved away from that both aesthetically and, for lack of a better word, philosophically.

The issue is that I became increasingly uncomfortable with how dependant my music was on technology, both to produce and to perform. Because, for various reasons, some related to my limited mobility and some related to my lack of musical chops on any instrument but voice, I never was able to get a live band up and going. So I was totally dependant on my computer to produce full, rich, metal-sounding arrangements. Hell, even as I moved towards a softer, more music-theatre sound, I still relied on my computer’s midi instruments to fill out the arrangements! And I still needed to run accompaniment tracks from my iPad in order to perform. But this hyper-dependence on technology has felt increasingly wrong. I’ve increasingly felt that I should being doing stuff that, yes, might be plugged in for amplification and effects, but could just as well be performed acoustically. Because, are we not in a climate and ecological crisis? Rhetorical question, yes we are! And to deal with that crisis, don’t we need urgently to be lowering our energy consumption and rebuilding community? Again, rhetorical question. Yes we absolutely do! So why the hell was I off doing highly technologically dependant music that would sound very diminished acoustically, and that wasn’t helping me connect with people? As I said, it increasingly felt wrong. What was more, all my favourite artists, those whom I admire for doing really superb music that’s utterly relevant socially and politically, were doing music on real instruments that could be done justice to whether plugged or unplugged. Even the hiphop artists I’ve come to like write in such a way that there pieces can be done unaccompanied without loosing quality! I’ve heard them do so at a bunch of protests. So I came to feel in my gut and spirit that, if I want my music to be socially, politically and spiritually relevant, too, then my own practice as a musician needs to embody values of humanity and community. It needs to be grounded.

The upshot of all that, then, is that, when I get my music back up and going, which I hope to be able to do in the fairly near future, it will have a very different sound than the stuff I’ve put out before! I will, of course, still use the internet to share and distribute it, because I kind of have to. But now the tech will be a supplement – a way to both get around access barriers and, hopefully, reach a wider audience. It won’t be integral to my sound or to performance.

The awesome thing is that I think I’ve found a way to make this change while still producing a full, rich sound in my accompaniments, that’s also within my skill-level as an instrumentalist! Because, that’s always been part of the problem. As I said, my main instrument’s always been voice, so I’ve never really developed chops on anything else. Additionally, because I have CP, I don’t have super fine-motor control. It’s OK, but not up to really virtuostic, or even just plain fast, playing. LOL As the current pinch-hitter organist at church pithily put it (with regard to himself not me although I fully relate to the sentiment), “there’s an inverse relationship between the number of notes and how fast I can play them”. LOL So well said!! So a lot of my musical journey has been trying to find work-arounds for those limitations. And by the grace of the Universe, I think I might finally have found one that doesn’t rely on my computer to fake it! I can’t say more without giving spoilers. But hopefully you’ll see and hear soon!

Don’t get me wrong, though, and don’t worry, I haven’t gone Luddite or anything! LOL Those of you who know me know I very much doubt I could. I love and value labour-saving, not to mention access-facilitating, technologies as much as the next person. And I profoundly believe in the importance of preserving those to the greatest extent possible! But I also know that, in the ASAP future, regardless of what genre/style/idiom/medium of art we make, we’re going to have to do it using strictly renewable energy sources and sustainable production processes. Moreover, our art itself is going to have to transform. It’s going to have to stop being a commodity on the market and/or a mere entertainment or escape. It’s going to have to become, instead, a form of renewable energy itself in a way – a source of nourishment, healing and renewal for people psychically and spiritually that strengthens us for the struggle and for the work of surviving and thriving. Now I’m not suggesting, by any means, that this can only be done by small, acoustic bands/artists. Indeed, one of my great dreams in life is to see, and preferably to be involved in creating, a powered-down, non-extractive production of the ALW Phantom. It’d be a huge challenge! But with a bit of creativity, I think it could be done. And that’d be amazing!!But it would be very different from the large-scale, constantly running “sit-down” productions we’re used to (more on my thoughts as to how that might work in future posts). It would, though, be about people coming together in love and community to make and hear great music, tell and receive a sacred story through art, and raise and move energies for healing and regeneration. Perhaps it’d be about that even more than existing productions of the show are now! And that kind of art, that spirit of art, is what I want my own music to be a part of – to move towards. But I don’t feel like I can do that as long as my music’s faked through my computer. It feels too ungrounded that way, and frankly I think it was alienating people.

