Estrojam 2006

Nina Hagen, Lesbians On Ecstasy, and Team Dresch headlined the four-day fest

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Published: October 5th, 2006 | 2:41pm

Curating a four-day feminist music festival can be a rough deal. Not only do you need to find a group of highly organized and motivated people willing to donate their time for free to create an event on a shoestring budget, but you’re also up against the myriad prejudices of others. Some view you as exclusionary and hostile toward men, while some condemn you for not being extreme enough. Others simply rehash that old misogynistic myth that when talking about women in music, mediocrity rules.

Chicago’s Estrojam 2006, however — which took place September 27–30, 2006 — proved successful in dispelling any of these myths and criticisms. Established in 2003, the music and culture festival centering on women has been growing in momentum each year.

Headlining the opening night at Chicago's Abbey Pub was the hotly anticipated Team Dresch with their grungey dorm-room lesbo rock. Concentrating mainly on material from the band's popular 1996 record Captain My Captain, Team Dresch played a meticulous set, combining sentimental femcore ballads with tight, searing indie-rock outs.

Fast forward to Saturday night at the Metro, with Erase Errata's Jenny Hoyston supporting Nina Hagen. The last time I saw Hoyston play as her solo project Paradise Island was at Ladyfest Madrid 2005. She had lost all of her luggage, including all her musical equipment, on the flight over. She played anyway. The result was a mesmerizing acoustic set, suggesting that Hoyston is someone who gets even more creative under pressure.

At Estrojam, Hoyston fortunately had all her equipment in tact, and was able to play the songs that she had planned to that night in Spain a year prior. Starting out with a number of propulsive art-pop songs reminiscent of Erase Errata, she led into songs she wrote in collaboration with alt-country singer-songwriter William Elliot Whitmore.

While Estrojam undoubtedly will continue to have its critics, the overall feeling of the weekend was celebratory, combining a sense of community with great music.