Madonna graces Charlotte for the first time ever tonight,
but she isn’t the only groundbreaking feminist icon performing in town
Thursday. Kaia Wilson, who plays Evening Muse with Lucy Wainwright Roche and
Lindsay Fuller, was a driving force behind lesbian punk band Team
Dresch and Durham-based rock trio the Butchies and remains an accomplished solo singer-songwriter.
Madonna was hugely important to my generation. Whether I
agreed with her fashion and music decisions (those late`80s eyebrows, cheese like “Cherish”), she pushed buttons and continued to evolve. Sometimes her
work was brilliant. Sometimes it bordered on silly, but I can’t imagine pop
culture over the last 30 years without her.
Wilson isn’t as well known, but when the Portland-based guitarist/singer-songwriter
emerged along with the Northwest’s riot grrrl and queercore movements, the
number of well-known, all female lesbian groups was, well, the Indigo Girls. While
there was something empowering about humorous stereotype-skewing tracks like Team
Dresch’s “Song for Anne Bannon,” much of Wilson’s output I find extremely
universal. She also never shied away from gender bending imagery, but her music was never presented as exclusive.
I found myself thinking the same thoughts listening to her
new album “Two Adult Women in Love.” Who can’t relate to songs of love and
loss? More than anything it’s Wilson’s gentle, unique vocals that draw me in
every time whether she’s raging with Team Dresch, popping along with the
Butchies (my favorite of her projects), or making intimate, quiet acoustic folk (featured in the above video).
While Wilson’s notoriety has been on a smaller scale than the
Material Girl’s (whose hasn’t really?), her impact is comparable. Like Madonna
she stood up, stood out, and did her own thing, which in turn makes being
different a bit more widely accepted for the rest of us.
Having traveled to see Madonna twice - once for the
momentous 2001 Drowned World Tour and again in 2004 for the disappointing (I
barely remember it) Re-Invention Tour - I’m sitting this one out in part so my
editor and his wife can witness the spectacle that is MDNA for the first time.
But really, I don’t mind. I’d rather remember the Drowned World Tour fondly and
there’s no way she’ll play “What It Feels Like for a Girl,” which to me remains
one her most feminist musical statements.
Wilson’s show begins at 8 p.m. at Evening Muse (3227 N.
Davidson St.) and given Madonna’s chronic tardiness you probably have time to see
both acts if you’re so inclined. Tickets are $12-$15. www.eveningmuse.com
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