The Minnesota Women's Press
If your only knowledge of musician and poet Lisa Kane came from a 1993 article in the Star Tribune, where she was pictured with the other three members of the band Zelpha Tripp, you'd probably have the wrong idea about her.
The article is a generally admiring review of the band and its alternative sound. The four young women in the promo picture accompanying the article are leather-booted and hair sprayed, shown in assertive poses with confident, honest smiles on their faces. Kane's the one in the back, looking like a late addition. Which she was. Her guitar work and vocals added to the combo several years after the original group jelled. In the photograph she eyes the camera a bit more dubiously than her colleagues. Her leather jacket doesn't suit her that well. "That was a costume," she insisted. "Those weren't my clothes. They were handed to me when we got to the photo session."
It's not hard to believe: Kane in person is small, simply - and comfortably - dressed in black jeans and a black shirt. "This is how I dressed when we played together," she explained. "I stuck out like a sore thumb." Kane began playing with Zelpha Tripp in 1991 and recorded three albums of what she describes as "alternative Christian metal," with them before breaking out on her own. At the same time, she began to take herself more seriously as a poet.
Currently, the 27-year old is putting the finishing touches on her first collection of poetry, to be published by Morning Sky Publishing. At Morning Sky, she has found a publisher, a mentor and a colleague all in one. The women who operates the organization, Leslie Judd, has coached and encouraged Kane beyond the requirements of an editorial or publishing relationship. "We began bartering our time with each other," Kane said. "I did some data entry work for her; she helped me put together my promo package and my book. "I've worked with a lot of good people in the past few years," she continued. It was a phrase she'd repeat often in the hour she spent talking about her young career and her life.
Kane grew up in northern Minnesota, and moved to the twin cities after dropping out of her first year of college to pursue music full time. "I was a rebel without a cause," she laughed. "I only began school because my parents wanted me to." Kane's leaving school, then, was a difficult thing for her parent's to understand. "I think it was easier because of my music," she said. "It was easier for them to accept that I was leaving because there was something else I loved that I was going to do."
Kane sees her family fairly often and shows them her songs and poems. "There's not much response from them when I play something or read something," she admitted. "And it's hard for me [to show them]. It's easier to share some of this stuff with a stranger in an audience than with my own mother. It's also harder to play for close friends than for an audience. These are people who matter that much to me, and that makes it harder to open up."
Since moving south, Kane's fallen in with a crowd of creative people - other musicians, writers, artists - who she feels are the core of her greatest strength as an artist right now. "It's amazing to me how supportive they are of my music, " Kane said. "These are people who recognize that I speak the truth in my music and my writing. Good friends really make the difference; I have such respect for these people and they respect me."
There's a lot to respect where Kane's concerned. In addition to the work she does to develop her own career, she is devoting a lot of energy to launching a benefit concert in October 1997 to support research on women with AIDS. But wait - there's more: The concert will be held in Amsterdam. "I went to Amsterdam to visit a friend who's doing research on women with AIDS," she explained. "Her sister, actually, is quite a well known musician in Holland, and you can get her music her too. We decided to put together the concert. We'd love to get Melissa Etheridge to play," she added, "but we'll see."
During her visit to Amsterdam, she was able to do a few performances of her own and show some of her poetry to other writers. As a result, several of her poems were published in a literary journal in Holland. Stateside Kane has made her appearances in bars, coffeehouses and festivals primarily in the Twin Cities, with a stray concert or two in Wisconsin and Eureka Springs, Ark. She had a steady monthly gig at the Uptown Bar and Cafe until the Uptown pulled the plug on its live music.
She performs solo or with her trio of all-acoustic music. "We play folk - 90's folk," se explained. "It's aggressive music, but not angry. The subject matter is a little different from traditional folk. I write about ecology and human relationships. And broken love too." But even her approach to the old theme of broken love has its own flavor. Kane, with upcoming appearances scheduled for the 1996 Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Pride Festival June 22 and 23, writes about love from a thoughtful, spiritual, lesbian perspective.
"I'm not going to write a song and say 'he' when the lover wasn't a 'he'" she said. Then she spoke of how difficult it can be to be a lesbian performer working the bar scene. "But I'm sure it's hard for everyone," she added quickly. "It's a difficult atmosphere for performance." With summer upon us, Kane expects to do less writing and more camping and biking. "I write a lot in the winter," she said. "That's when I spend time at home. The funny thing is that I'm inspired a lot more by spring, summer and fall. I'll write things down but I won't really work hard at them. Then in the winter, I'll spend time rounding out the edges, tying them together, polishing and finishing them."
Kane is hoping to return to college, maybe even this fall, to pursue a degree in creative writing. She wants to focus on her poetry - "That's the core of my work" - and put together another book. "My work is influenced by a lot of different artists," she concluded. "The guitar playing in Jane's Addiction is really amazing. The jazz fusions are really incredible. Melissa Etheridge - really admire her ability with words. The poetry of Sappho has just blown me away."
Do these wide-ranging influences have anything in common? Why Jane's Addiction alongside Sappho? "They speak the truth," Kane said. "They recognize it and they speak it."