In her own words

Joyce Katzberg reflects, 30 years after

by Michael Caito

Joyce Katzberg

Joyce Katzberg has squeezed a lotta living into her 45 years, the latter two-thirds of which have been devoted to social activism through music. Part of a sonically-gifted family which includes her father and sister Kate (of Katzberg & Snyder), her wisdom and wit have illuminated stages and street corners since the harried 1960s in Cambridge, where she passed out underground newspapers and sang, sometime from the back of paddy wagons. On the occasion of her 30th anniversary performance at Stone Soup, we spoke to Warren's folk beacon about word, song and family, and how they've helped shape her life to date.

Q: The term "political correctness" is frequently used as a blanket dismissal of numerous issues which need to be further addressed in dialogue. Is that an oversimplification?

A: It's an attempt to evolve an accurate language, in a language that helps people to imagine themselves differently or more expansively. So it's really used to trivialize, and it's been very effective. You don't see as many people working on examining the language. In alternate, they make you into a caricature, so that if you are engaged in a conversation in attempting to explain to somebody that when they call you a "girl" when you're 45 years old, that they're trying to perpetuate [this language by] using a diminutive phrase, and you'd prefer to be a "woman," just like a 45-year-old man wouldn't want to be called "boy." Instead of the person you address saying, "I really never thought of it that way," they write you off as being P.C. The issue -- to examine the power structures that are perpetuated by language -- gets trivialized.

Q: The immediacy and power of music has always been capable of cutting through "spin." Do you agree?

A: Music is pretty pure. That's why I'm a folk singer. Itrust the process, and Iconsider folk music to be a very broad category, encompassing just about anything humans can reproduce. The story is hard to corrupt. People learn it and pass it on, and that's very different. When you have a whole bunch of people who've heard it, who've learned the song, and who then go out and perform and teach it and the story line remains mostly the same, that's an oral tradition difficult to corrupt. And Itrust that a lot more than Ido newspapers.

Q: Your first public appearances were outside, and later you helped form Stone Soup, a critical stage for like-minded performers. Even without stages, there is always the street. It's not stoppable.

A: No, no no. I always figured if ever Iran into seriously hard times I have enough of a repertoire that I could just go stand on a street corner and sing for quarters if Ihave to.

Q: So as society becomes increasingly insular, missions of communal places like Stone Soup haven't changed from day one.

A: Stone Soup originated out of a group discussion at a conference of the People's Music Network for Songs of Freedom and Struggle. Pete Seeger was there speaking of the need for a whole network of coffeehouses that would give an audience to people who had a topical repertoire, realizing it's so difficult for a topical musician to make a living out there because in general, folks want to go and be a passive audience. A topical musician usually engages their audience in a thinking as well as an entertaining process. That was the original mission -- to give a venue to people who perform topical music. It's expanded some; Stone Soup's stable of musicians, if you will, has expanded, more of the city is reflected, and they have quite a few people on their roster whose music is not overtly topical. But they have a mission to support this. It's very necessary to have that forum available, and I'm thrilled to see Stone Soup in its 18th season continuing to do that, which is why I wanted it to be the place to have my 30th anniversary concert, and invited Charlie King and Magpie to perform with me. Both are very influential in affirming to me that concentrating my musical energies in cultural organizing was an essential function.

Q: Current and future projects?

A: I perform every Friday in Warren at the Antique Center. In many ways it's my favorite place to play. The people who come reinforce to me how intelligent real people are out there. I play a diverse repertoire there and in any concert, drawing from many traditions, from music hall to country and western to jazz to rock and roll, blues. For three hours straight I sing and talk and get people to engage in conversation. That's an important role for me, and feel I offer this town a touchstone. They know that there's an informal place to grapple with difficult issues, we can sit and laugh together, and explore together in a very normal environment. It reaffirms to people that they're not alone in their thinking, and that there's a community of people that supports them. And that's the very best of a folk tradition, when you're in your own village or town and the music and stories you offer are considered to be a resource in the community. It reflects for me an arriving at a very mature place, because I don't have any major big hopes of going out and being the next Phil Ochs or traveling around the world. Idon't need that to feel I've arrived at a successful place musically. The crowd is very mixed, and it affirms that the songs and their messages reach out to people across many different categories. And that's where I was hoping to arrive in my life -- at an authenticity as a resource. That they keep coming back tells me that I've arrived.

Joyce Katzberg celebrates her 30th Anniversary Concert on Saturday at Stone Soup with Magpie, Charlie King and her father.

SHOWS. dayinthelife play Saturday at Lupo's. They appear along with Nashville Pussy, Marilyn Manson, Anthrax, Megadeth, Sevendust on Dee Snider's Strangeland (TVT) soundtrack, a very heavy album, replete with a coupla Twisted Sister covers and tracks not appearing on the other contributors' various releases. Don't sleep on this weekend's EBN / DJSpooky That Subliminal Kid twin bill at the Met; Spooky (Paul D. Miller)'s newest Riddim Warfare (Outpost) is another feast for the senses. Ted Drozdowski has assembled a combo to back John Sinclair at AS220, which has an absolute embarrassment of riches this week, with several Beat-oriented happenings, the Pataphysical Circus, and the kick-off of this year's Action Speaks program, Tuesdays throughout October. The Circus' lineup has been augmented at the last minute by the performance of Sue Garner. Performing tracks from her latest To Run More Smoothly (Thrill Jockey), hers is a minimal, avant-country kind of set. Les Batteries also perform. In backing Sinclair, musician/scribe Drozdowski's combo is backing up the former manager of the MC5 and former chairman of the White Panther Party. Sinclair, perceived as a threat for his varied activist interlocutions, spent two years in the joint for . . . two joints, his cause later enjoined musically by John Lennon in Lennon's "Free John Sinclair." Keeping that spirit, it's also a big weekend for Herbal Nation, who beside opening for Bernie Worrell tonight at the Call host another Todd McCormack fund-raiser at the Met Monday. As you may recall, McCormack's case is further reason for continued dialogue on the medicinal use of marijuana.

Purple Ivy Shadows launch their month-long residency at the Safari on Friday, with guests pleasurehorse and Mouth Breather. The Mair-Davis Duo & friends, including mandolist Robert Paul Sullivan of the New England Conservatory and bassist Nate Davis of the World Cafe Quartet perform Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at Roger Williams U.'s Performing Arts Center. The free program is comprised of Brazilian, Japanese, European and American duets and trios.

All this and Combustible Edison, too. Their latest The Impossible World (Sub Pop) is a texturally profound effort from the Cocktail Nation stalwarts, much stronger than their last, Schizophonic, in that there is a palpable undercurrent of apprehension, of something gone awry in the glimmery, plastic-smiled La$ Vega$ they would call home if they weren't at least partly based in South County. Those who found their earlier work -- as I did -- too precious will welcome the subtle sea change, as elements of jazz and pop co-habitate exquisitely in an album that is by turns melancholy and eerie, but ultimately empowering and rewarding. Heady, quixotic and recommended music from the brothers Cudahy and pals. Miss Lily Banquette, as usual, is superb. Ascot recommended, as are shoes to sashay in.