Mariella Luz 

My name is Mariella Luz. Today is February 28, 2023. And we are in Olympia Washington. Would you like to introduce yourself?

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Nomy Lamm  

Sure. My name is Nomy Lamm. What else should I say?

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Mariella Luz  

Why don't you start off by telling us what brought you to Olympia?

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Nomy Lamm  00:31

Okay, um, well, my family moved to Olympia when I was two and a half or so. So that was like 1977 or ‘78.  I was born at like an intentional community in Tennessee called Dunmire Hollow. It's a small space that they and their friends started together. And then my mom's dad was moving out here to build a house, his like retirement home. And he asked my dad to help him build it. And so they like, drove across the country in a VW bug and ended up here and were like, “oh, this is really beautiful.”  And they were kind of sick of having to make all decisions with like, 12 other people, So they stayed.

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Mariella Luz  

So you grew up here?

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Nomy Lamm 

I grew up here.

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Mariella Luz  

Did you go to  high school here, too? 

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Nomy Lamm 

I did.

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Mariella Luz  

And college? Did you go to Evergreen? 

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Nomy Lamm 

I went to Evergreen.

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Mariella Luz  

Do you want to give us some information about you as an artist and musician?

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Nomy Lamm  01:43

I am, I guess, a multidisciplinary artist. I'm a singer, and very, like amateur, like, can figure things out on a bunch of different instruments. So I've been in a bunch of bands, but mostly I just sing. I am also a writer, I have an MFA in creative writing and fiction, and I am an illustrator. And I don't know, I kind of just like, lately, I've been weaving baskets. Like, I'm not super “professional level” at really anything, except that I just have, like, you know, artists process and get cool ideas and put them together and just feel like I'm kind of always in some kind of creative process. I started playing in bands when I was in high school here in Olympia.

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Mariella Luz  

So that would have been in the ‘90s. 

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Nomy Lamm  

And yeah, yeah, in the ‘90s.

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Mariella Luz  

So do you want to talk about being a musician and collaborating in the Olympian music scene?

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Nomy Lamm  03:02

I think I wanted to be in bands as young as 10 years old. I was writing songs and being like, “Okay, you're gonna learn how to play drums” and “You're gonna learn how to play guitar.” And usually, my dad would end up playing guitar, so that I can sing my songs. When I was 16, I had a friend who was excited about the idea of starting a band together, and we're like, “Okay, who else do we know? So and so has a guitar.” Stephanie Drexel was the person I was first talking to about it. And she was like, “Yeah, I want to learn how to play drums”  like we went and found a really cheap, shitty drum set and bought it for her and then Deanne Rowley, played guitar. And then we ended up with two bass players. Because, well, one of our friends Melissa Yarborough did play bass. And she kind of came from a family that all played music and then Sash Sunday, who still lives here and runs Oly Kraut. She wanted to be in the band but didn't know what to do. And so I think at our first few rehearsals or practices, she was playing like percussion on Tupperware. And she was like, well, “maybe I'll play bass too” so we ended up with two bases. That band was called Plain Jane.  We played a lot of shows. Honestly, that's probably the band that I've been in that has played maybe the most shows, because it was during a time where there were shows happening constantly-  House shows, and then there was the Capitol Theatre. Then across the alley from the Capitol Theatre, there was this little collective space called The Uncola that we played at a lot. Yeah, we were together for a little over a year, we were juniors and seniors in high school. After that I was in a bunch of different bands just usually with like one other person. And we would play a few shows, maybe. I don't know how many bands I've been in, but so many and most of them have not played a lot of shows or been together that long or released too many albums. Like there is no one thing that ever totally took off. But I think the thing that’s the most high-profile, and that people still remember and talk about, was The Transfused, which was the rock opera that I co-wrote in ‘99 -2000.

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Mariella Luz 

Do you want to tell us about the Transfused and how it came about?

