☿LEARNING TO UNLEARN☿

Nine years ago, Jennifer Finch called on fans to help her process a ton of old film, mostly photos of other musicians, both live shots and candids. I donated money, and about a month later, I got this postcard. I've had it hanging on my wall in my office/studio for years now.

Jennifer's passing yesterday hit pretty hard. I found out while out with friends and didn't say anything to them, but it was necessary to pay proper respects. Jennifer wasn't only a killer bassist, but also a great photographer. She spent decades documenting various music scenes and those photos are precious (pun fully intended).

Her body of work as a photographer serves as a reminder as to why scene documentarians are so important. I've spent years documenting Chattanooga's noise and experimental music scene, and even before that I was documenting sludge and doom metal bands across the southeast. Music scenes deserve to be remembered properly.

Those pictures are little gemstones, important morsels of time that will outlive our physical forms. There are people I've photographed that I'm no longer in touch with, and people who are sadly no longer alive. Memories unfortunately can fade with time, so pictures, videos, audio recordings, interviews - that's what keeps memories for us.

Leperwitch - Live at Memphis Concrete Festival 2026

So many of y'all saying you love my "smoking era" just puts a big, wheezy grin on my face.

One reason I decided to start taking pictures of myself smoking is to destigmatize it. There is no shame in being a smoker!

Harsh Noise

Beer

Cigarettes

I'm not cis (I'm closest to nonbinary femme)

We have five mods total - there's me and Julia, the two you see here on Tumblr, and then joining us on Instagram and Discord is Daisy (who's trans), Elena (who's Latina and from Ecuador), and Mae (who is black). 4 out of 5 of us are noise musicians, and we're all writers with a background in interviewing artists and covering events.

Every Women of Noise Fest has had very diverse performers, and it wasn't for the sake of "looking good", it's because I chose artists whose work I enjoy and deeply respect. This year alone we have an incredibly diverse pool of performers that's at least half made up of nonwhite performers and overwhelmingly queer and/or trans. I'm so blessed everyone wants to be a part of this Fest with enthusiasm.