* Honey B Music

Want to hear me? You can listen to a sassy-track of my own music by clicking on soundcloud right now. Enjoy!

The song you just listened to comes from time booked in an analogue studio. No tricks or samples or loops -- just me playing my music. I played all the instruments -- bass, guitar, keyboards, party horns, and drums -- and sang all the vocals. It was such a deep thrill for me to do it all. Anyway, a shout out to Glen Reely who engineered it and thanks again to Vince Jones for his remix!

The lyrics? Here's what's happening when you see them in print. I am repeating the same sentence, but dropping the last word each time the phrase comes around. Kind of like musical chairs - but with words disappearing instead of places to sit. Every word I remove creates new meaning. Plus, the total shape of the poem ends up being a visual vessel. I love unexpected patterns - it reminds me that they are everywhere - which is reassuring in this chaotic world.

I want to love you like a woman loves a man
I want to love you like a woman loves
I want to love you like a woman
I want to love you like
I want to love you
I want to love
I want to
I want
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I want to love you like a woman loves a man

My love affair with soul music began early in life and by the age of eleven I was laying down solid grooves on my drum kit, writing my own songs on piano and guitar, and recording original music on my oh-so-cool 2-track 'real'-to-reel. I was crazy about making music!

Even though my dad was not really a musician, he enjoyed playing guitar and singing and had the wisdom and insight to bring all kinds of instruments into our home once we started showing interest. Thanks dad.

I was also deeply influenced by my numerous trips to New York City to visit my mom, who moved there when I was really young. Unlike Vancouverites, New Yorkers sung at full volume while walking down the street; they set their drum kits up on the sidewalk; they played their horns out their apartment windows; they got down in the subways. And the visual arts were equally inspiring -- everywhere I went I saw it; stencils on the sidewalk, graff-art on buildings; poems in doorways, hand drawn images on people's clothes. I mean, street-level creativity was simply a part of everyday life there.It inspired me deeply.

I gained my first public musical recognition when I jumped into the local independent music scene as a teenager playing drums with a host of wild characters. During that time I created music with everyone from strippers to avant-garde artists--it was an absolutely zany time.


 

Later, in my early twenties, I helped form a clever, quirky, all-female-band called Bolero Lava. That's me on the far left with the long dark hair, next to Phaedra Struss, Lorraine Tetrault, Vanessa Richards and Laurel Thackeray on the far right. We played original music, which the media could never accurately describe. No, we were not like 'The Bangles" or "Bananarama" (at all) other than being all female. And no, we were not a punk band although we were aligned with a great, local scene and we looked pretty theatrical. We were just a group of inspired young women making our own kind of worldly-soulful music at that time. Anyway, our two disks, Much Music video, cross-country tours and memorable live shows with the likes of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, and Taj Mahal put us at the forefront of the local scene and established us as national talent. I also continued to travel to New York during that time where I co-created with friends who were doing interesting projects.

There are a few clips of Bolero Lava on youtube, but unfortunately they are from the latter-years of the band's incarnation and do not show the original line-up.Anyway I will try to upload our official MuchMusic video at some point. It's pretty great.

After leaving Bolero Lava, I took a long break from making music with others and found myself back where I had been happiest all along - at home - blissfully recording my own songs. I absolutely love writing, playing a range of instruments, and developing layers and layers of vocal harmonies. I now have about 50 songs recorded on an old-school 4-track which Jim Byrnes gave me along with a fender strat, an amp, a mic, a mic stand...What an incredibly gifted musician and supportive friend.

I have also had the incredible honor, privilege and pleasure of playing a few live shows with the extremely talented and generous Chin Injeti. Particularly fun were his Thursday-Nite-Dynamite sessions. These were stellar showcase nights which happened in Vancouver once a month. Amazing talent was always in the house, ranging from Ridley Bent doing his hic-hop-crime-rhymes to Jagua Arneja singing kirtan-inspired soul and behind the scenes talent like Roger Swan dropping by post engineering from Hipposonic Studios... such very beautiful times! One of my favorite shows was when my sister Tania Brief came in from New York and sang with me, my pal Darrell Stables played drums, the lovely Joyita Rubins played bass, and Chin Injeti sung and played guitar.

After that phase, I continued to keep my passion alive and my chops up by recording at home, singing and playing on my own, and making music on occasion with my Haitian beau who would sing in French while I sang in English - it was hi-fi bi-lingual... We met in a choir project we were both involved in. Who knew that so many fun and sassy people sung in choirs? That's why I made "choral fixation" buttons for the crew! 

