Tag: boston music scene

“Truth Is Ammunition” – When You Love A Song Nobody Knows. Do You Share It?

A few weeks ago, when my boyfriend was visiting, I played him one of my all-time favorite songs, in which I am one of, if not the only person who even has a copy of it anymore. He was madly in love with it, and how could he not be? I have great taste in music, and this is one of my favorite songs of all time, easily.

The artist is a local Boston folk singer named Pamela Means, who I saw perform it at a house concert in Arlington when I was about 21 years old, so that’s like, 1999/2000ish, and that is around the time the song came out.

I was in a photography class at Middlesex Community College when I went to the house concert, so I took some photos. I decided to do a little photo manipulation and upload the song to Youtube so that others can enjoy this beautiful song I can’t get enough of. Definitely check it out if you made it this far.

Pamela Means at a house concert in Arlington MA

This song is a personal anthem to me…

That’s a photo of the CD “Cobblestones” and my 8×10 photos in my old photography binder.

Here is one more random picture of my pin-up board in the kitchen, where I have a similar themed message “The truth is a virus,” which isn’t from Pamela Means, but my all-time favorite movie “Pump Up the Volume.”

The message is out there. This song speaks to me.

“TALK HARD” (Also from Pump Up the Volume)

My First Art Show In Over A Year & Trying To Save the Gallery

If you are from Boston, you know that gentrification has closed down most of the art and music spaces in Boston even before the pandemic and almost nothing remains here for us now except for a few places including Out Of the Blue Gallery/ Parma Chai Gallery, which moved into The Armory in Somerville right around the beginning of the pandemic, and they’ve spent the year fixing up an ancient building that is an actual armory and small castle from the Revolutionary war. It’d been run down for decades and wasn’t until Out Of the Blue Gallery moved in there last year that it turned into such a remarkable, gorgeous gallery that is sure to add hugely to the Boston art culture once people get back into going out again. Out Of the Blue Gallery is accessible to real artists who may not have had the privilege of being born rich or going to art school, or even knowing the right people. The gallery took in starving artists for decades in its previous locations, and that is where I, a transgender, non-binary artist with Complex PTSD and Bipolar Disorder who spent 20 years in and out of psych wards and then ten more years in abusive relationships, managed to turn my life around. The gallery is extremely diverse, from the owner to every one of the artists, yet the fancy, rich, and mostly straight and white Somerville art people seem to be attempting to buy it out under us for themselves, in the name of “saving art”. I am not an expert on the subject, so you may wanna read about it in The Herald or follow the gallery on Facebook…

https://www.facebook.com/ParmaChaiGallery

Please sign this petition to help save the gallery…

https://www.change.org/p/city-council-help-protect-ootb-gallery-and-other-arts-businesses-in-the-armory?recruiter=622598&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_abi&utm_term=petition_dashboard&recruited_by_id=2bc642c0-54a5-11e7-bf6d-0f936dc062c6&utm_content=fht-28916467-en-us%3A0&fbclid=IwAR0DBAals8Nr726BqPw6x3WBGHNn3nwE-UmMhVbWaaXpSCcs2PJQhMg7CBU

In other, related news, Out Of the Blue held a small, private showing of my May photography exhibit on Saturday and it was a lot of fun. A few close friends came and hung out in the new performance space they are in the middle of fixing up and preparing to hold events with live music again. Here are some of the pictures I took…

sometimes the masks end up upside down

The Armory, Somerville MA

Here is some info on my show, which is going on through June. It’s called “Falling Apart, Breaking, And Putting Myself Back Together Through Art”. The Armory is open to the public Monday-Saturday 9-6 and they even have a cafe in the building.

http://wickedclicheart.com/wicked-cliche-psychosis-art-show-at-out-of-the-blue-gallery-with-art-photos-a-poem-by-jymi-cliche/

For music this time, I’ll put up a video that was taken at the Armory this past year, inside Out Of the Blue Gallery, of me rapping over Parma Chai. It was completely improvised and I’m still sort of a beginner, so there were parts that sound better than others, but it was pretty awesome and I’m hoping there will be more to come.