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Nomy Lamm  05:57

Yeah, The Transfused was . . Well, I guess I kind of skipped the part where I did a lot of musical theater, in like, Middle School in high school. And actually, I was like writing musicals from a really young age and, like, I tried to bring a musical I’d written to my middle school and be like, “can we put this on here?”  So that was like a part of my creativity and dreams, things that I wanted to do. Meanwhile, when I was in my, like, early 20s, there was a crew of folks who started getting really into doing drag.  Kind of redefining what drag was and because I think what most of us had ever been exposed to was very kind of glamorous, like, lip synching to diva songs in a beautiful dress in a bar. And so the crew that I hung out with started doing these, like, “dumpster drag” and “monster drag” shows where it was more about what can you find and put together and create.  What,  like, weird performance art can you do with it? Embracing and amplifying things about our bodies and genders that are weird or non normative. Also just some really funny, like, a big group of people all reenacting the Thriller video, or, you know, like kind of theatrical fun stuff that took a lot of people coordinating.  Around that time, there was a local production of Jesus Christ Superstar, like one of my very favorite musicals. So I invited a bunch of my like, queer punk friends to go see it with me. Most of them had not ever been to a musical or weren't familiar with it. The music is really good. Like, it's like ‘70s, rock and roll, and there's some really flamboyant characters. And people are like, “Oh, my God, this is like, our drag shows, what if we expanded what we've been doing? And actually, like, wrote a rock opera.” I was just like, “Yes, that's what we're gonna do. Let's do it.” Now that I had, like I don't know, eight people who were excited about the idea. I was like “I think we really should do that.”  I think it was soon after I went to see the Need play. And they were working on their songs for The Need Is  Dead album, which are very operatic. And I was like, Oh, I can already feel the story in this,  so I talked to them after that show. And I was like, “Do you guys want to write a rock opera together?” And they were like “Yeah, okay.” And we had a community meeting, just anyone who might be interested.  I remember Pat Maley was there. And he was like “Yeah, I'll record the soundtrack.” I can't remember other specific people that were there. But it felt like there was like a good cross section of like Olympia people who are like, oh, you know, “it has to address addiction, it has to address  labor exploitation, it has to address the environment, it has to talk about capitalism.”  Then started just kind of thinking about the story and what story we wanted to tell. And yeah, I mean, I don't know how much detail to go into. So Emily Stern was someone who had kind of recently moved to Olympia. And I had a conversation with her where she was talking about how she started a theater company in Indiana, or something like that. And I was like “Oh, you're someone who like knows how to do this stuff? Will you be our production manager? We need someone to do the business end of things.”  And then it took us longer to figure out our director, and that was Freddie Perry.  Freddie Fagula is what they went by at the time. They were the one who would get us together to learn the Thriller dance sequence. But they had never directed a play before. So then we had  like our core group. It was like me, Rachel Carns, Radio Sloan, Emily Stern, and Freddie Perry. And I don't know, we wrote a rock opera. We had auditions the weekend of the WTO in Seattle.  Or it was like maybe the weekend after. Which is why I couldn't go to WTO because I was like, frantically writing songs and trying to be ready for auditions. We had two days of auditions. And I think almost the exact number of people that we needed in order to cast it showed up.  We then stayed up all night after that doing the casting and and then we were kind of able to, we weren't done writing it yet. Like we were maybe halfway. So then we were able to kind of cater the songs to the actors in some ways. And yeah, and then we had this person, Angela Spencer [Nomy said this may not be the correct person] did the costumes and Nikki McClure did the sets, set design. All these just kind of like superstars, like just extremely talented people got on board. And we did it for eight shows at the Capitol Theatre in July of 2000. And it was super successful, like, I mean, I think the Capitol Theater seats like 750. And I think it was full, almost every night, almost every show. And then we never did it again. It was like, it basically completely consumed my life for about a year and a half. Or actually, like it was really a year solid. And, you know, we each got paid, like maybe a few thousand dollars from that year of work. Then we were so sick of each other. We were so exhausted, and you know, having five people own something, who  . . . we've been in a room together the five of us, once since then. That was just like a few years ago. And we'll email each other sometimes and be like, “What if we do this? Or what if we did this?” Because people have been asking about it since then.  But I don't know. I kind of wonder maybe it really was just meant to live in that moment. And yeah, I don't know. I have ideas and dreams of what could happen with it. But never again in that same way. Because even though it was really amazing to do it, like DIY and like,  there's just like hundreds of people giving their time to it. I don't think that would be possible anymore. It would need significant funding. And I don't even have a script. We never wrote down the score. Like I think that the piano parts, the keyboard parts got written down because Rachel wrote them and then Scott Seckington played them live. But I think everything else was just, you know, what the musicians figured out at the time. I got to teach 25 people how to sing their parts. Like, yeah, it was really fun. 

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Mariella Luz  

Seeing it even 20 years later. I guess not I shouldn't be surprised at how relevant it still is. Like it doesn't seem like it's a snapshot of the past. It feels very contemporary.

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Nomy Lamm  15:02

Yeah, well, and it was set in the future. It was set 100 years after the downfall of the American empire. So whenever that would be, but worse, like the power is consolidated in an organization called the Corporation. And things are pretty desolate, and people basically work to breathe. There's some kind of revolutionary figures, who are also kind of like cult figures.  I think we always called them multi-gender, animal, hybrid human characters. Our vision of where the world was headed and what might happen, and a little bit cartoony way of seeing it, but also drag basically. I studied political economy in college, so using a lot of that information to inform the politics and ideas in the show. My best dream of what could happen with it is that Laverne Cox would want to take it and to like, re-work it and make a movie out of it, or something, that would be really cool. I feel like a lot of it is still really good and really relevant. And I feel like there's parts that could use some revamping. On one hand, I'm like, if I really trusted the person, I would be like “Go for it.” And on the other hand, I'm, like, very protective, like, I don't want it to be. . . what's the word sanitized? Or de-politicized in some way.

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Mariella Luz  

The Transfused always seemed remarkable to me, because even now that all this time has passed, no one else has done something like that- pulled off a production like that release, that I'm aware of. And it seems really noteworthy that you and Rachel and all these other folks put something together and like actually pulled off like, not just like a 20 minute punk show. But like a full production. That's incredible.

