TAE PHOENIX

Singer-Songwriter • Activist • Writer

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A natural-born storyteller with the polish of an accomplished actress and the authentic edge of a seasoned blues musician.

Seattle Weekly

Music

Featured Track: “I wanna see you be brave.”

Music is the art form we turn to when we need to build bridges and make ourselves plainly understood.

In January 2020, the United States was in crisis. The president was holding vital defense support to Ukraine hostage as a means of coercing their government into investigating the son of a political rival.

My civil disobedience action inside the Senate’s Russell Rotunda – performing Sara Bareilles’ “Brave” in an area where protest is strictly forbidden – was a call on Republican Senators to join Democrats in voting to remove that corrupt president from office.

More Music

Everyone You’ll Be EP • Studio Album Release Date: Feb 2024
Home demos…

Tae Phoenix · The Girls You'll Be Demos
Deep Cuts

Tour Dates

CityDateTimeVenue
Boston8/7/23TBABerklee Performance Center*
Boston8/8/233:30pmCafe 939
New York8/14/236pmRockwood Music Hall
Washington, DC8/17/232-4pmWOWD Radio
Reston, VA8/18/236pmLake Anne Plaza
* I am a backup singer as part of a larger ensemble.

Bio / Artist Statement

My name is Tae Phoenix and my favorite party game is “two truths and a lie.” See if you can guess which is which:

The answer is in the footer of the website.

My work is about themes that everyone can relate to on some level: rejecting conformity, embracing authenticity, and finding the connections between healing ourselves and building the world we want.

Sometimes, when I’m stuck on where a musical idea belongs, I’ll write lyrics from the perspective of a fictional character and see where that takes me. I love this approach because I tend to obsess over stories: telling them, absorbing them, analyzing them. It doesn’t really matter as long as I’m immersed. I’ve written songs that started out as screenplays and the beginnings of musicals that I originally thought were novels. It all makes me ridiculously happy.

My favorite thing about using music as a storytelling vehicle is that a well-timed and well-written song can convey a tremendous amount of information just with the placement of a quarter note rest. I learned this the first time I performed in a Sondheim show. (“Into the Woods.”) I looked at the score, thought, “wow! It’s turtles all the way down, “and never looked back.

The performing arts world is a wonderful place for many reasons, but it’s also not an easy space for me to enter. As an Autistic, I get easily overwhelmed by loud, chaotic environments like music clubs. In a people-oriented business, missing a social cue, facial expression, or change in tone of voice can have implications that aren’t always obvious in the moment. One of my goals as I work in this space is to build more inclusive and accessible spaces for “neuro-spicy” artists and our supporters.

Videos

Live

Music & Lyric Videos

This week has been brutal. Five things you can do to support your activist friends when you’re not the protesting type.

Not everyone is a “get in the streets” and “get arrested” type of person, and it truly does take all kinds of people to make a movement function. If you’ve got some activist loved ones in your life, here are some things you can do for us that would be really appreciated right about now:

  1. Food! Make a big batch of soup or a casserole and bring it over. Make sure there’s veggies and protein in the mix. Activists often forget to feed ourselves when we’re in the thick of things, or else we eat a lot of nutritional bars on the run. Having reliable, healthy food is an amazing gift to us.
  2. Housework! Offer to do a household task like unloading the dishwasher, feeding the pets, or running a load of sheets and towels. It’s amazing how fast household tasks can go out the window during periods of heavy activity.
  3. Give us rides to actions! Finding parking near protests is a special kind of hell, and there are often creepy, intimidating, or outright abusive people who follow us back to our cars or on public transit. Having a trusted ride home from an action is a huge relief.
  4. Get sign making supplies! Buy us a fresh batch of sign making supplies. Go to an office supply store and get foam board, sharpies, and clear packing tape. Bonus points if you stop by a hardware store and ask for as many free paint stirring sticks as they’ll give you.
  5. Do your own emotional labor! Don’t ask us what you should do or unload your feelings about the current climate on us. We’re stressed out and exhausted enough as it is as it is. Instead, head over to Indivisible.org and the Poor People’s Campaign to find out who you should be calling and what you should be saying. Then find some other loved ones to process your feelings with.

BONUS ROUND: Ask yourself what step you are willing to take that you wouldn’t normally take because we are in an emergency. This could be something as simple as making a phone call to lawmakers and encouraging your friends – especially those in Republican-held districts and states – to do the same. It might be going to your first protest or rally. It might be hosting a fundraiser for your loved one’s group or project, or making a donation of any size to an organization you know they care about.

 

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One response to “This week has been brutal. Five things you can do to support your activist friends when you’re not the protesting type.2 min read

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