Newspaper Page Text
Southern Voice/November 22, 1990
17
COUNTERCULTURE
Atlanta Lesbians Making Music
Yvonne Monet and Linda Vaughn are true experts at making very different kinds of music
Yvonne Monet-
Optional Dancing
Disc jockeys have come a long way
since Dick Clark. It is no longer just a
white male world. Still it's not com
mon to see a woman in the glass con
trol booth—even in lesbian bars.
Fortunately, such is not the case at
Options, where an extraordinary
woman controls the swing arm.
Yvonne Monet has made a career in
a field seldom entered by a woman and
she is extremely good at her chosen
profession. Last summer she won DJ.
of the Year for Georgia from the Dixie
Dance Kings, competing against nine
men from out state. The Dance Kings
have over 150 members and less than
10 are women.
She began her training in a club in
Cincinnati where she worked as a
cocktail waitress, earning extra dollars
for college. She quickly noticed that
you can make more money spinning
discs than wiping tables and managed
to get some of the men to show her the
fine points of running a sound system.
Crowd control she learned on her own,
for it is the awareness of and respon
siveness to the audience's needs that
separates the good from the great in
music programming.
“I am responsible for the excitement
of the evening in the bar,” Yvonne said,
her blond hair picking up glints of pur
ple and magenta from the chasing disco
lights. “I know how to fill up a bar and
keep them dancing. If I want them to
cool down a bit, there are songs I can
play to do that, too.”
“The whole night is like sex. I begin
the foreplay slowly with funky songs,
gradually building to a climax, as high
and as fast as the crowd will go. Then I
let them down a little, and take them up
again...an evening of multiple
orgasms. It is exhilarating but tiring,”
she continues, “but when I have a real
ly good night, I feel good the whole
next day.”
Yvonne prefers not to play too many
show songs, feeling that: “it brings the
energy way down. I like to read the
crowd and play for them rather than to
them. How they are reacting changes
what I play.”
“Radio music lags behind that in the
clubs. I try to be more current. I don't
have to wait for a record to become
popular so I can play it. I help make it
that way.” Sifting through the many
albums she receives each day, she
selects the best to keep her audience
dancing. “The standards of today were
the unknowns of yesterday.”
“MTV is very important in shaping
today's musical tastes,” she continued.
“The crowd wants to dance like
Madonna, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul,
and M. C. Hammer. But male/female
has no place here. I don't play just
women singers. I play whatever works,
Disco is pass£. I play more high ener
gy music, or house music as it is now
called. I play a fair amount of hip hop,
too.”
Having worked in both straight and
gay clubs Yvonne confided that les
bians and gay men are “really better
dancers than those in the straight clubs.
Sometimes there I wondered if they
were even listening to my music.
Many times here, people will be danc
ing to all parts of the beat, but at least
it's the same song.”
The blaring volume is one of the
hazards of the profession. “Often after
I leave I will have music ringing in my
ears for hours. Many D.J.s experience
hearing loss. The smoke bothers me,
too, but the rest makes it worthwhile.”
“What about the videos,” I ask,
noticing they aren't necessarily
matched with the music. “They add
ambience,” is the reply and “they do
help fill the place up when it's empty.”
The music of Yvonne's life does not
stop as she leaves Options' darkened
dance floor. “My bedroom is wall to
wall records,” she says. It is fitting
decor for a woman whose work
revolves around those vinyl discs.
I'm glad Yvonne made the leap from
Cincinnati to our fair city. After an
evening of dancing to her tunes, I feel
good all the next day myself.
— Gale Refer
Yvonne can also be found on
Wednesday nights at the Color Box in
Virginia-Highlands and Thursday
through Sunday at Options. She is also
available to for parties and weddings;
call 881-6726for information.
Linda Vaughn-
Woman on
an Island
She raises her hands. Four rows of
women's faces look back at her, expec
tant, waiting. The lights are warm on her
back; she can feel the audience behind
her, hear them breathing, rustling. She
counts: one and two and three and—The
faces all open their mouths and start to
sing softly. Their voices are faint, grow
ing fainter, growing more and more
inaudible.
She gestures impatiently; more, loud
er! But the voices have faded; the faces
have become dimmer, smaller. They are
on an island drifting away, receding into
the middle of the ocean. She waves to
them, shouts. But she is on an island too;
a small floating island, and the two
islands are drifting further and further
apart.
It's Linda Vaughn's recurring night
mare; one she has before every concert
given by the Atlanta Feminist Women's
Chorus.
When AFWC's audience comes to
Southside High on Saturday, December
1, they will hear and see more than a
group of women singing choral music. In
addition to a piano, a band will be on
stage with guitars, drums, and synthesiz
er; there may be a fiddle, a saxophone, or
a flute. There will be professional-quality
sound. There may be dancing; there will
surely be costumed numbers and special
effects.
Linda will have supervised the whole
show, spending 20 hours or more a week
getting ready for this evening. She began
months ago.
In rehearsals and concerts, Linda is in
constant motion. She stomps, she claps,
she shouts out the words. With dark,
darting eyes, curly red-brown hair, wide
shoulders, she looks ready to break down
walls or charge into battles at a moment's
notice. Even sitting still, she gives the
impression of a coiled spring, a banked
fire.
Her life revolves around the chorus
she founded and built. "My focus is the
chorus. Other things are going on in our
lives, but chorus takes priority over
everything."
Linda speaks with pride about the
chorus' unique character: "Some wom
en's choruses sing only women’s music;
some sing nothing that doesn't make a
political statement. I have not come
across a chorus that has done as much
variety as this one."
The variety comes from Linda's own
musical experience. She is an accom
plished singer and pianist, equally at
home performing Gershwin, Brahms, or
Stevie Wonder. She has a music degree
and has sung in many choruses, includ
ing the Atlanta Symphony Chorus. She
has played in a marching band; in rock
and roll, New Wave, and country bands;
in nightclubs and piano bars.
"Those experiences help me see a
song in a different light; it comes in
handy when we get ready to put accom
paniment to a song and need a band
backup. I think the majority of our audi
ence prefers to hear more than just choral
music."
"We're always reaching new levels, a
more polished sound. It's exciting to see
women stretch their limits, to see how
they are at the beginning and then to see
their very first performance on stage.
Something magical happens.
"We are carrying the message. Our
choruses are promoting a positive image,
a positive feeling about ourselves.
"And when we perform-I've felt it
sometimes right before the first concert,
or between the first concert and the sec-
ond-everybody is really in tune, on the
same wave length. In Miami (when the
AFWC sang with the Miami Gay Men's
Chorus in 1989), when everybody was
so attentive, I felt we were taking the
exact same breath, aqd we were all right
there as one."
She raises her hands. Four rows of
women's faces on risers look back at her,
expectant, waiting. The lights are warm
on her back; she can feel the audience
behind her, hear them breathing, rustling.
She counts: one and two and three
and-The faces all open their mouths and
start to sing.
Their voices grow louder; they are
singing all together. The piano, the gui
tar and the drums are with them. She
brings them up all in a swelling phrase;
with a gesture she motions them down
again. They follow her, their eyes are on
her hands. She and they are all taking
the exact same breath; they are all right
there as one.
— Charlene Ball
The Atlanta Feminist Women's
Chorus will perform at 7 and 9pm on
Saturday, Dec. 1 at Southside High, 801
Glenwood Ave. Tickets are available at
Charis, Atlantis Connection and The
Boy Next Door.