One of the choirs was called 'Les Seantistes' fronted by my long time pal, Mark Oliver. There were 6 female singers, 5 male singers, a sitar player, a bassist, 2 guitarists, a B3 player, and a trumpet player. The song I loved doing most was 'Jesus Dropped the Charges' by the fabulous O'Neal Twins. On occasion we would also invite Alex Alegria's huge Mariachi band on stage with us. We played lots of great shows including stints at The Media Club, The Arts Club, and the closing gala for the Vancouver International Film Festival. 

Another choir I was involved with was run by Eric Dozier and One Human Family Gospel Choir.

This was a true community choir, diverse in age and interests. It was good clean fun for the whole dysfunctional family (such a brat, I know).

Eric is a very gifted player and a great teacher and I highly recommend doing one of his intensive weekend-workshops next time he has one. Although he is back living in the southern states again, he travels around the world doing workshops. Check him out.

I love music very much. It feels like the part of me that has been around since the beginning of time, in my core, in my dna, and to not create and express it negates my whole existence. But it's not always easy to find the time and space to do it in this ever expanding and expensive city... So when I'm not making it, I listen endlessly to my cultural heroes - the original artists of all the soul genres, especially funk and jazz. Here's my kind of steamin-streamin audio treat out of Montreal called 'WE FUNK RADIO' . They play a lot of rare funk 45's. Below is one of my favorite shows from that site. Check out this link:
Play WEFUNK Show 394

Here's what you'll hear:

herbie hancock - fat mama
talk (over the loopdigga - ashby road, soul sonata, & mind touch)
marc moulin - aria
gil scott-heron - angola louisiana
harvey mason - marching in the streets
pieces of a dream - mr. airy dream
fatback - you gotta believe
saundra phillips - miss fatback
buster williams - the hump
jeremy steig - mint tea
david frost & billy taylor - bright star in the east
phillip lambro - main theme from murph the surf
david diggs - chew baby chew!
don ellis - superstar
billy martin - egg roll
j.c. - you can't tell the man by the song
red beans & rice - let my people go
rhythm combination & brass - mr. clean
cedar walton - beyond mobius
rolf kuhn group - uncle archibald
joe mcphee - shakey joe
dj spooky - ibid, desmarches, ibid
chicago underground duo - micro exit
hampton hughes - web
stone alliance - sweetie pie
jimmy jones - live and let live
junior mance - don't cha hear me calling to ya
talk (over richard "groove" holmes - down home funk)

That should keep you inspired for a few hours... enjoy!

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Recent Publications: Connie Kuhns did a fabulous interview-based essay on female musicians in Vancouver's early Independent Music Scene. Thanks for including me, Connie! xox

GEIST MAGAZINE

Below is the full interview I did with Connie Kuhns regarding my participation in the music scene as a female drummer throughout the 1980's. The full article can be found in the Spring Issue of Geist Magazine: Strange Women - Punk, politics and feminism - A shout-out to Vancouver Female Musicians.

Connie's Questions:

Connie: What would you like to say about that time? (What do you think needs to be said about that time?)

Barbara: The late 70’s and early 80’s were a wild, raw, and exciting time, with all kinds of creative people coming together to share themselves through original music, new politics, visual art, live performance, self-publishing, contemporary dance, warehouse-living, satellite galleries, extreme fashion, and flexible sexuality. It was especially interesting and edgy at the beginning when the scene was still very underground. What tends to be overlooked is the sheer bravery, variety, and raw-beauty of what was going on in Vancouver then - it was every outsider's dream.

All of this alerted me as a teenager to a bigger cultural shift happening everywhere, with protests and angry public demonstrations demanding nuclear free zones, the end to prisons, women’s rights, racial-equality, and individual freedoms of all kinds. Collective consciousness and creative-expression were all being forced to the next level.

I was also spending a great deal of time in New York City during the 70’s and 80’s and beyond (my mom & 2^nd family lives there) so growing up, I was exposed to New York’s creative-explosion at that time. From my teen years on, I was venturing out on my own to clubs like CBGB’s on the lower east side, hanging at chic female-only clubs like ‘Shescape’ uptown, soaking up the amazing graffiti & local art scene, and being introduced to hip-hop, beat juggling, scratching, and rapping for the first time. It was a very gritty, soulful, wonderful, scary, and deeply exciting time!

