In the Blog
The Elizabeth Riley Band on intergenerational exchange: Women’s Worlds 2011
This is the fourth in our series of Idea Bursts. Please check out the first, second and third!
Today’s audio burst is “The Elizabeth Riley Band on intergenerational exchange.”
Transcription follows the podcast.
Love what you’re hearing? Hate what you’re seeing? Want to speak up? Info on the Idea Bursts series, including how to submit your own, follows the transcription of today’s podcast.
All together? Ya. Okay. We are the Elizabeth Riley Band. So there. [laughter] There are four of us. And Elizabeth Riley, by the way. How many decades do we span? I don’t even know. / You’re not in your 20s anymore. / I am now 30. / So we don’t span as many decades as when we began. / And now we’re four decades. / When we started, we spanned five decades - you were late 20s, I was in the 30s, you were in your 40s, and you were, um, higher. / In the 60s. / Yeah. [laughter] / So you’re still in the 60s, but *you* are hitting 50 this year. / I am. / And I am hitting 39 this year. [oohs] / Look at us! [laughter] / And you just turned 30. / Newly 30! / Yep. So what do you think is the strength of this kind of, I don’t know, different generations, different levels of experience in terms of playing music, in terms of performing? I love it. Because, the difference in our ages introduces all the different … It’s like history. You know? Like, you’ve got Patricia who comes with a whole bag of a period and a time that most of us would have heard about. It’s retro for everyone else. [laughter] You know? But it’s really cool. It’s the 60s and the 70s, all the things some of us wish we’d have been born into. But, you know. So you introduced that element. And then we meet now. So we’re all living vicariously Patricia’s life? Is that what you’re saying? Well almost! Almost. / Vice versa. / Yeah, vice versa! Influences of each age group, influences of now, are really powerful. Really important as well. Sound is going to be somehow unique. The tunes that you folks know that I don’t know are fantastic. The rhythms, the approach to writing. But I really like the old-timey feel, the old rockabilly, bluegrass, old-timey. [yeah yeah agreement] I think there’s something in that kind of music, in that bunch of genres or whatever you wanna call it, that appeals to something. That appeals to us. Well it’s really grounding. There’s a root there. It’s not like starting from nowhere. You know? It’s like, we’re really rooted inter-generationally because of what we’ve come from and where we’ve come from. And then the sounds that we all grew up with, the sounds we heard. And now it’s like, how do we incorporate those into what we’re doing? [agreement] And morphing and altering those and challenging those and redefining. Thanks everybody! We’re the Elizabeth Riley Band. Ciao baby. Bye! [musical outro]
Listen up! Check out these provocative and compelling “idea bursts” intended to spark conversations on key issues leading up to and during Women’s Worlds 2011 (WW 2011, a global feminist conference being held July 3-7 in Ottawa, Ontario). We encourage everyone of all generations to embrace and explore these ideas. Get your mind moving, thoughts jumping.
This series of short commentaries is initiated by the Young Women’s Leadership Team (YWLT) to ensure that young women’s ideas, organizing, and thoughts are present at this global congress.
Create your own! Record your thoughts before WW 2011. Upload your own Idea Burst to youtube.com and tag it “#ww2011burst” or “#ww2011.” Or if audio is your thing, post your Idea Burst to AudioBoo, make it “public,” and use the same tags. And if you plan on being at the congress, visit our intergenerational drop-in space to share your ideas in our BURST booth (Deja Vu Lounge, Room 230 Morisset Hall, University of Ottawa).
For more information contact us at youth@womensworlds.ca.