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Nomy Lamm  17:52

When I think of other things that are like, similar ish, there's not really any. I guess there probably are other things like it that are maybe similarly just underground. This only happened once for two weekends. So I'm sure maybe that's happened other places. I came from doing big musical productions. I was writing parts for like, 16 people all singing at once, I wasn't thinking about, like, “How are we going to amplify this?” Ed Varga moved from Minneapolis to Olympia to do sound for that show. Because we didn't know what we were doing at all. You know, people were like, well, “you'll just have to have people stand in front of microphones.” I'm like “No, people are like singing and dancing and running around and like, like fully in a story. Like they're not gonna just step up to a microphone” And I guess I hadn't really thought about it.  I guess when I was doing theater, it was mostly like, more like a piano and a few other instruments, not like a live rock band. And so I was like  “We’ll just project.” No, we needed like 16 wireless headset mics for the production. That's one example of a place where I was way overshooting what is reasonable. But it was just like that's what it has to be. And we figured it out.  My dad actually did a lot of the building, like he was the lead carpenter and worked with Nikki on the sets. And then he had to build this loft for the musicians because the musicians were kind of hovering in the upper right of the stage over the set. And once they got up there, they realized they were right next to a transformer that was outside. And so there's all this electrical interference with the sound and that was this huge thing they had to work through. Also just knowing the Capitol theater really well, because I've done theater there since I was like 11. And so I was like, oh, those side pockets are core to the story. On one side was the pirate radio booth. And on the other side was like the Corporation, it's kind of like a kitchen or something that is this kind of 1950s family style thing. But they had the copyright sign on all of their stuff, it was like their symbol, which is also at the top of the theater in the Capitol Theater. Like there's just so many cool, cool ways that we were able to use the space just from being familiar with it. Sometimes people would be like “Oh, like Hedwig or something?”  and Hedwig [Hedwig and the Angry Inch] got really super famous and did come out of, like, a kind of punk aesthetic.  But it's really almost like a one person show, so it's really different in that way.   To have, like, a twenty six character show, I don't know what I was thinking!  And those people got paid like $300 or something for so much work. I don't know how we all had that much time. Things were just cheaper back then.

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Mariella Luz  

You're like, in your 20s.

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Nomy Lamm  

Yeah, we were in our 20s,  I was 24. 

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Mariella Luz  

Talking about the Transfused, what were some of the challenges of working with such a big cast? I think I read that there were almost 100 people in the cast and crew.

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Nomy Lamm  22:00

The challenges . . .you know, there's always interpersonal weird stuff.  I'll try not to go into,  out of respect, but, you know, there were some people that didn't get along with other people. But for the most part, people were  so excited and so happy to be a part of it. Every person that came into it, whatever their job was, they went like 500%.  They just got so immersed in the story and then excited about the materials.  Thinking about the people that built this like, tripod that somebody was like, suspended in and just like figuring out how to build a tripod, what kind of pulley system to get the person to be able to lift herself up into it using just her arms.  The weapons . . .what do the weapons look like, you know, there's like, the military characters are called Sliders. And they have the certain way that they walk and then they have these weapons that have bellows on them.  The kind of clownish, revolutionary folks have these, almost like spray perfume, spritz bottle looking weapons. And just like really getting every piece of it to live inside that world.  It was a lot of work to coordinate that many people. But there were teams of people that were working independently on different aspects. And I think Freddie, who was the director, did a lot of the coordination between the costumes, the props, the actors and the set.  Just making sure that it was all like, congruous. Our lighting person came out from Georgia for it and had such cool ideas. We did this whole scratchy animation thing for the big storm. At the end, there's like this electrical storm, that's kind of a culmination. And that's just like, really cool and beautiful. And she was just so good. There'll be times where the music changes, and we all stop and the color of the whole stage changes.  Just really beautiful.  The Capitol theater was hard to work in in that way. Like, they didn't have a lot of stuff.  Also Jeff Bartone was so . .  ,  it was kind of like his lair. It was hard to have much of a say but I think having really knowledgeable people who were willing to get in there with it, he was like “okay, okay, I'll let you crawl around in these catwalks and stuff.” I was gonna say there wasn't really anyone who dropped the ball. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, there was a publicist who worked at K, who was gonna be our publicist. And she, like, took all of my magazines of articles I'd been in ever and lost them all and never did anything. That was the one person who flaked. But we were okay.

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Mariella Luz  

Looking back and watching it realizing that like, the bulk of the cast and crew was also queer. Was that intentional?

