festival

Bitch is going to be at Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Fest this weekend, covering some fantastic female and queer-fronted bands playing on Auditorium Shores.

There’s a large amount of great electronic pop, from bigger indie acts like (Lykke Li, Blonde Redhead, YACHT) and some lesser-known but promising artists (MNDR, Grimes, Keep Shelley in Athens), in addition to some great rock (Lemuria, The Thermals, Thee Oh Sees), dreamy pop (Girls, tUnE-yArDs, Asobi Seksu) and a few cult favorites (Boris, Big Freedia). Here’s just a sampling of some of the acts this weekend you should check out, and for folks following along at home, here's hoping you find a new band to love and check out when they're near you! Track list after the jump.

Folks in the Bay Area are in for a ten-day treat this month with the community focused Safetyfest, a "celebration of all the fierce ways queer and trans people in the Bay Area stay safe and strut our stuff." Beginning on April 8th, this cooperative effort will bring together anti-violence artists and activists from groups like Community United Against Violence (CUAV), Mangos With Chili, The Bikery, EL/LA, and the Self-Defense for Self Determination collective to provide innovative workshops and community building events focused on LGBTQ safety. Part fun and part fundraiser, all of the offerings at Safetyfest are either free or sliding scale, and no one will be turned away.

I spoke with festival planner and performer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha about the inception of Safetyfest and why people should attend this groundbreaking event.