Drummers - Jody Bleyle
Jody Bleyle is an American multi-instrumental musician,
songwriter and independent record label owner.
Jody Bleyle first gained public attention in the Pacific Northwest music
scene of the 1990s, in the Portland, Oregon-based band Hazel. The group,
formed in 1992, released two albums on the Subpop label, to critical
acclaim. Jody Bleyle played drums and sang for the band.
In 1993, Jody teamed up with Donna Dresch and Kaia Wilson to create the
band Team Dresch, in which she played guitar and sang. The group's first
release was a single on the Kill Rock Stars label, which immediately
garnered them much attention and they quickly became one of the defining
bands of the Queercore scene. Their first LP, Personal Best, was
co-released on both Dresch's label Chainsaw Records and Bleyle's label
Candy Ass Records. Candy Ass Records went on to issue recordings by a
number of bands including Hazel, Cypher In The Snow, and New Bad Things
but is best known for the 1995 release of the double album compilation
Free To Fight.
Free To Fight was a multi media project incorporating both recordings by
artists such as Lois Maffeo, Excuse 17, Heavens to Betsy, Fifth Column,
and Bleyle's own band Team Dresch, as well as a seventy-two page booklet
featuring writers and artists such as bell hooks, Bridget Irish, and
Roberta Gregory. The recording and booklet featured self defense
instructions for women, and Team Dresch toured with instructor Alice
Stagg, who demonstrated defensive tactics onstage before the band
performed. Jody Bleyel was interviewed for the film She's Real, Worse
Than Queer by Lucy Thane, in which she speaks about her record label and
in particular, the Free To Fight project. This recording was later
followed by a Free To Fight split single by the bands Sleater-Kinney and
Cypher In The Snow.
In the late 1990s Team Dresch broke up after releasing a number of
singles and another LP, Captain, My Captain. After the breakup, Jody
joined with Tamala Poljak of Longstocking and Whitney Stillcorn of The
Little Deaths to form the band Infinite Xs. In 2002, the group released
a recording on Chainsaw Records. Also in the early 2000s, Jody began
performing with her brother in the group Family Outing. The band played
at the Homo-A-GoGo festival in Olympia, Washington in 2002.
In 2004 and 2005, Jody recorded and toured with Amy Ray for her second
solo release, Prom, playing bass. Jody didn't play the third leg of the
tour because her lover was pregnant. Their first son was born in July,
2005.
In 2004, the group Lesbians On Ecstasy released their first album,
Lesbians On Ecstasy featuring a revamped cover version of the Team
Dresch song "Screwing Yer Courage", retitled "Summer Luv"; Jody Bleyle
remixed this version for the followup Lesbians On Ecstasy album entitled
Giggles In The Dark, released in 2005.
In the summer of 2004, Team Dresch reunited for a concert at the
biannual Homo-A-Go-Go festival. Afterwards, the band members decided to
reunite for a series of concerts and Team Dresch has been touring and
recording again since then.
Sources
* Sinker, Daniel, We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet: The Collected
interviews, Akashic Books, NY, NY, ISBN 1-888451-14-9, 2001
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jody_Bleyle
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