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Welp, I started publishing some writing on Substack recently in hope that more people will be prone to read it, as the individual website format is pretty much isolationist and feels like howling into a void. So, the first article is here:
In other news, There is another banger from the instrumental automatic minds of Braille Stars!
...this is the beat of a pile driver, the sound of wrestlers doing piledriver dance moves like machines; move yr bodies!.
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We are thrilled to share a new instrumental soundtrack : Memento Mori
officially out on the streaming platforms tomorrow, July 1. You can hear it immediately(like now!) and support our music by purchasing this or any of our other releases by visiting our BandCamp page (!vive la indépendance!) Memento Mori(3/10/24 #4) Automatic remembrance: vivre déjà morir. Gilly Ann Hanner: Guitar, Loops James Boulton: Bass VI Stef River Darensbourg: Drums engineered and mixed in Portland, OR by Gilly Ann Hanner Performed/composed/recorded live on March 10, 2024 .automatic music.
New soundtrack exploring dreamworlds, mechanical forests and astral projecting.
Performed/Composed/Recorded live in Pdx 2/3/24 & 3/9 &10/24.
New music from Braille Stars! Instrumental dis track in response to short and sweet trends =
long and heavy. Recorded in Pdx 2/3/24. In Real Time. IRL. No lyrics. No edits, Time based Art to the max. Come on a ride with us.
  James Boulton’s artwork is often characterized by dense layering and energetic application of materials. He has exhibited sculpture, video, drawing, and most often painting in galleries, museums and artist-run spaces since the mid-1990’s. This will be the first time his work has been exhibited in the Pacific Northwest since the closure of Pulliam Gallery in 2013.
At Archer gallery, the artist presents an installation of new drawings paired with an improvised musical performance by the trio Braille Stars on April 27, 2024. Braille Stars was founded in 1999 in Portland, Oregon by Gilly Ann Hanner and Steph River Darensbourg. Their expansive style combines experimental improvisation with melodic themes equally influenced by their guitar punk roots and ambient dream core. James Boulton joins the group in their newest incarnation performing instrumental pieces that rely on intuition, invention and responsiveness as the trio collaboratively generates compositions in real time. (photo credits Rocky Cohen, Gilly Ann Hanner)
Hey ho! Fresh Pacific Northwest Psychedelia just released on Bandcamp - check it out! 100% improvisational jams recorded on a phone in a small practice space in Portland Oregon. Raw, intuitive, emotive and spacious. This release consists of 3 tracks loosely arranged around a theme of water as a pervasive, elemental force.
BrailleStars just released Atmospheric River, check it out here.  Calamity Jane in Buenos Aires, Argentina October,1992. Marcéo Martinez, Gilly Ann Hanner, Joanna Bolme, Megan Hanner.  Gilly Ann Hanner. Onstage Buenos Aires, Argentina October 30, 1992. Yesterday I was asked to recall an infamous moment in my musical history some 30+ years ago that involved a world famous band and my completely unknown band Calamity Jane. An acquaintance wanted to do a blurb on the incident, (Read Al Melchior's article here) and as a result, I dug deep and tried to remember details. I also utilized the other tomes that pay tribute to the holiness that is Nirvana, and quoted myself being quoted loosely, as well as some rather unpleasant quotes by some non-feminist South American rockers who dispute both my memories and those of the revered Kurt Cobain. Then I ended up in a shitty mood. And had lots of strange dreams that drew from my rich history of strange realities.. Our set list was likely (I don’t have the actual one): Say it Magdalena Little Girl Love Song Believe Little Miss Hell A lot o Blood My spit Come on Calamity Jane had a 30 minute slot right before Nirvana’s set on October 30, 1992 in Buenos Aires at Velez Sarsfield. There was also a band called los Brujos that played before us, they had a Carnaval meets Chili Peppers vibe- very party with big puppets and people in the crowd were quite rowdy during their set. People were there to see the phenomenon of Nirvana and were hungry for the songs they heard on the radio and MTV, add to that the long lines to get in and a considerable wait before the band was to take the stage. Enter a scrappy looking band of non-traditional looking female/queer/trans punk rockers from Oregon, who for some unknown reason were awarded the coveted opening slot for this huge show(30,000+ capacity). Dressed in thrift-store fashion(I wore a velvet mini-dress, Joanna had on a square dancing dress, Megan and Marcéo were in cutoffs and flannels, all of us had combat boots in some form on our feet) we took the stage during a rousing chant of “Nir-vana! Nir-vana!. We walked out on stage in front of the biggest crowd we had ever played to (the