We have entered a new era in America - the Bush Jr. presidency is wildly roaring in Washington, global warming darkens both the present and future, and as individuals we have begun to feel helpless before the forces of globalization and markets and technology. A great blanket of self-absorption has been thrown over us and wherever the light pokes through there is the CIA and the FBI with their infiltrators and their tentacles into every police department plugging up the holes of dissent. The first beast that leaped out of Bush's Pandora box attacked women's right to choose. On the same day as a Nigerian woman was beaten with 100 whiplashes for adultery, Bush withdrew funds from international organizations that include abortion counseling in their educational programs for birth control and parenthood. This is just the first salvo against the rights of women.

We have been witnessing and have become victims of the economic attack on artists and the performing arts, clubs and studios that nourish and develop the creative ferment in the San Francisco Bay Area. We shouldn't underestimate this as just an economic accident of the market. It can be perceived as a concerted attack on the maverick creativity of the most innovative city in America. San Francisco and the Bay Area like Kali, the earth goddess, births movements that fertilize our history. But they are never a safe sub-structure of society. They erupt like earthquakes and shatter the world.

Despite or as a reaction to this malaise, we are about to enter an embryonic period of new creativity. I can feel it in my bones. It is stirring everywhere. Secretly, incrementally new possibilities are breaking through the shackles of old forms and oppressions. Recently, Alan Moore, the mystical butterfly guy at www.butterflyspirit.org in the process of forming an organization of Musicians and Fine Artists for World Peace told me about a group of women who had started a collective of women-fronted bands called Diva Bands. I went to see performances of a few of the groups at the Red Devil Lounge and the Paradise Lounge.

DivaBands was the brainchild of Roberta Donnay and Amy Camus. They sprung it on our world just as the new millennium arrived in January, 2000. Roberta, even though she had a Grammy nomination for her album "Soul Reverse," and Amy, a multi-talented cabaret singer, comedian and leader of Amy Camus and the Existentialities, found themselves in a male dominated world of club owners, record producers and promoters. In this world talent was secondary to beauty and sex forcing women singer-songwriters and bands to compete with each other for the few crumbs of opportunity offered. Even audiences in clubs are predominantly male because of men's economic dominance and because of the fear of the lurking danger from our still violent and patriarchal society.

Inspired by the success of Sara McLaughlan's Lillith Fair, Amy and Roberta became aware of the extent of the women's' talent pool in the Bay Area. Over 800 Bay Area women had submitted CDs to the local Lillith Fair contest for new talent. So they decided that this vast underground resource of independent female recording artists, who sang and wrote their own songs, needed some sense of community and venues to showcase their new work. They hunted up the Red Devil Lounge on Polk and Clay and asked to reserve Tuesday nights for women fronted bands. They picked the name Diva because it fit with Red Devil - "Divas at the Devil." The first performances went so well that the club signed on as a regular venue. The word went out and Diva bands grew to 64 different groups ranging from the solo performer to punk to pop to hip-hop. Soon there were 8 venues including International Music Hall in Grass Valley, Blake's in Berkeley, Paradise Lounge & Red Devil Lounge & 7th NOTE Showclub in San Francisco,Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, Sweetwater in Mill Valley, 19 Broadway in Fairfax. They set up a tour of the Pacific Northwest, and now a New York tour and linkup with women's groups there is in the works.

The first night I went to the Red Devil I met Roberta and Amy. As one might expect of people working together on a dream and a cloud, they were complete opposites. Roberta is a slight beautiful wisp of a woman with flaming red hair flowing past her shoulders, and a calm center forged in a long involvement with Nichiren Buddhism. Amy is the wild one - dynamic, sensual,sharp witted and moody - dressed in leopard coat and sparkling tight pants. Amy MCs the shows, does the web sight and helps Roberta with the talent search and promotions. Throughout the night they are communicating and keeping everything rolling. Amy even helps out at the bar.

The music starts with three folk singers touring from Portland. Then Ramana Vieira, a Portuguese woman, sings her own songs and some written by Portuguese poets in a mix of Portuguese and English. She has a dark gypsy beauty and sings with a true and full diva's voice that seems to explore all the sorrows and ecstasies of love. Then two teenage girls, "Kelly & Kamille," with all teenage boy instrumentalists play a set of pop rock and I knew they would soon be exploding onto charts everywhere.

The next Tuesday at the Red Devil was even more powerful with the dead-on rock of the Debra Knox Band and the pure poetics of Deborah Pardes. She won the Bay Area Singer- Songwriter Lillith Fair competition in 1999 and played at the Fair. All of these women have cut through and gone beyond the long shadow of Joni Mitchell into their own post-Mitchell styles.

On January 25 DivaBands had its first anniversary celebration on the three stages of the Paradise Lounge. All night a raging river of musical styles and beauty flooded the legendary room. Women who were teachers and mothers and writers, dancers, actresses, nurses, dot commies and of course musicians brought forth their inner divas and released a storm of feminine energy that swept away the cobwebs and chains of the struggle with isolation and oppression.

Electric Peach led off on the big stage with a set of sexy pop rock and the Shelly Doty x-tet finished the big stage with driving hard rock. Shelley looks like the reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix and plays guitar between galaxies like Hendrix. The Anna Kristina Band played a fusion of rock, jazz and soul. Anna can pop light bulbs and get down and scat in a way that is pure invention. Roberta Donnay played upstairs with a band that was so tight no darkness could slip through Roberta's tough and poetic rock. She sings like a mixture of Blossom Dearie and Bonnie Raitt.

Nine bands played and everybody fell helplessly in love. Male, female, trans and bi. This was the way to make it through the night and the day and the next four years. As they unite, the minds and hearts of women in America will be heard. Watch out Dubya! The Sirens are beginning to sing and they will not go away. As Deborah Pardes sang, "We can't fall from grace.... She wears a guitar, she won't shut up."

DivaBands is just beginning to flex its power. They are gearing up for a corporate sponsorship. They are looking for a dot com that wants to give back to the arts community. They want to get back to their music, as well as guide the development of the diva community. They need to get MP3 capacity on their web site www.divabands.com, and hook up with festivals. They want to ally with some women headliners to help build the exposure of this world of divas. They are also joining forces with Musicians and Fine Artists for Global Transformation. But it is the community of women, and the support and opportunity they give each other that is the miracle that can be a model for the Bush Jr. era. There are many struggles ahead and DivaBands will be there inspiring and leading the way.

Allen Cohen 02/02/2001