Michfest 2013 Wrap-Up: I've Arrived (Monday & Tuesday)

I am back from Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and back from Michigan in general. It has been a heck of a two weeks and some of the best days of my life. Now that I'm back I’m feeling energized and ready to do this damn thing. I know that every time I come back from Fest I talk about how amazing it is, but this year was really beyond my expectations. I don’t know if it was all the controversy that preceded it that made it that much more special for those who chose to come, but it was just filled with light and love. I think all of the drama beforehand just made the women who chose to attend, that much closer.

I will admit I was sad not to see some usual faces there this year and I wish they had come and talked it out as women. I know everyone had different reasons for not showing, but I’ll speak for myself and say I missed you. I miss you.

I would encourage every woman who is reading this post to consider coming to Michfest next year. I can hear the resounding, “I don’t camp” from my city and suburban bougie friends (Love ya'll!), but listen to me when I tell you that you need to put that story down. Some of you have never been camping in your life and Michfest is no ordinary camping trip. Feel me. This is a life-changing affair. It’s more than a music festival. Much more. I can’t imagine not being there. I can’t imagine my summer without Michigan.

So here is my recap of the 38th Annual Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Here we go!

Monday August 5, 2013
Written on the Plane
11:15am

I was concerned about being late so I left really early. For the past two days I had been telling people that my flight was at 11am, but Sunday night I really looked at my ticket and saw that my flight was actually at 10am! After that I knew that there would be very little sleep had that night. I never really know what to pack for Fest and honestly I haven’t had to think to hard about it in a long time. I have been driving out for at least the last three or four years so usually I’m in a car that stuffed to the gills, but this year I had to be a bit more conservative because I was flying.

As I was packing, I was catching up with Y&R since I wouldn’t be able to see it for the next two weeks and I got through Season 2 of Game of Thrones. Yes I’m late, but I’m getting there.

I thought I was all packed when I realized that I hadn’t put one instrument in my bag. Luckily I’m only carrying percussion, but still. I was so tired, but I had to keep going. [As I write this I still don’t know if I have everything.] As many years as I have been going I feel like I’m the least prepared this year. I hope I have enough warm clothes, but you never know. You just don’t know sometimes till you get there. Last year I had to buy a hat because my bald head was so cold. This year I have two hats so watch it be super hot! Either way, I’m prepared.

Wait! Damn! No I’m not. As I’m writing this on the plane I realize that I forgot my flashlight! How could I do that? Damn, Damn, Damn! That’s like leaving your underwear at home. Wow… Well, I know the festival will have one more me, but it won’t be the same. Damn! Oh well... Let it go. Damn!

You maybe be wondering why I flew this year.  I decided to say in Michigan for an extra week and hang out with Shirley (who does the sweat lodges) at her place after Fest. I had such a great time staying with her last year after my surgery and I thought it would be a good way to have a little vacation. How about that for a novel idea? I know some of you might think that all these trips have lots of chill time, but not so much. It really is work and often times there is not a lot of sleep happening.

At Festival there is rehearsal and more rehearsal and people will sometimes pull you onto sets you had no idea you would be on. Also I work the sweat lodge so some mornings I’m up really early. So this girl is not doing a whole lot of partying on the land. It’s really work, but a great work! Sacred work. I am not complaining; I’m just giving you the facts. Also, when I’m away I’m always thinking about what’s next for blaKbüshe. Oh the restless mind.

Getting back on message, I got to the airport mad early because I was concerned about rush hour traffic. Turns out I was right to be concerned, but then as luck would have it I was sent a cab driver who really knew he way around the mess. The Koskiousko bridge is always jammed sometimes seemingly for no reason at all. But my cab driver taught me new something today. I kind of pride myself on knowing my way around the crazy traffic in this town, but that code of that bridge had not been cracked until now! I don’t know when I’ll be driving that way again, but that was pretty cool. As you can see I’m a bit of a directions geek. Yes that would be me.

Since I was at LGA in plenty of time I was not sweating getting through security. I checked one bag so I didn’t have any liquids to deal with, but still they stopped my carry-on. I wasn’t sure why, but then I remembered I had all my instruments in the bag. Still I didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary, but as it turns out it was to the security folks. The woman who checked my bag was shocked to see my tambourines. Even asked me if I was from the south because she hadn’t seen a tambourine since she moved to New York That’s kind of sad honestly. I also had my vibraslap in my bag and I know the shape of that could throw people off. She asked me if I wanted to open the bag in private so I’m thinking she’s thinking I have some sex toys in there. Well, no such luck. Just my vibraslap! Actually that does sound kind of sexy. LOL

I thought I was in the clear until they went back, scanned everything and then asked, “do you have rocks in your bag?” “Well yes I do!” I carry my crystals when I travel. So I took them out to show her. She showed another woman at the scanner and I was all good. It seems my tambourines, etc. were my weapons of mass destruction, but no need to really carry a weapon because my crystals are my protectors. Give thanks.

