st vincent criticises lilith fair

That’s Annie off of Sarah McLachlan’s Christmas card list

St Vincent’s Annie Clark recently ripped into Sarah McLachlan’s all-female touring festival Lilith Fair during an interview with US music magazine Spinner. While acknowledging the career advancing help that the festival offers female musicians, she seems to feel a gender-exclusive affair is harmful rather then helpful. “The Lilith Fair thing was Bummer Town — hey, hop aboard the marginalising train,” she sniffed. Race also seemed to be an adjoining issue for Annie, who complained that Erykah Badu was put on “criminally early” during the 1998 line-up she attended, and that “It was just white people who wanted to see the Indigo Girls.”

Despite her criticisms, Annie maintains her belief in sisterly support: “I’m supportive of women, absolutely, and it’s so gratifying to have girls come up and say, ‘I’m really inspired by your guitar playing.’ I mean no disrespect to the sisterhood, but musically I feel more drawn to things like Dirty Projectors, The National and Grizzly Bear. I like Fever Ray, but not because she’s a woman. I just don’t see music on those gender terms.” Her outspoken opinions seem all the more buzzworthy considering the festival’s return in 2010 after a decade-long absence. It’s probably safe to say that Annie won’t be joining the bill.

St Vincent returns to these shores on Hallowe’en as part of a short UK tour in which she’ll be opening for Grizzly Bear, playing solo. Catch her at the following venues:

31.10.09 Barbican, London
01.11.09 Vicar Street, Dublin
02.11.09 ABC, Glasgow
04.11.09 Cathedral, Manchester
05.11.09 Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds
06.11.09 Anson Rooms, Bristol

Charlotte Richardson Andrews

Written by: Wears The Trousers magazine

Tags: annie clark, charlotte richardson andrews, lilith fair 2010, sarah mclachlan, st vincent

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 1:26 pm and is filed under news, the inside leg, where's the gigs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.