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Nomy Lamm  25:45

It was intentional that the cast and crew was mostly queer, in that we, the core creators,  were queer. So we were tapping our communities. Not everyone was queer, but everyone was part of the local arts community. And honestly, it was kind of the first thing, the first big thing, that I remember happening in the Olympia music community that was really, really successful, really high profile in a way and also almost all queer people. Like that hadn't been my experience growing up, but I think because it came out of like, this drag scene that we were in. And the story was really queer. And the characters were queer and, and trans and gender non conforming. That was what me and my peers were exploring at the time. [It’s] really interesting, Andras Jones played a character called Zee, who we were picturing as a very young queer person.  Well, not too young, because there's kind of a BDSM dynamic. But they're like the sub to the Commander of the military. And here's somebody who was a part of this community, and then kind of left and joined the military and then is like, actively a threat to that community. It was like a very tender character. And when we auditioned Andras, who is like a straight guy who I've known and worked with in different ways. We were looking at him for the Corporation character.  Didn't occur to me to cast him in this tender queer character. And he called me and was like “I really don't want to be the corporation guy. Like, I feel like that's how this community sees me. And I just don't want to have to play into that again. I think it's going to just be alienating again, you know?” And we were like, “Oh, okay. Well, I wonder what else?”  and we're like “Oh, maybe he would be good as Zee”.  He was so incredible in that role.  People still are like, “Oh, my God, who sang that “Child of Destiny” song? That was so beautiful.”  He did such a great job in that role. So I'm glad that he was willing to be like “I don't want to be the bad guy, corporate overlord.” (laughs) And then there were people, like teenagers who were not out as queer yet, but it was very obvious to everyone else.  They got to explore and have community and then eventually come out when they did.  But that was, that was really sweet. And one of them I'm still in contact with, Elliat Graney-Saucke. 

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Mariella Luz  

Because I live here,  I'm aware that some of the people who were part of the cast & crew are now trans, who were in different iterations of themselves. So that was interesting to see too.

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Nomy Lamm  29:24

Yeah, I think there was a lot of gender queer expression in the cast. And really almost every character, except for the Corporation, had these very complicated genders. And the Corporation were super heightened traditional genders that were very clownish. I hope that everyone felt like they were able to explore aspects of themselves.  That might have helped support their journey towards transition or however they end up identifying. I think that was like before “they” was a pronoun that really got used. I think “ze” was the non binary pronoun. And there was a character named Zee for that reason. And I don't really remember,  I guess we said she and he for the characters, but I think it was kind of arbitrary. I don't really remember. . .

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Mariella Luz  

Just to wrap up this bit about The Transfused -what are you most proud of that project?

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Nomy Lamm  31:00

I'm proud of all of it. I'm proud that I got to tell a story in that way. And write these vocal parts for all these different characters. I don't know if proud is the word, but it's just really, really fun. And I'm proud that we were able to raise the amount of money that we were able to raise. I'm proud that I learned so much. I'm proud of having a really, really big vision, and then doing it. I learned a lot about how to recognize when the momentum is really there for something to happen. Versus when you're just like pushing, pushing, pushing, and it doesn't want to happen. Like that was one of the biggest experiences of synchronicity that I've had in my life.   Where it was just like, hundreds of I mean, ultimately, thousands of people were like “We want a big, queer rock opera!”  That's the thing we're all going to put all of our energy towards. I'm really proud that people that I grew up with, who were members of the synagogue, stood in line with crusty punks that traveled from Minneapolis to see it. They were in a line together, excited to see a play.  I’m proud of, you know, there's an aspect where the kind of revolutionary clownish characters were a little bit modeled after the communist revolutionary communist party,  like always pushing their papers on you and stuff.  We actually would have one of the characters outside with their big orange liberty spikes handing out  “The People's Army” like “Join the People's Army” and it's fake. And then at the same time the RCP, actually did show up in, like, about their papers. Like, I don't know if that's something to be proud of, but it was really funny and ironic. I'm proud that we fucking filled that theater. I think the first two nights, it was more like 500 people. And then after that, it was full to capacity every night.  People like singing along and like, rocking out and screaming. I think that's like the most energy I've ever felt from an artistic project that I was part of. And having the whole community involved in that way, just like makes such a huge difference. I don't know how to do that again. 

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Mariella Luz  

I watched it through the end and saw the credits and seeing the number of folks who are still here and who just participated.  It's hard to imagine that we could do something like that again.

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Nomy Lamm  34:20

I know. I don't know how we would do it again. And it was the same summer as Ladyfest, like a month earlier.  It was the same year as the WTO. Like, there was something happening that was like, really activating people toward a big collective movement.  Kind of a sense of idealism, in terms of confronting capitalist overlords and being like “No, this is the community we want to create.”  And I think some sense that like that was still possible because it was pre George W. Bush time. The world felt like there was a lot of really bad stuff happening. And it also felt like there was hope in a different way than it feels now.

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Mariella Luz  

I know you said that you spent all of your energy doing the Transfused.  Did you participate in Ladyfest that year?

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Nomy Lamm  35:33

Yeah. I think I did spoken word. And then I also was in a side project that I don't know how we had time for, but it was a band that Rachel and Radio were also in called The Teenage Ho-Dads. It was like a drag king rockabilly band. And then I joined and was like, the girl. And we hosted the drag show that was called “The Dude Looks Like a Ladyfest” show. And it was after Cat Power and Cat Power just went on and on and on. I was like “Okay, it was like 1am. When do we start this drag show!?” Um, so yeah, I remember that we would play songs between the acts, we did a cover of “Iron Man.”(laughs) It felt very silly and easy compared to what we had just done. So. But yeah, I think that was my main involvement.

