This weekend the MiSSFiTs Music and Arts Collective organized its second Record-A-Thon at Primary Sound Studios.
MiSSFiTs is a community intending to establish a safe and empowering space for women, transgender people and other gender minorities where they can collaborate, create and express themselves freely.
The collective plans shows, makes zines, shares resources, plays music together, makes movies and more.
This Record-A-Thon took place at Primary Sound Studios which is a converted church off 10th Street. The collective raised money to pay for the venue with cover fees from various shows they played host to highlighting female and gender minority musicians.
The event began on Friday and ran through Sunday. During that time people were free to use the sound booth and equipment to record anything they wanted. This included everything from original songs to spoken-word poetry.
“We want to recognize that not all forms of expression are in the form of songs,” Event Coordinator Jessica Mann said. “So like some people are doing journal readings, some people are reciting poetry or just banging on shit, making ambient noise.”
Mann clarified the Record-A-Thon was meant to bring all types of people together and provide them with an opportunity to collaborate in ways they had not initially anticipated.
“Someone comes in with a song they’ve written and some of them have brought their own musicians but then sometimes the musicians here just join in,” she said. “It’s just supposed to be a really chill, accepting space where we can experiment and explore.”
A few participants even recorded themselves crushing cans, smacking woo and messing around with a cane. They then layered these sounds with the song they had just recorded to create a completely original sound.
Another group wrote and recorded a song about cats breaking up and driving away from each other.
The participants who chose to contribute to the zine collaged pictures and text, cut from different magazines and then proceeded to draw, color and write on top of their creations. In this way they reconstructed what the media had given them to accurately convey the message they wanted to send.
To add another layer of expression, all of this was being filmed by a member of the collective. Mann explained they wanted to give participants the option of creating their own music video to document their experience.
Mann herself talked about making masks and running around the graveyard next to Primary Sound Studios for the music video she wanted to accompany the songs she and her friends recorded.
Ultimately, the MiSSFiTs spent this weekend fostering a creative environment and helping document the voices, opinions, and ideas of those often overlooked.
