MIDNIGHT RADIO
AN EXPERIMENTAL PUNK SONG WRITING WORKSHOP
WHAT: A queer, feminist, anti-Zionist + Jewishly-inspired*, experimental + therapeutic take on punk song writing. Sessions will include a combo of checking in + getting to know each other; framing / inspiration / prompts; structured parallel play; and time for processing + optional sharing. I’ll schedule 1:1 calls with each participant before the series begins to connect about access needs, relationship to the voice, and our Informed Consent Doc. This project honors the POC invention of punk, and a portion of proceeds will go to co-founders of the band Fuck U Pay Us via The Uhuru Dream House and a celebration fund for Jasmine Nyende. A portion of proceeds will also go to Rawa — a Palestinian initiative supporting emancipatory grassroots organizing throughout historic Palestine.
*What I mean: this work is resourced and catalyzed by a Judaism before/beyond Zionism. By ancestral wisdom and power that can help us heal our trauma, such that we cease inflicting trauma upon others. By ever-evolving ritual and tradition steeped in mutual aid and magic. By an earth-based, mystical, queer AF spirituality that loves Life and complexity and denounces oppression in all forms. This work screams in service of the indomitable global movement to Free Palestine.
WHY: To splash around together in the creation of experimental punk music — to feel our aliveness + courage on a cellular level; to give less fucks about what doesn’t matter and root more wholly + wildly into what does; to deepen our capacity to fight for / build a liberated future for all bodies. The goal is not to leave with a ‘complete song(s)’ although that might happen!
WHERE: Spruce Hill Community Association, 257 S 45th St, Philly PA***
WHEN: 6 sessions, Saturdays —>
The Mundane — April 19, 230-5pm
The Sweet — April 26, 230-5pm
The Sour — May 3, 230-5pm
The Scream — May 10, afternoon FIELD TRIP (exact time and location TBD) (optional movie night afterwards)
Band Practice — May 17, 230-5pm
Showcase / Closing Ritual — May 24, 730-930pm
Reach out if you have conflicts with 1-2 of the above - we can probably work with that! Write to feralqueenapothecary@gmail.com
***The SHCA has no stairs to enter, and a gender neutral ADA-accessible bathroom on the ground floor. K/N95 masks + tests required and provided if needed. I’ll be able to start running air filters an hour before sessions. More in-depth access convos will take place in initial 1:1 meetings and will be woven into lesson planning and group commitments.
SOME OTHER IMPORTANT DETAILS:
This workshop is for people of all marginalized genders <3
NO SINGING EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
NO SONGWRITING EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
NO MUSICAL EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
NO FAMILIARITY WITH PUNK MUSIC NECESSARY (here is an assortment of audio/visual/written resources re: femme queer trans + BIPOC punk for your research/inspo pleasure)
I will reference Jewish ritual, thought and practice throughout the journey. No connection to Judaism necessary.
A VOICE IS A GOOD VOICE. I identify as being “medium to bad at singing” compared to professional singers. But I know my voice is fuckin’ beautiful and powerful and yours is too. We have the right to sing. We have the right to scream. We are allowed to write songs. We can make ungovernable sound a chariot of self-intimacy / intimacy with life.
This process centers the voice… but/and incorporating instruments, garageband, etc is welcome - as you desire!