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Mariella Luz  

A nice way to blow off some steam after.

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Nomy Lamm  

Yeah. Yeah.

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Mariella Luz 

You said you might have some stories, maybe now's a good time.

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Nomy Lamm  36:45

Oh, yeah. I  think a lot about having been a teenager in Olympia and growing up in Olympia. Like the dynamics of that. I remember learning that Olympia was a place that was known for having a music scene. I didn't know that growing up. It was like you had to go to Seattle to find a good all- ages dance club.  Something would open in Olympia and then it would close, and then something else would open in the same place and then it would close.  I remember I spent so much of my teenage years wandering around downtown. Just like nothing to do, but hang out and meet people and sit in the park, before there was a curfew in the park.  I remember like happening upon a show at The Backstage [of the Capitol Theater] and going in and thinking it was so cool, This is like beatniks or something.  I remember one friend who was kind of more in-the-know was like “Yeah, that's like what Olympia is known for.  Be cool.”  And then riot grrrl was happening. So just thinking about the relationship, the dynamic and tension between people that came to Olympia to go to Evergreen for the most part and were  invested in a scene. Versus kids that  grew up here and we're looking for stuff to do. And I think on one hand, I was met by so much openness. You know, like I remember going to a meeting at the Uncola, the collective performance space with pirated electricity from the business next door. I think it only existed for maybe a year. But they had these open meetings on Monday nights. And I went there, because my band was like “Oh, we want to play there sometime.”  And then I left there having agreed to set up a show. It was very welcoming, and very “oh, you're a 16 year old high school kid, yes, be involved to be a part of this.” Then there's also part of it, like a lot of my favorite bands seemed so cool and so inaccessible to me in a way.  I was just so used to just being able to know everyone.  People just like, walk around downtown and bump into each other and talk.  Then there was this dynamic with these kind of like, slightly older, cooler people who were kind of snobby, and cliquish.  Probably, honestly, just shy- but it created this other dynamic.  When the State Theater was a movie theater, like a bunch of people would work there, steal from it all the time, like have their own like, thing going on with their matching outfits.  Everyone would have either bleached blonde or dyed black hair.  People would come to town and talk to those people like they were part of the same crew because they knew the same people. Then me and my friends who mostly had grown up here were doing like the Olympia AIDS prevention project, like we would do street outreach on weekend nights and they would let us set up our little table out front of the State Theater. But we don't get talked to or acknowledged in the same way that these hipster kids that come from out of town get to participate, be cool and be friends. And I don't know, it's just always interesting. I think there's also a thing of like, the people who are older in the scene and owned stuff. So then they would own things that people would like, want to be a part of, and there was a certain amount of mystery around how you become a part of that. And like so much name dropping.   Thinking about Olympia’s music scene, this is a lot of what comes up for me. Those kinds of dynamics of being a young person, and on one hand, having it be like, so inclusive and so open. And on the other hand, having it be just like, so kind of shrouded and secretive.  Really needing to talk a certain way and look a certain way and dress a certain way. And I think I always kind of had a sense of like, if I looked different, or if I played the game slightly differently, like maybe my bands would have been more popular or something, but I was just kind of like a nerdy townie or something.

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Mariella Luz  

Did you feel like there was a tension between like the people from the 80s who came to Evergreen and a whole other crew of people who are from Olympia, who made a new rock scene in the’ 90s?  I mean, I know that some of them sort of mesh together, but there is little bit of a difference.

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Nomy Lamm  44:21

I think age was a big part of it, too. Because I think [some of] the people were from Olympia and, you know, started like riot grrrl. I think having riot grrrl as a point of connection made it more accessible for me and my friends. Like we went to a riot grrrl meeting and then we met a bunch of people.  Then we got to be part of the thing that seemed alienating before.  And I still think that like, a lot of it was still centered around Evergreen. Those certain dynamics and aesthetics. But riot grrrl definitely had a big impact on my like sense of belonging and sense of connection to a bigger world.

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Mariella Luz  

When did you go to your first meeting?

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Nomy Lamm  

Halloween 1992?

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Nomy Lamm  45:39

That night, I got to go see Bikini Kill at a house show. It was a big day. It was kind of the tail end. There was only maybe a year or two at the most after that there were riot grrrl meetings happening. And so this was when riot grrrl meetings were at Evergreen, not when they were in the laundry room at the Martin. That era I was not aware of. But I think I was like 17.  Natalie [Cox] invited me to my first riot grrrl meeting. And she was like “I know, they seem kind of scary, but they're actually really nice.” She went to SPSCC and I was doing the Running Start thing at SPSCC.  Where you go to high school, but then you go to community college. I was getting curious about feminism. And like What is it? And does it relate to me at all? I probably really became aware of the Olympia music scene through the International Pop Underground Convention (IPUC). I think that's like, around when I first started going to shows.  I had a friend in high school who was in the band that I was in, who had been at that first riot grrrl show that was part of the IPUC. And so she had an idea of what she wanted to be a part of, the vibe and aesthetic of, the kind of music and seeing what she wanted to be in.

