Un Bio de Emch
The short of it:
Emchy is the affectionate nickname of accordion player, poet and all over hellraiser Cindy Emch. Emchy originally hails from the rust belt of Michigan and currently resides in the salty train laden port of Oakland.
She plays accordion in the bands Vagabondage, Rhubarb Whiskey, Oakland Wine Drinkers Union (Local 88) and occasionally drops in for a solo show here and there. Cindy's writings have been been published in the Can I Sit With You project, LodeStar Quarterly, There Journal, Tough Girls 2: More Down and Dirty Dyke Erotica edited by Lori Selke, It's So You: 35 Women on Fashion, Beauty and Personal Style edited by Michelle Tea, and numerous chapbooks.
She believes that art can create change in the world and that it's not so hard to be nice to people. She also thinks that dirt smells like magic and gets lost in the woods on purpose.
The long of it:
Cindy Emch was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan on September 11, 1974. She attended Michigan State University and interned at On Our Backs magazine in the summer of 1995. In June of 2006, she moved to Phoenix, AZ to work for the publishing company DM International. In January of 1997 she moved to the Bay Area to live in Oakland, CA and work for Stormy Leather. She left Stormy Leather in October 1998 and began working for the SF LGBT Film Festival (Frameline). It was through her work at Frameline that she began curating films and publishing her pop culture writings. She left Frameline in August of 2003. In November of that year she began working for the SF LGBT Community Center. In the Spring of 2005 she became the Program Manager for AIDS, Medicine and Miracles. In August of 2005 she began working for the website AtomFilms.com where she was the Programming Manager for AtomFilms and AtomUploads.com - part of the MTV Networks family. In the winter of 2008 she was lured away from her Atom.com family to work for Jaman.com, a company specializing in streaming international and art house cinema on the web. She left in early 2009 to return to Frameline and help create a long range strategy for the marketing and online community aspects of both the Distribution and Festival arms of the organization. She is currently working as a Video Curator for Yahoo.com.
Music
Cindy taught herself guitar using a Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen songbook at the tender age of 14 while working as a Boat Launch Guard in rural Michigan. It was many years later that she picked up and accordion and answered a blog comment from John Flaw and Vagabondage was born. In the next couple of years Vagabondage began playing monthly (and more) throughout the Bay Area, meanwhile Cindy also started up a bluegrass band with Patrick McMains (stagename Boylamayka Sazerac) formerly of the Berkeley pop punk band Subincision, and Rhubarb Whiskey was also born. While Cindy got happier and happier songwriting and playing with the guys, she decided to hit the road and went on the Hobo Love Tour: an accordion and poetry cabaret with midwestern cohort One Beer Prophet. A few years later on a random visit, Rhubarb Whiskey and One Beer Prophet realized after jamming together that they too were a band and the Oakland Wine Drinkers Union, Local 88 came into the world.
Writing
Cindy Emch's first San Francisco feature was at the first Labrynth Alley Arts Salon in 1998. She has since featured at Writers With Drinks, RADAR, Writers Village (part of SF Pride), Smack Dab, K'vetsch, SFinX, The Perpetual Motion Road Show, the 24 Hour Poetry Event (with California College of the Arts), Art for Autism, Sizzle (with Femina Potens), the National Queer Arts Festival, Poems Under the Dome and more.
She has been a curator for the National Queer Arts Festival since 1995 and has been the recipient of a Creating Community grant from the Queer Cultural Center. In 2004 she felt the need for an inclusive and open community space to share art across all gender, orientation, age and cultural lines and so founded the Queer Open Mic in San Francisco. Cindy handed this event over to Sarah Dopp in 2008 so that she could focus more on her musical pursuits. She also co-hosted the Unka Lynnee & Aunty Cindy Show with Lynn Breedlove on Pirate Cat Radio (piratecatradio.com) for two years. Podcasts of the show are available at archive.com
Queer Open Mic
Queer Open Mic is a community resource, gathering space and performance venue for folks of all varieties to come together to connect through art. Past features have included Daphne Gottlieb, Michelle Tea, Meliza Banales, Lauren Wheeler, Storm Florez, Thea Hillman, Fran Varian, Juba Kalamka, Heathen Machinery,Ryka Aoki de la Cruz, solidad de costa, Tina Butcher, Lynn Breedlove, Jackie Strano, Tim'm West, Shar Rednour, Yankee Sheila, Hazel Pine, Neely Bat, Jen Cross, Tara Jepsen, Horehound Stillpoint and more. The current status of this hootenanny can be found at www.queeropenmic.com
Unka Lynnee & Aunty Cindy Show
Cindy Emch joined the Unka Lynnee & Aunty Cindy Show in December of 2004 and co-helmed the mic until February of 2007.
The show is described as Old skool nu skool i didnt go to skool. we play queer, chick, trans and garden variety tunes… punk rock, musicals, chick cock rock, math rock, gay vaudevillian shit from the twenties and weird pop culture archival shit that we find laying around san clamsdisco. in between folks can call up with questions about gender, trans identity, body modification, hormones, feminism, dating,femmes, butches, and general queer bot issues. ROCK ON WIT YER SOX ON.
Existing as a combination pop culture melting pot and showcase of queer artists, guest performers include Meliza Banales, Daphne Gottlieb, Katastrophe, Michelle Tea, Cooper Lee, Heather Gold, Kelly Lee Beardsley, Frances Varian, Annie Sprinkle and more.
The show still exists as The Unka Lynnee Show hosted solo by Lynn Breedlove.
www.emchy.com
www.vagabondageband.com
www.rhubarbwhiskey.com
and on myspace...
www.myspace.com/emchy
www.myspace.com/rhubarbwhiskey
www.myspace.com/vagabondageband
www.myspace.com/oaklandwinedrinkersunion