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Woohoo! Finally found a way to resurrect my music!!

29 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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Tags

access, creativity, disability, life, music

So as much as I genuinely love school and especially doing my podcast,the one thing I do regret in all that is that my first love, my music, has really gotten pushed to the back burner. LOL Witness how bloody long it’s been since I posted anything about my poor, misbegotten album Dark Resistance!! Partly, of course, it’s been that, between school and the podcast, I’ve been just really busy and haven’t had a lot of “spoons”, as we often say in the Disabled community, to spare for it. Because, rehearsing, and especially recording and making my accompaniment tracks, takes actually quite a lot of energy! It takes a particular kind of alertness and focus that I just don’t have when I’m tired, which is a lot.

But also, frankly, as a musician, I found I was running into a lot of access barriers in terms of getting my stuff out there. Because I’m not really mobile – it’s really hard and nerve-racking for me to get to placesnew locations unassisted, it’s hard for me to get out there and gig. And truth to tell, I wasn’t getting a lot of help with that from my fellow musicians. I often felt an attitude of “if you can’t do it yourself and don’t have someone to manage you, why are you even here?” Not a very welcoming feeling!! Plus, I have to compete with sighted, able-bodied people who can more easily move on stage and engage with their audiences and generally look slick. So honestly, I kind of gave up on it. But I regret that, and it pisses me off, because that’s sheer ableism!!

Recently, though, I’ve thought of a way I might be able to revive my music, using the wonders of the internet to bypass my restrictions on gigging. Though, that being said, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do live gigs! I love performing live when I can!! It just means I might be able to bypass having to get out there and pound the pavement more than I’m actually able to in order to put my stuff out in the world. And it’ll mean that, when people ask me about my music, I’ll actually have something to direct them to so they can hear what I do. And maybe that’ll help the imposter syndrom, too! So look for that coming soon. And of course, I’ll post as soon as it’s up and going!! Because, I’m very excited about it!! Unfortunately, though, that’s not going to be for a while yet. Because, I’m in the middle of moving right now, so life’s pretty chaotic!! But I’m hoping to get that up and going as soon as I can once I’m settled into the new place. Even so, though, that might not be till August or September, or even till later in the fall LOL depending on how long it takes my finances to recover from the move. Ah, the joys!

Anyway, hopefully sooner rather than later. But first, on with the moving!! Then, as soon as that’s done, LOL regular life can resume and I can get to work on this.

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A Couple of Upcoming Gigs! #OT2018 #music #performances #Toronto #OpenTuning #Festival and #CUPE3903 #YorkUStrike

04 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"Open Tuning" OT2018, arts, labour, music, performances, politics, strike

So I thought I’d mention a couple of gigs that I’ve got coming up that I’m very excited about! First of all, I’ll be performing once again at the Open Tuning Festival this Saturday (June 9). For those in the Toronto area, I’ll be on at 5 PM in the garage behind KOP’s Records at Bathurst and Bloor (see the schedule on the Open Tuning website for details). I’ll be the fourth or so act on the program at that venue this time!

