Tickets available at


or the Old Town School Box Office 773-728-6000

ALT Q SPONSORS

ALT Q STORE

 T-SHIRTS ETC.

Scott Free Productions

Past ALT Q Performers

Actor Slash Model
Coyote Grace
Sarah Dougher
Brady Earnhart
Samaiya Ewing
Melissa Ferrick
Ferron
Chris Garneau
Grant Hart
John Hasbrouck
Lisa Hemminger
Nedra Johnson
Kitko
Ernie Lijoi
Carrie Lydon & Kate Rickenbacker
Robert McDonald
Tyson Meade
Shelley Miller
Moses Valdez
Phranc
Christopher Piatt
The Prince Myshkins
Dylan Rice w/ Chuck Panozzo
Toshi Reagon
Ellen Rosner
Dudley Saunders
Jill Sobule
Sven Soderberg
SONiA
Aerin Tedesco & Andrea Bunch
Edward Thomas-Herrera Urban Folk Collective
The Erin Waters Show
Waxer
Mekole Wells
Cris Williamson
Anthony Whitaker
Wishing Chair
Tom Yore
Zrazy
Natalia Zukerman

ALT Q 2009

SATURDAY MAY 9, 2009 7PM
OLD TOWN SCHOOL OF FOLK MUSIC
4544 N. LINCOLN AVE CHICAGO, IL 60625

FEATURING JEFF HEISKELL (of THE JUDYBATS), TRET FURE,
EDIE CAREY, SWEET HELLO, GREGG SHAPIRO, and
STELLA AND THE HEAT BIRDS

HOSTED BY SCOTT FREE
MC'D BY AERIN TEDESCO & ANDREA BUNCH
of CONGRESS OF STARLINGS

The ALT Q Festival is a celebration of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered experience through music and performance. Conceived by Scott Free for the Old Town School of Folk Music, a portion of the proceeds of this event will be to Gay Liberation Network, a lebian/gay/bisexual and transgendered direct action group.

Featuring an evening of five musical acts, ALT Q's mission is to raise awareness of out performers among the general public and the LGBT community. A meet-the-artists wine reception will follow the event. "One of the hippest GLBT concerts in the midwest" - Time Out Chicago

 
JEFF HEISKELL (of THE JUDYBATS)
Former lead singer of the Judybats, Jeff Heiskell released his first true solo CD, 'Clip-on Nose Ring' in 2008. A host of talented players have resulted in a stellar recording of melodious poppy, folky gems. Knoxville, Tennessee's, The Judybats were staples on early to mid-nineties college radio. During the groups four CD contract with Sire/Warner Bros. they toured nationally, strongest followings being Baltimore, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and the Chicago area. Strong play on college radio yielded the Top Ten hit 'Being Simple' whose video was in regular rotation for several months on MTV. With this latest collection of songs - writing on a thrift store acoustic, seated in a rocking chair in his basement - Heiskell let the muse take him where it would. "I've taken to referring to this project as 'My big fat gay CD'.

 JEFF HEISKELL (of THE JUDYBATS)  


 
TRET FURE
Tret Fure’s career spans 4 decades. At the age of nineteen, she moved to LA, and within a year, was performing as guitarist and vocalist for Spencer Davis, penning the single for his album “Mousetrap”. She recorded her first album in 1973 on MCA/UNI Records, with the late Lowell George of Little Feat as her producer. In the early 80s, Tret left the mainstream music industry, and discovered the blossoming genre known as Women’s Music. She has been a major player in that field ever since. After 4 acoustic releases on her own label, Tomboy girl Records, she re-established herself in the folk world, receiving the prestigious Jane Schliessman Award for Outstanding Contributions to Women’s Music. Fure also markets of her own line of clothing, produced a series called Music & Comedy in Madison and has co-hosted the Tomboy Girl Fest. Tret currently serves as Vice President on the executive board of the Local 1000 Traveling Musicians Association--a union geared toward helping traveling musicians find security and longevity.