My protection

My weapons of mass destruction!

Fast forward, I’m on the plane and the plane is packed. The flight left late and I don’t know if I’m going to make my connection. It happens. Boy does it happen, but I really hope I make my connection. I guess there are worse places to be stuck than Minneapolis, but again I really want to make my connection.

I’m flying Delta, which I wouldn’t have chose it myself. Not really feeling them, but it was on the house so here I am. I’m still shocked sometimes at how cheap airlines are with the food. I really wonder where all the money is going. That’s kind of a rhetorical question, but I do wonder sometimes.

Before I leave the LGA side of the story, I have to mention these four young men I saw at the airport who got on my flight. They were all probably in their early 20s,  three were black and one Asian. They looked like they were some sort of dance crew;  just had that kind of swag about them. They all had on gear that would by some be considered street gear, but they were tight. Two had matching sneakers, they all had cool caps either on or hanging off the back of their backpacks and one of them had the flyest gold backpack that I have ever seen. If fact I have never seen a gold backpack till I saw that young man. It made me want to get one immediately.

This is the bag and it's fire!

I watched people watching them and I guess I was one of those people. But it made me smile when they started boarding our flight and they called for first class to board and all four of them headed up to check in. Yes! That’s what I’m talking about! Get your first class on! It just made me feel good to see them, being themselves in first class with all the rest of the business people, etc. It know it might seem small, but with all that is going on and all that we tend to think about our young men, I felt good to see them in first class. I don’t even know what they do. I have no idea at all, but sometimes told me from the moment I saw that buying snacks before boarding, that they were into something exceptional.

Next Stop: Minneapolis! (Let us pray...)

Later that day...
I arrived in Minneapolis just in time to make the next flight. Thankfully my departing gate was close. Almost as soon as I got there we started boarding. We all got on and it seemed like we were good to go. We moved away from the gate and then we sat…and sat…and sat on the tarmac. Damn! Seems there were some sort or mechanical issues so we moved back to the gate; actually a different gate to be exact, and waited.  I tell you, even though it’s a drag to be at the airport on the plane when that kind of stuff happens it sure beats being in the air!

Delta could have at least called Prince to entertain us while we waiting.

After being delayed for about an hour and a half we were ready to fly to Grand Rapids. It was smooth sailing from there. Thank Goddess!

When I arrived in Grand Rapids I found the festival folks who drive us to the land. I also quickly saw Kofy Brown and Shelley Doty! Bay Area in the house!  Yes there were two Shelley’s on the land. It made for some good times that I’ll talk about in a minute. I rode to the festival in a great van with just one other woman. This minivan was the bomb. It had outlets in it so I could charge my phone to boot. I know you might be wondering why I needed a charge since there is no service on the land. I use my phone as my alarm so I figured I should be as much juice as possible before I get there. Nothing makes me more excited than a dope minivan! Geekout #2.

As we rode I took a bit of a nap and soon we were there! It’s so hard to describe the feeling of when you reach the gates of the festival. Everyone says “Welcome Home” and it truly feels that way.

I was dropped off at Central Heating, which is where all the artists check in. The first face to greet me was Thokozani! She now lives back home in South Africa so it is always great see her. Then the faces started pouring in. All my folks! Penny, B.E., Mel, and the list goes on. I got my packet and because my flight was late I missed my first rehearsal with Hanifah. On the food front, thankfully Gals, the kitchen crew, had put food aside for the artists and performer support crew that came in late. So I got some food and then headed over to the Womyn of Color (WOC) tent to try and find Shirley.

Before I got there was walking down the road and I heard this woman say to her friend, “I’m so glad Shelley is here.” I couldn’t believe my ears so I turned around and said, “Me? Oh I’m so glad you are here too.” She looked at me surprised and said, “Is your name Shelley?” To which I told her it was and we all had a good laugh. Turns out she was talking about Shelley Doty and they were Jori and Melodie, two of the three members of Big Bad Gina who were playing the festival as well. I love when that kind of thing happens.

As I approached the WOC tent I could hear the drummers. There I found Shirley and a crew of women drumming outside the tent. Yeah! I’m home. I’m home.

Tuesday August 6th
This was my first full day at Festival. I had two rehearsals and we had our sweat lodge crew meeting to get clear about how things were going to move for the week.