Then, next Saturday on June 16, I’ll be singing again at a fund-raiser for my union local, CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) Local 3903. It’s the local that represents the teaching assistants, contract faculty, and graduate assistants at my university, and the fund-raiser is to support the strike we’ve been on for 14 weeks now! We’ve been struggling for a fair and decent contract, and to push back against precarious working conditions, especially for the contract faculty. You can read all about it at here! Anyway, as you can imagine, the length of the strike has seriously depleted our funds. So we’re doing lots of things to raise money to continue the struggle, including this event! For those in town, it’ll be at the Glad Day Bookshop at Church and Wellesley on the evening of the 16th. And I’ll be contributing some of my songs to the effort, which I’m very excited about! For those of you not in town, there’s a GoFundMe campaign that folks can contribute to. And we’d be hugely grateful for whatever support you can give!

Anyway, apologies for not getting these posted sooner. In fact, though, because of the way this year’s been going for everyone involved in organizing these events, they’ve only just come together! So I really hope in-town folks can make it to one or the other!

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Very successful Open Tuning Fest! #OTFest2017 #MusicTheatrePunk

12 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"Dark Resistance", "fellow artists", "Open Tuning", covers, music, OTFest2017, performances, performing, Sister Comrade

So the show on Saturday went awesomely! It’s always tough doing an out-door gig on a really hot day. But it went really well in spite of that! And thankfully it wasn’t nearly as hot as it could have been. Not like today! Yikes!

So the water held out through my whole set thank goodness, and the tech behaved. And the songs I did seemed to go over really well too! I did a bunch from Dark Resistance, as well as some covers of a couple of my favourite songs. And the people working the PA/sound-board were really great! Thank them hugely! They did a fabulous job balancing me and my accompaniment tracks and generally making me sound smashing! 🙂 And huge thanks also to Ysabeault aka Sister Comrade (also aka Mom) who advised me on my costume. She did a great job making me look awesome as well as sound great! And I really rely on that because, although I’ve learned pretty well how to put together a sharp outfit that fits the style I’m trying to cultivate, it can still be all too easy for the idea I have in my head to not actually work in reality. And, as a Blind performer trying to work in a culture where image counts for so much, that help avoiding fashion gaffs is an incredibly critical piece of accessibility support!

🙂 Btw, one of the covers I did was of one of Ysabeault/Sister Comrade’s songs, the title track from her forthcoming EP World On Fire! Her own stuff’s much more country/folk, so I did up an accompaniment track to do it in my style. And it worked awesomely! And Sister Comrade came up on stage and sang it with me, which rocked! I’ll be singing on World On Fire when it comes out, too, so I thought it’d be great to bring that into my set!

Anyhow, we got some video, too, which I’ll get posted ASAP. So stay tuned for that! LOL It might be a couple of weeks at least, though, because I’ll need to renew my Vimeo Plus subscription to be able to host larger files again. And that’ll have to wait till pay-day! Also, the image-quality may not be great because it was an out-door venue. And, because of where the stage was set up, I was apparently kind of back-lit, which I know isn’t the greatest on camera! So I’ll have to go through the footage (with the help of some one with sight) and see if any of it’s workable. 🙂 But hopefully I’ll have some stuff to put up soon. And huge thanks again to Ysabeault/Sister Comrade for personing the camera while I was on stage, and to the person from the crew who ran it during our duet! Much appreciated!

My only regret about the day is that I wasn’t able to see/hear as much of the rest of the festival as I’d have liked. LOL, by the time I got off stage, Ysabeault and I were both really exhausted and starving! As I said, doing an out-door gig in summer heat can be tough. Plus, I’d been up late getting last-minute stuff done. LOL So we folded early! I did get to hear and support some of my fellow performers, though, which I was really glad about!

Anyway, that’s it for another year. 🙂 Though I’m looking forward to next year’s festival already! And huge thanks to Open Tuning and to Kop’s Records (the venue where I sang) for having me. I’m looking hugely forward to doing it again in 2018!

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OK! Venue and Time confirmed for PhantomFemme at Open Tuning!