only other show that came close was NO On 9 Benefit earlier that year at Portland Meadows with Nirvana, Helmet and Poison Idea), we donned our instruments and looked out at the sea of shouting humans. At the sound check earlier, we had been elated to hear our music so LOUD and the first chord did not disappoint- blasting out into the stadium. Although much of this is a blur, I am fairly sure we opened with our song Say It- (which was musically inspired by the PNW band U-Men). It involved some weird tempo changes and a lot of screaming vocals, loud guitars. I think we made it through the whole song, and started another one? But there was a moment of realization at some point that the crowd was competing with us- they were shouting something and objects were flying towards us… coins, ice, dirt clods, and the word ‘Putas’ became clear (it means whores in Spanish). It didn’t really compute until I looked down at the stage and noticed a circle of spit around us- spit coming from the crowd, and past that I could see the faces and middle fingers, even a few penises that had been flashed at us. They were not happy, they did not like us, and they wanted us to get off the stage. I looked at Megan, Joanna, then Marcéo in confusion- I tried to keep playing, but things started to hit me, a coin then a dirt clod, and my adrenaline was already pumping at a bionic rate. I was PISSED. Tears of rage made me stop playing and storm off the stage. Megan followed me, but I seem to remember Joanna remaining on the stage and walking back and forth picking up coins and throwing them back??? Marcéo ducked behind his cymbals. Courtney Love was watching from the side of the stage and she immediately came over and put her arm around my shoulder and got right in my face and said “That is so punk rock- Go back out there, they LOVE you!”. My head was spinning, “They do not! They hate us!” Megan was shaking her head. “Well, you are too punk for them- You rock- you should go back out there- fuck them!” Courtney continued. I didn't want to admit defeat, and I was pretty angry, so I looked at Megan and she nodded, we walked back out and attempted to finish our set. It became pretty impossible to continue playing- I mean we weren’t the Sex Pistols! We didn’t want the crowd to actively hate us. We didn’t get through more than another song or so before I ended the performance by smashing my guitar on the stage and screaming into the mic- and the band followed my lead, leaving the stage while the guitars fed back through the huge sound system. Afterwards we were in shock and huddling- we had put on sweatshirts and pulled up our hoods so nobody would recognize us and start yelling at us- our sound engineer had turned her Calamity Jane shirt inside out and backwards before she walked through the crowd because she was worried about getting yelled at. There was a long gap before Nirvana grudgingly took the stage, they were not happy about how the crowd treated us, and considered bowing out. I watched Nirvana's long-stalled set from the side of the stage; I always loved seeing Nirvana live- so much gorgeous noise and chaos, with catchy choruses and beautiful melodies. They did a long noise jam, Kurt messed up the lyrics to songs on purpose, and they faked out the crowd several times with aborted starts to 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. Mostly I felt pretty numb, but seeing Nirvana mess with the crowd was complicated- it was culture shock wrapped in rock-star-dreams turned nightmare for me and I think the rest of the band felt similarly. It was a bit of solace to feel that our comrades cared what happened to us, yet it confirmed that we as musicians are subject to the audience, and the bigger they get, the worse it can feel when the hurricane of negative public opinion storms you. There is more to the story involving staying with my vomiting sister(vodka) while our guitarist and drummer partied with Krist and Dave, having a huge hotel bill from the mini-bar, stealing a pillow, getting chastised by our handler for being “ugly to the crowd”, returning to Albuquerque in November with broken guitars, a broken van and broken hearts. Our band didn’t play another show together for over 25 years. ANYWAY…. So much more has happened but that is a moment that keeps getting revisited because of the impact my friend’s band Nirvana had on modern music and culture. And my proximity makes me a passing point of interest, but in a sort of tragic can’t look away from the train wreck kind of way. Let’s face it, humans like tragedy. Life as an artist becomes so much more interesting as a historical reference, and tragic death by suicide is the number one proven way to boost your career. Do I sound bitter? I am not, but I have noted this fascinating trend ever since my Women Poets seminar in college. Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson definitely did the right thing career-wise. It sucks, but if Kurt Cobain had lived, how would he have remained relevant? I think it would have been very difficult. And if you have had early meteoric success, how do you come down gently? Nervous breakdowns are hard to avoid. I've definitely had my share.  This is an excerpt from the book 'I Found My Friends, an oral history of Nirvana' by Nick Soulsby:
