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Event
KATE REID | Doing it for the Chicks on Salt Spring Island
"Anyone who'd write a song called "The Only Dyke at the Open Mic" deserves a medal. And when she follows it up with "I'd Go Straight for Ridley Bent" and "Co-op Girlz" (about trying to pick up chicks a health food store), she should be eligible for the Order of Canada. A woman who breaks the stereotypes and makes us all think as well as laugh. I am, not so secretly, in love with this woman!" - Richard Flohil
"....gut-splittingly funny" - Stuart Derdeyn, The Vancouver Province
Kate Reid is, quite simply, one of the best songwriters to emerge from the Canadian folk roots scene since David Francey. Songs such as The Only Dyke at the Open Mic, Ex-Junkie Boyfriend and No More Missing Daughters showcase her ability to write compelling, often funny, sometimes tragic songs that make listeners sit up and take notice. -Tim Readman, Penguin Eggs Magazine, Issue #44, Winter 2009
Like so many musicians before her, Kate Reid is just "Doin' It for the Chicks." What else but quadruple-entendre humour, cherry flavoured cigars and a hilarious album cover that paints her as a misogynistic femme rapper can one expect from one of the queerest straight (but hardly straight) shooters in contemporary music these days. "I'm merely on a divine plan to convert you to the dark side of the bedroom," she sings on the title track of her eagerly anticipated third album. "All the music's extracurricular, I'm just doing this for the chicks." It's not for nothing, then, that Reid has recorded Led Zeppelin's cock-rock classic "Hotdog" with a bluegrass-styled hoot, holler and broad wink.
Given the all-persuasions crowds drawn to her shows, Reid is doing it for the ladies and everyone else with a yen for her fiery performances and rare ability to glide from laugh-a-loud sing-a-longs to intense tales about the price some pay in staying true to their own trailblazing sexual identities.Critics have been cheering her on as much as her diehard fans, and the new album follows the wave of acclaim that greeted I'm Just Warming Up (2009). In the interim she has toured like a flame-haired banshee while nurturing a grassroots audience that now stretches east across Canada and south into the U.S.
Reid now lives on idyllic Bowen Island just north of Vancouver following years in the heart of Vancity's culturally diverse east side. Known for a style she once termed "slam poetry meets folk music," the farm girl raised in Ayr, Ontario has dialed in more directly on the folk, country and roots directions hinted at on the last album and her 2006 debut Comin' Alive. She credits producer Adam King (Jill Barber, Jully Black, the Good Lovelies) for the album's sparkling sound and high fives the cast of musicians who augmented her own guitar and harmonica with lap steel, banjo, fiddle and mandolin. She once played in a bluegrass band in Nelson, B.C., so the sound sits squarely in her comfort zone.
Passionately delivering alt-culture songs that move audiences to laugh, think and cry is Reid's strength, and the new disc's 11 originals showcase her fast-talking humour, activist spirit and compassionate take on life's bittersweet truths. "Doing it for the Chicks" was written in response to a man who agreed to host a house concert for Reid before realizing that not only is she queer, she sings about it too. "Revolution" is a hard-hitting protest song about violence against women. "Ain't No Drama Queen" chronicles the struggles of being out. "My Baby's in the Beer Tent Again" is already a crowd favourite on the festival circuit. And while a real-life cross-dressing tugboat driver from Nanaimo inspired "Captain Cupcake and the Cambie Hotel", "Closet Femme" is a hilarious confessional about Reid's own penchant for cross-dressing.
Proudly DIY, Reid is releasing the album on her own Firebone Records while continuing to gig her way into the hearts and homes of open-minded folk of all descriptions: in or out, straight or happily bent. She's doing it for the chicks, sure, but everyone's invited to the party.
www.katereid.net
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LocationSalt Spring Lion's Hall
103 Bonnet Ave
Ganges - Salt Spring Island, BC
Canada
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