Nath Ann Carrera / Death to the Patriarchal Rape Heads
Saturday, November 2nd – 10:00pm / The Club at La MaMa
Queer New York International Arts Festival / New Music Series 2013
![An Interview with NATH ANN CARRERA by Katherine Cooper for
La MaMa’s QUEER NEW MUSIC SERIES:
What does queer mean to you right now?
I had my queer coming of age through gender and sexually variant, non-essentialist, amoral, radical lesbian separatism. I made a poster for class that said, “Abort Male Fetuses!” and wrote a short play about throwing men into bonfires when they were misogynistic and homophobic. My position is now “Abort Cisgender Male Fetuses!”
Can you tell me a formative moment from childhood?
Seeing my grandmother on stage snorting poppers in a Carmen Miranda outfit as the Mother Superior.
Who are your musical and theatrical heroes?
A musical contender would be Bobbie Gentry who wrote and produced psychological Southern Gothic character studies, sang about cruising female strippers, go-go danced on cellophane water, railed against sexual and moralistic double standards, and performed with genderfuck dancers in matching dresses in her self-conceptualized Las Vegas show, before arranging a successful self-disappearance. Theatrically, Barbara Stanwyck who played a card shark, a dancer hiding out supplying research studies for encyclopedia entries on “sex” and “slang,” a bank robber in a lesbianic women’s prison, broke bottles over men’s heads before taking a drink, and indifferently watched her father burn to death in a whiskey still fire before hitting the big city.
You are a poet, musician, DJ and performer. Did you start performing in one specific genre or have you always been a hybrid artist?
I started singing with my mother down at the local bowling alley, around age 10, between her stints with bands like “Uncle Bubba and the Charred Remains.” My interest in writing, playing guitar, piano, and drums, and performing came together around the same time a few years later by bedroom, band, and stage. I started DJing a few years ago doing WOAHMONE with Savannah Knoop and Nica Ross where, through era and genre spanning vinyl and monthly collage, and without a cultural reference after 1980, I have thematic overlap.
Please tell me about your hairpieces. They are amazing.
Thanks! I used to borrow my white feather hat from my friend James Caperton when I played toms toms and tambourine in his band THE JUDY EXPERIENCE in San Francisco. It hung above his dresser altar between a rattlesnake skin and a Jayne Mansfield photo. I wore it in Joshua Tree when we shot the “HIGH BI GIRLS” Super 8 video and he gave it to me before I moved back to New York.
[Photo by Evan William Smith]](http://31.media.tumblr.com/a58a6a5c23f9d57e085322ce9cb75a6a/tumblr_mvewl72Jb31sjh1hko1_400.jpg)
An Interview with NATH ANN CARRERA by Katherine Cooper for
What does queer mean to you right now?
I had my queer coming of age through gender and sexually variant, non-essentialist, amoral, radical lesbian separatism. I made a poster for class that said, “Abort Male Fetuses!” and wrote a short play about throwing men into bonfires when they were misogynistic and homophobic. My position is now “Abort Cisgender Male Fetuses!”
Can you tell me a formative moment from childhood?
Seeing my grandmother on stage snorting poppers in a Carmen Miranda outfit as the Mother Superior.
Who are your musical and theatrical heroes?
A musical contender would be Bobbie Gentry who wrote and produced psychological Southern Gothic character studies, sang about cruising female strippers, go-go danced on cellophane water, railed against sexual and moralistic double standards, and performed with genderfuck dancers in matching dresses in her self-conceptualized Las Vegas show, before arranging a successful self-disappearance. Theatrically, Barbara Stanwyck who played a card shark, a dancer hiding out supplying research studies for encyclopedia entries on “sex” and “slang,” a bank robber in a lesbianic women’s prison, broke bottles over men’s heads before taking a drink, and indifferently watched her father burn to death in a whiskey still fire before hitting the big city.
You are a poet, musician, DJ and performer. Did you start performing in one specific genre or have you always been a hybrid artist?
I started singing with my mother down at the local bowling alley, around age 10, between her stints with bands like “Uncle Bubba and the Charred Remains.” My interest in writing, playing guitar, piano, and drums, and performing came together around the same time a few years later by bedroom, band, and stage. I started DJing a few years ago doing WOAHMONE with Savannah Knoop and Nica Ross where, through era and genre spanning vinyl and monthly collage, and without a cultural reference after 1980, I have thematic overlap.
Please tell me about your hairpieces. They are amazing.
Thanks! I used to borrow my white feather hat from my friend James Caperton when I played toms toms and tambourine in his band THE JUDY EXPERIENCE in San Francisco. It hung above his dresser altar between a rattlesnake skin and a Jayne Mansfield photo. I wore it in Joshua Tree when we shot the “HIGH BI GIRLS” Super 8 video and he gave it to me before I moved back to New York.
[Photo by Evan William Smith]
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