Playlist

Part 1    (60:09)
Automatic Pilot - Safe Livin' In Dangerous Times (1984)
Automatic Pilot - Are You In Love? (1982)
Automatic Pilot - Sit on My Face (1982)*
Alive! - Spirit Healer (live, 1979)*
Alive! - What Is Life (1984)
Lilith - Boston Ride (1978)
Beth Caurant Interview (2007)
Lilith - Pick Up the Pieces (1978)
Beth Caurant - Play It On the Radio (1980)*
Mama Quilla II - Angry Young Woman (1982)
Sara Ellen Dunlop - Singing On Canada (1975)*
Susan Graetz - More Pretty Girls Than One (1984)*
Miki Wagner - Normandy (1981)*

Part 2    (63:36)
Levi Kreis - Say It Out Loud (2007)
Levi Kreis Interview (2007)
Levi Kreis - Bittersweet Salvation (2007)
Levi Kreis - We're Okay (2007)*
Levi Kreis - With You (2007)*
Levi Kreis - You Found Me (2007)
Levi Kreis - In The Name of God (2007)*
Levi Kreis, with Darci Monet - Futurelove (2007)
Levi Kreis, with Darci Monet- It Is Well With My Soul (2007)
                          * = internet show only

Artist Links
Alive! (Rhiannon)
Automatic Pilot
Sara Ellen Dunlop
Levi Kreis
Beth Caurant of Lilith
Lorraine Segato (Mama Quilla II)

  

Automatic Pilot: San Francisco's satiric, erotic jazz wave ensemble

Founding member Karl Brown has recently resurrected the material of this act and it's
now available on the CDs shown above. Click for much more info on Automatic Pilot.

 

  

Also from San Fransciso is the all-women's jazz band Alive! Led by Rhiannon, during
their ten-year existance (1976-1986) they released three albums: "Alive!" in 1979,
"Call It Jazz" in 1981, and "City Life" in 1984. A greatest hits album, "Always Alive"
was issued in 1999. Click for much more on Alive!

  

  

Beth Caurant is shown at the right in a 1978 photo, and I want to thank her not only for the interview but for providing many rare photos & articles on the band, a veritable scrapbook

Click for Lilith Photos    Click for Lilith Articles

The band Lilith was one of the earliest all-women rock bands and was influential in paving the way for acts to follow. Founded by Beth Caurant in 1972, their career spanned six years and one album, released in 1978, and I'm very pleased to bring you an interview with Beth, where she talks about the band and women's rock music in those times.

Click for LP Large Scan

  

Named after an Incan moon goddess Canadian band Mama Quilla II was founded by Lorraine Segato, who did the lead vocals. They released just one recording, a 3-song 12" vinyl EP, in 1982. The group was started in 1977 and they effectively disbanded in 1982 when Lorraine Segato and drummer Billy Bryans formed The Parachute Club, one of the most popular Canadian bands of the 80s. Click for larger scans of the album.

Note that the above band was named Mama Quilla II. It was in honor of an earlier band, Mama Quilla, founded by Sara Ellen Dunlop, who died of cancer in 1978. She was a much loved Toronto lesbian singer, bar owner and general force in Canadian women's music. Her company, Sara Ellen's Music, was one of the earliest recording companies wholly owned and operated by women. In 1975, Dunlop released In the Light, an extended-play recording of four songs. Click for scans of that release.

  

Above, mention of Dunlop's EP in the Spring 1977 edition of women's music magazine Musica

   

Two more obscure lesbian album releases: Susan Graetz and "Somewhere Between"
from 1984, and "Infatuation" by Miki Wagner, from 1981. Just try finding information about them
on the net. A few details, Susan's LP was produced and engineered by Karen Kane, who has
produced many many releases by GLBT artists over the last 30 years (see her site).

The album is a mix of Susan's own songs and reworkings of traditional folk songs. Women's music pioneer Kay Gardner played flute on the album, released on On Our Way Records, out of Ithaca, New York. Miki Wagner's album was produced by Wet Wing Records (San Francisco), and although she wrote all of the songs but one, is probably most noted for its cover version of the Joe Jackson classic "Is She Really Going Out With Him?"

     

Well, I already showed Levi's new CD at the top of this page, and I uploaded many more pics of
him when I interviewed him in January of 2006. See them and hear that show by Clicking Here.

And I did a short interview in June 2009, Part 2

    

If you're into instant Levi Kreis collectables, here are a couple, and I played a part in the first one. Christy Claxton has been one of my artist friends for many years, and when I heard that she was producing a compilation CD to raise awareness on the subject of domestic violence, I instantly thought of Levi's song on the subject, "Man Outta Me," from his "One of the Ones" CD. I told them both that his song, well, just belonged on the CD and it happened. Levi got the song to her just before the pressing deadline. Click on the CD to see all the artists on the compilation, including Tret Fure, Natalia Zukerman, Wishing Chair, Julie Loyd, Erika Luckett, and of course Christy Claxton.

 

And above right is the special "Bonus CD" that Levi was offering to folks who pre-ordered his latest CD. It contains the "Atlantic tracks" that perhaps will never see the light of day. He talks about them in the interview.

Update: Dec 2007

And Levi keep cranking out the music, he just released as digital downloads only
two disc's worth of his older material: "Live at Genghis Cohen" from 2001, and
"Bygones," with material he recorded shortly after arriving in Los Angeles in 1997.