Profile: Vanessa Craig

Vanessa Craig is a Los Angeles-based fashion designer who has launched her own brands, Xkiller and Sew Gay. This year she became one of the "Curl Girls" on a Logo network reality TV series of the same name. When not filming or riding the waves, Vanessa spends her time organizing parties and tirelessly pursuing her multifarious interests.

★To find out more about ordering Xkiller and Sew Gay clothing, follow the link here.

Outfest is not just about movies. The live music festival Boom! was held at the Echo, Los Angeles' Eastside hotspot for local bands, where numerous indie pop and rock bands performed.

'Boom!' Outfest's first-of-a-kind grand-scale music festival was spearheaded by the local favorite, Lavender Diamond, and brought it all home with a long awaited performance by the Portland-based band Team Dresch. Amongst other highlights, and revelous moments, your ears' pleasure nodes would have been caressed by the voice of Becky Stark, lead singer of Lavender Diamond, as well as Red Car, Emily Wells, Vivek Shraya (with an album produced by Meghan Toohey), and the multi-talented members of Addicted to Fiction's harder-core lovechild, We Float.

The events all seemed to come together the second day of Boom! with an unstoppable harmony, and a more energy-driven flair. This was easily evidenced by the barrage of excited comments from eager fans on Team Dresch's myspace page - each of whom I'm sure had been in the audience, and rightfully vindicated, of course.

Team Dresch is the Portland-based band whose powerful lyrics gained them a hardcore following from the early 90's. Comprised of pure lesbian rock power, their lyrics and music have contributed greatly to both the queercore and independent music scenes. Although they have alternated members and independent labels throughout the years, the band's original members have recently joined forces again and have been hailed for now sounding better than ever.

Preceding Team Dresch, the members of the local all-lesbian electro band, Addicted to Fiction, performed debut tracks from their newly formed side project, We Float. Bassist Aisha, guitarist Heather ('hellskiss'), and drummer Watts proved that they can trade keyboards for guitars and still rock the panties off the ladies. Although the band loves their original electro work, they wanted to go in a more authentic, straight-up rock direction, with no computers and no drum machines. As Aisha stated, "When you're just playing your instrument, it's like you're floating. That's the feeling you get.' That feeling and an identically-titled PJ Harvey song were a most fitting inspiration for the band's name.

Contrary to rumor, there were no highly anticipated crowd 'floaters' during We Float, but the members of the 'Miracle Whips' traded their 70's garb for an onstage, sexy Zorro-esque tribute to Sonic Youth via 'Kool Thing'. Although dildos were not used in place of swords (wah), the We-Whips proved a deadly combination, each using their not-so-secret weapon to stir the crowd into a frenzy..in rock and ass, respectively. Float on!
　

But for you, Jane, anything! "Love is Love" (dir. Anne Renton) satirically swaps hetero for homo sexuality, and presents the main characters' dating struggles in a homosexually dominated world. This film should be shown in every high school along with those really bad sex education films (which in turn should be replaced with "Worst Case Scenario: Butch Edition"!). This would not only help young people start seeing sexuality from different perspectives early on, but also to see what would happen if (gasp!) the heteros were the minority and had to 'come out' in a world where homos ruled. So good, and, duh, Jane Lynch!
　

"Pariah," (dir. Dee Rees) a smaller version of a feature in the works, showcases the struggles of growing up as a gay woman of color. The film centers on Lee - or Aleeka, in New York. Although, filmed in Brooklyn and the Bronx, the story goes beyond geography to effectively represent the main character's struggle as one that may take place in any big city regardless of temporal or spatial bounds. This film had me in tears, as I watched Lee change her clothes from butch to femme to please and hide her sexual identity mainly from her parents, and then back again to maintain her friendship/butch identity with her older butch mentor and, most importantly, all the hot ladies in her cell phone. The film expresses the one thing all queer people have in common, coming out, but through the eyes and scenarios of two (brilliantly cast) young African American women, in a most moving, unique, and powerful way. Getting socked in the face by your father for being gay is no coming out party.