#Shira never have i ever full#

I even remember being in high school and being the one female rock player in a circuit of friends. Take out the wires, and do what you want,” because it’s really not our turf. Now when I’m playing, a woman will just sneak up to me over my shoulder and say, “can I see?” and I’m like, “come on! Touch it. You really need to feel a sense of encouragement with that stuff, really with anything, or any art form. I had asked guy friends to help me, but there were only a few who were willing. I had never touched one until a year ago. Part of the intention of moving here was that I was going to buy a sampler. I had just dreamt of doing it for so long, and seeing people doing and all of this cool stuff, like someone with six samplers, and one loop pedal. Going electronic, it was exciting and unsafe in a way. I grew up playing the guitar, so I knew the ins and outs of it It was something that was safe, that I felt comfortable with. I just had the desire to do it for so long, and truth be told, I just felt like I didn’t really see women doing it, and it feels kind of funny to say because now I see so many women doing it, but at the time I didn’t. What sparked your interest in going electronic? So I’m percolating and recording and just working with people on art. Before that I was all guitar-based and with ukuleles and stuff like that. I’ve been working on a record for probably a year. I’m a teaching artist: I teach gay elders poetry on Wednesdays at a place called SAGE, I’m also in Queens with teenagers teaching writing and theater, I’m a mentor with Urban Word, and I teach online writing classes to individuals all over the country, which is really fun. What are you currently doing in the City? When you make a move like that, you’re putting your pennies in a jar, but you’re actually feeding yourself what you want to be fed. I had never felt that way before in terms of a city calling me, but I felt like I wanted to put an intention into art instead of just doing it because I love it. But then, synchronistically, I quit three jobs and then fell in love, and she lives here, and all of that pulled me to the city. I had fed my artistic life, and eased into a place where I was mostly not doing it anymore.

I live in Brooklyn, but I swore I would never live here in the past. I was done doing all of these jobs, while writing, and doing music mostly on the side after touring for a bit with poetry. You mentioned that you recently relocated to NYC. Shira shared with me her beliefs about the practicality of poetry, the challenges that women face when trying to tap into electronic music, the simultaneous significance and insignificance of our existence in this universe, and her exciting new Indiegogo campaign to help her spread her awesome new album all around the country. We set up an interview at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, and sat on a bench under some trees, and got to chatting. I was in love with whatever was going on and needed to meet this person. I entered into the dimly lit room with this small silhouette of a person standing in front of a large projector, playing the Roland 404 synthesizer, and hand drumming. This is what I witnessed when I walked into Launchpad during the Women Love the World Conference last month. There is a palpable quality to the sound that she emits through her lungs, a thick-like-molasses and indulgent vibration, lulling you into some otherworldly experience.

#Shira never have i ever full#

Shira E has this haunting kind of voice, the kind that immediately silences a room full of people in the midst of hearty conversation.