5 Questions (And more!) with Rags #57 - AppleCat

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I first saw AppleCat at Rifflandia in 2016, almost completely by accident – a beautiful, cosmically tremendous accident – and was taken in right away. Her mesmerizing, supple bass was more warming than anything else I'd ever heard that could be called “dubstep.” It made me groove and dance, but there was something else that I hadn't heard in my electronic music up until that point. It was soothing in a way that I hadn't experienced the genre before, oozing with new ideas and an energy that I hadn't felt in that setting. That night in the red-brick-embrace of Lucky Bar, I realized how few female/feminine Djs I had in my diet. I had got lazy and hadn't dug much. In such a male-dominated landscape, feminine voices often get drowned or pushed to the side. It takes sometimes takes energy to find this stuff on your own. So I started putting energy there. I started looking at festival rosters differently, started seeking out new voices in my bass adventures. AppleCat set that off inside of me. To top off my own journey with her music, she won over a whole new set of friends at this years Rifflandia. I was lucky enough to get some of her time in between her seemingly endless musical output, shows and her involvement with the incredible multi-platform media project Amplify Her, which you should 100% check out and support. (You'll notice a couple of extra questions on the docket today and that's because she answered my stuff so eloquently, it felt a shame to cut up her words.)

How did you get involved with Amplify Her? How has that process been? What's been the most surprising part of the experience for you?
I was the initial inspiration to the Documentary Amplify Her. I met the film's co-director Ian Mackenzie at Burning Man in 2012. He experienced me perform live for the first time and was apparently struck. What he experienced was a weaving, a tapestry of sound set to bring the audience on a journey from start to finish. He mentioned to me something about a film he wanted to make and the Dark Feminine's Unique offering to the world of music; and honestly I kind of shrugged it off. Clearly he was serious. Five years later the film, the graphic novel and the animation are being released and I am kind of awash in bewilderment - So where will this take me and the other Women involved in the film? I have absolutely no idea. With such vulnerable parts of my personal life exposed, I cannot help but feel bashful - yet more empowered than I have ever been. What would it mean to be transparent with our stories? and thus have our greatest wounds be transmuted to our greatest gifts. As David Bowie said, "I don't know where I'm going from here, but i promise it won't be boring"

How long have been creating music? What has creating music taught you about yourself?
I have been writing songs and performing music since I was 17 and sneaking into bars to perform. Music is something that has always been with me, kept me grounded and never abandoned me even in times where it felt like everything else did. That said pre AppleCat it was a pretty solo venture, and for the most part I sang with my eyes closed, too scared to let anyone in. I have been performing as an electronic artist since early 2011. Stepping into my AppleCat project has allowed me the space to tell the deep primal sensual stories that live inside of all of us. It has taught me about the intimacy of tending to a crowd, the connection to the fans and loved ones that arises as I guide their experience (and they mine). It is absolutely integral to the person I have become. I would not be so attentive, inspired, creative, empathic and unabashedly myself should I have not taken this route.

1. Do you remember the first album you bought with your own money? Yes and I am inclined to lie, but wont. I remember it could be one of three CDs: the Sailor Moon soundtrack, Aqua - Aquarium, or The Crow soundtrack. That said, I am pretty sure it was the Sailor Moon Soundtrack, and yes I can still recall a fair amount of the song lyrics. (♪ fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight ♪......)

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The Shambhala Journals - #3 in which my love of Hip-Hop is, quite surprisingly, tempered by an electro-soul DJ.

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I don't prepare properly for much in my life. Things move around me in an unpredictable blur and usually I'm more than content to move in whichever direction the wind decides to go. However, the exception to this rule is with live music. I like to be prepared when entering a new live setting. Whether it's researching an opener I've never heard of or scanning through festival guides and cherry picking some names that haven't before crossed my radar. (Though I suppose in this case it's sonar.) With this in mind, I asked my good buddy and Guide to the Cosmos, Hingle McCringleberry, to give me some new music to investigate. Much of what he gave me just sort of bounced off of my ears but there was one album that caught my attention, Mad Liberation  by Detroit's newly reigning funk-soul brother, GRiZ. The album blasted my ear-pussy with its unrelenting soul and grooviness. All I want in this new music I'm learning about is FUNKY BASS and this motherfucker delivered it to me in spades. Don't believe me? Fuck you. Listen for yourself.    

Full Mad Liberation Album Download Available at: http://www.mynameisgriz.com Mad Liberation is a collection of songs that I have been working on for the past year that ranged from mostly original compositions to varied sample work (retro vinyl recordings and new all original recordings); digital synthesis that took me weeks to master; to live instrumentation tediously and soulfully recorded by myself and some of my very good friends.

The main problem came when I was looking at the schedule for Shambhala's final night. GRiZ was to play at the EXACT same time as pretty legendary indie rappers People Under the Stairs. This wasn't going to do. I am a Hip-Hop guy to my core and one of the big reasons I agreed to come on the journey to Shams was that there's always a fairly big Hip-Hop headliner. I would have to sacrifice the only DJ I knew anything about because, well, fuck, I couldn't be missing People Under the Stairs.

So, after Hingle and another member of the crew met me at Five Alarm Funk (A story for another day!) a compromise was made - I would go with them to watch the first half of GRiZ's set and they would come with me to watch the final half of People Under the Stairs' set. Seemed fair. Well friends, let me tell you...we never did make it to People Under the Stairs. GRiZ delivered even more than Mad Liberation  promised. I was captivated watching him bounce around behind his equipment and by the time he jumped out from behind the gear with his saxophone in hand, I was in love. The fun(k) was infectious. GRiZ, unlike some of the people I saw spinning and sampling through the weekend. was a wholly engaging personality, incapable of letting the grooves go by passively.

I can't speak for what People Under the Stairs did that Sunday night at Shambhala, I wasn't there. But from what the rest of our crew told us, we had made the right choice by staying to watch GRiZ's set in its entirety. (It's still tied in my head with Wick-It the Instigator, but that might have as much to do with Wick-It being a gangsta-ass motherfucker as with the music.) It was the unexpected musical detour of the weekend and I don't regret it one bit.

And that, dear readers, is the story of how electro-funk defeated my love of Hip-Hop, even if only for one night. Only at Shambhala. 

I only know a bit about Dub FX, then Dub FX tells me a lot about Dub FX.

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I didn't know much about Dub FX other than some friends telling me to check him out. When he announced as a headliner for this year's Victoria Ska Fest (One of the major highlights on the Victoria music calendar)  I took the opportunity to check him out. After hearing "Made" I was hooked. I jumped in the rabbit hole and quickly decided I needed to track him down as part of my Ska Fest run-up for a little chat before his return to Victoria. Intelligent and warm, we had a great chat about his musical roots, the terrible music we both listened to in the past, Snoop Lion and the joys of playing music with the woman he loves. It's a bit of a long one this time, folks, but it's a good one. Much respect to Dub FX.

 

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