BRATTLEBORO — Owen Taylor grew up playing all kinds of musical instruments, but he discovered the banjo rather late.
On a whim, he bought himself one for his birthday because he thought it seemed like a fun instrument. Even then, the banjo lay in the corner of his room, untouched for a long time.
That changed when he was living in San Francisco and Julia Steele Allen became his roommate. She played and loved the instrument, which inspired him to begin exploring the world of the banjo.
Before long, the two were making music together, and shortly they began performing in concerts for friends. Soon enough, the duo became professional, and My Gay Banjo came to be.
Although the banjo is central to all Taylor and Allen do, My Gay Banjo - which returns to Brattleboro on March 8 - is more than just about the banjo.
It is an acoustic duo, with Taylor and Allen on guitar, banjo, ukelele, and vocals, singing what they call “homespun gay-themed duets and occasional queered-up mash-ups.”
Based in Philadelphia, the team plays mainly original music of songs written separately by Taylor or Allen, although in concert they might do one or two covers of classic tunes.
They have recorded three albums: My Gay Banjo, Limp Wrist and a Steady Hand, and their latest, Country Boys in the City, which for the first time will include backup from some prominent musicians from the Philadelphia music scene.
Hard to classify
Opening for the duo's concert in Brattleboro will be Aimee Manacle, who sings folk-style covers of 1990s goth/industrial/indie rock songs; Bella Ortiz-Wren, a Boston-area singer/songwriter; and Imogen Binnie, author of the novel Nevada and one-third of the doom-metal band Correspondences.
“Julia and I started playing together casually and for just the fun of it,” says Taylor. “But more and more, we we found ourselves getting into the music we were making.”
Taylor thinks that it is hard to classify what he and Allen do.
“Some people have lumped us into the folk or even country music crowd. In fact, there is a thriving out-gay country band scene here in Philly, but it really isn't like the stuff we perform.
“Essentially, ours is pared-down sound, with just Julia and myself. A lot people have been shocked to hear our latest album, in which we invited a lot of musicians who are friends and acquaintances to join us in making music. People generally love this new sound, but it takes a little getting used to for some of those who really like the simplicity of what we first did.”
Taylor explains that the banjo is sometimes called the one true American instrument, but adds, “that is not true, since it originated in Africa.”
“But it is the instrument associated with traditional American music, like bluegrass and country,” he says. “So, here we are, an out gay/queer duo using traditional Americana to promote social justice.”
Allen is quick to qualify that message music is not all My Gay Banjo does.
“Many of our songs are definitively not addressing gay or political issues,” she says. “Some can be simple love songs for instance, which may or may not be queer. But I must say that social justice is an important feature of what we try to do with our music.”
Social justice, in and out of music
As out queer artists, Taylor and Allen have long been involved with issues surrounding social justice, in and out of their music.
“Music is just one facet of what we both do,” says Allen. “We both are very busy people.”
Allen describes her partner as an “agricultural activist.” A community organizer, farmer, and educator in the Greater Philadelphia Area, Taylor works as head gardener at Roughwood Seed Collection, which he describes as “a tool for disseminating information about Pennsylvania's lesser-known heritage food plants and to help introduce these foods back into the marketplace.”
Taylor tends “to [founder] William Woys Weaver's seed saving gardens two days per week: preparing beds, tending the greenhouse, planting and caring for heirloom plants, and harvesting, cleaning, and filing heirloom seeds. There are 4,500 varieties of heirloom seeds in the collection,” he writes on his Linked In page.
Taylor also works as the community organizer for Garden Justice Legal Initiative at Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, where he works on “campaigns aimed at ensuring community farmers and gardeners in Philadelphia have the resources they need to preserve their individual farms and gardens.”
He is also program manager and the training and livestock coordinator at Just Food, a nonprofit organization that connects communities and local farms with the resources and support they need to make fresh, locally grown food accessible.
Allen's social-justice work might be even more wide ranging than Taylor's. She has worked as the lead organizer of the New Settlement Parent Action Committee (PAC) in the fight for educational justice in New York City.
She has done advocacy work with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and has helped to edit, research, and write for the book Through the Eyes of the Judged: Autobiographical Sketches by Incarcerated Young Men (published by Evergreen State College, 2001).
She also helped edit Voices from the WTO: An Anthology of Writings from the People Who Shut Down the World Trade Organization (published by Evergreen State College, 1999).
She has assisted Madonna Thunder Hawk, a longtime community organizer and co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), in fundraising for Lakota People's Law Project.
Allen is also an actor and award-winning playwright whose rock-theater show, A Boy Called Noise, won the Best Short Play Award at the Downtown Urban Theater Festival in New York City in 2009. She also won the Best New Performer Award (2006) and the Best Experimental Performance Award (2010) at the San Francisco Fringe Festival.
Currently, with Vivian Vazquez and Gretchen Hildebran, she is co-producing Decade of Fire, a documentary film about the burning of the Bronx.
Building community and having fun
My Gay Banjo is once again brought to southern Vermont by HomoPromo, a collective based in Brattleboro that “puts on queer and otherwise amazing events of all types aimed at building community and having fun,” as it describes itself on its Facebook page.
Founded in 2011, HomoPromo works to raise “queer visibility and combats isolation and harm in our rural communities through organizing sober and all-ages events.”
HomoPromo puts a special emphasis, however, on attracting the younger-than-35 crowd, since other organizations in the area historically have developed and served the older queer population, such as the now-defunct Men's Program at the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont and its successor, Green Mountain Crossroads, a nonprofit with which HomoPromo often works closely.
My Gay Banjo's concert in Brattleboro is one stop on its new 22-city tour.
“We're thrilled to be going to so many places, but we really feel a connection with the town,” says Allen. “In fact, Brattleboro was the beginning concert of our last national tour.”
Taylor adds that he and Allen were hoping to come last December to Brattleboro to play in connection with the Vermont premiere by HomoPromo of Out Here, a documentary created by the Queer Farmer Film Project and directed by Jonah Mossberg.
“But we got stranded because of a snow storm in Philly and couldn't risk the drive,” he says.
It was the one rare occasion that My Gay Banjo decided to play it safe.