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Mariella Luz  

It's in doing some of these interviews, it's, I'm surprised how many people can point to that IPU and be like “That was the thing.” 

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Nomy Lamm  48:04

But yeah, I'm like, trying to remember if I went to a show before that. . . It's like, honestly, this is kind of funny. I  kind of just thought that any band that was playing Olympia was some dumb cover band.  There was this band called The Ducks. That was like our neighbor’s brother's band that played at the Fourth Ave Tav [Fourth Avenue Tavern] all the time. I don't know, The Ducks- they might have been great. I have a sense they were a bar band cover band, and my parents would go see them. That's what I thought all bands in Olympia were like.  I sat outside of a Nirvana show at Evergreen in one of the MODS like, it was like a tiny space. It was super packed. Nirvana was playing, I was like, This is loud. Like, I had no idea what it was. I was aware of Death Squad so maybe I was like, lumping them in together, kinda like weird metal guy music. (laughs) But then once I was in a band, then I got to start seeing a lot of bands.  But that was after the IPUC. I don't even remember who played at that first show that I went to. I remember that Michelle Noel was there because I remember her hair and the way that she would flip her head back and forth in her hair would go out to the side. Stylish, so stylish, iconic.  Quitty [Jon Quittner] had a zine that had a drawing of her that was, “this is the metric of  how much Michelle likes the music, how high her hair goes when she flips her head back and forth.” [laughing]

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Mariella Luz  

I have never seen that and I hope I get to someday.

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Nomy Lamm  

I wonder if I have it somewhere. I don't know.

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Mariella Luz  

Kelsey might have have a copy.

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Nomy Lamm  

Yeah, I don't know what zine it was . . .  I remember him doing was “Hessian Obsession", but that doesn't really seem related. Are you interviewing him? Or someone?

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Mariella Luz  

Hayes [Waring] interviewed him. 

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Nomy Lamm 

I might have to go back to him and ask him about Michelle Noel’s hair.

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Mariella Luz 

He is such a great storyteller.   I'm sure he's got lots of good stories to tell.

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Nomy Lamm  50:22

He was very sweet. I like he was someone who I remember, just like, standing on the corner shooting the shit with when I was like 16 years old, and he would just hang out. I didn't know he was in his 20s but seemed very old to me at the time.  Josh Ploegg said that Plain Jane was his favorite band and would come to all our shows, which was so sweet.When did you move here? 

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Mariella Luz  

‘95. And you and you left for a while? 

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Nomy Lamm  

Yeah, I was gone for about 15 years. 

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Mariella Luz 

I started working at K in 2001.

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Nomy Lamm 

I left in 2002. 

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Mariella Luz  

When I was in college, there were things going on.  But at that time I had never been broker in my whole life. Yes, there were shows every single week. But like, could I afford to go to every single show? No.

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Nomy Lamm  

You couldn’t just sneak in?  I feel like I never couldn't go to a show because I didn't have money. We would be licking each other's hands on putting the stamp (laughs).

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Mariella Luz 

How has the story of being queer or disabled, been told or not been told? And how have you navigated telling your own through your own story? In versions of the story through punk, I think- thanks to people like you, and people like Ed, who had been doing these more high profile events- the story of queer and definitely disabled people had not really been told through punk.

