AMP Festival salutes art, music & power of women
An all-female music and arts festival has been Tobi Coleman’s brainchild for more than a year.
Co-owners of event planning company Revolve Productions, Coleman and her son, Justin, had tabled the idea when the details didn’t line up.
The two had held a similar festival at her north Yukon home for years, a 10-year-running outdoor concert that grew to be an all-encompassing community event. What began as a local gathering quickly became a valuable outlet for new or unknown bands from around the country, Tobi Coleman said.
“Since then, I’ve been wanting to put a music event back together, but (wasn’t) hitting the mark on what it would be,” Coleman said.
The answer came from a camp, a blackboard and an enthusiastic community. Coleman worked last year with the Rock and Roll Camp for Girls OKC, a program that lets girls ages 8 to 17 learn how to play instruments, form bands and perform original songs. After the experience, she and Justin knew they had hit the mark: an all-female music festival.
The concept morphed to a celebration of female art when Coleman connected with the Oklahoma City Girls Art School, an after-school arts program for elementary and middle school girls. Still, logistics stood in the way, and the idea was brainstormed and
shelved until Coleman met colleague Aly Branstetter to talk about another project. The idea literally caught Branstetter’s eye, Coleman said.
“We had notes up here (on the blackboard), and we had ‘All Girls Music Festival,’ and we had ‘2017’ on it. And she was looking at the board and said, ‘What is that?’ ” Coleman said.
Twenty-four hours later, Branstetter had nailed down a location, and the project was underway. What had been an interesting idea was now right around the corner.
The result is Saturday’s AMP Festival, or “Art, Music, Power Festival,” a concert and art show that acts as a celebration of female musicians and artists. More than 30 painters, sculptures, artisans, photographers and other artists will line NW 9 in the Automobile Alley area at Broadway in a stream of vendor tents, Coleman said, allowing patrons to get an expansive look at the work of local female artists.
The 12 musicians are equally diverse. The lineup is a hodgepodge of contrast and variety, including everything from 13-year-old singer Ken Pomeroy to jazz performer Shelly Phelps, with more than 20 years of experience; from rapper Miillie Mesh to acoustic folk bands like Willow Way; and from all-female groups like The Cut-Throat Queens to bands with both male and female performers, such as The Happily Entitled and Em and the MotherSuperiors.
“I think it’s empowering, and I think they’re including different ages and experience levels. … I love the camaraderie of it and of (a) women’s music festival,” Phelps said. “I think it’s a very positive thing.”
All of the artists and musicians went through a selection process. At AMP Festival, the focus isn’t just on women, but the best those women have to offer. The festival will offer a smorgasbord of local talent.
“We want it to be as big an event as possible. We want it to be the biggest thing that’s ever happened on 9th Street,” Coleman said.
Influential women
The bands and performers all are either women or fronted by women, and the performers were influenced by female performers as they moved forward in their careers.
Ashton Edminister is pushed forward by the blinding confidence of Beyonce and Ariana Grande. Miillie Mesh loved rappers like Foxy Brown, Brandy, Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu because of their ability to share meaningful messages to other women. For her, these artists offered her an outlet that the people in her life knew little about.
Jen Maynord of Willow Way was inspired by the tenacity of Florence + the Machine. Katie Williams clung to the unique sounds and unrelenting perseverance of artists like Lucinda Williams, Joan Baez and Stevie Nicks.
Emily Alexander of Em and the MotherSuperiors remembers buying Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston albums as her first CDs.
“Those female artists put that in me, that fire to want to belt it out. I want to have something that my brothers don’t do. … It empowered me, for sure. That was my drive. That was my outlet,” Alexander said.
One of Williams’ influences was more personal than influential. Nashville, Tenn., singer and songwriter Vanessa Darien performed in Norman before Williams had picked up a guitar.
“She just got up there and killed it. It was just her and a guitar. She didn’t have a band behind her or any gimmicks or anything, and I just thought, that’s what I want, what I know I can do. So she talked to me afterward, and she said, ‘Next time I come into town, I want you to be playing,’ ” Williams said.
Williams isn’t the only one with a more personal connection. Pomeroy and some of the other performers were strongly influenced by local or lesser-known bands, as well as a friend or colleague in the industry.
The Happily Entitled’s Mackenzie Pulse said Willow Way’s Jen Maynord had always been a huge inspiration and pillar in her musical career.
Paying it forward
Members of the Cut Throat Queens, Pulse, Pomeroy and several other performers have been directly influenced by Rock and Roll Camp for Girls OKC and its founder, Carter Sampson, either as volunteers or, in Pomeroy’s case, a camper.
The proceeds of the festival are going directly to the Rock and Roll Camp and the Girls Art School, Coleman said.
AMP Festival’s performers aren’t just chasing the sound of favorite big-time artists; they’re following in the footsteps of the women who have influenced them directly and sharing that knowledge when they can.
As many of the women of AMP Festival attested, it’s not easy being a female artist or musician.
Mesh said she had constantly run into industry executives bent on molding women into cookie-cutter or overly sexualized boxes.
Williams said there is a privilege for the young and attractive, and more than a few of the musicians noted that they are often not taken seriously.
Despite these barriers, they move forward, relying on the women that came before them and offering what they can to those who follow in their wake.
“I think it’s extremely important to raise awareness for women’s art and music and to celebrate women in the music and creative world. It adds diversity and it adds something different and unique,” Maynord said.
“Me, I have a little girl. … I think it’s most important in that fact: letting younger girls know that they can follow their dreams and that they can create music or create art and that they are valued and supported.”