A page in history

Submitted by vostoklake on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 03:35

It is mildly disconcerting to go to a museum and to see a large picture of oneself on the wall.

To give context: I was invited to The Charlotte Museum in Mt Albert for the dual launch of a book and film about New Zealand lesbian music, particularly that from the 1980s. The film, Our Own Music was extremely interesting, although a bit depressing at parts, in that there seems to have been such a fun and interesting “wimmin’s music” scene in Auckland about 10 years before I would have been old enough to play a part in it. Never mind. Perhaps the Weightless Music / Electronic Salon scene might be able to cover some of the same ground.

The book, a small pamphlet / guidebook on lesbian recording artists, featured yours truly, although funnily enough nothing about Vostok Lake – the entry was based almost entirely on an interview I did with the late lamented UP magazine in 2003. A lot of stuff on Esperanto, interestingly enough. The cover of Undinal Songs was part of the cover art of the booklet. It was a pity they couldn’t talk more about VL, although a couple of photos from the VL era were used as illustration – and one of them (the very photo that’s on the front page of the website) was also on a wall display.

Vostok Lake can be seen to the upper right of this wall display. A legend in our own lunchtime.

It’s interesting, I don’t actually see what I do as “lesbian music”. Okay, I am a chick-who-digs-chicks, and it’s certainly queer music, but you certainly don’t have to be gay in any serious way (or female in any sense at all) to dig Vostok Lake. We’re interested in gender blur in its wider connotations, though, as mentioned below. But certainly it seems that I need to pay more attention to the dykey section of my fanbase.

Top marks for the work of the Charlotte Museum. A formal announcement on the debut of the Electric Salon should be out this week.