27 Saturday May 2017

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"Dark Resistance", "Open Tuning", music, OTFest2017, performances, performing

Wow! So it’s just two weeks till the festival! Two weeks from today, I’ll be preparing to go on and perform for all of you, and you’ll, hopefully, be preparing to come down to Seaton Village and hear great music! Seaton Village is the part of down-town Toronto that’s in the square bounded by, going clockwise, Dupont, Bathurst, Bloor and Christie. I’ll be one of around 130 incredibly diverse acts, ranging from acoustic singer/song-writer type things to full punk bands to hiphop artists, and from youth and amateur musicians to seasoned performers. It’s going to rock!

So where I’ll be in all this awesomeness is on the stage set up in the garage behind Kop’s Records. You can check out the Facebook event page to see where that is, and also to see who else is playing there. I’m the second act up, so I’ll be on at 3 PM. I’m really excited about it! It’s going to be a great afternoon! LOL Though, the next two weeks are going to be bonkers busy getting ready for it. 🙂 But I’ll be doing some great songs, both from Dark Resistance and, hopefully, beyond, and I’ll be sharing the stage with an awesome line-up of other bands! So check it out!

We’re also using this really cool app called Sched to share the festival schedule. So you can go onto the app, bookmark your favourite acts and when we’re on, and make yourself up a customized schedule that you can download to your phone, iPad, etc. And it has bios and info for all the acts as well! (Or it will as soon as we get everything filled in.) So you can find out all about us and decide who you want to hear!

Anyway, it’s going to be an awesome day. So be there!

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Me at #OpenTuningFest again! #OpenTuningFest2017

23 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"Dark Resistance", music, OpenTuningFest2017, performances, performing

Uh, I really hope I’m doing this right (LOL this time)? 😦 This is my third try getting there to actually be text in this post instead of just the title! I’m trying out the WordPress app for my iPad, which I downloaded in the hope of making posting from said iPad easier. 😦 But, so far, not so much! So we’ll have to see if I get the hang of it eventually. Here’s hoping!

Anyway, LOL as I begin every post it seems, terribly sorry for being so long to update! Yikes! I checked my stats a while ago, and it’s been four months! Ye-Gads! But, A, school and “extra-curricular” political activities have kept me quite busy, and B, technical difficulties. 😦 Alas, the computer I was using has had to go into retirement, as it was starting to crash badly and often. So I’ve been getting set back up on a new system! The good news, though, is that said new system is much more powerful and has tons more storage-space. 🙂 So now I can finally get back into serious recording without fear of a massive crash, which is an enormous relief! LOL So I might actually, finally, be able to get Dark Resistance done now! Yeah, I know, not a moment too soon.

Anyway, as some of you know, I’ve performed for the past couple of years at the Open Tuning Festival in Toronto. And I’m really excited to announce that I’ll be doing it again this year! I don’t have my exact venue confirmed yet, so stay tuned for that here and on my social media (see my “Intro” post for links and handles). But it’s going to be a totally awesome day I can guarantee! 🙂 It always is!

Better yet, I’ve been volunteering on the planning team for this year’s Festival to work on accessibility. So this year, the day should be far more accessible than it has been! And, of course, we’ll keep working on it in years to come and keep improving. But I’m really grateful to everyone else on the team for really taking accessibility seriously, not letting themselves be (too LOL) daunted by the admittedly significant challenges of making a low-budget, DIY music festival (it’s all volunteer – no government funding or corporate sponsors) as accessible as possible, and for really taking to heart and trying to implement the recommendations I’ve offered. 🙂 You guys rock! And the Festival will be much awesomer and more fun for it!

Anyway, I’ll most definitely post again once I’ve got my venue confirmed. So do stay tuned for that! 🙂 And, of course, do come out to hear me and all my fellow acts on June 10th, as it’s going to rock!

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It’s a new year! LOL So where the heck’s the EP?