In those early days, in addition to playing in bands, I was also a full time art-student at Emily Carr and I had my own DIY jewelry business for many years called Barbara B (upcycling everything airplane parts to vintage-images into one of a kind wearable-art). I mention these other creative-facets of my life, because it was very representative of the time: everything was a mash-up of mediums and genres.

I need to re-iterate that this entire era was not a passive-consumerist era, we were actively creating our reality. No one was outright selling it to us. Everything was DIY. Everyone was in a band (or 2 or 3 or 4!) or making art, or designing their own clothes, or creating performance, or just being full-on-wonderful. The time was all about brave manifestation. You had to be fully committed to the moment in every way. You had to show your stuff, walk your walk, talk your talk. And you had to do it LIVE.

Although this time period was also a very violent, rebellious, and aggressive one, it was not the only cultural-emotion available. I, like many others, embraced the initial primal scream, and then steered myself toward a more positive and creative way of expressing my aspirations and discontent.

Connie: What were your own personal reasons for playing music?  (Was it an expression of your politics, feminism, anarchy, the freedom of the “punk esthetic”, or just plain desire?)  What was your relationship with the punk/alternative music community at the time?

Barbara: I have always LOVED playing music! Although completely untrained, by the age of eleven I was laying down solid grooves on my drum kit, writing my own songs on piano and guitar, and recording complete songs on my cool-70’s reel-to-reel. When I jumped into the punk/alt scene in Vancouver around age 17, creating new bands was a great way to connect with others and publicly manifest my own story and creativity. There were very few female drummers at the time (and still even now) so I was sought after and played with a wild-n-wonderful cross section of other creative people, ranging from hardcore-speed-punks and exotic-eastside strippers, to scholarly-experimentalists and downtown-art-boys.

The venues in the early days were just as diverse as well, ranging from actual clubs like The Cave and Gary Taylor’s Rock Room on Hornby to warehouse spaces and community halls. Basically most of the downtown east side (Hastings from Seymour St to Main St and a lot of Gastown and what’s now called Railtown) was secretly alive with warehouse parties, rehearsal studios and great hidden living spaces.

Being an underage musician in those days meant I had to remain backstage after performing in bars, which was great, because I got to meet many other musicians this way. I can remember playing one night at the famous Smiling Buddha with my band 50% Off at the time, and meeting East Van Halen, a hilarious band of all underage kids who played punk-rock versions of classic nursery rhymes. I also remember playing underage in another band called The Braids & Arthur aka The Sweet Shadows – a self-assembled group of exotic female dancers I met downtown who worked the big strip clubs like No.5 Orange & The Marr during the day and then played as musicians at night in various warehouse parties and off-the-grid events. This was way before the current burlesque revival, and another example of women in the scene who were bold and unapologetic toward mainstream life.

A few years later as the scene opened up, in 1983 I helped form Bolero Lava, which endured into the late 80’s. We created and played original music, which the media could never accurately describe. No, we were not at all like 'The Bangles" other than being ‘all female’. And no, we were not a punk band, although we co-existed alongside the hardcore scene and held our own ground without blinking. Our two records, Much Music video, cross-country tours and memorable live shows with the likes of The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Taj Mahal put us at the forefront of the larger local scene and established us as national talent.

There are a few small clips of Bolero Lava on youtube, but unfortunately they are from the last few years of the band's incarnation and do not show the original line-up (Laurel Thackeray/bass and I both left the band in the late 80’s). I am currently searching for original videos as well as our official MuchMusic video which definitely needs to be put online!

Connie: What were your issues?

Barbara: Being an all female band like Bolero Lava was a blessing and a curse. We were overly adored in some ways, and then fully disrespected in other ways. Either way, being female always seemed to be our primary tag and identity. I remember one gig in Victoria at The New Era Social Club,  we dressed in reverse-drag as an “all male band” to show the irony of our situation. I mean, what male band of ANY genre is EVER referred to as an “all male band”? It shows intrinsically what we were dealing with everyday as women publicly expressing our musicality. I also remember constantly having to prove ourselves as musicians in ways that men would never have to - especially in a scene that was supposed to be non-conformist. I always loved sitting down for drum check and knocking the socks off of an unsuspecting soundman who was expecting me to not be able to play. Sexism was definitely all around us, but we blasted on ward, enjoying each other and the thrill of doing something as a team of stunning underdogs.

