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Rae Spoon

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Rae Spoon
BornCalgary, Alberta
OccupationSinger-songwriter, short story writer
NationalityCanadian
Period1990s-present
Notable worksFirst Grass Spring Fire, superioryouareinferior, My Prairie Home
Website
raespoon.com

Rae Spoon is a Canadian musician and writer. Their musical style has varied from country to electronic-influenced indie rock and folk punk.[1]

Personal life

Spoon grew up as a transgender person in Calgary, Alberta. They were raised in a Pentecostal household to a paranoid-schizophrenic father. Their father’s religious beliefs caused anxiousness to a teenage Rae. Spoon now lives in Montreal, Quebec.[2]

After a decade of living as a trans man,[3] Spoon noted a preference for the pronoun "they" in 2012 during an interview with cartoonist Elisha Lim, a fellow advocate for the gender-neutral pronoun.[4] They explained to Now Magazine, "after years of fighting to be called ‘he,’ the idea of coming out again made me tired. But now I feel kind of rejuvenated, ready to fight on some more. I think the ‘they’ pronoun is a pretty cool thing. It’s letting a lot of people not have to identify as a man or a woman. Whatever it means to them."[5]

Career

Spoon started performing before they started recording. They decided they wanted to become a songwriter while performing at the age of seventeen.[6] They emerged as a country and roots singer. Their early music features country imagery to the sound of acoustic string instruments such as banjo, guitar and mandolin.[7]

Spoon has performed with such artists as Annabelle Chvostek, Ember Swift, Kinnie Starr, Melissa Ferrick, The Be Good Tanyas, Bitch & Animal, Natalie Merchant and Earl Scruggs.[8] They have performed at festivals including North Country Fair, South Country Fair, Under the Volcano Festival, and the Vancouver,[8] Regina, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Brandon Folk, Music & Art Festival and Winnipeg folk festivals.

Spoon's breakthrough album, 2008's Superioryouareinferior, was recorded in Calgary and introduced some electronic music elements into Spoon's style.[1] Superioryouareinferior includes themes previously used by Spoon like Canadian history and culture such as the commentary on colonialism in their song “Come On Forest Fire Burn The Disco Down”.[9] Superioryouareinferior was a longlisted nominee for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize.[10]

While touring Europe Spoon met Alexandre Decoupigny in Berlin. Decoupigny and Spoon collaborated in the album Worauf Wartest Du?[11] Decoupigny taught Spoon how to create music with a computer which inspired the musician to further experiment with electronic music.[12] The experimentation with electronic music influenced their subsequent albums and culminated in I Can’t Keep All Our Secrets.[13]

They have also published First Spring Grass Fire, a book of short stories about growing up in Alberta. Arsenal Pulp Press released the book in the fall of 2012.[5] The book was a nominee for the 2013 Lambda Literary Awards in the Transgender Fiction category,[14] and Spoon was awarded an Honour of Distinction from the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT writers in 2014.[15]

Spoon has stated that First Spring Grass Fire was written to help them prepare for the production of a National Film Board of Canada documentary about their life and music, My Prairie Home, directed by Chelsea McMullan. The film was released in the fall of 2013.[16][17] My Prairie Home, the album of music that Spoon composed for the film, was a longlisted nominee for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize.[18]

In 2012, Spoon and Ivan Coyote collaborated on Gender Failure, a touring multimedia show in which both artists performed music and spoken word pieces about their failed attempts at fitting into the gender binary.[19] A book based on the show was published by Arsenal Pulp in 2014.[20]

In 2014, Spoon composed music for the feature film The Valley Below.[21]

Discography

  • Honking at Minivans (2001)
  • Throw Some Dirt on Me (2003)
  • Your Trailer Door (2005)
  • White Hearse Comes Rolling (2006)
  • Trucker's Memorial (2006, with Rodney Decroo)
  • Superioryouareinferior (2008)
  • Worauf Wartest Du? (2009, with Alexandre Decoupigny)
  • Love is a Hunter (2010)
  • I Can't Keep All of Our Secrets (2012)
  • My Prairie Home (2013)
  • Armour (2016)

References

  1. ^ a b Rae Spoon's Long View. Exclaim!, October 2008.
  2. ^ Gillis, Carla. "Rae Spoon". Now Toronto. Metro. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  3. ^ "He said/she said?", SEE Magazine, 2003-05-08, retrieved 2007-09-22
  4. ^ "Elisha Lim and Rae Spoon: Talking Shop". No More Potlucks, January 2012.
  5. ^ a b "Rae Spoon: Powerful album reignites the pronoun debate". NOW, January 26, 2012.
  6. ^ King, Moynan (January 18, 2012). "Canada's Dandy Duet: The Performance Collaboration of Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon". Canadian Theatre Review. 149: 46–51. doi:10.3138/ctr.149.46. See p. 48.
  7. ^ McPherson, David. "Your Trailer Door". exclaim. Ian Danzig. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  8. ^ a b "Rae Spoon offers an affectionate homage to another era". Xtra!, July 7, 2005.
  9. ^ Ash, Amanda. "Superioryouareinferior". Exclaim!. Ian Danzig. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  10. ^ "Pop goes Rae Spoon". Exclaim!, September 2010.
  11. ^ Angus, Mike. "On The Hunt". Vue Weekly. Aberdeen. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  12. ^ Hudson, Alex. "Rae Spoon Talks 'I Can't Keep All of Our Secrets,' Reveals New Track and Canadian Tour". Exclaim!. Ian Danzig. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  13. ^ Adams, Gregory. "Rae Spoon Announces 'I Can't Keep All of Our Secrets'". Exclaim!. Ian Danzig. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  14. ^ "Rae Spoon, Kamal Al-Solaylee among Canadian Lambda nominees". Quill & Quire, March 6, 2013.
  15. ^ Dayne Ogilvie Prize, Writers' Trust of Canada.
  16. ^ Kelly, Brendan (13 December 2013). "Rae Spoon is different by nature, and proud of it". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  17. ^ Lederman, Marsha (28 September 2013). "My Prairie Home". Globe and Mail. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
  18. ^ "Polaris Music Prize announces 2014 long list". Aux, June 19, 2014.
  19. ^ Richard Burnett, "Queer icons Ivan E. Coyote and Rae Spoon step “out of the box” for Gender Failure Show". The Gazette, November 20, 2012.
  20. ^ "Rae Spoon and Ivan E. Coyote share personal stories in Gender Failure". Quill & Quire, June 20, 2014.
  21. ^ "Best Original Scores: TIFF tips for music lovers". Now, September 4, 2014.
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