“GILLY ANN HANNER: We maybe got through one song before we realized the crowd's reaction -it seemed possible-"might" be negative. There were things flying at us! Chunks of dirt! Ice! Coins! A lot of spit coming up on the stage. I started taking it in. Up there you usually take in the crowd a little bit but mainly focus on what you're doing, singing, hitting the right notes, but then it was really obvious- I thought, Oh my God, they hate us! They're booing us off the stage! Throwing shit at us! I just stopped, looked around, looked at my band mates and I think I walked over to the side- Courtney was over there. She said, "Go back out there! They love you!" They clearly did not love us! She's like, "Come on, it's punk rock, get out there!" So I went back out, started playing again, and made it partway through a song .. My sister [Megan] and I had been on a US tour and played a lot for weird crowds, but we were completely bowled over. I can't imagine what the new members were feeling. Marcéo was hiding behind the drums trying not to get hit by stuff. Joanna was just walking around the stage ignoring it and doing a pretty good job of it too, not really reacting. But we were like, What?! They're being assholes! They're flipping us off! Look- there's people actually pulling their pants down, taking their penises out! All kinds of stuff, it was unbelievable, all kinds of crazy shit.. .. Also, I've come from a place where there was a lot of stage diving and slam-dancing at shows and throwing things, bottles, hitting people. I'd taken to stopping the shows and saying, "Guys, you need to calm down or we're not going to play-people are getting hurt." I really wanted women to be able to come up and be in the audience without getting pummeled by some big huge punk-rocker punching people-trying to see a band when someone's elbow is hitting you in the eye, it sucks. I I'd done that throughout the tour and the shows that year. On this scale though, I wasn't used to it. Everyone is flipping out partly because we keep stopping -it's fueling the fire. So my band mates are like, "Don't stop playing! Just keep playing! Don't talk to them! Go, go!" I thought No, not cool, so I yelled obscenities through the microphone at the end- don't remember what I said but I was very angry, shocked. My sister and I ended up smashing our guitars on the stage and letting them feed back. We left the stage-we might have played two and a half songs. We went off, we're all really upset. The crowd is booing and yelling. There was a big gap . .. partially because we didn't complete the set and partly because Nirvana stalled after that; they were upset and didn't like how we'd been treated. So they stalled as long as they could. Then it was time, they had to. Courtney came and told us, "Hey, they were going to not play because of how you got treated but they're getting $250,000 for this show-they can't really not play . . " I totally understood, I didn't expect them to not play just because of us. They went up, played, Kurt was . .. he never engaged with the audience anyway, but he was real standoffish even for him during that show.” New Live performance collab from the original Braille Stars lineup Gilly and River with James Boulton(of Desír). Lo-fi recording. OLD SKOOL NOISE. (Aug. 13, 2023) First in a new series of live transmissions from the stars....exclusively on Bandcamp.   image: james boulton 2023.
Sat, Jul 8, 9:37 PM Karaoke : Danger high voltage/electric six Heads Will Roll/ YYY Heart shaped box/ Nirvana Rumor has it/Adele Juice/Lizzo Wed, Jun 28, 10:34 PM Microphone and stand Two guitar cables Mustang with new strings Guitar strap Picks Water Thu, Apr 6, 9:19 AM Songs for hard times songs of sorrow This town’s all right blooming trees and garbage all around someone stole the bank machine someone stole my friends van someone stole everything schools like battle zones. We don’t send our children to war we just send them to kindergarten to die the rain falling snow everything that was supposed to come to pass did not in a good way, I listen to Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle and cry on the day kurt decided to die. I’m still here. I’m still here I bleach my hair play my guitar to nobody all I’ve got is everything love, my family, my dog, listening to people on the corner who live in a tent yelling because they’re cold . Like he said, there’s a comfort in being sad, I wanna be happy too Fri, Apr 7, 12:07 PM I don’t exist Sun, Apr 30, 2:37 PM Carrots Cucumbers Ground turkey Bread Bananas Bars Rice cakes  |
Gilly Ann Hanner is a writer and musician based in Portland, Oregon. She is mother to two daughters, and is part of various musical projects including
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