607 Femme Fest unites art, love, music, and DIY-style in the Triple Cities

This April, the Binghamton Riot Grrrls are hosting Binghamton’s first Femme Fest, an all-ages event featuring punk acts with female members, at Cyber Café West. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Early promo listed location as Spool MFG. New location confirmed immediately preceding press time.] The eight-band lineup includes groups from across New York and Pennsylvania, most of whom haven’t played in Binghamton before. Triple Cities Carousel met up with Femme Fest organizers Zoe Davis-Chanin, Jessica Steele, KT Kanazawich, and Brianna Salazar to discuss women in music, the punk agenda, and the importance of coming together as a community during trying times.

(Lady Bit from Brooklyn is one of 8 Bands playing 607 Femme Fest)

TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSEL: So, tell me a little about the 607 Riot Grrls. Who are you, what are you about, and what brought you all together to organize Femme Fest?

ZOE DAVIS: I think the whole idea started when I went to an awesome benefit show for Family Planning at Fitzie’s. It was a great show, but there weren’t that many female-fronted bands playing. The hardcore scene around here is awesome, and I want to have more female or feminist bands involved. I posted on the Binghamton Hardcore Facebook page about having a feminist punk show and a ton of people on the page thought it was a good idea. So I messaged about fifty women, and they messaged other women, and we all just started talking. I thought, well, it’d be great to have an enduring group centered around social justice and racial justice-related music events, so when we made the Femme Fest page on Facebook, we also created the Riot Grrl page as a way of showing that we’re a group and this is our first event, but there will be more events in the future.

KT KANAZAWICH: There are a lot of bands with men in the current scene. It’s a lot of men booking shows with just the guys they meet on tour. Femme Fest is a way for us to draw attention to that and make it a point to include other groups of people - to seek out bands beyond what you already know.

JESSICA STEELE: I think it’s wonderful that the punk agenda is anti-establishment. To talk about anti-establishment you have to break down social oppression. You have shows supporting anti-establishment ideals with good intentions, but not from the perspective of people who are living through it. We look at these guys that are leading the shows, and then we look at ourselves, and we know we can do it too. KT is involved in the art scene - she’s a photographer and has a lot of resources from that community. Brianna is in a band and has a lot of connections with the local music scene; Zoe’s brilliant, she’s a student and she’s great at organizing, and I’m…

BRIANNA SALAZAR: You’re the charisma.

JS: I am! I’m very social; I’m very involved with the community, and that’s my role: reaching out to the community and getting people involved. We couldn’t have picked a better group of girls to do this.

TCC: How did you go about picking the bands?

JS: The only stipulation was that there is a female member. At first, we were planning a small-scale show. We literally reached out to every band we knew that had a female in it. As bands said yes and as we generated more publicity, it went beyond just a feminist movement to a social justice community event.

TCC: Right - I heard there’s going to be a lot of local social justice-oriented groups tabling at the fest. What kind of organizations are getting involved?

JS: There’s some that we’re still talking to, but right now we have Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier, Truth Pharm, Citizen Action, Family Planning, Anthropologists for Direct Action, the American Civic Association, the Binghamton Young Democrats, and VINES.

ZD: I believe Binghamton Food Rescue will also participate.

JS: Our thoughts were that education and inclusivity go hand-in-hand. We’re going to have tables for local organizations where people can come and ask questions about what they’re about, and signup sheets if they want to volunteer. You can’t foster an inclusive space without being able to ask questions and learn about other people your community.

BS: One of my friends, Erin Renae Alexander, who’s been in the Binghamton punk scene for a very long time, is doing an amazing presentation and workshop on gender issues called “Sisterhood, not Cis-terhood.” We also have a great local poet, Kayla Volpe, who’s going to be reading some of her work.

ZD: I feel like it’s not just a Femme Fest, it’s a social justice bazaar.

TCC: And you’re donating the proceeds from Femme Fest to the local YWCA?

KT: Yeah, we’d brainstormed a lot about who we want to donate the proceeds to, but it definitely had to be a cause that helped women in some way.

JS: At first, we wanted to donate to girls who aren’t getting an education abroad, but we brought it back to a local level because that really falls in line with what Femme Fest is all about: uplifting and building connections within the community.

TCC: So what’s the most important thing you want people to take away from Femme Fest?

BS: I want people who normally come to a punk show and feel like they’re not represented to finally feel like, Wow, there’s a girl onstage who’s representing me, there’s a trans person representing me, there’s a woman of color representing me; it’s not this male-dominated scene where I’m just here to hold my boyfriend’s coat. I want girls and women to walk away empowered. I want my 7-year-old to come to this show and see girls rocking out.

KT: For me, I want people to come away having learned something new or met someone new.

ZD: I want people to get a sense of how much power they have in numbers. I want people in Binghamton who are social justice-minded, or are feminist, or have feminist beliefs, or are racial justice activists, or anything like that, to get a sense that they’re not alone, that there’s a whole community that’s going to fight with them.

JS: What I want the most, besides community involvement, is exposure. I want people to meet different groups, learn about them, learn their struggles and how to treat them correctly. It’s about humanizing people, building emotional connections. We all deserve love. That’s what I want. I want love to come out of this. I just want so much love.

607 Femme Fest will take place on Saturday, April 8th, at Cyber Café West, 176 Main Street, Binghamton. Music runs 4-10pm. Admission is on a $5-10 sliding scale; $10 is suggested. More information about the bands, as well as further information about the festival, can be found on the 607 Femme Fest event page on Facebook.