My day started with the lodge meeting. We had a really great crew this year. Shirley, Brooke and Mimi came from the Dragonfly Lodge in Michigan at Shirley’s place; Robin, Maria, Ellie, Mia, Cynthia and I were from the Brooklyn Lodge, Haylin and Corellia came in from Washington State, Barbara Lee from Alaska, Sharon from Toledo and Marie from the Bronx. Oh how could I forget Firey and Iamie from Nova Scotia. The crew is international for sure! Robin, who is head firekeeper really pulled things together to make a schedule for the week. We also decided to add a Moon lodge led by Firey. I signed up for two lodges and I was going to pour water for one. So I was good to go. After that meeting I headed to get some lunch and to get ready for rehearsal with Hanifah.

Hanifah had not been back to the festival in two years so folks were ready for her. This year the players on the set were just Hanifah, Julie Wolf and I. Julie was holding down the keys of course and I was on percussion and vocals. We were working with tracks, but it was a really hot set of new music from Hanifah’s new band St. Lô.  It’s so nice to do something with a small group of people sometimes.  After that I made my way to Acoustic Stage to see C.C. Carter and crew before I had to hustle back for rehearsal with Chix Lix.

I think I have explained before what Chix Lix is, but just in case you are here at Michfest with me for the first time I will break it down. The last set of the festival on Saturday night is Chix Lix. Basically it’s a cover set, but every year Alyson Palmer of BETTY who leads the band, picks a theme. This year was 80s Prom! How about that; I was at the prom in the 80s! LOL! On the side note; when I was at the acoustic stage later in the week the MC asked the audience, “Who went to the prom in the 80s?” I raised my hand the and woman behind me said, “Stop it! Put your hand down. You could not have been at the prom in the 80s.” Bless her heart. LOL! I guess am looking pretty good. *wink* So back to Chix.

When the schedule went out that and I saw that the theme was 80s prom I immediately hit up Alyson and asked her if I could be on the set. She said I was the first one to reach out so the answer was yes! OK. So I started thinking about songs and for some reason it came down to Tina Turner or Pat Benatar. I don’t know why those two, but that was where I landed. When I got back to Alyson she said that Tina was taken so I went with Pat. I didn’t want to do something too obvious like “Love is a Battlefield” even though that is the joint and I knew that the people would be up for that no matter what. So I started to go through the Pat archives and of course found “We Belong,” “Heartbreaker,” “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” and the list goes on. Then I remembered one of my all time faves, “Invincible,” which was actually from the soundtrack of the movie The Legend of Billie Jean and on the Seven the Hard Way album. I am a total 80s teen movie geek! I think I have seen them all. The good, the bad and the terrible, but The Legend of Billie Jean is one of my faves. So I told Alyson my choice, which she loved, and then I didn’t think much about it until a couple of weeks before I had to head to the land. So much happened between picking that song and singing it, but no excuses. I was going to rep for Pat and do it the best I can! I mean who gets to sing Pat Benatar everyday? I damn sure don’t so I was looking forward to it.

Back to the land... 
I was at rehearsal for my song and at first I was going to change the key. I think one morning (in Brooklyn) I was practicing the song and it felt so high. When we did it a half step down it was OK, but it didn’t have the same energy. So we moved it back to the original key. Just as we were doing that a little girl named Zora came by the tent with her mom. When I say little I mean like maybe she was 2 or 2 ½. She was naked, fresh out of the shower and staring at me. So I asked her if she wanted to sing. She nodded yes so I picked her up and we were ready to go. Some folks were concerned about her ears so Vicki [Randle] put a pair of headphones on her and also gave her a shaker and we were off. Let me tell you, as soon as the music started she was shaking that shaker in time! We went through the whole song before I gave her back to her mom. It was a great moment.  We finished rehearsing the song and came up with what we called the double James Brown ending (I can’t get that man out of my life) and called it.

Me and the lovely Zora!

Before I move away from the rehearsal tent I must tell you about this bass I met. Yes I said bass. It was the bass of Reneé from the band Big Bad Gina. They were rehearsing “Call Me” right after me, but the first things I saw as I walked toward that tent was the bass. It was screaming HELLO to me. Let me beak it down. It was mahogany on the back and maple on the front. So let’s first picture the two tones. Gorgeous! Then to put the icing on that cake the pick guard was LEATHER!!! Pink leather at that! Dayum she was beautiful and of course custom made and a jazz bass like I like it. Yes!

There was no night stage that night. Folks just hung out, talked and caught up, but I went to bed early as I had to be up to start the fire for the first at the lodge at 5:30am. It was a calm night, but right before I went to bed BN said it was going to rain at about 3am. I didn’t want to believe her. I really didn’t because that might mean we would be starting fire in the rain for the lodges. I went to bed hopeful and happy to be on the land with my friends from all over the world. Give Thanks!

Stay tuned for the next installment...

Me in my tent. I'm home!