 TRET FURE 


 
EDIE CAREY
Edie Carey has become one of the country's most notable young songwriters. She made her first album in 1997, while working long days at Worth Magazine and recording until 3 am each night. After the release of The Falling Places in 1998, she began venturing outside of New York City to play neighboring east coast cities, and gradually expanded throughout the United States, then Canada and the UK. While the debut was a very sparsely produced acoustic contemporary folk album, Call Me Home, Carey's follow-up in 2000, was by comparison an all-out pop record, a tribute to her early inspirations and the reckless abandon of her childhood. With its release, Carey unexpectedly found herself achieving her childhood dream of appearing on television with Ed McMahon. Since 2000, she has been working as a full-time performing songwriter, touring rigorously to promote all of her independently self-released records, which now include Come Close, her 2002 live CD, When I Was Made (2004), and the latest addition to her growing catalog, Another Kind of Fire.
 EDIE CAREY 


 
SWEET HELLO
Indie folk-pop band Sweet Hello formed in 2002 around the core of singers/songwriters Laura Doherty and Cat Edgerton. Their first CD "Well of Wishes" was released in 2004 featuring John Abbey on bass, Jason Toth on drums and Kerry Sheehan on accordion and piano. With their sophomore release, The "Pause and the Rest", Sweet Hello has come into their own. Trading lead vocals, the pair strikes a unique balance of dark and light, weaving textured harmonies throughout their songs. The Pause and the Rest brings back the band from the duo's first recording, plus a few additional artists, including Aerin Tedesco and Andrea Bunch (Congress of Starlings) on backing vocals, Larry Beers on drums, David Sims on percussion, plus electric guitarists John Spiegel and Gregg Ostrom. Both records were produced by John Abbey.
 SWEET HELLO 


 
GREGG SHAPIRO
Entertainment journalist Gregg Shapiro’s interviews and reviews run in a variety of regional LGBT publications and websites. His collection of poems, Protection, was published in January 2008 by Gival Press. His poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous outlets including literary journals such as Beltway, modern words, Bloom, White Crane Journal, Blithe House Quarterly, Mipoesias, and the anthologies Mondo Barbie (St. Martin’s), Unsettling American (Penguin), Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body (Paycock Press), Reclaiming the Heartland (University of Minnesota Press), and Blood to Remember (Time Being Books). He lives in Chicago with his life-partner Rick and their dogs, Dusty and k.d.
 GREGG SHAPIRO 


 
STELLA AND THE HEAT BIRDS
Stella and the Heat Birds is an acoustic ensemble with an eclectic mix of vocal and musical styles. With instrumentation that is a hallmark of true Chicago Alt/Americana outfits, the Heat Birds incorporate clarinet, trombone, ukulele, accordion, and upright bass into their performances. Led by sultry jazz vocalist Stella, they seamlessly merge American musical styles of the past one hundred years and make them their own.
 STELLA AND THE HEAT BIRDS 


 
SCOTT FREE
Scott Free, the queer-rock singer/songwriter extraordinaire, is one of America's leading openly-gay male artists. His sometimes humorous, sometimes angry, always touching songs of queer life have gained him acclaim in both gay and straight media across the globe. His early forays into rap produced his first single 'Beat The Rap', who's video was on rotation on Black Entertainment Television. In 2005, he received two Outmusic Awards - Outmusician of the Year and Out Song of the Year (for 'Another Day of the Cruelty'). He also received two Stonewall Society Pride in the Arts Awards that year for Song of the Year (The Muffin Song) and Producer of the Year (Homolatte/Queer Is Folk Festival). He was also inducted into the Stonewall Society's GLBT Hall Of Fame in 2005. Scott has appeared on Canada's MuchMusic video channel, and has been featured on National Public Radio's 'All Things Considered". Along with Alt Q, Scott is the host and curator of 'Homolatte', the longest running queer performance series in the country, at Big Chicks/Tweet. Scott's latest CD is entitled 'The Pink Album (A Pop Opera)'. The video for the single 'Free' spent seven weeks on LOGO's The Click List.
 SCOTT FREE  -->