The title for this project comes from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, written by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask. All the misfits / and the losers / you know you’re rock and rollers. And all you strange rock and rollers / you know you’re doing all right / so hold on to each other. You’re shining like the brightest star / a transmission / on the Midnight Radio
Below is a map of themes we will explore:
THE MUNDANE
anyone can write a song / undermining expertise
DITTIES / the mundane as muse
nigunim — wordless melodies
the repetition of Torah trope (the way each word of the Torah is sung year after year)
chanting as elevated repetition
the frequency of brachot (Jewish blessings, for everything)
tkhines (Yiddish prayers and devotions, written by and for those historically excluded from religious life)
decommodification / claiming “uselessness” / nonsensical sounds
the role of talking in punk songs
Really Rosie (thank you Maurice Sendak) ~ infusing the daily with drama
THE SWEET
the role of vulnerability in punk music
internal family systems / writing for + from parts
plant friends
moshing as collective care
the role of earnestness in punk music
intersections of fawn and fight response
punk pep talks
the chaotic good
disruption as TLC / punk lullabies
fomentation
THE SOUR
sour herbs that return us to ourselves / puckering up into power
Baba Yaga
the burst / cursing / the twist / the twisted
the role of the short song in punk music
savoring the flavor
sarcasm + pettiness ,, cat claws ,, wry humor as lineage and delineation
intimacy with the shadow
intimacy with parts of us who have been pushed away
THE SCREAM
animal selves / earth body / web of sound
the Tehom / Tiamat / “the watery deep”
protecting / showing up for + with
mourning and wailing / rage / raucous laughter
climbing and descending jacob’s ladder / wrestling / demanding to be blessed
the shofar / the megaphone / the message
hearing ourselves
co-regulation + integration
BAND PRACTICE
band names / naming rituals
show flyers
costuming magic, in Judaism and beyond
inhabiting space / taking space / making space
stage as altar / as temple / as mishkan / as sukkah
performance art as ritual
collaboration station
THE SHOWCASE / CLOSING RITUAL
witnessing and being witnessed
celebration + closing
loitering + lingering
Midnight Radio Testimonials:
Jo’s facilitation + teaching style is just magical. They are like a wise, playful, gentle, and very curious cat pulling at the tangled ball of yarn lodged in my chest, up through my throat and out of me. Grief, hope, joy, defiance, power, bravery all finding a way out through my voice. And this was just fun and precious as HELL to share with everyone who joined. ~ Eddy
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Midnight Radio allowed me to tap into a part of myself that I didn’t know I had access to. You are a master facilitator; I left every session blown away. It felt so good to be held by you in that space. It felt like we were all artists together, like there wasn’t any sort of hierarchy… it didn’t feel like the kind of course where you’re teaching us something and we are less-than because we don’t know it. It felt like you were awakening us to things we already knew, both in the music and in ourselves. There was so much freedom… I felt zero pressure to write a song, and yet I left the workshop with a fully formed song — and I’ve never written a song like that before. And that wasn’t the most important thing about this workshop for me. The most important thing was that it helped me move through some really challenging feelings, and allowed me to get in touch with the parts of myself that needed to be seen and heard and held. ~ MJ
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Being a member of the Midnight Radio community was a uniquely compelling and provocative experience. I felt safe enough to take risks revealing myself to others. I gained a deeper capacity to appreciate, accept and celebrate myself. I reveled in the power of my own voice, roars and cries. I also gained a heightened understanding of the value of being quiet and still. I will never be the same…
I miss Joanna and the other members of Midnight Radio who I learned so much from. They are each “makers of meaning,“ deep thinkers and artists whose various forms of expression were thrillingly diverse from one another. I will remember them all as BOLD, BRAVE, BRILLIANT and BEAUTIFUL beings. I miss the camaraderie, the challenge, the surprise and the joy that is Midnight Radio. ~ Claudia
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midnight radio is such an amazing, special, artfully held, inspiring and creative series of classes! jo offers brilliant food for thought with each interestingly themed session, and provides a well-held space to be experimental in vulnerable and playful ways. it is obvious that so much care, intentionality, and genius went into every aspect of this experience. the session themes were fascinating. jo makes all kinds of powerful connections between punk, judaism, and healing. they are such a skillful group facilitator and create a safe, connective space for the group to get to know each other and to support each person's individual creative expression. there was a great balance of framing and lecture with activity prompts and group conversation. jo has a talent for drawing people out of their shells in a very gentle and consensual way and validating many different forms of participation. i would recommend this series to anyone and everyone who wants to explore experimental songwriting in a well-held and FUN container! ~ brunem
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Midnight Radio is an amazing punk rock playground. There is no other space I know like it. Joey is a truly out-of-this-world facilitator, and if you have the opportunity to be in a space - any space - led by her, DO IT. For me, Midnight Radio came at a pretty chaotic period in my life, and I loved knowing I had this weekly treat in the mix, a designated time for guided play, where I would, without fail, have my mind blown by one or more of my fellow participants! And I surprised myself by making…not quite a punk song, not even really a “song” even, but a sort of cathartic audio collage I guess I needed to make. I am so grateful I got to participate in this workshop, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. ~ Chloe
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It was like we each had a little candle burning in our hearts, that we had to keep secret behind cupped hands because it was so vulnerable – what if it was exposed and got blown out? So during the workshop we kept flashing each other slight, tentative reveals of our heart-candles... are you safe? Is this safe? And instead of getting extinguished, the flames found each other and ignited into a crackling fire. ~ Chelsea
PAYMENT OPTIONS:
3-tiered sliding scale (thanks to Alexis J. Cunningfolk for this framing) :
$240 ~ Supported Membership
$360 ~ Standard Membership (this amount represents the actual cost of the workshop series)
$480 ~ Pay it Forward Membership (this amount helps me offer the sliding scale / creates greater access)
Enter your offering by clicking “Pay What You Want” at check-out
Deeper sliding scale and payment plans available upon request ~ write to feralqueenapothecary@gmail.com
INTEREST CALLS AVAILABLE - If you might want to participate but are unsure, write to feralqueenapothecary@gmail.com to set up a free 15-20 minute zoom for Q&A
MY STORY:
As a kid I loved to sing loudly, and was quite a diva - initiating a kindergarten production of Annie in which I was both director and Annie, for example. But insecurities took root and rendered me deferential, and terrified to sing. Chloe and I took a class together in college, the Foreign Home - we were asked to get cozy with creative modalities that scared us. I would climb the abandoned drawbridge to practice singing, and wrote slivers of songs about moths. I wandered city streets at night learning lullabies. I built a repertoire of songs to sing into my friends’ answering machines when they felt lonely, or when I did. I studied the stunning song-writing of my dear friend Else, who grew up down the street from me, and who told me there is no wrong way for a voice to sound.