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Nomy Lamm 52:52

The punk scene didn't have a lot of queer people in it when I was young. And I remember this one show I went to, it was maybe the Mukilteo Fairies. It was Pride Month, and Joshua [Ploegg] was like “okay, all the queers come up here and dance around with this rainbow flag.” And like, one person went up, and I didn't go up. I think I was 16. I didn't really come out to myself until I was maybe 19 or something. I would maybe have gone up if  a lot of people had gone up.   But I definitely wasn't going to be like one of two people. I remember being really embarrassed. I was like, oh, gosh, I don't think this is how it's supposed to be. In terms of being disabled, I have a lifelong disability. By the time The Transfused happened, I had like one disabled friend. Disability representation was really important to me. In The Transfused, there were disabled characters.  There was one character who was written to be a chair user, the actor was not disabled. Which wasn't ideal and our reach . . . I think now I would be able to find disabled people to try out for that role.  At the time I couldn't, we tried. We did some education within the cast, not even exactly like an-anti ableism type training.   But just even like how to interact with a person in a wheelchair and not be a dick.  Like “don't lean on their wheelchair”, “don't move them if they didn't ask you to” stuff like that. And Beth Stinson, who played the role, took it really seriously and really trained for it. And was very athletic in the way that she used her chair in ways that people I've known. I mean, everyone's different, but I've known some really buff athletic chair users.  I remember her starting out just going around the block and being like, “Oh, my God, this is really hard!” She's the one who ended up getting lifted up into the apex of the tripod.  Not to be like, inspiration porn or anything, just like, you know, reality of like, there's lots of different kinds of disabled people with lots of different abilities. I feel like her character was a complex character, and not just like, “disabled people can do anything” or whatever. I just had a memory of doing this thing at the Capitol Theater where I did this performance.  It was in the Backstage where I brought all of my legs, because I have this duffel bag full of legs, from since I was a little kid. And like taking them out and lining them up and telling stories about them. So, my artistic practice has always been pretty personal and a lot of disclosing of personal things. So, I think I thought that would be, like, liberating in some way. And I think in some ways, it did help me feel closer to people in my community. But I think it also was like, there's just like alienation and exposing things that people don't have a reference point to relate to, you know? ET Russian, who's like an amazing artist, and was the assistant director for The Transfused was somebody that I knew from when they were 15, I think, when I first met them.  They lost both of their legs in a train accident, when I was in my very early 20s, or maybe even late teens.  That was like the first person in my like, punk and queer community who I knew who was also significantly disabled. I mean, my framework is so different now. Because I'm like, actually, most people are disabled in some way. And it's like, it's become in my life and experience, it's become a more politicized identity that more people claim. I didn't even know the term disabled, like I called myself handicapped until I was like 19 or 20, or something.  Just because I didn't know I didn't have any context. I felt like I was pretty politicized about a lot of things. But I just didn't have any access. Really, the only models that I had about disability was like, people sending me articles about one legged soccer players and stuff. I was like “I hate sports. I don't care.” [laughing] I'm really happy that I got to live in Olympia during this kind of queer Renaissance period. I feel like I got to witness and help create that scene.  Because it didn't exist, and then it did. And it was super strong. And I don't think it exists in the same way here anymore. But I think the legacy of it is still present in that there's just a lot of queers here. I don't think queer people came to Olympia thinking, “here's a good place to be a queer person” before that scene was created in the late ‘90s, early 2000s. So that's really cool. I moved to Chicago, I moved to San Francisco, those places have established long term, queer communities.  But I think there's something about living in a smaller city where people can be really up in each other's lives, in a way. I think it also happens when you can live in a neighborhood together in a big city, but gentrification is like, developed past the point where that's really possible in cities anymore. So I had queer community in Chicago and San Francisco, but really different.  I think it was also the time,  like being in my 20s. And like we’re all developing our identities and our sexualities and our aesthetics. Doing that in community with so much reflection and so much to push against and also bolster us. I feel pretty grateful for that. But it wasn't until I was in San Francisco that I actually had disabled artistic community. And my primary artistic affiliation is with Sins Invalid, which is a disability justice performance project and movement building organization that I work for, which is kind of my main job. I started out performing with them about 15 years ago. And there isn't really a parallel of that in Olympia.  The disabled people that I know here, there's some cohesion and there's some politicization, but I think there's also just a lot of alienation, which is endemic throughout disabled community. I think in cities where you have more resources, or like independent living resource centers, and things run by disabled people, there's more opportunity for community to be built.  I'm like “hmm, punk disabled?” I mean, I've met a few punks that ID as disabled. And whenever we would find each other we'd be like “Oh, my God, we're best friends!” 

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Mariella Luz  

So how have your interests and motivations changed over the last 20 years? And what are you excited and inspired by today?

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Nomy Lamm  1:02:45

I feel like punk rock is like, pretty core to my personhood in a way that's like, it was foundational, but it's not, like, encompassing in any way. I think in the last couple decades, my artistic practice has been more like movement focus, like social justice movement focused and more spiritual. I grew up performing a lot of my life, so much of my life happened on stage. And that was how I would explore and expand and find new parts of myself, by creating something to put on a stage in front of other people. I had so many opportunities for that, which I'm so grateful for. Kind of corresponding with moving away from Olympia, like just going more internal.  Including, how do I want to sing, If I'm not trying to project for an audience.  Or if I'm not thinking about what it looks like, what do the vibrations in my body do when I'm using my voice? How can I let that guide me and how can I use my voice to enter a space in a way that is congruent with a space rather than, like trying to take over a space? Those kinds of questions.  There was a period where my main music project was called Nomy Lamm and The Whole Wide World. And the idea was that everyone was in my band. So I would have just whoever was available to play with me at shows. I would also bring instruments and have people from the audience play along as well.  Or there'd be certain parts that the audience would be responsible for. I remember coming up to Olympia to play a show, and my brother was in town and came to it. And he was like “Nomy finally has her congregation.” [laughing]  I was like “huh…” It's funny, because then after that I became an ordained Kohenet, which is a Hebrew priestess. I just love the feeling of connection between people when we are moved by music. I did feel that at punk shows when I was younger, and there was a point where I stopped feeling it, especially when I was on stage, you know?  What happens if everyone's in a circle, and everyone's singing, like, that's a totally different vibe. And that tips the scale more towards ritual.  I do think performance is ritual, but I also think ritual can be different from performance. And what is it if everybody's participating in a way, where people still have their roles that they're kind of holding down within it. I tend to be a song leader. But being able to have a more immersed experience, and less like, spectated experience has been a big part of what I've been playing with and seeking a lot. Within, and woven into all of this, there's always been other kinds of art happening simultaneously.  Whether it was like zines I was writing when I was younger, or other writing projects, or other visual art projects.  More recently creating a divination deck, that's related to this Jewish practice called Counting of the Omer related to Kabbalah. Or the project that I do with Rebekah [Erev], “Dreaming the World to Come.” Which started as a huge project creating a Hebrew planner that has the Hebrew and Gregorian dates and moon calendar, and then art and contributions.  That's led us into this podcast that we do. I’m really interested in bringing things that are really ancient through into the present in a way that is calling in the future that we want to live in. I feel like that's kind of the project of the world in a lot of ways.   People who are vibing on the same wavelength, a lot of people are accessing ancestral practices as a way to engage with ourselves in the natural world and each other and the stars…  Then using that as a way to imagine something beyond the hellscape of climate chaos, capitalism, and white supremacy, colonization. I feel like on some level, the core of what I've been trying to do with my art ever since I was a little kid has been similar. And as I gain more,  as we collectively gain more language, context and analysis, it becomes more crystallized and more real, more of a collective project. Just like being a little kid in the bathtub being like, How can I bring about world peace? Being able to think outside of structures based in hierarchy and authority. Music is so core to that, art is so core to that. I feel like I understood that as a little kid, too. I think that's just like, being an artist.  You're just like, “this is what's the most important to me, this is what I want my life to be. How can that happen?” I guess I have to change the whole world to make there be a place for that.