19 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"music-Theatre punk", 2017, creativity, EP/album, music, school

So, yeah, meant to actually kick off the new year with an update. LOL But got running behind! Because it may be a new year, but some things definitely remain consistent. Plus, lots of school stuff! Some loose ends to tie up from last term, and then, of course, my first comp to finish (LOL arcane Ph.D.-speak, in case I haven’t explained this before, for Comprehensive Exam, aka a great big project where I read a ton of stuff and then write something to prove I understood it)! 🙂 But the awesome part is that, the way I’ve worked my comp, I get to talk about Phantom!!! 😦 The sad part, though, is that it’s getting close to being done. And, in my next comp, I probably won’t get to talk about POTO again. At least, I haven’t figured a way to work it in yet! Unless…? Hmmm.

Anyway, I thought I’d update in case some one out there’s wondering where the hell the re-release of my EP is. LOL I know I have been! And, sadly, I can’t say, except that I definitely plan to have it out some time within 2017. For one thing, of course, it has to share life and time with my school work. And that can be a tricky balance! But also, it’s kind of gone through a complete, and somewhat unexpected overhaul!

When I first started putting my music out there, I was really into symphonic metal. And that’s definitely still a huge influence, as you can see if you visit my “links” page! I love the way it blends that hard-rock edge with a classical, music-theatre, or even operatic sound. That’s so awesome! And I love the way it, in doing so, kind of takes classical, music-theatre, and even opera out of the realm of the preppy. Which, love all those other genres though I do, they can all too often be! But I’ve been finding lately that, although it’ll likely remain a huge influence for all those reasons, I don’t want my own stuff to be straight-up metal, even symphonic metal. For one thing, metal’s a very virtuostic genre instrumentally! LOL And, what can I say? I’m just not that good a player on any instrument. But also, I’m finding that I really want to leave room in my music to incorporate a softer sound as well – to really bring some of the sound of the 80s and 90s pop-rock and music-theatre that I grew up on into my own stuff. LOL Yes, shameless nostalgia! So sue me? But there’s a joie-de-vivre about those genres (or there can be anyway) that I really want to incorporate. And I especially want to bring that stuff into the EP/album I’ve been working on because it’s somewhat autobiographical – or maybe mythobiographical to borrow Audre Lorde’s term, and those were really the sounds that I grew up on and that shaped me. 🙂 But don’t worry, I won’t neglect the pop/rock and music-theatre that’s emerged since then! In fact, I’m dying to finally hear Hamilton. Can you believe I haven’t yet? Yikes! And I’d welcome any other recommendations of what’s good out there, too. LOL Half the reason my musical tastes are so far behind the times is because I’m totally lazy about getting out there and finding new stuff! That all will have to influence later work, though. LOL I’ve got to get this album finished first!

So, as you can perhaps tell from the new tag-line on this site, I’ve decided to call my sound and (hopefully) performance style music-theatre punk. And hopefully that encapsulates all the things I love about that genre! – the sound, the acting and story-telling aspects, the influences from both Broadway and the West End, and the importance of costuming and stage-craft. But hopefully it Crips both rock and music-theatre a bit, too, by allowing me to work with my limitations – of musicianship, but also of movement on stage because of my Disabilities – instead of having to disappear them as I would if I were to try to do any of those genres (though especially music-theatre) “straight”. In fact, I’ve kind of re-conceptualized the EP as a one-being musical! And it might even go in for a name-change, thus my having not mentioned the title so far. We’ll have to see! Although, Oo! I think I just had a good idea in that regard! 🙂 Not telling yet, though. You’ll just have to wait and see!

So yeah, that’s where that’s at. As I said, I plan on getting the EP, which, having been re-conceptualized thus, is more likely to end up full album sized, out within 2017. But, within that, I have no idea! LOL I’m not even going to hazard a guess, because, every time I’ve given a release-date before, I’ve run behind and missed it! And I know it’s going to take a shit-load of work to really do it right. And I have no idea how long that’ll take, especially as it has to share life with school! And it really does. Because, my academic work, especially the Critical Disability stuff, is a huge part of what fuels my creativity as weird as that may sound.

🙂 So that’s the plan. And now, off to get working on it! So keep watching this space for further updates!

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