In grad school I had the exquisite privilege of interning at the Rainbow Heights Club, where every Friday night was Karaoke night. I had never done karaoke and got tossed into the ring when someone accidentally plugged in the number for Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know. After singing I collapsed on the couch and exclaimed that my arms had gone numb from nervousness. The club’s Director sent me an email the next day saying: nervousness is just the flip side of excitement. I printed the email and folded it into my wallet. I spent the next several years sneaking away for “rock practice” in empty soccer fields, alone with a tape recorder. Ethan guided me to the Karaoke Clinic where I prepared to perform Hole’s Violet, but I didn’t physically know how to scream…I practiced with my brother until I crossed the threshold from loud to loudest, and something was irrevocably unlocked.
Still, I continued to play the Liv Tyler character from That Thing You Do, dating musicians and circling my life around their shows. I held an absolute assumption that writing songs or being in a band was simply beyond my scope. I moved with a boyfriend to Hawaii, and in between waitressing shifts did the Artist’s Way. I learned the term Shadow Artist. Rockstar, Rockstar, Rockstar came up all over all my lists of desires. David Bowie died and I hid in the forested dunes at the ocean and sang Midnight Radio at the top of my lungs. The boyfriend broke up with me and I drove around in the rain shouting with 4 Non Blondes. I moved to North Carolina and became possessed by the need to form a Patti Smith cover band, in order to sing Pissing in a River on a carpet of red rose petals (it didn’t pan out). Ultimately I enrolled in the adult version of Girls Rock NC.
For those who aren’t familiar, Girls Rock is an international organization that gives microphones and instruments to femme, trans, and genderqueer young people, equips them with political ed, and encourages them to fuck shit up. The NC chapter had an annual fundraiser for their youth programming — adults with little to no musical experience got matched into bands, wrote original songs, and performed them in a major concert venue. The angels placed me in a band we called Kate’s Bush. My contribution was an ode to body hair. I almost puked on stage from the adrenaline, in the middle of a verse, in a fuzzy purple onesie with googley eyes glued all over the butt. We continued to write and play together in basements all over the Triangle. I am forever grateful to those incredibly sweet rascals.
I relocated to Tennessee, and at 90 days sober, wrote my first song as Josephine. The album Refuot emerged throughout that year, and then the album Rhodochrosite. A cappella punk songs, written in the immediate aftermath of IFS therapy sessions, recorded in voice memos in the bathtub, performed under half-built barns and in overgrown gardens. A musicianship of my own.
During quarantine, my mom started singing lessons. She always ADORED singing, but after being rejected from the Glee Club in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade, she internalized the narrative that she “couldn’t carry a tune (but the Stamp Club has openings).” This trapped her voice in a kind of meandering squeak, but her badass self never stopped singing for joy. Meanwhile she started lessons, and she works with her vocal coach on specific songs to sing to each of us on birthdays and holidays. They are highly personalized selections. It’s incredible - the way her voice is growing stronger, richer, steadier. For my birthday last year, she wore a headdress made out of red roses and sang Midnight Radio. She hit it out of the fucking park. We both trembled with the magnitude of it, and the idea for this workshop series was born.