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Mariella Luz  

Some artists do advise sort of turning inward, but it sounds like your practice and what you've been doing, always is bringing more people in. And not working alone.

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Nomy Lamm  1:10:31

Yeah, I think there are times when I've been more focused on my own story or my own self, it's not as compelling for the world. It's good practice. I've done a lot of it. I have done a lot of really, like deep introspective, and then like creating out of it.  It's only when it gets put into this bigger context that it actually feels meaningful in the world, which has been most of my experience. And I remember when I lived in Chicago I wrote this article about psychics. And so I got, like, 15 different types of psychic readings within like, a couple of weeks. And like, I learned a lot. But I remember seeing someone around that time who was like, “Yeah, your art is important, but it's not about you though.” And I was mad at that. I was like “But I have this story, and I'm trying to tell it!” And it's not like people are like, “that sucks,” but it doesn't generate the same kind of energy.  The work I do with Sins Invalid is about collective liberation. And I'm not the center of it, I'm one of few white people involved with that work. The stories that are coming from other artists have a lot more significance to the world.  There's a place for me, and I'm in it,  bringing some, like music and mysticism.  The specific kinds of embodiment that I bring is also important, but it's in the context of this bigger movement and bigger vision. 

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Mariella Luz 

We'll do everything that you'd like to add?

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Nomy Lamm  1:12:47

So much of my experience in Olympia, really has to do with my childhood and teen years, and early 20s. But I'm just so curious about what my role is, as an almost 50 year old.   In some ways, it's like, you know, aged out. There's like young people doing stuff, and they don't really need you.  But I'm curious about the possibilities of intergenerational collaboration and connection. And I've been really inspired by, I don't know if you've seen the documentary about Beverly Glen Copeland. He is this incredible musician, he is black trans man who's 79 years old.  He has been creating,  putting out albums since 1969. He would make a tape and put out 200 of them, and still have most of them sitting in his garage and was pretty much unknown. Until a few years ago, someone in Japan started distributing his tapes, and was like, “We need more!” There's this documentary about him called Keyboard Fantasies. He started playing with young musicians in their 20s.  He's going on tour as this 79 year old person with these like, 20 year old musicians who just adore him. And he is just so loving. He talks about  being at these shows with all these young people who are like,” Oh my god, like older people always just tell us we're selfish and that we suck” like “thank you for loving us.” He's just so sweet and loving and just really inspiring to me. It makes me think like, I don't know, like we really need each other.  [crying] And obviously, I'm feeling teary about it.  I think there's just such a legacy of, of generations now. Not trusting each other and you know being like “oh you're so spoiled and selfish,” "oh you're so judgmental and old,” “you're so out of it, you don't know how to use technologies” or “you don't know the language.”  I think part of having this land, I'm gonna live here for the rest of my life if things go as planned.  We have this dome built out here and I've been putting in these paths.  I just have visions, like we had for Sukkot, which is like a harvest festival and also like a praying for rain festival. We had this decentralized gathering here where my friend brought in their marimba and had it in the clearing of the woods down there and was just playing. Then Lenée Reid brought her singing bowls.  It was like “You're invited to  wander around the land and make sound as you want.”  I really love improvisational sound collaboration. I'm excited to be able to, over time, offer this space for people to engage with.  Curious about intergenerational stuff and how young people now are just so smart. Like, really dealing with real shit, you know? I want to learn from them, and I want to support them. Yeah. I really love the part of myself that was wandering around downtown as a teenager and being like, “Oh, what's this?” I want to support other people in their explorations in that way. 

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