Although we hit major highs such as headlining at The Commodore, gaining more and more fans, winning the Hot Air Show, being rewarded grand studio time, and getting airplay on stations across the country, we weren’t able to break into the international scene. None of the major record labels knew what to do with us. We formed Lava Rock Records as a way to release our own material, as no one else was biting. We just didn’t fit into a single category: we were musically eclectic, visually theatrical, black, white, gay, bi, straight, self-made, sexy and dynamic in all ways, with a killer live show - a kind of World-Beat, Red-Hot, Female-Fishbone floating alone in the new sea of music. We were way ahead of the curve – if we were around today (or even 10-20 years ago, we would have found a much bigger world-wide audience from which we might have developed ourselves individually and collectively.

The other issue: we were 5 very diverse women, with very different musical tastes, so collectively writing and playing music together was fantastic but also quite difficult at times. As time went on, I began writing more of my own songs, playing all the instruments, and singing and recording on my own (as I had as a kid) and enjoying this private process more than the collective experience. Like many bands, we ultimately dissolved because of individual differences and varying visions of what to do as the decade was coming to an end. In the end, I personally felt like we had taken things as far as we could go in Vancouver for that era, and our time was up. It was sad to depart, but life has many phases, and I knew I had to keep pushing on.

Connie: Who were your musical influences?

Barbara: Although I loved the punk scene for it’s sheer-bold-insanity, and I loved the art-bands for their weird-abstractness, these jagged-genres never really moved me emotionally or spiritually. I was always a huge fan of deep grooves and great singing, so 70’s funk and soul music was always my true pleasure (JB, Sly, Curtis, Marvin, Chaka, etc). Being exposed at such an early age to New York City and all of that street-level-funkiness also really impacted me - especially  as a drummer. That ‘give-the-drummer-some’ attitude made complete sense to me. I just wanted to sit tight and drive the engine of the band as much as possible. And while the drummer often goes unnoticed, I found something deeply satisfying and powerful about sitting down, sticks in hand, hat-on-head, channeling the deep groove and wrangling the dark-duende of the rhythm section. The songs I was personally penning on my own and for Bolero Lava were always groove-oriented and R&B influenced.

As far as who inspired us collectively as ‘a band’, it’s hard to say, as we were all inspired by very different sounds. Mostly we just appreciated other bands, both male and female, who put on original, energetic and intelligent shows. Note: Connie - I hope the other members you have contacted can contribute more personally here, as we did not have a collective agreement really on bands that inspired us equally.

Connie: Is there a Bolero Lava gig(s) or story that needs to be told?

Barbara: My favorite shows were the ones where we had the time and materials to really play up our thematic content and individual styles in multiple ways. For me, this would be the times I would play with all of my favorite low-tech toys and fad-gadgets around my drum kit (kid’s xylophone, bongos, roto toms, camel-bells, etc). I also generally loved any show where we all went overboard in the costume department and shows which were multi-media (for example using huge projected visuals behind us of famous-historic-women) and shows where we generally hammed it up to an all time new level. Any night where we played super-tight, in the pocket, synced up, harmonic, and  totally grooving off one another were some of the best musical nights of my life. Some of my favorite gigs we played were at The Commodore, The Town Pump, Graceland, etc with emerging bad-boy-bands like Fishbone and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as playing with classic talent like Taj Mahal. It was amazing to be aligned with these artists in their own early days. I also loved some of our very earliest collaborative efforts, like 1983’s “Apocalypso” a multi-disciplinary music-art-dance event we put together with Negavision and The Pacific Ballet at our huge practice space at Gangland Studios (where Olympic Village now is).

Connie: What are you doing now?

Barbara: For the past 20 years, I have been working as a creative therapist with an amazingly diverse range of people and circumstances; from refugees to plane crash survivors; from inner-city teens to corporate executives, from people aged three to ninety-three. No matter who comes, or how far they have wandered or been derailed from their path, my goal is always the same: To help people come back to life with a renewed sense of meaning, trust, passion, and purpose.

I have eight years of post-secondary education including a degree from Emily Carr University; a graduate diploma and thesis completed through the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute; plus an abundance of academic credits accrued in Psychology and the Sciences from Simon Fraser University and Vancouver Community College.

I also continue to enjoy music in many ways, some public, some private. Ranging from playing small gigs with friends to being part of big sassy choirs, to peacefully writing and recording my own songs at home for the pure bliss of just music-itself. I also continue to make art and design, as these modes of expression will always be intrinsic to me.